Yellowjackets Season 2 Explained: All About Yellowjackets & Where To Watch

Yellowjackets Season 1 may seem a tough act to follow, but its followup is up to the task. Yellowjackets Season 2 delivers higher stakes, more tension, and bigger mysteries.

Whether you’re just starting the acclaimed SHOWTIME® original drama series, or brushing up on things before diving into Season 3, we’ve got just the thing. Read on for our Yellowjackets Season 2 watch guide, including storyline and season-finale recaps, plus the cast list.

SPOILER ALERT: Key plot points from Yellowjackets Season 2 and Yellowjackets Season 1 will be discussed. If you don’t want to get stung, stop reading, and start binge-watching – all Season 1 and Season 2 episodes are now streaming on Paramount+.

What is Yellowjackets about?

Yellowjackets is about a 1990s-era, girls’ high-school soccer team that’s en route to a national-championship tournament when its plane crashes in a secluded woods. With the pilots and their head coach dead, and the aircraft’s recorder box smashed to pieces, the surviving girls – plus, the head coach’s two teen sons, and the team’s assistant coach – find themselves forced to live in an unforgiving wilderness. In the present day, the survivors struggle with their past – and fight to keep their secrets secret.

What was the Yellowjackets Season 2 premiere date?

Yellowjackets Season 2 premiered on March 26, 2023. The season finale dropped on May 26, 2023. All episodes are now streaming on Paramount+.

Yellowjackets Season 2 recap

Yellowjackets Season 2, as with the show’s other seasons, tells its story across two timelines: one we’ll call the wilderness timeline, which occurs in the ’90s when the girls are stranded in the forest, and the other one we’ll call the present-day timeline, when the survivors are grown-ups who are struggling with their everyday lives – and their haunted pasts. Here’s a recap of what happens in each timeline in Yellowjackets Season 2.

Wilderness timeline: Following the discovery of the frozen corpse of their team captain, Jackie (Ella Purnell), the Yellowjackets are overtaken by hunger, and they consume their dead friend’s body.

Teenaged Lottie (Courtney Eaton) emerges as a spiritual foundation for the group. She leads the girls through her visions, and incorporates rituals into their daily lives. This results in many of Lottie’s teammates believing that there’s a supernatural being or force in the forest. A concerned Ben Scott (Steven Krueger), the assistant coach, starts to pull away from the girls.

The teenaged Shauna (Sophie Nélisse), who we learn in Season 1 is pregnant with the child of Jackie’s boyfriend, Jeff (played as a teen in Season 1 by Jack DePew, and in Season 2 by Owen Gates), gives birth to a son. Though the baby soon passes away, Shauna has dreams and hallucinations about taking care of him in the days that follow.

Present-day timeline: We pick up where things left off in the Season 1 finale, with the kidnapping of the grown-up Natalie (Juliette Lewis), another former member of the Yellowjackets crew.

Nat discovers she’s ended up at the secret compound of the adult Lottie (Simone Kessell), who runs a cult-like wellness retreat. Gradually, Natalie assimilates into the community.

Elsewhere, the adult Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) is haunted by her doomed affair with Adam (Peter Gadiot), a man she randomly (and literally) runs into in Season 1, and whom she later kills. (Long, twisted story short: Adam was poking around in Shauna’s Yellowjackets past, and, well, Shauna didn’t like that.) Shauna and her husband, the grown-up Jeff (Warren Kole), plot to cover-up Adam’s murder.

Meanwhile, the adult Misty (Christina Ricci), another former Yellowjacket, befriends Walter (Elijah Wood), an amateur detective.

Yellowjackets Season 2 ending explained

When we say Yellowjackets Season 2 ending explained, we really mean Yellowjackets Season 2 endings – plural – explained. Here goes …

Wilderness timeline: The Yellowjackets decree that the wilderness needs a sacrifice, and the girls select playing cards to determine their victim. The teenaged Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) draws the dreaded Queen of Hearts, then flees the knives and arrows of her pursuers. During the chase, Javi (Luciano Leroux), one of the teen sons of the Yellowjackets’ late head coach, falls through ice, and drowns. The Yellowjackets conclude that the wilderness has chosen Javi to be the sacrifice, and Natalie is safe (for now?).

Present-day timeline: The surviving Yellowjackets meet at Lottie’s compound, and the adult Lottie reveals that she believes the wilderness wants them to make a sacrifice – one similar to what they did in the woods back in the day. The Yellowjackets start a new version of the card-drawing ritual, with Shauna drawing the Queen of Hearts. But Shauna’s daughter, Callie (Sarah Desjardins), interrupts the ritual. Amid a physical struggle amongst the women, Misty accidentally injects Natalie with a tranquilizer. As the life leaves Natalie’s body, Lottie utters assurances that the wilderness has taken the body it wanted.

Yellowjackets Season 2 cast

The Yellowjackets Season 2 cast is a big reason the show was nominated for Outstanding Drama Series at the 75th Primetime Emmys® in 2023. At the same ceremony, Melanie Lynskey was an Emmy® contender for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. And Christina Ricci was recognized for her Season 2 work with a Best Supporting Actress in a Series nomination at the 81st Golden Globes®. That’s a lot of awards-show love. See below for the list of the Yellowjackets Season 2 regular and guest cast.

Yellowjackets (as adults)

Melanie Lynskey as Shauna
Tawny Cypress as Taissa
Christina Ricci as Misty
Juliette Lewis as Natalie
Simone Kessell as Lottie
Lauren Ambrose as Van

Yellowjackets (as teens)

Sophie Nélisse as Shauna
Jasmin Savoy Brown as Taissa
Sammi Hanratty as Misty
Sophie Thatcher as Natalie
Courtney Eaton as Lottie
Liv Hewson as Van

More cast

Steven Krueger as Ben
Warren Kole as Jeff
Kevin Alves as Travis
Alexa Barajas as Mari
Sarah Desjardins as Callie
Nuha Jes Izman as Crystal
Mya Lowe as Gen
Nicole Maines as Lisa
Nia Sondaya as Akilah
Elijah Wood as Walter
Alex Wyndham as Kevyn Tan
John Reynolds as Matt
Rukiya Bernard as Simone
Luciano Leroux as Javi
Aiden Stoxx as Sammy Abara‑Turner

How many episodes are in Yellowjackets Season 2?

There are nine episodes in Yellowjackets Season 2. They are:

Where can I watch Yellowjackets Season 2?

You can watch Yellowjackets Season 2 on Paramount+. All episodes are now streaming. The same goes for Yellowjackets Season 1. All episodes are now streaming for your binge-watch pleasure.

But wait, there’s more: All episodes of Yellowjackets Season 3 are streaming on Paramount+ for Premium plan subscribers. (Visit the Paramount+ help page for more info on what Paramount+ plans are available.)

How many seasons are there of Yellowjackets?

Right now, there are three seasons of Yellowjackets – with more on the way. Yellowjackets has been renewed for a fourth season. No release date has been announced. Read our Season 4 guide for the latest info.