Season 3 of Yellowjackets delivers some massive answers to our biggest questions — but are fans prepared for the big reveals?
During an exclusive interview with Us Weekly, Steven Krueger teased how the hit Showtime series pulls off the unexpected twists. “I will just say you’re going to be surprised, which has become a common theme in this show,” he noted. “There are surprises everywhere. And this season does a really good job of not just creating surprises but also masking them so that people don’t see them coming.”
Krueger, 35, is “really excited to see” people’s reactions after reading popular fan theories through the years.
“Fan theories are cracking me up. I’ve had a few people send some to me and I’m just like, ‘These are great.’ Just the thoughtfulness and the creativity blows my mind every season. I love that about this show,” he told Us. “It’s one of the cooler elements about this particular story.”
Everything to Know About ‘Yellowjackets’ Season 3 After Natalie’s Death
The actor, who has played Coach Ben Scott since the show debuted, has been the subject of speculation since his character hasn’t appeared in the present timeline. Krueger wouldn’t give away where Ben’s path takes him this season — but he likes the suggestions viewers have about where he ended up.
“All the stuff about Coach Ben getting rescued either before the girls or after the girls — and it’s an entirely different timeline — and maybe he comes back to the wilderness specifically just to mess with them,” he quipped about his favorite theory. “Some of them I’ve read and I’m like, ‘That might be pretty close to what happens.’”
While Krueger can’t reveal what happens, he still has preferred to know in advance, saying, “That’s an important part of just the nature of acting and this as an art form. So the more information you have, the more you can craft your performance over the course of a long arc. In television, we get the luxury of building a really long arc over the course of many episodes vs a film. This you can really get into the nitty gritty in each episode because you get so long to explore it.”
The Showtime series, which premiered in 2021, follows a high school girls soccer team that ends up stranded in the Canadian wilderness after a plane crash. The survivors don’t return home for 19 months during which time they are driven to eating each other in order to survive. Yellowjackets also features a present day timeline that reintroduces the survivors more than two decades later.
How ‘Yellowjackets’ ’90s Cast Compares to Their Present Day Counterparts
“I always talk to the showrunners ahead of the season and they are great about sharing information with the understanding that things can change throughout the course of a season,” Krueger shared. “But I always get all the information that I can. Where does the character start? Where does the character end? What are some of the things that happen along the way? That way I can get in there myself and start crafting the performance and figuring out the arc that I want the character to take from beginning to end.”
Season 3 picks up six months after Ben separated himself from the rest of the group. But just because it was his decision doesn’t mean Ben is thriving when viewers check in on him.
“The really interesting thing about the beginning of season 3 is the juxtaposition between how the girls were living and how Coach Ben is living. Obviously he is on his own now. He is fully focused on survival at this point. He has very few resources,” he explained. “He has found this shelter, which is great. And that’s kind of been what’s keeping him alive and he’s been able to make do with what he has. But when they cut to the girls and what they’ve been able to accomplish, it’s night and day.”
Krueger enjoyed the “really interesting dichotomy” between the groups, adding, “You really see what somebody goes through when they are forced to just survive off of very minimal resources vs. when you have a team of people that really do come together and work together. The glow up that happens to the girls at the beginning of this season … they’re kind of thriving in a way vs. when you cut to Ben Scott. I don’t know how much longer this guy has.”
Winter TV Preview 2025: Inside Must-Watch New and Returning Shows
Just because the season starts more light-hearted for the younger group doesn’t mean it stays that way.
“It’s not dark in the sense where you’re like, ‘Oh, this is so heavy, I can’t watch it.’ The thing that I love about this season is it’s dark but they finally make that jump [to fill in the gaps],” he noted. “It does get dark pretty quickly and you see this descent into a whole other mindset for pretty much everyone. But it’s done in such a clever way with so many different twists and turns that you don’t see coming.”
Krueger concluded: “It’s just an endlessly satisfying season. The general consensus is we all hope this is going to be our best season just because the writing is so on point, the arc of the story really ties up a lot of those loose ends that people have been wondering about and you see what happens finally.”
Yellowjackets is available to stream on Paramount+ Fridays and airs on Showtime Sundays at 9 p.m. ET.
