Season 3 of Showtime’s popular series Yellowjackets is filled with many emotions, but love was especially present at the Valentine’s Eve premiere in Hollywood.

Before the show’s debut on Paramount+ with Showtime on Friday, the cast and creators spoke with Deadline at the Season 3 junket and premiere. They discussed the loss of a team member, as well as the “very scary and unhinged” third season, where the past and present start to blend together.

“One of the key ideas of the show is that the past is always present, with both storylines happening at the same time in the present tense, making them feel very real,” said co-creator Bart Nickerson. “The way these two timelines interact and affect each other as they come closer together is how the show was built.”

In the ‘90s, the team has started to rebuild after their cabin was burned down in the Season 2 finale, following their sacrifice of Javi (Luciano Leroux) to the wilderness. Meanwhile, in the present, the group is dealing with the aftermath of Natalie’s (Juliette Lewis) death and Lottie (Simone Kessell) being released from a “facility for the differently sane.”

“It spirals really out of control by the end of the season,” said Courtney Eaton, who plays teen Lottie. “A lot of questions are answered, there’s much more blood, and people completely lose their minds.”

Jasmin Savoy Brown, who plays teen Tai, teased, “It’s Yellowjackets, so you’ll see a lot of wild behavior and a lot of alter egos. It’s fun, like a release. It’s cathartic because we all have that side in us.”

Sophie Nélisse explained that her portrayal of teen Shauna

She said “very scary and unhinged this season,” saying her character is “at a point in her life where she’s got nothing left to lose,” as she grieves the death of her baby and her best friend, Jackie (Ella Purnell).

“I think it’s hard for her because she feels deeply responsible for both of these deaths, even though they weren’t directly her fault,” Nélisse said. “What makes it difficult is that Lottie seems to be guiding the group in a way that honors those deaths and tries to make the best out of what’s happened.

But Shauna isn’t ready to move on and doesn’t see it that way. I don’t think she wants the death of her baby to be something shared with others. It’s such a personal loss that she feels no one in the group can fully understand the trauma she’s been through.

It’s too personal for anyone else to share, and she just wants to live through that moment and grieve on her own.”

As the characters grieve the death of adult Natalie after Season 2, co-creator Ashley Lyle explained that her absence is “the jumping-off point” for Season 3. “It’s sad, it’s bittersweet,” she said. “But her presence is felt this season through her absence. She meant a lot to the world of our show, to the characters of our show.”

Sophie Thatcher found it “heartbreaking” that Natalie’s ’90s counterpart felt a “sense of emptiness and little pressure, having to withhold such a powerful presence.”

“Knowing that it wouldn’t intercut to her, I wanted to keep that presence and do her justice because it’s such a powerfully complex character,” Thatcher said. “I guess I just felt, even watching the episodes, I was like, ‘Oh f—, there’s something missing.’ And it was Juliette. But it lends itself to more empathy towards Natalie watching it.”

Samantha Hanratty Also Made Her Remarks

Samantha Hanratty, who plays Misty in the ’90s, assured that Thatcher “fills in all of the spaces of Natalie in this season.”

Meanwhile, Natalie’s death deeply affects adult Misty (Ricci), who is burdened by the guilt of giving her friend a lethal dose of fentanyl meant for someone else.

“I think when we find her in Season 3, she is really reeling from the death of Natalie, and she can’t connect to the grief or emotion,” Ricci said. “And she does find a way to connect to her, and then that sort of leads her to question all of her friendships.”

After being released from a mental health facility, adult Lottie shows up at Shauna’s (Melanie Lynskey) doorstep looking for a place to stay, which causes tension in her already strained relationship with her teen daughter, Callie (Sarah Desjardins).

“I think Shauna’s already really struggling with how to relate to Callie, and then, this person from her past who represents the most traumatic thing that’s happened to her — I feel like Lottie is the one person from the past who is most representative to her of that first loss of that baby,” Lynskey explained.

“And so, here she is trying to get her daughter to come and do things and she’s fun and interesting, and Shauna is not. The whole thing is really uncomfortable.”

Kessell agreed that the situation is “odd and weird and feels uncomfortable for everyone except Lottie,” as Desjardins said Callie sees the dynamic as “an opportunity, that this might be the person who would give me a lot of the answers that I’m looking for.”

“Lottie has an openness in her energy, I think … and there’s this energy between them that Callie can feel too, but she has no idea what it is,” said Desjardins. “I feel like there’s so many emotions going on there. She’s very intrigued, she’s definitely drawn to it. I think she’s a little afraid of it.”

Lottie’s influence is also seen in the past as she helps Travis (Kevin Alves) cope with the death of his brother Javi, after losing his dad in the plane crash. Alves explained that Travis’ “grief has just gotten to a point that he feels like death just follows him and he’s numbing out” with some help from Lottie’s psychedelic armchair therapy.

“That’s what he’s coming into the season looking for, an escape, and Lottie is that outlet for him at this point,” he said, with Eaton explaining the pair is “almost codependent, two people that are in incredible pain.”

“Also, they’re just children, and they don’t know what they’re doing with their lives,” added Eaton. “The wilderness, this season, I think is a bit more like a drug to Lottie. And so there’s this addiction, and when it comes through, she manipulates it a little.”