The following article is going to get into spoilers for details that have been shown in the first two episodes of Yellowjackets Season 2. You probably don’t want to read too much further if you aren’t caught up on the current season, or just don’t want to know too much about where this current season could go.
The disturbing Showtime series Yellowjackets enjoys a push and pull between the story of the surviving team in the past, and the current problems facing these characters in the modern day. Clues that are dropped into the 1990s storyline eventually affect what we are watching in the present day, like the implications on what Travis (Kevin Alves) went through that drove him to die by suicide in Season 1. There is one major mystery lingering in the past that needs to be answered in the future, so when I got the chance to speak with Yellowjackets co-star Warren Kole, we dove into it.
During Season 1 of Yellowjackets, we learned that teenage Shauna (Sophie Nelisse) is pregnant. But, the father is Jeff, the boyfriend of Shauna’s best friend, Jackie (Ella Purnell). Naturally, this causes a serious rift between the two girls, leading to Jackie’s death when she chose to sleep outside in the freezing cold. Shauna still has the baby, and we know in the present day, she and Jeff (Warren Kole) are married with a teenage daughter.
But that daughter, Callie (Sarah Desjardins), can’t be the baby Shauna has in the wilderness. The ages and the timelines don’t add up. So I asked Kole when we are going to learn more about the fate of young Shauna and Jeff’s love child. And the actor confessed:
This is what adds to the tension, Sean. These kinds of questions, with an audience. Like, ‘Does he know (the baby’s fate)?’ And if he does know, how does he seem to be handling that in this particular moment or not, one way or the other? I can tell you that it is certainly revealed later in Season 2 how Jeff feels about what happened, and what he knows or doesn't know. You get some clarity on that.
Sensing that Warren Kole was willing to dish a little more about Yellowjackets and the very complicated relationship between Jeff and Shauna, I also added a fan theory floating online and Jeff only married Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) BECAUSE of the existence of their love child. And he said:
Boy, that's a good question. What's clear is that they have this common ground of guilt over what happened. But that's more of a Jackie-based guilt, how the baby is still in that equation. Maybe what an avid audience member could pull out is that these two are… Jeff's a safe choice. He's a comfortable choice. They have a shared experience here, and that probably had a lot to do with why Shauna chose him. They’re partners in crime. Figuratively, before the literal events of Season 1. (laughs) But yeah, this is the complexity that they've put together so well.
And it’s one I’ve no doubt we will continue to see explored as Yellowjackets Season 2 continues to play out. Once they come to terms with their sleepwalking, their witchcraft, the identity of “Pit Girl,” and their cannibalism. Tune in to the show now, if you haven’t started already. It’s wild.
