Yellowjackets Season 4: Everything We Know

After a lengthy strike-related delay, Yellowjackets returned with to our small screens with a third season that was both excellent and its most watched yet. It's obvious at this point that Yellowjackets ain't a flash in the pan — this painful story of a high school soccer team's plane crashing in the Canadian wilderness is extremely compelling, thanks in large part to its stellar cast, and folks can't get enough. 

Despite that, the Season 3 finale came and went in early April without any word about a renewal by Showtime, with Yellowjackets' fate seemingly up in the air despite its increasing popularity. But we really shouldn't have worried about it, and Season 4 is coming. Here's what we know about Yellowjackets Season 4. 

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Yellowjackets Season 4 renewal

Yellowjackets finally received its order for a fourth season in late May, about seven weeks after the Season 3 finale dropped on Paramount+. We don't know for sure what deliberations might have been taking place, but considering how large the Yellowjackets cast is, there's a good chance it involved a lot of contract negotiations.

Yellowjackets Season 4 expected release date

The Season 4 announcement included no further details whatsoever aside from an inference that Ashley Lyles, Bart Nickerson, and Jonathan Lisco will continue to run things as co-showrunners. But if we expect Season 4 to come together at the standard pace, we should expect it to premiere by the end of 2026.

Yellowjackets Season 4 returning cast

While no cast members were confirmed in the renewal announcement, it can be expected that, at the very least, all the living characters will return for Season 4 — and it's also very likely that some of the dead ones will also pop up again. Does that mean we could see Juliette Lewis return as Adult Natalie after she skipped all of Season 3? Definitely, but there are no guarantees. And while Hilary Swank was only a guest star in Season 3 when she popped up as the adult version of Melissa, it's pretty likely she'll be back too.

Yellowjackets present-day cast

• Melanie Lynskey as Shauna
• Tawny Cypress as Taissa
• Christina Ricci as Misty
• Sarah Desjardins as Callie
• Warren Kole as Jeff
• Elijah Wood as Walter
• Lauren Ambrose as Van
• Simone Kessell as Lottie
• Juliette Lewis as Natalie
• Hilary Swank as Melissa

Yellowjackets wilderness cast

• Sophie Nelisse as Shauna
• Jasmin Savoy Brown as Taissa
• Sophie Thatcher as Natalie
• Samantha Hanratty as Misty
• Courtney Eaton as Lottie
• Liv Hewson as Van
• Kevin Alves as Travis
• Alexa Barajas as Mari
• Nia Sondaya as Akilah
• Jenna Burgess as Melissa
• Ashley Sutton as Hanna

Where we left off in Yellowjackets Season 3

The Season 3 finale of Yellowjackets was incredibly eventful in both the wilderness and present-day storylines. We saw Shauna finally take her place as the antler queen, and manipulate things so that Mari ends up the subject of a hunt — which led to the reveal that Mari is the mysterious "pit girl" that the girls were eating in the series premiere.

But even as Shauna prepares to begin her reign of terror, Natalie manages to sneak away with the newly repaired radio from the crashed plane, which Misty had kept hidden for most of the series. Natalie takes it all the way up a mountain and then radios for help, and we hear someone answer. It may be that Season 4 will be the end of the wilderness portion of the story, even if the series continues on from there.

The present-day storyline was just as eventful, with the surprisingly alive Melissa killing Van, and then Shauna's daughter Callie admitting to killing Lottie. Callie didn't mean to do it — she reflexively pushed Lottie down some stairs after Lottie very aggressively insisted that Callie was a child of the wilderness who had that same strange spirit her mom had. But maybe Callie was just proving Lottie's point by doing that.

Regardless of the reason, Callie is obviously pretty shaken up by the whole thing, and confesses what happened to her father — and the two of them agree that the best thing for them both is to get as far away from Shauna as they can. Meanwhile, Taissa blames Shauna for Van's death — Shauna did try to murder Melissa first, after all — and it looks like Tai and Misty might be planning to make a move.

Yellowjackets Season 4 potential storylines

With Yellowjackets's showrunners continuing to emphasize their five-season plan for the series, we can expect that Season 4 will not bring us to the end of the story.

With that being the case, it's not too tough to see where we're probably going to go in Season 4. First, in the flashback part of the timeline, we've got Shauna in charge of the kingdom and committed to staying in the wilderness, while Nat, Misty, and a few of the others have managed to orchestrate a likely rescue attempt. Since there are still several girls alive in the '90s who haven't been heard from in the present-day part of the story, we should probably expect a bit of a war between Shauna's faction and the resistance, with more deaths guaranteed. And as we saw when the frog scientists showed up in Season 3, it's doubtful that Shauna would let the arrival of a rescue team affect whatever her plan is.

And rescue could come sooner than you think. "We feel that there is more story to tell and we're really excited to dive into it," co-showrunner Ashley Lyle told The Hollywood Reporter after the Season 3 finale. "...To be able to tell the story of the reassimilation into society, to see what horrors are in store for them even without the horrors of the wilderness is very exciting. But you can never truly predict and we just will be very grateful that we keep getting to tell the story."

Lyle also told Entertainment Weekly, "As we said, they're not out of the woods yet, both literally and proverbially, but as a child of the '90s, we have not actually gotten to explore the '90s in a real way. And I think that putting them back home at some point in a '90s timeline and getting to fully immerse ourselves in that time period is something I'm really looking forward to."

There may be a big fight in the present, too, as it looks like adult Shauna has decided to take on the whole world by herself — with her husband and daughter now out of the picture, Shauna has lost the two people who had kept her grounded in the years since she'd returned from the wilderness, and the other survivors can tell that's not a good thing. We saw the deaths of two of the survivors in Season 3, and it's likely that Season 4 will also have a body count in the present-day storyline. 

Meanwhile, we still have a massive wild card in the form of Walter, who's been up to something since the day he met Misty in Season 2. After Misty pushed Walter away in Season 3, he clearly kept busy doing something related to the main plot, but we still don't have any clue what it is or what his deal might be. Hopefully we'll learn something in Season 4. 

Where to watch Yellowjackets

All three existing seasons of Yellowjackets are available to stream on Paramount+ with Showtime.

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