"I still don’t know" - Simone Kessell opens up about how the death of this character in Yellowjackets is so hard to digest
Season 3 of the thriller series Yellowjackets premiered its final episode on April 13, 2025, exclusively on Showtime in the US. The viewers of the show were delivered a death of a major character in the latest season.
In episode 4, Misty finds a picture of Lottie dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs while scrolling through her Citizen Detective forum in the present timeline. Simone Kessell, who portrays the role of adult Lottie, appeared in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter on February 28, 2025, and confirmed the end of her character.
Simone also confirmed that she was aware that her character was going to die and that she found it out while filming for another show.
"I knew going into the season. I was working on a show in Montreal, an Apple show called The Last Frontier, and I had a phone call with the writing team and the showrunners, and they let me know," said Simone.
But the actor had no answer to why her story ended so abruptly.
“She’s just such a different character, and also, my first instinct was to think of Courtney Eaton playing young Lottie, and I thought, I hope this doesn’t take anything away from her brilliant work, and do we lose interest in that character? All the questions kind of came through. I still don’t know why they killed Lottie, but they did," the actor continued.
Co-showrunner Jonathan Lisco also offered insight during the same interview as to why it was Lottie’s time to go on Yellowjackets.
“In the writers room, we have these big ideas. We put them on the board, and we’re like, ‘No. Can’t happen. Must not happen.’ We’ll love working with this character and actor too much. Then as the stories evolve, it starts to tilt toward, 'This has to happen,'” said Jonathan.
He also assured the viewers that her death would be justified towards the end of the season and that it was important for the story.
"The whole idea of their survival is based on them having to make these incredibly difficult choices. They have to continue to make them, and in order to have that happen, we do need things to occur that are pretty tragic. I hope you’ll see why this is a good story as you get to the end of the season,” Jonathan continued his explanation.
As per Rotten Tomatoes, Yellowjackets season 3 received a fresh score of 84% based on 133 reviews from critics.
What is Yellowjackets all about?
The thriller drama series Yellowjackets follows a high school girls' soccer team from fictional Wiskayok, New Jersey. On their flight to Seattle for a national championship tournament, their plane crashes deep in the wilderness in Canada. Their story is divided into two timelines, where one shows them surviving the wilderness after a plane crash, and the other follows their lives 25 years later.
The latest installment takes place six weeks after the previous one and follows the group as they are being threatened by someone who knows about their history. Meanwhile in the past, the group prepared for summertime as tension kept brewing within the members over whether to escape or accept the madness in the wilderness.
The season concluded with Misty, one of the Yellowjackets, interrogating Callie in the present, who later admitted to killing Lottie. She had pushed Lottie down the stairs in a moment of rage. While Callie and Jeff are on the run, the remaining Yellowjackets meet up to discuss their plans for dealing with Shauna. In the past, Natalie successfully managed to reach someone via the satellite phone.
Cast and crew for the series
The series was created by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson and produced by Showtime Networks in partnership with Lockjaw, Lionsgate Television, and Beer Christmas Ltd. Co-showrunners Bart Nickerson and Jonathan Lisco made their directorial debuts this season, with Nickerson directing the premiere and Lisco episode 3.
Yellowjackets stars a large ensemble cast, with each protagonist being played by different actors for their teenage and adult roles.
This includes Sophie Nélisse, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sophie Thatcher, and Samantha Hanratty as the teenage versions of Shauna Sadecki, Taiss Turner, Natalie Scatorccio, and Misty Quigley, respectively. Melanie Lynskey, Tawny Cypress, Juliette Lewis, and Christina Ricci portray their adult counterparts.
All three seasons of the thriller drama series Yellowjackets are available on Paramount+ with Showtime and Prime Video (with the Showtime add-on).
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