[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Yellowjackets Season 3 Episode 9, “How the Story Ends.”]
Yellowjackets delivered a stunning twist with the introductions of Ashley Sutton, Nelson Franklin, and Joel McHale as Hanna, Edwin, and Kodiak, the three adult hikers (two scientists, one mountain man) who stumble upon the stranded teens at the end of Season 3 Episode 6. Since then, viewers have learned what brought them to this remote area (Hanna and Edwin are studying frog mating patterns, with Kodi as their wilderness guide) and how they were led to the Yellowjackets’ campsite (they smelled the Coach Ben barbeque — oof). Now, Season 3 Episode 9 has revealed what these new characters will do to get out of these woods alive.
Edwin, Hanna’s research and romantic partner, was killed within moments of making contact with the teens in Episode 7. He died by an axe to the head, the fatal blow dealt by Lottie (Courtney Eaton), who then made a meal out of his brain. After being imprisoned by the teens with Kodi, Hanna tried to survive by appealing to their better natures in Episode 9. She tells Melissa (Jenna Burgess) that she has a daughter back at home in an attempt to drum up sympathy. This enrages Shauna (Sophie Nelisse), and their relationship is clearly done after a fight over Hanna results in Shauna shooting at Melissa to prove a point. She missed, but the message was clear: Shauna will kill anybody who pisses her off. The survivors are also getting murderous again in the adult timeline.
Kailey Schwerman / Paramount+ with SHOWTIME
Last we saw adult Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) and Melissa (Hilary Swank), Shauna was biting a chunk out of Melissa’s arm and forcing her to eat it. In Episode 9, Melissa spit it out and ran away, driving off to what she thinks is safety. But then, her car runs out of gas right as the other adult survivors — Van (Lauren Ambrose), Tai (Tawny Cypress), and Misty (Christina Ricci) are driving by. This lands her right back where she started, in the house she shares with her wife, aka Hanna’s daughter, who has no idea that Melissa is a Yellowjacket — or that her name is even Melissa. She thinks her wife’s name is Kelly.
For most of Episode 9, you think that Melissa grew out of the hive mindset that convinced the teens that eating people ritualistically was their only means of survival when they were stranded in the wilderness. Adult Melissa fights to survive her run-in with the other survivors. She nearly kills them all with a gas leak in her house. They survive, but death is still right around the corner. There’s yet another tragic death for the adult survivors at the episode’s end, marking the fourth overall and the second this season.
Here, Sutton breaks down how Hanna represents the last bit of humanity in the teen wilderness timeline with TV Insider. Plus, she gives her take on the theories that Hanna could be the infamous, still unidentified Pit Girl. With the creation of said pit being revealed in this episode (and Lottie surviving the first attempt to give the pit a victim), we may be closer to that answer than ever before.
When you were filming the hiking scenes with Joel McHale and Nelson Franklin, how much did you know about what they would discover? Did they keep the reveal a surprise for you at all?
Ashley Sutton: We actually knew at that point what we would discover because we had filmed a little bit in 306, so we knew we would stumble upon the camp and that they were trekking through, and eventually they’d run into the girls. So, we did have that in our mind while we were doing it, but it was really fun to work with Joel and Nelson. I love them so much. They’re so funny. I know everybody knows they’re so funny, but they’re so naturally funny on set that even Jennifer [Morrison, director of Season 3 Episode 7], we would be laughing and losing our minds after she would call cut. So hysterical.
Hanna says to Melissa in the episode, “This is the most fascinating study of survival I’ve ever witnessed.” Can you elaborate on that line and what it says about Hanna?
I think that Hanna is humanity when she shows up at the camp. She is that last bit of humanity. She’s the viewer, she’s us. She’s us walking into this crazy environment. To see where she goes and what she does and the choices that she makes, it’s really, really, really beautiful. Obviously, there’s so much trauma that’s happening for the Yellowjackets — and Travis [Kevin Alves]. I always forget to include Travis, but Travis is there too [laughs].
Twelve angry girls and one drunk Travis, right?
[Laughs] Yeah, totally. I’m always like, Yellowjackets, but here’s there as well.
She’s just this last bit of humanity. It’s really beautiful to see how she takes in every single one of these kids and the trauma that they’re going through actively, and you could just see how humanity starts to slip so quickly. We’ve watched them lose humanity over the last two and a half seasons, but for Hanna, she’s coming into something that’s already at 100 percent and trying to figure out how to survive.
Does Hanna really care about these teens, or are these meaningful interactions just survival tools?
I actually thought she does care. That is a choice that I made. In Episode 8, when they’re deciding to go home and we’re all standing around and having this debate, just seeing a bit of myself in all of them, because we’ve all been kids. We know what it’s like to be a kid who is awkward and you’re just learning your body and everything is just so confusing and weird, and they’re doing this in the wilderness. Hanna sees a bit of herself in them, but she also sees her daughter, so she’s got both of those things in her mind at every point in time. And I truly believe that Hanna, more than anything, wants everyone to go home, and it’s really devastating when they decide that they don’t want to.
Kailey Schwerman / Paramount+ with SHOWTIME
Hanna’s a survival expert, she studies the survival patterns of animals. Does she think Shauna really is the top of this food chain? Does she think Shauna can be beat?
In that moment when she asks, “Are you the captain of the team?” I think that’s in Episode 8. She is starting to figure out the hierarchy of what’s happening, but I do think that Hanna’s really intelligent. She’s really smart, and she is seeing both sides. She’s seeing that Natalie [Sophie Thatcher] is also a leader and that some people want to follow Natalie. She’s intelligent, right? Survival is her game, or how animals and how we survive in nature is something she’s very, very well versed on. And she can see in all of the Yellowjackets, the fight that they’re having, the tug between the Shauna and the Natalie line. She’s not ignorant to that. She’s very, very aware that some of them are so afraid of Shauna, and I think in Hanna’s mind, she’s like, well, there has to be a reason other than what she can see. There has to be a reason why everyone is so scared of her and afraid to be like, “Hey, no, we’re leaving, you can stay,” because that just doesn’t happen. There has to be more to the story. She sees that Shauna has done something to scare them all.
As you said, Hanna’s an expert at observing these things. What informs her decisions on who to follow? Will she follow Shauna if she sees the tide shifting in her favor over Natalie, and vice versa?
I think Hanna is following herself. I think she’s truly wanting to get home. She’s wanting to live her life. She’s wanting to experience life with her daughter that she had to leave behind. I don’t necessarily think she’s making any conscious decisions to choose one side or the other. She’s just making decisions for herself, but she hopes the decisions she makes for herself can bring everybody back to the real world. At this point, it’s slipped. They don’t understand humanity anymore. They’ve forgotten it.
Hanna questions the name on Kodi’s rucksack, implying she doesn’t trust him. Why doesn’t she trust him?
Edwin is always in the back of her mind. This experience, before they were kind of bickering. Edwin is like, “He’s scary. He’s going to do something. He’s going to turn on us.” And she’s really like, “It’s fine. It’s not a big deal. You’re being ridiculous.” Edwin’s right in some weird way, and then the axe happens and she loses Edwin. Now she’s replaying Edwin so much in her head that that’s why she brings up Eric again. It’s her way of coping with everything. She’s like, well, maybe there is a reason. Maybe I can’t trust Kodi. I also think that is the turn with the knife thing. She just doesn’t know who to trust, and truthfully, the only person she can trust is herself. She wants to survive.
Hanna lies about who gave her the knife to free herself and Kodi when they get caught by Shauna. And then Hanna kills Kodi. Why? Is it because she can’t trust anyone but herself?
I don’t think it’s a thought-out decision. It’s either he’s going to say [Hanna] got it, and then Shauna’s going to do something to her, or she can immediately blame it on Kodi. In that moment she’s just like, I have to survive. I have to make it. I can’t not leave this place. I need to get home. And so it’s just a really quick decision that she makes, and I still think she does it because she just doesn’t fully trust Kodi at all.
And she doesn’t see any avenue of survival if she lets him live?
No, Shauna is so scary.
Shauna is so scary.
[Laughs] And she has the rifle pointed at us. I think in that moment she’s like, oh, this girl will — I mean, she just watched what happened with Melissa. She will do it [kill Hanna and Kodi]. We don’t have a relationship for her to be like, no, it’s OK. Let me hear you out. She’s like, I have to make a decision right now because [Shauna’s] going to do something.
Kailey Schwerman / Paramount+ with SHOWTIME
And maybe even show a little violence to impress Shauna, because maybe she gleaned that that’s Shauna’s love language at this point.
One-hundred percent [laughs]. That is her love language.
Hanna then says, “Please, I want to be part of this.” How genuine is that? Is this a calculated decision she made as a scientist who studies survival patterns, or does she really want to be part of this?
I think it’s a calculated decision because she knows survival patterns. Everything she’s doing, she’s just trying to make it out alive, and she’s got to do some things that maybe she doesn’t want to do. I am very into morally gray characters, and she’s so morally gray. She is doing everything that she thinks is right, and sometimes it’s not the best or the nicest thing or what other people would think is the right thing to do. But in all of this, she is just trying to get out and she hopes that she can take anybody else with her when she does.
With that, is this Hanna revealing that she thinks an alliance with Shauna is the best way to survive? Why not help the girls who are trying to arrange a rescue?
Up until that point, she was. They were planning to go meet them. They’re in the woods waiting for Kodi and Hanna to get there. It’s another in-the-moment decision of how to show Shauna that she has a white flag. She does something really insane and is like, I’m on your side now. I think it is, again, just survival. She’s in fight or flight, and she obviously is very analytical and she does think about a lot of things, but in this environment sometimes you’re not given the time to think about things. You just do things so you can make it through to the next five minutes.
Since your arrival, some fans have been theorizing that Hanna is Pit Girl. This episode revealed that Travis is the one who built the infamous pit. What can you say about the possibility of Pit Girl being revealed in the Season 3 finale?
I can’t say anything, but I have been a fan of the show from the very beginning, so I’ve been very into all the theories that everybody has and reading them and very excited to see where the story takes all of us as viewers. I think it is a very good season of television from beginning to end. So much happens. So many questions get answered that they’ve been planting for the last two seasons, so I’m excited to see what everybody else thinks about it.
Since you were a fan of the show before, were you excited — or a little honored even — that some fans think you might be Pit Girl?
I was actually more honored that everybody thought I was going to be Shauna’s mom. In the very beginning when the casting happened, they were like, oh, we think Ashley’s going to be Shauna’s mom. She’s definitely Shauna’s mom because she looks like Melanie and she looks like Sophie. And I was like, well, that is such a compliment! Thank you guys so much. Not what happened, but such a beautiful, fun theory.
What are some words you’d use to describe Hanna’s plot in next week’s finale?
Survival, compassion, and understanding. I really think she wants to survive, but she just sees so much of herself in all of the other teenagers, and she really does try to have a heart for them. We’ll see what happens.
Yellowjackets, Season 3 Finale, Friday, April 11, Paramount+ With Showtime, Sunday, April 13, 8/7c, Showtime