Here’s Everything You Need to Know About Yellowjackets Season 4
The Wilderness is calling one last time. Will you answer?
The end is coming for Yellowjackets. The members of the Wiskayok High School girls’ soccer team have been physically and/or psychologically stuck in the wilderness for three seasons now, which makes it something of a relief to learn that their suffering will end as the show wraps up at the end of its upcoming fourth season. The Yellowjackets have been through a lot: Even if you haven’t seen the show, you’ve probably heard about the cannibalism. But we mustn’t forget about all the poisonings, stabbings, blackmail plots, and ritual sacrifices over the past three seasons, either.
Going in to the Showtime series’ fourth and final season, dramatic cast shakeups have left the remaining characters dealing with major uncertainty, both in the past and in the present. Longtime fans are feeling a little nervous, too, given that co-creator Ashley Lyle has said for years that the show would have a five-season arc, and now it’s ending after four. Why are they cutting it short now? That remains to be seen, but we’ve got just about everything else you need to know about Yellowjackets season four below.
What is the release date for Yellowjackets season 4?
Yellowjackets premiered on November 14, 2021, pulling viewers back to their couches just as they were beginning to emerge from COVID-era lockdowns. Everyone was a little bit crazy then, and the ferocity of the pilot episode — directed by Karyn Kusama, who also made Jennifer’s Body — turned Yellowjackets into a word-of-mouth hit. Anticipation was high for more Yellowjackets by the time Season 2 premiered in November 2023; the second season was received even better than the first, but while viewership on Paramount+ has continued to grow, something shifted between Seasons 2 and 3, which was received with far less enthusiasm by critics and fans.
Now, in the (relatively) short span of a year, we have one last season to wrap everything up. Yellowjackets Season 4 premieres on November 20, 2026 on Paramount+ — note that you’ll have to sign up for the Paramount+ Premium Plan to unlock the first episode.
What will the plot of Yellowjackets Season 4 be?
Sophie Nélisse as Teen Shauna in Yellowjackets season 4.
In short, the show has two timelines: One that takes place in the present (ie. the early 2020s), and one that takes place between the summer of 1996 and the winter of 1998. That’s when the members of the Wiskayok High School girls’ soccer team were stranded in the Canadian wilderness for 19 months before eventually being rescued. How did they survive? We learned that the cannibalism rumors were true all the way back in Season 2, when ravenous hunger and the smell of burning flesh turned a funeral pyre into a gigantic outdoor BBQ as Radiohead’s “Climbing Up the Wall” played in the background. (The ‘90s soundtrack is a big part of this show’s appeal.) But it goes deeper than that, as what began as raw survival eventually took on a more occult bent by the end of the first year.
In the present, the surviving Yellowjackets remain bound by their shared trauma about “what happened out there.” An attempt to blackmail the survivors — including Taissa (Tawny Cypress), who’s a New Jersey state senator as the story begins; Shauna (Melanie Lynskey), a respectable middle-class housewife; Misty (Christina Ricci), a registered nurse; and Nat (Juliette Lewis), who’s struggled with addiction since her teens — brought them together at the beginning of season one.
Since then, other former teammates, like Taissa’s true love Van (Lauren Ambrose) and the mysterious Lotte (Simone Kessell), have entered, and then left, the narrative. Melissa (Hilary Swank) is still around, but she was just introduced in Season 3. Give Shauna (and the rest of the gang, but let’s be honest — it’s mostly Shauna) some time, and they just might take care of her, too.
Who is in the cast of Yellowjackets season 4?
Tawny Cypress as Taissa and Melanie Lynskey as Shauna in Yellowjackets season 4.
The adult Yellowjackets crew is starting to thin out, after the dramatic death of fan-favorite Nat at the end of Season 2 and the manslaughter-by-staircase that ended Lotte’s arc in Season 3. And let’s not forget sweet Van, whose terminal caner finally claimed her at the end of season 3. Those who survive will return for one last season, alongside a murderer’s row (sorry) of guest stars that includes:
• Molly Ringwald as Victoria "Vicky" Palmer, Van’s recently reformed alcoholic mother. She’ll appear in the ‘90s timeline.
• June Squibb as Geraldine, a character about whom we know little except that she appears alongside Misty (Christina Ricci) in the present-day timeline.
• Devon Sawa as Howard, who appears in scenes with teen Natalie in the ‘90s timeline.
• Dulé Hill as Detective Rollins, who appears in at least one of the timelines.
• Ken Marino as Russell, who appears to be connected to Melissa in the present-day timeline.
• Eric Stolze as a new character so mysterious, we don’t even know what timeline he’s in.
As for the returning teenage (now young adult) cast, most of them will return home in Season 4 — except for Pit Girl, whose identity was finally revealed at the end of Season 3. Turns out that it was Mari (Alexa Barajas), one of Lotte’s most passionate followers and a rival of up-and-coming Antler Queen Shauna, who we saw being chased into a pit lined with sharpened stakes in the opening moments of the series.
Is there a trailer for Yellowjackets season 4?
With the premiere coming up on November 20, Paramount+ has released the full trailer for the new season of Yellowjackets, teasing a return to high school (but probably never to normalcy) for the teenage Yellowjackets and a reckoning for the adult survivors in the wake of all those deaths. Speaking of, this is our last change to find out what really happened in the wilderness — was it supernatural? Shared psychosis? Something else? Whatever it is, based on the trailer the answer will be savage.
