‘Yellowjackets’ Stars Get Frank About That Shocking Death: “I’d Have Liked It to Have Gone Differently”

This article contains spoilers about the penultimate episode of Yellowjackets season three.

When the showrunners of Yellowjackets told Lauren Ambrose what she could expect from the drama’s third season, they covered a lot of ground. “We talked about the strike being over and the business contracting—and then they were like, ‘And your character’s going to die,’” Ambrose says. This required what the actor calls some “adjusting.” When she was first cast on the series in season two, playing the adult version of plane-crash survivor Van (played as a teenager by Liv Hewson), Ambrose expected to stick around a little longer. “Certainly that was how it seemed from being lured onto the show and getting the job,” she tells Vanity Fair.

In an emotional interview alongside Tawny Cypress, who plays Van’s lover Taissa, Ambrose says she’s still processing both her exit from the show and the nature of her character’s death. The adult timeline of this Yellowjackets season has built toward Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) learning who from her past has been after her; Van and Taissa making the most of their time together as Van’s cancer progresses; and Misty (Christina Ricci) actively investigating the murder of Lottie (Simone Kessell)—which jolted the season—converging with Melissa (Hilary Swank), who as we learned in last week’s episode faked her own death to try to move on from the trauma of her adolescence. Van’s story ends with her coming face-to-face with Melissa, who’s trying to escape the rest of the adult Yellowjackets after she’s found out. Van pins Melissa down but doesn’t kill her, admitting she doesn’t have it in her. The next moment, Melissa stuns Van by turning the knife on her, stabbing her to death.

Ambrose and Cypress were both surprised by this narrative choice. “Van is this ultimate survivor. Her mother had an abusive nature, then she gets almost blown up by the plane, and then she’s almost killed when she’s attacked by wolves. And then she’s got this cancer that then goes into remission,” Ambrose says. “I assumed it would be the cancer that did her in—this ultimate survivor who is unable to survive this very real and human thing…. Then it wasn’t that, and reading it was really shocking…. All of a sudden, Hilary Swank is murdering me. I’m like, ‘Okay, we’re going to make it work.’ As Kathryn Hahn said to me once, ‘Champions adjust.’”

When Ambrose first learned about the writers’ plans, she had a request: “Please make it earned and worthy of this character that Liv invented.” Cypress chimes in here. “When I read it, it did not feel earned, quite honestly, and I didn’t really understand it. Now I see that we’re saying goodbye to one character but introducing another character. It’s the most gruesome way to start [Melissa’s] story, so I get why they did it. But as a fan, I’d have liked it to have gone differently for sure—and as a fan of Lauren, I would have liked for her to stick around.”

After two seasons of playing a wealthy romance with Ambrose, Cypress was also gutted that had no farewell scene to play together. “There’s literally no goodbye. It sucks so bad.”

Ambrose with Tawny Cypress.

Kailey Schwerman

In its first season, Yellowjackets’ teen timeline told the story of how Taissa and Van fell in love while fighting to stay alive in the wilderness. The two became estranged in adulthood, with grown-up Taissa introduced as a powerful, married politician raising a child with her wife. Ambrose’s casting deepened the lively between the two characters while also changing Cypress’s course on the show.

“We were thrust into our own world, which was kind of surprising to Tawny. She was this state senator and elected official, and all of that stuff just disappeared, and we were this tangential little love story going on,” Ambrose says. Cypress concurs: “You just have to have faith and trust that [the writers] know what the fuck they’re doing…. I love the story that we got to tell.” At one point, Cypress tears up, discussing the bond she’s developed with Ambrose. “We did good stuff,” she says. “It was my and Lauren’s goal to show the love that Liv and Jasmin [Savoy Brown, who plays teen Taissa] created to finish their story in the most noble way that we could. We got very close.”