‘Yellowjackets’ Kills off 2 Characters Ahead of Season 3 Finale

Yellowjackets Season 3 is coming to a close, but not before sending two more characters buzzing off to the afterlife. Warning: This post contains spoilers for Yellowjackets Season 3.

The penultimate episode of Season 3, “How the Story Ends,” ended with not one, but two characters meeting their end, with both adult Van (Lauren Ambrose) and Kodi (Joel McHale) dying. Their deaths marked the latest this season and followed the deaths of adult Lottie and Coach Ben.

Despite cheating death numerous times in both the teen and adult timeline, Van ultimately met her fate in Season 3, Episode 9 following a tense confrontation with the surviving Yellowjackets’ former teammate, Melissa (Hilary Swank). As Van, Tai (Tawny Cypress), and Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) attempt to figure out how to cover Shauna’s missteps – she forced Melissa to eat a piece of her arm – Melissa closes the fireplace flue, knocking almost all of them out. Van manages to rescue both Tai and Shauna, and ventures back into the house for a final, devastating showdown with Melissa.

Clutching a kitchen knife in her hand, Van considers killing her former teammate as a sacrifice to the wilderness in the hopes that it will save her from her terminal cancer, but she is unable to do so. As she cries out, “Why can’t I be that?” Melissa tells her, “you don’t want to be,” before taking the knife and plunging it into Van’s heart, stating, “But I do.”

Van’s final scene mirrors Natalie’s death scene in Season 2, finding the character sitting on a plane beside her younger self, played by Liv Hewson, as they watch adult Van’s death on a screen. Reflecting on that final scene, Hewson told The Hollywood Reporter, “It became this really beautiful piece of the story, because it’s the dynamic of Van’s inner child looking after her as she’s going through this really turbulent and horrible experience.”

But Van’s devastating death was not the only death to rock Yellowjackets in “How the Story Ends.” Decades earlier, in the teen timeline, wilderness expert Kodi, is killed not by the Yellowjackets holding him captive, but by Hannah (Ashley Sutton), the frog researcher he’d been guiding through the wilderness. Seemingly enthralled by the group of teens’ ability to survive in the harsh Canadian wilderness, and the unusual society they have created, Hannah, caught by Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) in an attempt to escape, plunges a knife into Kodi’s eye, instantly killing him. As she hands the knife to Shauna, she tells her, “Please. I want to be part of this.”

Although it initially seems that the Yellowjackets’ chance of rescue dies with Kodi, the episode ends with Misty finding the items necessary to fix the researchers’ broken satellite phone.

The Yellowjackets Season 3 finale drops Friday on Paramount+ with Showtime. The episode will then air on Showtime Sunday at 8 p.m. ET.