Yellowjackets Star Reveals How A Season 2 Character Could Return
Samantha Hanratty debunks a big Season 2 fan theory — and establishes one of her own.
While Yellowjackets may focus on a core group of half a dozen of its survivors and their present-day selves, back in 1996 there were plenty of other Yellowjackets helping out with the group’s survival — and feasting on those they lost. Showrunners Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson specifically said they kept the number of teammates lost in the wilderness vague, so they could introduce new characters as the seasons go on.
In Season 3, that new character is Melissa, who appeared in episodes before but never got a spotlight. When she lends her support to Shauna in Season 3 Episode 1, Shauna responds with a stunned, “Wait. Do you, like, actually have a personality?”
Now that Season 3 is off and running, it can be easy to forget the highlighted Yellowjacket from Season 2. But one of the stars of the show hasn’t forgotten. In fact, she has an idea as to how she could come back.
Crystal (Nuha Jes Izman) disappeared without a trace in Season 2, but could she still come back?
In Season 2, teen Misty (Samantha Hanratty) started a close friendship with Crystal (Nuha Jes Izman), and enthusiatic theater kid and a bit of a social outcast. But when Crystal learned that Misty destroyed the emergency transmitter that could have saved the entire team, their friendly dynamic shifted. Crystal threatened to tell the entire team Misty’s secret, so Misty pushed her off a cliff. However, we never saw her body, leaving some fans to suggest she never existed at all.
“There are these theories about Crystal not ever existing and that it was just all in Misty's head, which I can debunk and say no, she was there,” Samantha Hanratty tells Inverse during a roundtable interview. “The whole group has talked about her.”
But with the missing body, could Crystal come back? “I don't see a world in which she shows up alive, but I mean, you never know,” Hanratty says. In fact, Hanratty has her own theory about how Crystal could come back and get revenge from beyond the grave.
“It would be really cool if she came back and it's all in Misty's head and she thinks that she's back and has to tell the group guys, ‘Okay, I did it. I destroyed the box, but she was going to tell on me,’” Hanratty says. “And then it turns out Crystal was never there or whatever. And they're like, ‘What are you talking about? And then what do you mean you did that?’”
Even after Crystal’s accident, she could come back to haunt Misty.
Part of this theory is Hanratty’s own close friendship with Nuha Jes Izman — the two even got tattoos together — but it could also tie together Misty’s visions, like her encounter with a human version of her pet bird Caligula in Season 2 or her seeing visions of teen Nat while out drinking in Season 3.
It would be an interesting subversion of the original fan theory, and would fit right in with the ever-increasing surrealism of the show. “I don't see a world in which [Crystal] shows up alive, but you never know,” Hanratty said. “We do so many flashbacks. We do so many different things in the show. Ghosts appear. We still got Ella Purnell in the show.”
Nobody else on the team seemed that bothered by Crystal’s disappearance. In fact, the team never even bothered to learn her real name was Kristen. But Misty now has her loss on her conscience, just as present-day Misty is dealing with the loss of Nat. Maybe the ghosts of her past will find her — even in the ‘90s.
