Yellowjackets Showrunner Says Fans Are Sending Death Threats Over Finale
Yellowjackets showrunner Ashley Lyle says she has received death threats over the season 2 finale.
The trend of fandom insanity continues. Yellowjackets showrunner Ashley Lyle took to Twitter after the show’s season 2 finale to share that the latest episode of the show earned her death threats from fans. “[I]s getting death threats a showrunner right of passage?” she wrote. “Because I can live without that one!”
Yellowjackets follows a high school girls soccer team that crash lands in the Canadian wilderness. The girls fight to survive the brutal conditions, often resorting to barbaric strategies to stay alive. The show jumps between scenes of teen survival and the adult lives of the girls decades later as it examines the lingering effects of their choices.
Yellowjackets has been a hit for Showtime since the very beginning. The show flew out of the gate with a 100% rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes in its first season, and season 2 is not far behind at 95%. But audiences have struggled to swallow some of the show’s more upsetting turns, and after a surprise character death in the season 2 finale, fans got vocal.
According to Lyle, some took their frustrations with the show so far as to send her death threats. In spite of the strong reaction, Lyle is standing by the choices of her creative team and is already looking ahead to season 3.
Lyle praised the Yellowjackets writing team for their hard work on the bonkers season, suggesting that things will only get weirder whenever the team can reconvene after the WGA writers strike concludes. Apparently, not even death threats can shake Lyle off the course of her vision for the acclaimed series.
She promised that season 3 of Yellowjackets will get even more brutal, explore the effects of the shocking character death in the season 2 finale, and reveal more about the Pit Girl. It is clear that Ashley Lyle is very aware of the type of show she and her team are making, and she looks forward to doubling down on the intensity of this genre-blending TV masterpiece.
Yellowjackets strikes an intriguing balance between drama, levity, horror, and mystery. At the height of its tension, the show is nerve-shredding, but it can quickly bounce back with a light, humorous touch. The broad range of emotions the show achieves is one of the keys to its success.
Yellowjackets stars a dual cast, perfectly matching young, up-and-coming actresses with their more mature counterparts. The show features Melanie Lynskey and Sophie Nelisse as Shauna, Tawny Cypress and Jasmin Savoy Brown as Taissa, Christina Ricci and Samantha Hanratty as Misty, Juliette Lewis and Sophie Thatcher as Natalie, and more.
Ashley Lyle created Yellowjackets with her husband, Bart Nickerson. The pair used the Donner Party, the 1972 Andes flight disaster, and Lord of the Flies as major points of inspiration for the series.
Lyle read that a female version of Lord of the Flies was in development, but that the idea had been met with skepticism that girls could be as savage as boys. Lyle took that as a challenge, and Yellowjackets was born.
Now the series is one of the most compelling shows on television. No matter how upset fans get by the brutal story, Ashley Lyle and her team are determined to keep the witty and barbaric DNA of Yellowjackets alive for as long as they can.
