Since it was announced that Hilary Swank would be joining the cast ofYellowjacketsfor season three, fans have been theorizing who her character could be. Those details have been kept under wraps to avoid spoilers for the plot.
Some initially believed she would be the adult version of Melissa (Jenna Burgess), the young survivor in the wilderness who found more of a voice in season two, and an affection for Shauna (Sophie Nelisse). But in Episode 7, when adult Shauna (Melanie Lynskey), Van (Lauren Ambrose), andTai (Tawny Cypress)listen to the audio tape that was left on Shauna’s doorstep, and they mention Melissa as a possibility for the sender, Van shoots this down, noting that she is dead. The other option bandied about was that she could beHannah’s (Ashley Sutton) daughter, Alex, now grown and looking for revenge. The truth sort of combines the two, but in the weirdest way. The reveal also ends with one of the most shocking moments of the show to date.
Yellowjackets
Who Is Hilary Swank’s Character?
As initially guessed,Swank is indeed the adult version of Melissa. But how? Isn’t Melissa dead? It turns out, no. She did survive, including that arrow to the chest from Kodi (Joel McHale), one of thethree mysterious peoplethe young women encounter in the wilderness. However, she supposedly died by suicide back home, an undisclosed time later. But this, it appears, was just a fake-out. She wrote a note and went on the run. Apparently, the police ruled it a death without even having a body.
Where the strange twist comes in is thatMelissa is now married to Hannah’s daughter, Alex. The pair have a daughter together and Melissa has moved on with her life, living a happy existence under a new identity. That is, until Shauna shows up at her house with a knife.
There, Melissa explains it all, andadmits to having sent the tape. How did she have it? Hannah gave it to her before she died, asking her to make sure it got to her daughter. Melissa couldn’t bring herself to give Alex that harrowing audio and sad message. But she checked in on the young woman through the years to make sure she was okay. In the process, the two ended up falling in love. Melissa kept the tape locked away for leverage in case the ladies ever figured out she was still alive and came looking for her.
Still, however, Melissa had the existence of the tape weighing on her. With the help of her therapist, she decided to try and get rid of the darkness and left the tape on Shauna’s doorstep. She swears she included a note explaining everything with it, which suggests she’s either lying or Callie (Sarah Desjardins) took the note. Melissa swears that she had nothing to do with all the other strange things happening to Shauna, however, including the mysterious bathroom phone, her car’s brakes giving out, and the walk-in freezer. She alsohad no idea that Lottie was dead, though she did hear about Natalie, which stirred up unresolved trauma and caused her to start having nightmares.
Shauna, however, doesn’t believe her, despite Melissa claiming that she lives a quiet, boring life and likes it that way. She thinks it is possible to move on from the past and wishes Shauna would do the same. But Shauna opens Melissa’s eyes to the fact that she hasn’t really moved on. She’s pretending to be someone else and lying to her own family, including her wife, who has no idea who she actually is, and what her role was in Hannah’s eventual death. This is where things get ugly.
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Shauna Is Even More Disturbed Than We Realized
There has always beenobvious darkness in Shauna. She may not have believed in all the mystical signs of the wilderness. But her actions and words throughout her time there, particularly as shown in Season 3, confirm thatthere was always something evil about her. This dates back to before the crash, when she was sleeping with her best friend’s boyfriend behind her back while playing the innocent, unpopular best friend. She found sick satisfaction in betraying the person who was supposed to be her best friend.
Melissa points this out to Shauna, scoffing at the idea that she is “still” in love with her. Melissa claims she was never in love with Shauna. She was terrified of her. She calls her out for being miserable and hating herself, and thus wanting to take down everyone else with her.She suggests perhaps Shauna is creating her own problems and manufacturing all this drama because she needs it to feel fulfilled. This angers Shauna, who says she has come to the realization that the only way to be certain that the secrets they all hold from the wilderness don’t get out is to be the only one left. Clearly, Melissa takes this as a threat.
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As Melissa goes to hand Shauna a glass of water, she reaches for Shauna’s knife to stab her, but Shauna gets her hand away in time and slices a cut on Melissa’s arm. The two tussle on the floor, but Shauna manages to pin Melissa down. She pauses for a moment, staring at the woman she had once been romantically involved with as a teenager. This is when Shauna’s darkest side rears its head.
She bends down and bites a chunk of skin off Melissa’s armin one ofthe most savage moments inYellowjackets. She rises up like an animal, the piece of flesh in her mouth. She removes the bloody skin from her teeth, holds it over Melissa’s face, andsays, “eat it.”Melissa is terrified in this moment, but Shauna insists she must comply or she’ll tell her wife and child who she really is.
It’s a jarring moment in a tense episode that introduces Hilary Swank as the older version of a character fans already know, and confirms that someone else survived the wilderness beyond the core six. But most importantly, Melissa’s presence solidifies that Shauna is not anywhere near okay, and she might never have been. The violent, feral streak she shows in this moment confirms that the young Melissa made the right decision to try and stay on Shauna’s good side as long as she did. It seems anyone who didn’t meet a gruesome end.
