Is Ella Purnell in Yellowjackets Season 3? Details explored

Ella Purnell’s character might have died in Yellowjackets, but the aftermath of her death continues to drive the show’s narrative. The actress plays Jackie in the Showtime thriller series, who dies in the first season’s finale, leaving her friends with lifelong trauma.

The show follows a high school girls’ soccer team that is left stranded in the wilderness after a plane crash and has to take animalistic measures to survive. However, their actions continue to haunt them 25 years later.

Despite Jackie’s death, Ella Purnell continued to appear in the second season in flashbacks and visuals. But is Ella Purnell in Yellowjackets Season 3? The upcoming chapter’s official teaser has confirmed that the actress remains a part of the show as Shauna is still not over Jackie’s death and continues to imagine her.

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Is Ella Purnell in Yellowjackets Season 3?

Though Jackie remains dead in the story, Ella Purnell is set to reprise her role in dream sequences and visuals. There were speculations over the actress not being a part of the upcoming season, considering how busy she is with projects like Fallout and Sweetpea.

However, Yellowjackets season 3 first look teaser put the speculations to rest as Ella makes a blink-and-miss appearance in the footage. In one of the scenes, Shauna sees Jackie in her vision while sitting in a restroom.

Her dead friend stares right into her eyes while sitting across from her, confirming that Shauna is not getting rid of her trauma anytime soon. Hence, just like the second chapter, Ella is expected to make a few appearances in season 3 as Shauna continues to deal with her guilt and grief.

Meanwhile, Ella talked about how she managed to work on both Fallout and Yellowjackets simultaneously. The actress revealed she was filming for the Prime Video series while receiving scripts for the second season of the Showtime series.

Talking about how she later felt about seeing her dead body in the show, Ella said at a Fan Expo in Chicago:

“I was filming Fallout, and the schedule was very, very demanding. I was exhausted. And I was getting the scripts for [Yellowjackets] Season 2 but I wasn’t maybe reading them as quickly as I should have been, because I had a lot going on.”

“And I just woke up one morning, and I had all these pictures from my castmates of them taking selfies with my charred corpse. You know when you wake up and you don’t know where you are? It was like that but on steroids, because I woke up and I was like, ‘Am I dead? What’s happened?’”

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What happened to Jackie on Yellowjackets?

Jackie froze to death after spending a night outside her cabin in the Yellowjackets season 1 finale. She was the captain of the team and was especially close to Shauna. Jackie assumed she and Shauna would remain best friends and college roommates forever.

After the plane crash, she struggled to adapt to survival life and relied heavily on Shauna, who started to drift away from her. She eventually discovered that Shauna was pregnant with her boyfriend, Jeff’s, baby, which led to a clash between the two.

Months later, Jackie lashed out at her group for locking her in a closet while intoxicated. This led to another fight between her and Shauna, and she was forced out of the cabin. Jackie had to spend the night outside in freezing cold and could not survive.

Shauna found her body in the morning and was devastated. She could not bear the guilt and kept her corpse in a shed, imagining conversations with her. When the group decided to cremate Jackie, the fire ended up roasting the body.

Being hungry for weeks and desperate for survival, the survivors cannibalized Jackie. This marked the beginning of their descent into madness, and the event kept affecting their lives decades later.

Yellowjackets season 3 premieres on Paramount+ with Showtime on February 16, 2025.