Yellowjackets Creators Reveal Controversial Season 1 Fan Theory Almost Happened

Yellowjackets unintentionally became a smash sensation when it debuted on Showtime last year, with a genre-bending, multigenerational series that put fans in a tizzy. The first season of the series, as well as theories about where it could be going next, dominated the pop culture conversation throughout its initial run. Ultimately, a good chunk of those fan theories ended up being red herrings — but it sounds like one almost came to past. In a recent interview with Variety, series creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson and co-showrunner Jonathan Lisco revealed that they did toy with the idea of Adam (Peter Gadiot), the young man who developed an affair with the 2021 Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) before being killed by her, secretly being an older version of fellow plane crash victim Javi.

"I can tell you something that they guessed that we chose not to do, which is about Adam." Lisco explained. "Can I tell them? Or shall we tell them?"

"I think that you just did," Lyle said with a laugh.

"Well, we did entertain the notion that Adam was basically Javi coming back to torment Shauna in a way, or torment the Yellowjackets," Lisco continued. "We fairly early on dispensed with that idea. It did not feel organically right to us. It didn't feel to deliver on the promise of what we actually wanted to dramatize with her affair and their marriage. We chose not to, but some people called it and were, I think, eager to see it happen. Then it creates the scenario where, 'Well, did we disappoint those people or did we delight them?'"

Yellowjackets begins in 1996, as a team of New Jersey high school soccer players travels to Seattle for a national tournament. While flying over Canada, their plane crashes deep in the wilderness and the remaining team members are left to survive for nineteen months. The series chronicles their attempts to survive while also tracking their current lives in 2021. The series stars Melanie Lynskey, Tawny Cypress, Ella Purnell, Sophie Nélisse, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sophie Thatcher, Sammi Hanratty, Steven Krueger, Warren Kole, Christina Ricci, and Juliette Lewis.

"It was surreal," Lyle said of the fan theories. "You hope that people will watch the show and respond to the show, but the level of passion and enthusiasm that the fans of the show were just bringing to the table was astounding. It was a little mind blowing."

Season 2 of Yellowjackets will debut on Showtime at a later date.