How Sophie Thatcher Feels About Yellowjackets Ending

Colin Bentley/Paramount+ with SHOWTIME

The fourth and final season of the Showtime series "Yellowjackets" is set to premiere at some point in 2026, and star Sophie Thatcher, who plays the teenaged version of Natalie Scatorccio (portrayed as an adult by Juliette Lewis), is ready to hang up her, well, yellow jacket. (I know they don't literally wear yellow jackets, but whatever!)

In a conversation with Variety promoting the release of her new project with Nicholas Winding Refn, "Her Private Hell," Thatcher, who's been playing Natalie since the Showtime drama — which strands a high school girls soccer team in the Canadian wilderness after a plane crash and then catches up with their adult counterparts years later — premiered, said that while she's loved her time on the series created by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, she feels sort of stagnant.

When interviewer Marlow Stern brought up actors on teen dramas like "The O.C." wanting to stretch their wings, Thatcher innately understood. "Yeah. And this is nothing to the writers or anything, but I personally feel a bit stunted having to play the same character," she admitted. "And I'm relying on a lot of — I keep saying this, and it's not necessarily true, maybe it's just acting — cheat codes."

What does she mean by that? She continued: 

"Last night, filming ['Yellowjackets' Season 4] until 6 a.m. screaming and crying, the fact that I can get into that so fast without any [...] It feels less challenging. Just playing somebody younger is confusing, and staying in that place you were at when you first filmed the pilot seven years ago is a very confusing thing, and that's what messed with me the most. I want to continue to grow, but then I have to go back to where I was when I was a kid."

Kailey Schwerman/Paramount+ with SHOWTIME

Elsewhere, Sophie Thatcher also opened up to i-D in an interview, admitting that she found it really, really difficult to keep playing the teenaged Natalie during  "Yellowjackets" Season 4. In the process, she seemed to share that we'll see the titular girls soccer team back in high school, which makes sense. At the end of Season 3, which aired in 2025, we saw Natalie use a satellite phone and manage to successfully contact the outside world, even as her girlfriends started to turn on one another.

"We're rescued this season, and something about being back in the high school with the fluorescent lights [...] I've had some panic attacks on set [...]," Thatcher shared before clarifying that she was serious. "I'm not joking. The fluorescent lights, and those square tiled ceilings. It's not a good feeling. I'm so grateful, but I'm really ready to let go of the character, because I feel like I bring her into every movie. It feels like Natalie is a ghost haunting me sometimes."

As far as Thatcher is concerned, she's ready to metaphorically "kill" Natalie. "Natalie is an extension of myself now, and I don't want anything to do with myself," she told the outlet. Well, I've got good news for her, I guess. In terms of Natalie's storyline on "Yellowjackets," nothing she does during the teen years actually matters all that much; because of the show's timeline being split between the 1990s and the 2010s, we already know what happens to Natalie when she's much older. Unfortunately for Thatcher, her character's bitter end makes everything that teen Natalie does ... way less interesting.

Kailey Schwerman/SHOWTIME

I probably should've seen a problem like this coming when I first got hooked on "Yellowjackets" during Season 1, which debuted in November 2021. Alas, hindsight is 20/20. At the end of "Yellowjackets" Season 2, our adult protagonists — Shauna Shipman (Melanie Lynskey), Misty Quigley (Christina Ricci), Taissa Turner (Tawny Cypress), and Natalie — are gathered at a wellness retreat run by their former teammate Lottie Matthews (Simone Kessell). Out in the woods, they start wondering if "it," which is how they refer to a supernatural entity that may or may not have been lurking in the Canadian woods where they were stranded, needs a new sacrifice. Lottie passes out cups, and one is laced with deadly phenobarbital.

That's when Lisa (Nicole Maines), a member of what can only be described as Lottie's "cult," charges the women with a shotgun; Misty tries to attack her with a syringe that's also full of phenobarbital, but she stabs Natalie with it instead. As Natalie lays dying, she envisions her adult self and teen self boarding a plane with others who died in incidents related to the original plane crash, and the two prepare themselves for the end. This also, obviously, marked Juliette Lewis' exit from the show.

It's a dramatic moment, sure ... but it also takes all the mystery and fun out of Natalie's teenage arc when you know she's just going to catch a poorly-aimed needle and die partway through the series' narrative. For that reason and several others (filming wilderness scenes on-location just doesn't seem particularly fun), I get why Sophie Thatcher is ready to bid farewell to "Yellowjackets." 

"Yellowjackets" Season 4 is currently expected to premiere at some point in 2026.