Director Ben Semanoff discusses Yellowjackets Season 3 Episode 9’s “How the Story Ends,” including how Young Nat’s (Sophie Thatcher) emotional scene grew beyond the script. Spoilers ahead!
Director Ben Semanoff directed two episodes in Yellowjackets Season 2, including “Edible Complex.” You know — the one where the team eats their captain in a Grecian-style feast.
This time around, he’s back for Season 3, directing an episode with some major pilot payoffs, two deaths, and a poignant moment when Young Nat (Sophie Thatcher) learns her plans have been foiled.
Ahead of the episode dropping, I got to ask him all my burning questions about Season 3’s penultimate episode, “How the Story Ends.”
*Spoilers ahead!*
The Contending: There are some great callbacks to the pilot episode in Season 3, Episode 9’s “How the Story Ends.” We learn Travis is the one who created the trap that kills Pit Girl, and Misty reveals the transponder. Was it fun to play with these Easter eggs?
Ben Semanoff: You start to reference things that far back, and ask yourself, what did we see? What did we show? What can we get away with? You want to push your boundaries. Where was the transponder? Did we see it get buried? We had lots and lots of conversations. The transponder, big moment, right? Natalie is very upset! There’s also a bit of a storyline there with Misty stalking Van. What is Misty garnering? There was a lot of nuance we discussed and played with to make sure we were stringing the audience along, but not necessarily giving away that payoff at the end.
And the pit — the pit was a challenging set! I wonder if viewers when they saw the pit in an earlier episode with Coach Ben, did they know that that’s what they were seeing? A big part of it for me was that reveal moment. It was a challenging set to work. Are we going to build an above-ground pit? I think it was an interesting and heroic moment for Travis standing over that pit. It was a good reveal.
The Contending: There are a few stand-out scenes I wanted to highlight. First, Jeff (Warren Kole) and Callie (Sarah Desjardins) smoking weed together. Warren Kole is so heartbreaking when he says, “It’s so lonely.” This could easily be a filler moment, and it’s not. What do you do as a director to elevate this scene and support your actors?
Ben Semanoff: The scene on paper was a little bit longer than what aired, but when we simplified it, we captured the essence of what the scene was meant to do, which was to talk about Shauna and to be honest about how they feel about her. Jeff has been through the ringer since high school. I think there’s a contrast between Adult Shauna and Teen Shauna. Teen Shauna is vicious. Adult Shauna has been subdued by years and years of being a homemaker. You can only imagine that that Shauna in the wilderness is the one that Jeff married. He’s gone through a ton of emotional conflict with his marriage with Shauna. It was really interesting to see this culmination of him breaking.
The Contending: Okay, another stand-out scene is Melissa (Jenna Burgess) and Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) having a stand-off in ’97. Is Shauna a bad shot? Or did she miss on purpose?
Ben Semanoff: I think she’s a bad shot. But ultimately I think it’s the trouble and drama that Shauna desires and not killing somebody. I don’t think that’s what she gets off on. I think what the payoff was is that she scared her so much that she peed herself.
The parallel I tried to draw between Shauna and Melissa in the present day, as much as I could, is that they are two women living lives that they’re frustrated with, coming from this life in the wilderness, which had its drawbacks but was incredibly thrilling. Now, to be living these basic, boring lives in the real civilized world, I think both of them are yearning for that drama. What we see here is Shauna manufacturing it. We see Melissa also manufacturing it by starting trouble. Of course, the payoff is that. Why did she kill Van (Lauren Ambrose)? That’s what she wanted! This is what she ultimately wanted.
The Contending: So many of the problems for the Yellowjackets in both the past and present are centered around Shauna, the arbiter of chaos. Would the Yellowjackets have been better off if Shauna died instead of Jackie?
Ben Semanoff: If Shauna had died and Jackie had lived, all of the Yellowjackets would be totally sane and well-balanced human beings. But because of the alternative, they’re all tortured. We need a bottle episode to learn what it would have been like if Jackie lived.
The Contending: The first major death of the episode I want to talk about: Kodiak (Joel McHale). Has the wilderness gotten to Hannah (Ashley Sutton), or is she doing anything she can to survive?
Ben Semanoff: Our discussions around this were that this guy’s a problem. Her mindset was that if she got rid of the problem, she would endear herself to these feral teenage girls. I think that was the basic intention. So [to answer your question], the second version: do whatever she can to stay alive. But I like the idea that it could also have been inspired by whatever is going on out there. And he’s such a great character; I already miss him!
The Contending: Shauna twirling hair in her hands. What jolts her awake that there’s an uprising?
Ben Semanoff: The need for drama jolts her awake. I think it’s her obsession with conflict, and she could have exited her little hut and found nothing going on. I think she was very pleased that they were trying to escape. It only gave her more reason. I think Shauna would have shot if Hanna wouldn’t have stabbed him.
The Contending: My favorite scene is when the girls tell Young Nat that the revolt against Shauna is off. You zoom in on them, specifically Nat. Everyone disappears, and the snow starts to fall. How did this scene come together?
Ben Semanoff: It wasn’t on paper that way. It was written somewhat vaguely. “The girls meet in the woods, they have this conversation, and then maybe Nat walks somewhere else, and it starts to snow.” I thought, boy, it would be so interesting to tell the story in a subtle way, that she just sat there for 20 minutes or an hour. It shouldn’t feel coincidental that it started snowing at that moment. It should feel like time had elapsed and that she had had time to really sit and simmer on the fact that they are going to be trapped for an indefinite amount of time. I think that was probably the most specific photography that I planned. Obviously, I had to sell this gag that hadn’t even been written! I think it really paid off. And [Sophie Thatcher’s] amazing!
The Contending: Lauren Ambrose is so good in her final scene with her younger self (Liv Hewson). “Surviving this was never the reward.” Is there a Yellowjackets afterlife?
Ben Semanoff: In terms of the line, ultimately, the story is that she was sent on this treasure hunt. The treasure was saving her girlfriend and Shauna. I think that’s what the line really means. But the question about whether there’s an afterlife could be an implication that something else is coming. We’ve now twice had deaths with the plane [setting]. But we weren’t with Lottie when she died or Ben. Obviously, you don’t want to overplay something like that. But there’s clearly some connection to an afterlife or a suggestion of it. I don’t personally believe we are in a temporary space.
It’s the beginning and the end, alpha and omega. I directed [Lauren Ambrose’s] first episode on a show and her last episode. It was a cool bookend.
Yellowjackets streams on Paramount+ on Fridays and airs on Sundays on Showtime.
