[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers through the Yellowjackets Season 2 Finale, “Storytelling.”]Another season of Yellowjackets, another Emmy nomination-worthy performance from Christina Ricci as one of the show’s most complex characters, Misty Quigley.

Ricci received an Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series nomination for her work in Season 1 during which present-day Misty introduced herself as a rather extreme and sometimes dangerous force willing to cross any line to protect her friends and their secrets. She never wavers and seems to have a plan of attack for just about any situation. In Season 2, however, we finally see Misty question herself.

In the season finale, Misty thinks she’s about to stop a threat, but instead, winds up killing her best friend. After Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) draws the queen of hearts during a present-day round of the Yellowjackets’ deadly card game, they get two sneak attacks, one from Callie (Sarah Desjardins) who shoots Lottie (Simone Kessell) in the arm, and then another from Lisa (Nicole Maines) who thinks Natalie (Juliette Lewis) is about to stab Lottie.
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Misty has always fiercely protected her best friend, and she isn’t about to stop now. When Lisa turns her shotgun on Natalie, Misty tries to stop her by jabbing her with a syringe filled with fentanyl, but accidentally hits Natalie with the lethal dose instead. It’s a crushing conclusion for the season that sees the loss of a beloved main character and puts Misty in a rather unusual situation, one in which Misty finally feels the weight of the consequences of her actions.

Image via Showtime

During Ricci’s second appearance on Collider Ladies Night, we put the spotlight on the tail end of Season 2 — the incredible writing, the sky-high cast chemistry, and the brilliant director at the helm bringing it all together. Here’s what Ricci said when asked about Karyn Kusama getting back behind the lens as director for the first time since directing the Yellowjackets pilot episode:

“I love Karyn. I think Karyn is such an incredible director, and so talented and so insightful, and isn’t confused by any sort of smoke and mirrors or anything. She’s there to do the work, and she really observes and assesses and gets things right. And I trust her. I trust all of her choices. I trust her takes on everything. And she also is somebody that when she supports you, when she tells you something, you can believe her, which as an actor is really incredible, and on an episode like the finale when there was so much going on and so many characters in one scene each with their own narrative, their own point of view for the scene — each character’s own point of view, and each one is going through something so different, to be able to have that trust in a director is really incredible.”

As for Misty’s point of view specifically, if you found yourself doubting her intentions during the card game, it’s understandable. No character is stealthier when it comes to manipulation than Misty Quigley. However, in this particular case, her intentions were honest and good. Ricci insists she truly did believe the medical professionals from the hospital would arrive in time before anyone got hurt.

“The whole time she and Shauna believe that they are biding their time, going along with it, waiting for those people to show up. So I think she genuinely believes at some point these people are going to show up, and it’s not until Taissa and Van say that they called them off that she realizes that no one’s coming to help them.”

Image via Showtime

How does Misty’s mentality change when she learns that help is no longer on the way?

“Once she realizes no one’s coming, that’s when everything becomes very extreme, the stakes are very high, and she does believe that somebody is going to die. And if you do have the memory of ‘the wilderness chooses,’ then even just seeing a gun pointed at someone you love, ‘Well, what if the wilderness chooses to have Lisa trip and her guns goes off?’ You know what I mean? So I think at that point, that’s when things really turned for her, and I think until then, she’s kind of just trying to do what Shauna was doing. It’s funny that in that scene that Shauna, who seems like one of the most grounded characters, who’s always had the most to lose, and the character that seems the most out there, Misty, who’s never had anything to lose, are all of a sudden on the same page dealing with things as though they’re both the most rational people in the room. I thought that was interesting.”

A big contributor to putting Shauna and Misty on the same page in that sense? Walter Tattersall (Elijah Wood). Ricci recalled how Misty’s vision in Episode 7 proved to be a game-changing moment for the character:

“What is interesting about that vision is that it gives her something to lose. Whereas normally Misty in every scene is the one character with nothing to lose, because she doesn’t really care about what they did in the past in terms of feeling bad about it or being worried that anyone will ever find out, so all of a sudden she goes into a situation like this with something to lose, and so she can’t just separate herself and be sort of amused like she normally is, or curious what’s gonna happen. She has to actually be invested in an emotional way about something, and for her, it’s making sure that she doesn’t die because she finally has something to live for.”

Image via Showtime

That kind of emotional investment isn’t limited to the characters on screen. It’s shared by the real-life artists who play them as well. Here’s what Ricci had to say about tackling a scene that’d mark the end for an actor who’s not only a big part of the show but also like a sister to her, Juliette Lewis:

“We were all really devastated at the idea that we would lose Juliette and devastated at the idea that she might not be a part of the show anymore. We’ve all gone through quite a bit, and she and I have gone through a lot together. We’re all very close and we know a lot about each other, and our pasts and our troubles. We’re like sisters. We’ve fought and made up and had crazy nights laughing on set and exhausted at 4am and wet and freezing, so it was very emotional to shoot this.”

Looking for more from Ricci on Yellowjackets Season 2? You can find just that in her latest episode of Collider Ladies Night in the video at the top of this article, or you can listen to the full 28-minute conversation uncut in podcast form below: