Summary

Welcome to a new episode of Collider Ladies Night with Yellowjackets star Courtney Eaton.

During her second Ladies Night conversation with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff, Eaton digs deep while exploring key scenes in Yellowjackets Season 3.

Did Lottie try to help Mari during the hunt? How does Lottie feel about what Natalie did? Is Lottie actually the one who burned down the cabin? Eaton shares her take on all that and more!

Courtney Eaton’s Lottie Matthews continues to be one of the most enigmatic characters in the Yellowjackets ensemble, making her one of the most exciting to track. And while it’s nearly impossible to explain away all of Lottie’s choices and actions, especially in Season 3, the character is still shockingly grounded courtesy of the fact that Eaton understands her and has successfully established an anchor for the character via her own intuition and instincts as an actor.
As Eaton noted during her first Collider Ladies Night appearance for Yellowjackets Season 2, “Lottie does everything from the best place. She’s trying to give her heart to everyone. It might not come across in the right way sometimes, but she’s always well intentioned.” Does that thinking still apply when it comes to axe murder, ruining the group’s chance of recuse, pushing Travis (Kevin Alves) to the brink, and then some in Season 3? Eaton does, indeed, hold tight to that mentality. “[Lottie] knows that the best version of herself is once she’s connected [to the wilderness] and that can help the group.”
Everything Lottie Does Makes Total Sense … to Courtney Eaton

And that’s exactly how it should be.

Lottie’s made a slew of questionable choices throughout Yellowjackets. Do we have to agree with them? Absolutely not. But we do need to understand why she makes them, and Eaton’s found great success in that respect. “There’s a part of it that is anchored, I don’t know if this is a weird way to say it, but very much in who I am. Lottie and I are very similar in trying to figure out who we are, if we’re good people.” Eaton laughed and insisted, “Not in a sad way! I feel like I did this the last time. Not sad! Not sad! But I feel like that really anchors me that I know if I got put in similar situations, I’m not saying that I would put an axe in people’s heads or start a cult, but I think mentally, I would be in the same boat of not knowing where I am.”
As for that axe murder in Episode 7, “Croak,” Eaton explained that when she first read the script and learned what Lottie does to Edwin, “It’s weird, it makes sense to me.” While it’s a challenging thing to articulate, Eaton ultimately brought the decision right back to a concept that’s been driving the character since day one – Lottie’s good intentions.

“It has to make sense to me, and that’s why I fight everyone. I’m like, ‘She’s not a bad person,’ because this and this. It makes sense [with] where she’s at. They’ve just had another trauma where they’ve just killed Ben, they’ve just eaten him, so regardless of whether the wilderness is a thing, they just tapped into something to throw on top of being messed up again. “It’s understandable that something could just slip and a wire could go a little askew, or that she is trying to protect her friends and this family that she has from intruders.”

Eaton applies a similar thinking to what Lottie does to Travis this season:

“Even with pushing Travis too far, I think it can be seen as she’s using him, one, and I think that is partly it, that she’s trying to connect with the wilderness and pushing him too far, but then she knows that the best version of herself is once she’s connected and that can help the group. That’s my out answer for everything.”

There Were 3 Very Different Versions of That Lottie and Travis Scene

Eaton also clarifies whether Lottie walks to the edge of the pit, or over it.

Leaning into the Travis and Lottie relationship in Yellowjackets Season 3, we took a good deal of time to dig into one of the most unforgettable scenes of the season. It’s the scene in Episode 9, “How the Story Ends,” when Travis lures Lottie out to the pit with the intention of killing her, and then she seemingly steps on the trap, but doesn’t fall in.

“There were a couple of versions of that scene, and a few lines that got cut by the end. I think by Lottie. We definitely did a dance that day of trying to find where it sat, especially with Kevin coming to realize that Travis is trying to kill Lottie, that Lottie has an inkling, but is trying to get to him. And then there’s this, ‘You’re pathetic. You tried to kill me.’ I don’t know. It’s got a lot of layers going on to it that each take was very different when we shot it that day.”

Given the complexity and weight of the moment, it’s no wonder that team Yellowjackets opted to explore a variety of ways of filming it. Eaton broken down a couple:

“There was a version where he grabs me and says no, and then I realize that I’m standing on it, and then I keep walking, and it doesn’t go down. And then I look at him in a kind of soft way and be like, ‘It’s okay.’ Then there was another version where he says no again, and it comes out, and I turn around and I am kind of like, ‘Wow, what a joke,’ and then just walk off and leave him there. So there were a couple of versions of that, because I remember all the different points we were trying to talk about in this scene that we had to kind of cover everything.”

While Eaton wasn’t able to fully clarify anything regarding the powers (or lack thereof) of the wilderness, she was able to clear up one particular debate regarding this scene. Lottie does, indeed, walk across the pit, not just to the edge of it.

“She walks across it. I walked to the middle of it. Whether that is because the wilderness is looking after her or because he set it up wrong after he threw the rock, you don’t know. That’s the thing with this show, it could be one or the other, and you never know.”

Did Lottie Actually Burn Down the Cabin?

A single frame in the Season 3 finale certainly suggests that could be the case!

Image via Paramount

Yet another big burning question the show sparked and, with Episode 10, reignited (puns intended) is if Lottie was the one who burned down the cabin. The most popular potential culprits of the bunch appear to be Lottie and Other Tai (Jasmin Savoy Brown), but thanks to a very quick shot during a Season 3 finale dream sequence, more fingers might be pointing at Lottie now.
While dreaming of the Antler Queen, we get a very quick flash to a frame that shows Lottie’s face superimposed over the burning cabin. “I saw it in ADR, and I was like, ‘Oh!’”
As for that possibly signaling Lottie is to blame for the cabin burning down, Eaton explained:

“I don’t know. [Laughs] I don’t know how much I should talk on this. There’s nothing tied to Lottie 100% doing it, but I didn’t put it past her that she could do that. There was a weird moment where I had the choice where something hit me and I was like, ‘I should just laugh. This is just funny that the house is burning down,’ and a lot of people zoomed in on that, and they’re like, ‘Oh, she broke,’ or, ‘This girl’s just crazy,’ and I think that ties me a lot to that, that maybe I burned the cabin down. But I don’t know.”

Did Lottie Try to Help Mari During the Latest ‘Yellowjackets’ Hunt?

“She doesn’t want to make the wilderness mad.”

Image via Showtime

Yet another key beat in the Season 3 finale with a degree of mystery to it is Lottie’s encounter with Mari (Alexa Barajas) during the hunt. During the chase, Mari runs straight into Lottie who doesn’t attempt to kill her, but rather, tells her, “You’ve been here already, Mari. You can let it be different.” Is Lottie deliberately warning Mari that the pit she first fell into in Episode 1 is in the vicinity? Is she trying to give Mari a fighting chance?

“I don’t know! I think she was trying to give her a fighting chance, but I think she’s almost doing it in a riddle way. Well, obviously in a riddle way. She’s not going to give it all up because she doesn’t want to make the wilderness mad, but I think she is trying to give one of her teammates a fighting chance.”

How Lottie Might Feel About Natalie’s Secret Mission

“I have to sacrifice not being well.”

Image via Paramount+

Not only do things not end well for Mari, but things don’t go according to plan for Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) either. After the Yellowjackets conclude their feast and return to camp, Shauna discovers that Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) is gone. While we do see Hannah (Ashley Sutton), Travis, Tai, Van (Liv Hewson), and Misty’s (Samantha Hanratty) reactions to that reveal, the camera never cuts to Lottie, one of few characters not in on the plan to make contact via the reassembled satellite phone. But what if it had? Eaton suspects Lottie’s reaction shot might have conveyed something like this:

“I think it’s a mix of euphoric, but also freaking out. I think she would jump real quick because her and Natalie have this connection that I don’t know how to explain between them that is similar to how Lottie has a connection with Shauna and the baby and that time period of her life. But I think she would know that it’s good for Natalie and would be excited for her, but then the flip side of that being, ‘That means I have to sacrifice not being well.’”

Will Simone Kessell Return to ‘Yellowjackets’?

“It keeps me on my toes.”

Image via Showtime 

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It seems these two didn’t leave their tensions behind in the wilderness.

In addition to Mari’s fate, Yellowjackets Season 3 also reveals where the road ends for a number of other characters, including Lottie. While there’s still a lot of time to explore in between this latest hunt and where we first find Lottie in the present day, it seems as though Simone Kessell’s run with the show has come to a close. Or has it?

“It’s so weird. I’ve tried talking about it a bunch in press this year, but I feel like my brain hasn’t clicked yet that she’s not. And also, in the Yellowjackets world, I feel like anyone can come haunt you, anything can happen. And also, I was in an interview where someone was like, ‘Why wasn’t she on the plane?’ She’s the only one! Is that foreshadowing something? So, in my mind, Simone’s coming back. But, yeah, it’s hard because I feel like I’m stuck in this middle ground of not having anyone in the first season and then getting to share a character in the second season, and then getting that taken away again in the third season. It’s a fun task because it keeps me on my toes, but I also love Simone and I think she did an incredible job. No one likes seeing anyone go. Too many death parties.”

Looking for even more from Eaton on her journey in film and television thus far, and what goes down in Yellowjackets Season 3? Check out our full hour-long conversation in the video at the top of this article, or you can listen to the interview in podcast form below:

Yellowjackets

Release Date

November 14, 2021

Network

Showtime, Paramount+ with Showtime

Showrunner

Ashley Lyle, Bart Nickerson, Jonathan Lisco

Directors

Benjamin Semanoff, Daisy von Scherler Mayer, Deepa Mehta, Eduardo Sánchez, Jeffrey W. Byrd, Liz Garbus, Scott Winant, Eva Sørhaug, Jamie Travis

Writers

Liz Phang, Sarah L. Thompson, Ameni Rozsa

Yellowjackets Season 3 is now available to stream in its entirety on Paramount+.
Watch Here