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NEW YORK, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- Sophie Thatcher says Season 3 of Yellowjackets will show the birth of her character Natalie's future alliance with Samantha Hanratty's Misty. Returning for its third season on Paramount+ with Showtime Friday, the series follows members of a New Jersey high school soccer team who resort to human sacrifice and cannibalism after a plane crash strands them in the Canadian wilderness for 19 months in the late 1990s.
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Their morally grounded coach, Ben (Steven Kreuger), who is seriously injured in the crash, is the only adult with them.
Juliette Lewis and Christina Ricci play Nat and Misty in their 40s, trying to live normal lives, but still haunted by their adolescent actions in the present-day timeline.
Season 2 ended with Ben apparently setting fire to the teens' shelter and taking off in the 1990s, while Misty accidentally kills Nat, whom she regarded as her lifelong best friend, in 2022.
"We haven't really, truly had a lot of interactions," Thatcher told UPI about teen Nat and Misty in a Zoom interview Wednesday.
"We know that in the modern-day story-line, their relationship's so rich," Thatcher said. "I've always been curious how they're going to start to evolve. But [Hanratty] brought it up earlier. They're both outcasts and they both are on Ben's side when nobody else is. So, I think that brings them together in a way."
Thatcher joked that Misty wouldn't be Natalie's first choice as an ally.
"It's OK. Fair enough. Fair enough," Hanratty laughed about her manipulative, overbearing character. "Natalie would be Misty's first option."
"It's a little one-sided," Thatcher said of self-sufficient Natalie's dynamics with the desperate-to-be-liked Misty.
"I think, especially later in the season, you get to see there's something deeper there," she added. "I'm excited to explore more."
Hanratty said she thinks their connection was hinted at as far back as the show's pilot.
"Literally, Natalie is tripping [on drugs] and sees Misty and then when Misty sees Natalie going through whatever she's going through with Travis (Kevin Alves), all of a sudden she's like, 'I have a secret boyfriend, too,'" Hanratty added. "She wants to open up."
Although audiences will see their relationship "flourish in interesting ways" in Season 3, the closeness will not feel forced, Hanratty promised.
"It's not like we ended last season and, all of a sudden, Misty and Natalie are best buds in our timeline," she said.
"You're starting to see the beginning stages of what draws these two people together," Hanratty added. "Misty, though, has always really liked Natalie and I think that's one of the reasons that she wanted to save Natalie when Javi (Luciano Leroux) drowned, and she saw that as an opportunity to solidify some friendship there."
Thatcher also pointed to a poignant detail in the Season 3 trailer that shows the older Misty wearing Natalie's jacket after she dies.
"Sometimes when you're grieving somebody, the best way to grieve is to take them on, and then you feel them in you. So, it's a very tangible thing," Thatcher said.
"I'm surprised she didn't get her face tattooed on her," Hanratty quipped. "Next season on Yellowjackets..."
Back in the 1990s, food is scarce and starvation causes the kids to hallucinate.
At first, they agree to eat the dead, but once the stock of fresh bodies is depleted, they decide to sacrifice a member of their tribe to survive by consuming their flesh and serve up the individual as an offering to the wilderness.
Lottie (Courtney Eaton) also leads the young women in prayer and meditation, explaining this will curry favor with whatever controls nature in the hope it will make life easier for them all.
When Nat and Misty let Javi die in Nat's place, however, Lottie believes the wilderness has chosen to save Nat and that Nat should now be the group's leader.
"The lines just keep getting more blurred," Thatcher said.
"But I think Nat, not only is still pretty grounded, she is very against all of that," she added. "Specifically, in Season 2, she was against anything Lottie would say. There was quite the rivalry there because they just stand for polar opposite beliefs."
Hanratty noted that fairness is Natalie's top priority, while their harsh circumstances don't allow for that.
"You can't really predict it and there's no practicality in it," Thatcher said.
Hanratty said Misty doesn't have Natalie's moral compass, but also never really believed what Lottie taught.
"The only reason she ever followed Lottie's cult of the wilderness was to just be part of the group," Hanratty added.
"She just wants to be there and isn't really a part of it. She's somebody that would go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, even though she's never had a sip of alcohol."
The show co-stars Melanie Lynskey, Simone Kessell, Andres Sotos, Tawny Cypress, Elijah Wood, Lauren Ambrose and Hilary Swank.
