Showtime confirmed ahead of Yellowjackets season 2 that Van survived the team’s time in the wilderness, which also works to explain a major Taissa change in the season 1 finale. Yellowjackets season 1’s 2021 timeline followed four major survivors from the 1996 plane crash, including Shauna, Taissa, Natalie, and Misty. The show also confirmed that Travis survived the wilderness, but was killed in Yellowjackets season 1 under mysterious circumstances. The season 1 finale then revealed that Lottie Matthews survived and now leads a curious cult focused on the symbol from the woods, with Showtime later confirming another adult survivor with Van.
Portrayed by Liv Hewson as a teenager, Yellowjackets season 2’s adult Van is now played by Lauren Ambrose, who also stars in Apple TV’s supernatural horror show Servant. Van’s fate was left mysterious in Yellowjackets’ season 1 finale, but Showtime has confirmed that she’s still alive and bearing her wolf attack scar in the 2020s timeline. Given the fact that teenage Van was romantically involved with Taissa, adult Van’s absence from Tai’s story in Yellowjackets season 1 was curious. However, the decision for Van to survive the wilderness and potentially reconcile with her living teammates in the present makes more sense after a notable Taissa change in Yellowjackets’ season 1 ending.
Adult Tai’s Break-Up Hints She’ll Get Back Together With Van In Yellowjackets Season 2
The end of Yellowjackets season 1 saw Taissa taking some time away from her wife Simone, though the fact that Simone stumbled upon Taissa’s human heart sacrifice to the symbol in their basement suggests their marriage could finally be over. Adult Taissa even admitted that her marriage with Simone was stagnant and simply stable, which points to the character potentially finding a new romantic interest in Yellowjackets season 2. Of course, this coincides with the announcement that Van is still alive as an adult and will appear in Yellowjackets season 2, setting up a major reconciliation between the former couple.
While it’s unclear how long Van and Tai will stay together as teenagers in the past timeline, Yellowjackets’ season 1 ending saw Van joining Lottie and Misty as a devotee to the symbol and its supernatural aura, much to Tai’s dismay. However, since Yellowjackets revealed that the sleepwalking adult Taissa secretly still believes in the power of the symbol, it’s possible that teenage Tai and Van will continue to bond over the supernatural happenings in the wilderness. As such, their past and the symbol coming back to haunt them in the present timeline suggest adult Tai and Van’s reunion could also lead to a romantic reconciliation.
What Van’s Survival Means For Yellowjackets’ Adult Timeline Story
Van was entirely left out of Yellowjackets season 1’s adult timeline story, so her introduction in season 2 is extremely open. While Showtime’s images of adult Van suggest that she’s not directly working with Lottie in the cult, she likely received a postcard and could even be connected to Travis’s murder. Since Tai, Shauna, and Misty will inevitably go looking for Natalie after Lottie kidnapped her in Yellowjackets’ season 1 finale, they may track down Van to see what she knows about these strange occurrences. As such, Van will likely join the reluctant team of survivors to confront Lottie, investigate Travis’s murder further, and rescue Natalie.
Not only does Yellowjackets season 2’s Van reveal lead to questions about why she broke off contact with Tai and the rest of the survivors, but it also implies that there are more survivors the series has yet to reveal. Yellowjackets’ adult timeline hasn’t confirmed whether Javi, Ben, and Mari, among others, survived the wilderness, so Van’s secret fate suggests the characters will find additional hidden survivors as they finally confront Lottie. However, as they reconnect with more figures from their past, they also run the risk of other survivors having nefarious intentions, possibly including Van.