TV Family Trees
← All Shows

Yellowjackets · A Viewer's Companion

Every survivor is two actors, 25 years apart. This chart pairs them up.

This isn't a family tree — it's an identity map. The show cuts between 1996 (a girls' soccer team starving in the wilderness) and 2021 (the same women, badly reassembled), and matching the teen faces to the adult ones is the hardest part of watching. So every survivor here gets two cards joined by a doubled bone-white tie: green border = the 1996 wilderness, maroon border = 2021, tan = the civilians they married and raised — who were never on the plane.

1996 — the wilderness timeline 2021 — the present timeline civilian — never crashed same person — teen ’96 = adult ’21 marriage parent → child secrets & killings † dead in that timeline — through Season 3
each doubled tie = one survivor, two eras: teen card (1996) · adult card (2021) Misty’s fentanyl syringe — S2 finale wilderness sweethearts — together again in 2021 Jeff was Jackie’s boyfriend — Shauna’s secret best friends m. m. their son their daughter brothers 1996 Van goalkeeper · storyteller Liv Hewson survives a wolf attack 2021 Van † runs a 90s video store Lauren Ambrose † S3 — killed at Melissa’s 1996 Lottie the visionary Courtney Eaton the first Antler Queen 2021 Lottie † wellness-compound guru Simone Kessell † S3 — pushed downstairs 1996 Natalie the hunter · best shot Sophie Thatcher elected leader in S2 2021 Natalie † fresh out of rehab Juliette Lewis † S2 — Misty’s syringe 1996 Misty equipment manager Sammi Hanratty smashed the black box 2021 Misty nurse · citizen detective Christina Ricci cleans up every mess 1996 Taissa defender · sleepwalker Jasmin Savoy Brown eats dirt in her sleep 2021 Taissa New Jersey state senator Tawny Cypress still splits in two 2021 Simone Taissa’s wife Rukiya Bernard hurt in the S2 car crash 1996 Jackie † team captain — no adult Ella Purnell † S1 — froze in the night 1996 Shauna Jackie’s best friend Sophie Nélisse pregnant — by Jeff 2021 Shauna housewife with a knife Melanie Lynskey killed Adam in S1 2021 Jeff Sadecki Shauna’s husband Warren Kole yes — the blackmailer 1996 Coach Ben † assistant coach · amputee Steven Krueger † S3 — Natalie’s mercy kill 2021 Sammy Taissa & Simone’s son Aiden Stoxx sees “the bad one” 1996 Travis Coach Martinez’s son Kevin Alves Natalie’s first love 2021 Travis † dead before the reunion Andres Soto † 2021 — hanged, early S1 1996 Javi † Travis’s little brother Luciano Leroux † S2 — under the ice 2021 Callie Sadecki Shauna & Jeff’s daughter Sarah Desjardins pushed Lottie in S3
Hover over any portrait to enlarge it. How to read it: every doubled bone-white tie joins one survivor's two cards — the green-bordered teen of 1996 on the left, the maroon-bordered adult of 2021 on the right. Jackie, Javi and Coach Ben have no maroon card because they never left the woods; Travis has both cards, but his maroon one is already a dead man when the 2021 story begins. Gold lines are marriages, grey lines drop to children, and the dashed maroon lines are the secrets: Jeff dated Jackie before (and during) Shauna, and Misty's syringe is what really ended Natalie. Covers Seasons 1–3.

How to match a face across 25 years

The show never labels its timelines — you're meant to recognize people. These are the tells that carry across the cut.

The trick

Read the hair, then the vibe

Van keeps the red hair and the wolf-attack scar down her cheek in both eras. Misty keeps the glasses and the tight curls. Natalie keeps the bleach-blond grunge look — Juliette Lewis is just the 1996 rocker girl, weathered. Shauna keeps the soft brown curls and the unimpressed stare. Lottie is the tall, serene one in both eras; Taissa the immaculately composed one who is never as composed as she looks.

The founding secret

The Shauna–Jackie–Jeff triangle

Before the plane went down, Shauna was sleeping with Jeff — her best friend Jackie's boyfriend — and she boards the flight secretly pregnant by him. Jackie freezes to death outside the cabin never knowing the whole of it. Back home, Shauna married Jeff and named no one anything: their daughter Callie spends three seasons excavating what her parents buried. Almost every 2021 lie on this chart traces back to that triangle.

The wilderness

What the Antler Queen is

The crown of antlers marks whoever the group treats as the conduit of “the Wilderness” — the it-that-chooses that they feed with hunts. Lottie, the visionary whose medication ran out with the plane, wears it first; by Season 3 the queen's court runs the drawing of cards that decides who is hunted. It's the show's central image: a homecoming queen for a society that eats people.

Died out there

Who never left the woods

Jackie froze on the first night of winter (S1) — the team later ate her. Javi went through the frozen lake (S2) while the girls let him drown in Travis's place. Coach Ben, starved and one-legged, was mercy-killed by Natalie (S3). Shauna's baby boy did not survive his birth (S2). They get only green cards: there is no 2021 version of them.

Died back home

Who made it out — and died in 2021 anyway

Travis is found hanged before the adults even reunite (early S1). Adam Martin, Shauna's affair, is stabbed by her (S1). Kevyn, the cop and old classmate, gets Walter's spiked cocoa (S2). Natalie dies at Lottie's compound by Misty's syringe (S2). In S3, Lottie is pushed down a stairwell by Callie and Van is stabbed at Melissa's house. Surviving the wilderness was the easy part.

The pairing cheat sheet

One line per survivor: the 1996 actor → the 2021 actor. Tape it to your remote.

Shauna Shipman → Sadecki

Sophie Nélisse → Melanie Lynskey. The diarist. Jackie's best friend, Jeff's wife, Callie's mother, Adam's killer — and the wilderness's best butcher.

Natalie Scatorccio

Sophie Thatcher → Juliette Lewis. The hunter with the shotgun and the eyeliner. Elected leader out there; dead at Lottie's compound back here (S2). †

Taissa Turner

Jasmin Savoy Brown → Tawny Cypress. The senator. Sleepwalks in both timelines; her "bad one" self does things she can't remember. Wife Simone, son Sammy.

Misty Quigley

Sammi Hanratty → Christina Ricci. Glasses and curls in both eras. Equipment manager turned nurse turned the person you call to hide a body.

Lottie Matthews

Courtney Eaton → Simone Kessell. The visionary, then the guru in purple. First Antler Queen in '96; pushed to her death in 2021 (S3). †

Van Palmer

Liv Hewson → Lauren Ambrose. Red hair, scarred cheek, video store full of VHS. Taissa's love in both timelines; killed at Melissa's house (S3). †

Travis Martinez

Kevin Alves → Andres Soto. The coach's son, Natalie's first love. His adult self is already dead when the show starts digging (S1). †

Melissa

Jenna Burgess → Hilary Swank. Season 3's trap: a background '96 teammate you barely clocked resurfaces as a two-time-Oscar-winner with a new name and a wife.

Only in 2021 — no teen card needed

Adam Martin as seen in the show, played by Peter Gadiot

Adam Martin †

Peter Gadiot

The artist Shauna's affair — and, when she decided he knew too much, her victim. He didn't. (S1) †

Walter Tattersall as seen in the show, played by Elijah Wood

Walter Tattersall

Elijah Wood

Misty's fellow citizen detective — rich, bored, devoted, and quietly the most dangerous person on the board. Poisoned Kevyn's cocoa.

Kevyn Tan as seen in the show, played by Alex Wyndham

Kevyn Tan †

Alex Wyndham

Wiskayok cop and '96 classmate who dated Natalie and investigated Shauna — two fatal hobbies. (S2) †

Adult Melissa as seen in season 3, played by Hilary Swank

Melissa

Jenna Burgess (teen) · Hilary Swank (adult)

The S3 reveal: a ninth survivor who faked her death, changed her name, and married a woman who has no idea. Shauna's pen pal, Van's killer.

A note on the portraits: these are the characters as they appear on screen — official stills from the Yellowjackets wiki, cropped and served from this site so nothing hotlinks anyone else's servers. Each paired character uses one era-correct still per card. Chart reflects the story through the end of Season 3 (aired spring 2025) — spoilers to there, including every death marked †.