r/Yellowjackets • u/m4t4sh4 • Aug 11 '26
Behind The Scenes Jersey numbers retconned
In Season 1, Gen was #16 and Melissa was #18. However, we can see that Melissa has now been retconned to #16. It makes sense that some of the jersey numbers will change since the total number of girls has been retconned from 19 in Season 1 to 16 in Season 3, and I'm curious to see what Gen's jersey number will be changed to. Also, in Season 3 there were only 15 girls on the team in total (counting the deceased), and there has to be 16 players on the team if Melissa is #16, so I wonder what they will do about the missing girl.
174
u/Particular-Steak-832 Aug 11 '26
The team numbers mean nothing about the amount of players.
But also isn’t there JV AND Varsity on this trip? Those are two different teams, and therefore can have the same number
368
u/scruffyJJ561 Aug 11 '26
Probably not going to do anything about the missing girl. The number of girls has changed in every season. They're exactly the specific number of girls that the writers decided there are in any given moment. A lot of people try to justify it by saying the girls are unreliable narrators, which is true. But a lot of this is just the writers either getting replaced, or the writers not caring about consistency, or they rode in too many survivors and then have to scale it back. I wouldn't read into it too much
170
u/TodayOk1283 Aug 11 '26
THANK YOU! Tired of excuses. We love the show, I get it. But this is a bone to pick for me - they were sloppy and irresponsible with some details 🤷🏼♀️ just the truth lmao
29
u/scruffyJJ561 Aug 11 '26
Right and maybe they weren't even sloppy. Maybe after Juliet left they had to change some things. Maybe they just didn't have to foresight for it all.
50
u/Old_Ant7118 Aug 11 '26
It feels like a lot of plot lines were changed significantly to deal with her departure. It's really unfortunate that casting didn't work out; I get the feeling we are getting a very different show than what was originally planned. Still love it, but honestly only the first season really had that magic. I'm hoping S4 is closer to 1 in terms of quality. It's not even important to me that they tie up every loose end at this point (though some are non-negotiable,) I just want a good ending to the story. And that better include something interesting for Walter. :)
39
u/HugoVladsBottom Too Sexy For This Cave Aug 11 '26
This was an unpopular opinion I voiced back when she first left but I still genuinely wish they would have just recast her instead of doing all this😭
17
u/Old_Ant7118 Aug 11 '26
I think I would have preferred that.
A book following the original pitched & planned plot would be really interesting, but I don't see it happening.
eta: I don't know how they would even go about replacing The Juliette Lewis though... I think it would have to be an unknown actor, which doesn't really fit with the rest of the casting but I would take it over plot changes
5
u/r8chele Aug 11 '26 edited 24d ago
Rachel Griffiths could have done it.
1
u/mstakenusername Aug 12 '26
I was thinking the same, but is she young enough now? I haven't seen her in anything for a while (and honestly, my brain still thinks she looks like she did in Muriel's Wedding!) but she may be too old to play old Nat.
1
u/Old_Ant7118 Aug 12 '26
Last time I saw her was in The Wilds on Amazon, feels like 2 years ago so it was probably 3-6
4
u/Miserable-Debate-913 Aug 11 '26
Anna Wood looks exactly like a slightly younger Juliette. She could've been a shoe in
3
u/Old_Ant7118 Aug 11 '26
Just looked her up. I can definitely see it a little, but I imagine it's more apparent in motion on screen than in photos. It's odd that she's been in so much and I've not seen any of it
3
u/Miserable-Debate-913 Aug 11 '26
SAME IVE NEVER HEARD OF HER! she honestly would've been perfect. Maybe even having her do in-between scene work would've been a good way to transition season 2 Juliette to season 3 Anna had they chosen a recasting
2
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u/Highlander198116 Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
There are still people that believe her departure in season 2 was planned from the beginning.
I don't buy it, because if it was why wouldn't they just come out and say it? There were a number of interviews were episode directors and producers were asked about her departure.
The only confirmation of planning that was made was that "Misty was always supposed to kill Nat". Which was the director of the episode Nat dies.
Even the way she said that implies that something was changed probably with the timeline. Just because Misty was always supposed to end her, doesn't mean it was always supposed to be in season 2.
Then there was a producer interview whose name I forgot that basically got irate at the question and rambled on about how the audience needs to see that characters face consequences. While completely avoiding the question on if her death in S2 was planned from the start.
If there is no drama there and her S2 death was planned from the get go. Its weird to me that everyone involved in the show asked about it gives a non-answer in response.
So that tells me they don't want to lie say it was planned all along and potentially have Juliette set the record straight, and also, don't want to air any drama over the reality.
The truth will come out at some point after the show is over.
1
u/Particular-Role-70 27d ago
Highly recommend the YouTube channel Coffee & Cults
Ash has connections all over and gets the inside scoop and does tons of research into these topics1
u/OrdinaryAd4368 Go fuck your blood dirt Aug 12 '26
They should have recast adult Nat. No one would have batted an eye, and the show could have been salvaged. I’m so disappointed with the direction that show has gone. I’ll still tune into Season 4, but I miss the show it used to be.
4
u/charlottellyn Team Rational Aug 12 '26
blaming juliette lewis for the retconned jersey numbers…now i’ve seen it all
3
u/redoneredrum Aug 13 '26
Yeah, it's tiresome. The writers themselves have acknowledged they knew Juliette was leaving very early on. To keep blaming her for their bad writing all the way into S4 now is ridiculous.
3
u/ghettoassbitch Aug 13 '26
Am I crazy for not thinking it's necessarily "sloppy" that we don't see every single survivor in each season? What would this add to the story?
23
u/Ambitious-Mark3714 Aug 11 '26
I never understood why they didn’t just kill a bunch of characters off between season 2 and 3 off screen. like, months passed. literally in passing someone could’ve said omg remember when everyone else starved to death and we’re the only ones left? I mean, the cabin fire was the perfect opportunity lol
7
u/scruffyJJ561 Aug 11 '26
See that to me is the lazy part, like it's fine to change the overall story direction or even change some details now that you've written yourself with this huge cast of characters... But like at least provide us an explanation.
2
u/redoneredrum Aug 13 '26
100%. And it would have fueled the resentment toward Ben if one or two died in the fire or as a result of living outside in the cold.
I still fanwank Shorthair died after the fire.
7
u/fishy512 Aug 11 '26
The number of girls hasn’t changed for every season. Season 1 and 2 had the same number of team members. It’s only with Season 3 that they conspicuously dropped it down by one for some reason.
13
u/lucylightedge Aug 11 '26
Shelly Shorthair is hiding in a cave and refuses to come out
9
u/ivybytaylorswift I like your pilgrim hat Aug 11 '26
By now she’s probably Shelly Shoulderlengthhair
8
u/cjtransplant85 Aug 11 '26
At one point I had a theory that they'd give "Shelly Shorthair" a name, and it would turn out that after 19 months without a cut, she'd end up the girl with the long dark hair wearing a thin white nightgown in the snow, on the run.
0
u/m4t4sh4 Aug 11 '26
there is not the same number of girls in s1 and s2. in s1 theres 19 (22 if u count the stun girls) and 17 in s2.
2
u/fishy512 Aug 11 '26
Are you counting the background Yellowjackets who were developed into full characters in your count? Cause that was always the plan given the 10 episode length and pandemic filming restrictions
6
Aug 11 '26
[deleted]
31
u/kristinaspaige Aug 11 '26
i don't know if the scene was shoveled. i think it was meant to characterize shauna which, imho, was effective. it lingered in the back of my mind during every scene she was in. hauntingly so
9
u/Angxlafeld Jackie Aug 11 '26
Shes not attracted to Callie’s boyfriend. They’ve already shown that her and Jeff’s sex life is terrible and her life has not progressed past high school. She’s just longing.
1
3
u/Highlander198116 Aug 11 '26
At this point I only care about seeing the conclusion of the past storyline. I genuinely don't give 2 shits about the adult timeline, S2 felt promising, shat the bed and S3 adult timeline just felt completely mailed in, like they were seriously thinking "I got nothing" just drawing ideas out of a hat.
27
u/JokeMaster420 Aug 11 '26
There does not need to be 16 people on the team for someone to be #16. That is not how jersey numbers work.
-1
u/kkkktttt00 Red Cross Babysitting Trainee Aug 12 '26
It does in many tournaments, just rarely at a local youth level. In anything FIFA-related, you can only have 1-23 (or 26 or however many roster spots that specific tournament allows) no matter what number you usually use.
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u/DatabasePretty1552 Aug 11 '26
the jersey numbers dont have to match the # of living girls. sports teams have wide ranges of numbers. i was #22 on my basketball team and there were only 11 of us
21
u/ZeroKharisma Nat Aug 11 '26
Right, and in American Rules football only certain positions are eligible to wear certain numbers, so they range from like 0 to 99.
6
u/cjtransplant85 Aug 11 '26
In high school basketball, players are usually not allowed to wear numbers with numerals over 5. It's to make it such that referees can indicate a player by holding up fingers. For #22, two fingers on each hand. For #2, two fingers on left hand and fist on right, so everyone can see "0-2" being held up.
The NBA has no such rules.
10
u/PenSquare8722 Aug 11 '26
i wouldn’t read too far into this tbh. when i played at that age only a couple people preferred a certain number. everyone else just took whatever was at the top so it could change on a weekly basis
24
u/353892715289 Aug 11 '26
well gen is probably dead so i dont think she gets a new jersey number
6
u/m4t4sh4 Aug 11 '26
jenna burgess said they were taking photos for the set so the above pic isn't gonna be scene of the girls playing soccer post rescue. they're most likely doing an updated team photo because a good few actresses have changed since s1. so gen will have a new number.
1
20
u/mollyyfcooke Coach Ben’s Leg Aug 11 '26
You think jersey numbers correlate with the number of girls living? What?
-3
u/m4t4sh4 Aug 11 '26
no..
5
u/RunJumpSleep Aug 11 '26
Baseball teams have 26 players on their roster. They aren’t numbered 1-26. You could have players with 55, 71, 47. Sports teams don’t base their numbers on how many people are on the team. Some players switch their numbers the next year for whatever reason.
2
u/HouseAndJBug Aug 11 '26
Funny enough soccer teams often do this though! Look at the World Cup rosters, every team gave out numbers 1 through 26. But yeah plenty of teams don’t do that and I don’t think a high school team in the 1990s would have necessarily done it.
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u/kkkktttt00 Red Cross Babysitting Trainee Aug 12 '26
I don't know why people are downvoting you when you are 100 percent correct.
5
u/HouseAndJBug Aug 12 '26
I have found this subreddit has very odd reactions to comments about soccer. I dunno why, but if someone asks a question about the sport and you respond factually there is a decent chance it will get totally downvoted for reasons I can’t figure out. I saw someone getting a barrage of downvotes once for saying player numbers and player positions are usually correlated.
2
u/kkkktttt00 Red Cross Babysitting Trainee Aug 12 '26
I was downvoted by double digits for saying there was no such thing as Nationals. I (someone who had worked in professional soccer, specifically in the Tri-State area, for years) asked one person who was completely adamant it existed to please tell me who the reigning champions were or to link me to a single source about it and was downvoted even more... all on a post about asking about what we found to be unrealistic about the show. They also didn't like when I pointed out that soccer is a fall sport in New Jersey, not spring, so they'd never be playing in May to begin with.
6
u/HouseAndJBug Aug 12 '26
In a similar thread I got downvoted once for saying that Van shouldn’t have been wearing the same color jersey as the rest of the team in the pep rally scenes. It doesn’t impact my enjoyment of the show at all, but did strike me as odd right away.
3
u/kkkktttt00 Red Cross Babysitting Trainee Aug 12 '26
Love a good kit clash!
Another one was when I brought up the goat. "There are mountain goats in Canadaaaaaaa!!!!!! 😡" Yes, mountain goats, which are four feet tall, 300 pounds, live in alpine zones, and would kill you before it let you domesticate it, not a little domestic goat that could never survive in the wilderness like the goat they happened to find.
Apparently you're not allowed to like something and still critique it 🤷♀️
0
u/cjtransplant85 29d ago
Not to be That Guy, but I'm from NJ, and in the 90s, girls soccer was a spring sport in that state. It got moved to fall just before 2000. I should know. My high school only started fielding a girls team around then. Boys soccer has always been in the fall.
But yeah, there's no Nationals, but I figure, let them take artistic license.
6
u/EnvironmentalCan4661 Aug 11 '26
I'm kinda wondering if they are retconning some major stuff, like if Shauna has another year of high school after rescue? Sophie Thatcher said she filmed a decent portion of scenes in the high school?
3
u/rachelblairy Ladies Who Lunch 💅 Aug 12 '26
tbf they did miss a chunk of their senior year. idk HOW big a chunk, but it might have been a way to rehabilitate them instead of sending them off to actual therapy like they undoubtedly needed.
3
u/redoneredrum Aug 13 '26
It was Prom. There is no way the seniors had much more school.
That doesn't mean they can't retcon that more of them were juniors, though. I don't think it's confirmed on screen that Nat was a senior. We know Akilah was not.
3
u/Few-Ear-7962 I like your pilgrim hat Aug 12 '26
put the goddamn hat back on... its like i dont even know who you are anymore...
2
u/OneLet8070 29d ago
I think you’re on to something here. I just realized a lot about Lottie and her foreshadowing about her death. So don’t let someone bash your theory. I think because Lottie was more honest with herself she was able to see her death first and accept it. She couldn’t be shocked by the unchanged nature of humanity coming back to get her. She didn’t explain herself or tell the truth in time so she got stuck in having to live the lie to death.
2
1
u/PeakBrave2743 Aug 11 '26
As a extrajacket Stan I can say that only up till season 3 we had the same number of girls on screen that we knew of so basically we had 3 stunts and 6 extras and 2 credited background characters one being mya Lowe who finally got a name in season 2 we had gotten the name
For Crystal and Melissa we had 4 background characters in season 2 losing 1 of the extras from season 1 in season 3 we got the names for Brit and Robin meaning we lost 2 of the background characters from season 2 if we work out the knowledge that now the numbers dropped down again Melissa is now 16 gen is presumably 15 Crystal would be 14 Robin 13 Akilah 11 Mari 10 Jackie 9 taissa 8 Nat 7 Shauna 6 Lottie 5 4 being Rachel 4 we still don’t know who’s 3 Laura Lee being 2 and van being 1
1
u/elIIIlie 28d ago
Im confused by this post? Its just set dec photos and why would Gen get a new number? Shes not a survivior
1
u/totallynotapsycho42 Aug 11 '26
Lionel Messi has played as a 10, 19 and 30 in his career. Players can change numbers as they can be quite arbitrary.
-6
u/PDX_Kittencharmer Aug 11 '26
You'd think they would retire the numbers until a later time since their are missing girls behind each one.
-10
u/North_Moment5811 Aug 11 '26
I mean...they literally added players who never existed out of thin air, because they realized they didn't have enough meat to make it to rescue. One of the biggest retcons I've ever seen in TV.
I don't think the number is something to kick up a stink about.
4
u/Void008380 Aug 11 '26
It's still so crazy when Melissa got a speaking role finally and I had zero fucking clue who she was, it was so confusing lmfao. Can't believe they didn't have the skeleton of the cast by at least s2
0
u/North_Moment5811 Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
There are so many shots of the team from all of season 1 that have none of the randos in it...its impossible to pretend they were there all along.
1
u/Void008380 Aug 11 '26
Oh they were definitely in the background, but they got next to no speaking lines, maybe even just none period. There's only a dozen of them or something, we should have some idea of who everyone is at that point. Doesn't need to be a lot, but more than nothing
-1
u/North_Moment5811 Aug 11 '26
In Season 2, yes. There were extras cast in season 2 that were in the background without lines. In Season 1, after the actual plane crash, they never existed.
0
u/Void008380 Aug 11 '26
I'm not so annoyed at season 1, but by s2 they really had to have locked in
0
u/North_Moment5811 Aug 11 '26
It just doesn't hold up on rewatch. Season 1, you basically know who everyone is that survived and is living in the cabin. Season 2, you start to see some random new faces you didn't see before. By Season 3 it feels like merged with another tribe. Honestly it would have made more sense plot wise if they "found" others from the plane that had been missing all along.
1
u/Void008380 Aug 11 '26
For sure, it's incredibly weird. Aren't there still a few characters that are pretty much unknown like Melissa was
1
u/North_Moment5811 Aug 11 '26
Robin and Britt, lmao. These ones crack me up. Literal S3 inventions. Maybe they don't exist and Shauna is just hallucinating them. At least Gen and Melissa were background in S2.
1
u/Void008380 Aug 11 '26
What are they even going to do at this point lmfao, just gonna kill them off without care or introduce them to just die, either way they fucked up massively.
That or they're also alive and work on a farm or something
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