Yellowjackets showrunners Ashley Lyle, Bart Nickerson, and Jonathan Lisco have a confession: They never meant to make you believe Jackie got out of the woods, even before we watched her die in the show’s first season finale.

“To our minds, in that scene, we’ve made very clear that Jackie died,” Lyle says, referring to the awkward episode six brunch that launched a million fan theories—thanks to a journal that implied Jackie had somehow seen films released long after the Yellowjackets’ plane crashed in the spring of 1996. “I don’t think any of us predicted that people would not take us at face value as much as they haven’t.”

But that’s the joy of Yellowjackets. Some TV series are driven by compelling mysteries; some have fascinating characters; some are worthy showcases for actors who’ve long been underserved by typical Hollywood productions, particularly women in their 40s. It’s rare, though, for a show to do all three at once, or as stylishly as Showtime’s freshman drama. No wonder Yellowjackets gradually caught fire this winter, building buzz until it seemed like all anyone on Twitter was talking about.

Which the showrunners love. “The idea that our audience is so obsessed with looking at each frame, I find that very validating,” says Lisco. Still, Lyle admits, “We never anticipated that people would be paying this much attention in this particular way. And as somebody who has trolled some of the theories that you can find on the internet, it is both delightful and terrifying”—particularly when tiny details are blown way out of proportion, like Jackie’s journal.

Below, the trio chat about the finale’s biggest revelations, as well as their favorite fan theories—Shauna’s going to do what with her breast milk?!—and a few hints about season two. Oh, and just to set the record straight: Jackie is not a time-traveler. Shauna is the one who wrote those questionable diary entries, the showrunners say. Here’s how Lyle explains it: “Shauna has been participating in this guilt-laden ritual with Jackie’s parents for almost 25 years. And so to our minds, it made sense that especially in the first few years after she’s been rescued, and she’s feeling so complicit and responsible for Jackie’s death, that she might role play and try to keep her spirit alive by means of this journal.”

Vanity Fair: We learn in the finale that Lottie has become some sort of cult leader in the present day storyline. Are there more Yellowjackets who survived, who we just haven’t met yet?

Lyle: I would say we reserve the right to let the story evolve as we dig back into season two. But yes, the intention is that there are more survivors out there.

That’s very exciting. Have you thought about who is going to play Lottie in the future?

Lisco: We have. We have a very difficult time going into actual casting candidates, but “yes” is the answer. We have thought about it.

The way Lottie approaches and kills the bear in the finale feels like the show overtly embracing the supernatural. Is there a rational explanation for what happens between Lottie and the bear?

Lyle: I think that it is a tricky balance, and it’s a balance that will become even more difficult moving forward. Some of the horror movies that I’ve loved the most are the ones that do leave at least a little bit open for interpretation, so we want to always make sure that there’s a little bit of a rational parachute for everything. With this scene, we did a certain amount of research about animal behavior. When a person approaches a wild animal with an absolute lack of fear, it can really throw an animal off.

Nickerson: If magic is real, I think it has to not violate the laws of physics. We want the supernatural in this show to exist in that real way.

And if the characters believe that magic exists, then it doesn’t really matter if it’s “real” or not.

Lisco: That’s right. One of the things that fascinates me most is the excavation and exploration of dread. Dread can be the fear [that] someone’s going to come out of the woods and hit you over the head. But there’s also existential dread, which occurs inside you. And if that dread is being created by neurotransmitters or mental stressors or your own psychosis, what’s the difference? It’s just as real in some ways as if an actual monster were to come out of the woods.

This episode also reveals what happens to Jackie: that she froze to death after having a fight with Shauna. How did you decide that would be her fate?

Lyle: We always saw it as a point of no return. We knew that if we’re going to go from Point A, which is the girls that we see in the pilot, to Point B, which is the antler queen sitting around this ritualistic cannibal feast, we wanted to make sure that we earned that.

To our minds, the violence that will inevitably come needs to be precipitated by real tragedy. To have it be almost an accident, something that is preventable, something that is the extreme consequence of really basic and commonplace friction between two girls—to us, it was just the saddest possible death that we could think of for her, and thus have the most consequences for Shauna.

Is there going to be space for Ella Purnell, who plays Jackie, to return in some capacity in future seasons?

Nickerson: We—I’ll just say yes.

Lyle: Jackie is a character who will loom large. In a way she is a time traveler, I suppose.

Speaking of Shauna, I was surprised by the turn that her relationship with Jeff takes in this episode. At the beginning of the season, he seems like a dummy she got trapped into a marriage with—but it turns out that they’re actually a great match. They’re both unscrupulous; they’re both a little twisted.

Lisco: I’m so glad to hear you say that, because personally, I got sort of upset when the audience was like, “why is she married to such a dope?” And I thought, oh guys, just wait a second. We’re trying to take them on a journey.

Nickerson: That happened to us in the room, right? As the story was unfolding, people would say “Oh, I really like Jeff.” That relationship grew for us as well in a really cool way.

Lyle: This is a love story. It’s just not a love story with the person that Shauna thinks it’s a love story with. We built the season around the coming together of Shauna and Jeff, and them really seeing each other for the first time. It’s a real testament to Melanie [Lynskey] and Warren [Kole] that they could bring so much heart to such a twisted love story.

The reveal of Adam’s identity also subverts expectations. Is Shauna’s now-dead lover really just who he said he was?

Lyle: The idea was to put the audience in Shauna’s head, and in that kind of traumatized mindset. She really cannot trust the world around her. She can’t trust other people’s intentions. Trauma can just poison everything, and it becomes very self sabotaging.

We very intentionally tried to create a scenario where the audience was playing that game along with Shauna, and it worked very well; in one of the [Yellowjackets] recaps, the writer keeps calling him “the most suspicious man in the world.” But also we just thought, what a tragedy. Here is somebody who really is just interested in this woman—and because of what happened to her and because of the way that women are trained to see themselves at a certain age, she just cannot accept that. And then it goes so terribly wrong.

I’m sure that there are some people who are disappointed that he is not actually Jackie, who has gone through gender affirmation surgery—which is a theory that I definitely saw at one point. You guys are going deep. Respect!

I read an interview with Melanie where she said that she doesn’t know what happens to Shauna’s baby. Do you know?

Lyle: We know, but we will not say,

Nickerson: I really hope that some of the theories—the time traveler and all that stuff—I guess there’s a part of me that hopes those theories are fun, even if they’re wrong.

Lyle: There is a really impressive and genuine creativity and ingenuity that is happening amongst our viewers that we respect and appreciate. And as Bart said, I hope that this is fun. Every theory can’t be true, but I hope that the experience of coming up with them is really fun.

Okay. So they eat the baby.

[Everybody laughs.]

Nickerson: You got it!

Lisco: I have to say, it would be a mere morsel, if you’re trying to depend on that for supplies.

Lyle: I read a theory that they’re all going to survive on Shauna’s breast milk. And I was like, you guys are getting weird.

I sort of wish that Yellowjackets existed in the universe of the show, because I think that Misty would love Yellowjackets.

Lisco: That is the sequel! You cracked the sequel.

Nickerson: There could be a show that’s like, The Bumblebees—the bad version of this story.

Like when Christopher writes his movie on The Sopranos.

Lyle: Exactly! Cleaver. Oh my God. Romancing the Stone, but with a Misty as the author of Yellowjackets.

What inspired Misty?

Lyle: I think there’s a little Misty in all of us. Somebody on Twitter, another TV writer, posted a picture of herself today with her perm and her soccer ball looking extremely Misty. And she was like, “I can’t relate to this show at all.” Then I posted a picture of myself when I was 11 with my giant glasses, dressed as the world’s dorkiest devil.

And so there’s some amount of autobiography—taking that feeling of not fitting in or loneliness or wanting to be liked, and then just taking it to an absolutely bonkers extreme. Christina [Ricci] has just been such a delight, watching her play this part. She and Samantha [Hanratty] both. She’s just so much fun to write.

Even so, I was kind of surprised to see Misty go as far as she goes in the finale. I mean, Jessica’s dead, right?

Lisco: Right. She is dead. That’s why I think [Misty is] fascinating—a train wreck, but she’s also got a wish fulfillment quality to anybody who experienced that savagery as an adolescent. Could I actually get seen, and what would I have to do? And if I’m a little bit of a sociopath, maybe that wouldn’t affect me so much.

Which brings us to Taissa, who kills her own dog in a bid to help her win the election. Tawny Cypress is terrifying in that scene.

Lisco: She’s terrifying. She really sells this understanding and comprehension of her alter ego. She’s been repressing it that whole time—but now she knows. I think the question moving forward for Ash, Bart and me is, I hope we can buy back the audience for someone who’s decapitated a dog in the service of winning a State Senate campaign.

Yeah. What happens when Taissa runs for governor?

Lisco: Well, hopefully Simone will keep her mouth shut. I know Biscuit will.

Lyle: Too soon. Oh, too soon!

Lisco: One of my favorite theories—somebody thinks that Taissa is actually eating her own hand. Basically, she’s become a self cannibal. That’s a really cool idea; maybe we do something with that at some point. But that is not what’s happening here. That was supposed to be a dog bite on her hand.

Well, I saw that Stephen King has given the show his seal of approval, so maybe you can option “Survivor Type”—his short story about a plane crash victim slowly eating himself.

Lyle: I’ve read pretty much everything he’s ever written, and that’s one that got me, man. I think even he at one point said that he felt he went a little far with that one. That story really, really stays with you.

Was there any point during season one where you changed course because you thought the show was going too far?

Lisco: I don’t think because of shock value. I think because it wasn’t working on an emotional level.

Nickerson: I mean, I don’t think we really even set out to be that provocative. So things went that way organically because we’re telling this survival story. There has to be a viscerality to it, just to make the stakes as clear as possible.

Looking forward, do you have a set number of seasons you’d like to do?

Lyle: In an earlier interview, we admitted that we pitched five seasons—which is a thing I wish had never come out of our mouths, because people have really latched onto that. And to some extent, that’s a function of pitching a show. You want to give your supporters a real confidence that you have a plan, and we do have a plan. But that said, I think that the story is really what will dictate it for us. We certainly see it as multiple seasons. But exactly how many seasons really depends on the creative, and how much story we feel there is to tell.

So the show will be a several course meal.

Lyle: Yes, absolutely.

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