Yellowjackets spent several scenes building up to that emotional death, but how will cannibalism — and that subsequent plot twist — change the trajectory of the show?
Warning: Spoilers below for the newest episode of Yellowjackets:
During the Friday, March 14, episode of Yellowjackets, Coach Ben Scott (Steven Krueger) is not even on his last leg after Melissa cut his Achilles tendon, which kept him from being able to move altogether. Ben ultimately realizes he is out of options in the wilderness, so he asks Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) to put him out of his misery. Natalie refuses until he goes on a hunger strike and she decides to stab him in the chest to spare him a slow death.
“I really do think that this was kind of the perfect way for Ben’s story to end,” Krueger, 35, exclusively told Us Weekly about Ben making the choice to no longer fight for survival. “If you look at where he started and the impact that he has on the rest of the characters along the way. It’s transformational.”
Krueger confirmed that he knew Ben wasn’t going to be one of the survivors since the series premiered in 2021. But it wasn’t until filming was about to start on season 3 that he got the full breakdown of how Ben’s journey would end.
“I got a call very early on — well before we ever started shooting. Months before we started shooting, I spoke to all the showrunners: Ashley [Lyle], Bart [Nickerson] and Jonathan [Lisco],” he recalled. “A lot of times creators and producers aren’t that generous and they aren’t that thoughtful. You can imagine that no actor likes to hear that their character is dying on a show. So a lot of times because of the perceived potential backlash that they get, they wait.”
Krueger wasn’t always made aware of a character’s demise, adding, “I’ve been on a number of shows that involve death — obviously with vampires and aliens and all that — and you usually don’t find out until right before an episode or two before for very good reason. Our Yellowjackets showrunners, however, don’t like how that tastes. They wanted to be respectful so they gave us all a long heads up months before. And I really appreciated that. I thought that that was really good.”
He continued: “Also as an actor I liked knowing that this is where it ended up so that from the very beginning of the season I could start to craft that arc that ultimately would take place. So I thought it all just came together really nicely and it’s heartbreaking. But I think it’s kind of great as far as stories go.”
Despite Ben never being a supporter of the cannibalism that took place in the name of survival, the girls — and Travis (Kevin Alves) — ended up eating him following his death. And because this is Yellowjackets, the twists just kept on coming as their meal was interrupted by a man (Nelson Franklin) who accidentally stumbled across the group’s activities. It was a terrifying sight as the girls shouted and danced around Ben’s body, which is exactly what Yellowjackets was aiming for.
“So much of what happens to [Ben] ends up causing what comes next,” Krueger teased about the shocking reveal that the girls did potentially cross paths with people who could have helped save them before they were ultimately found by a rescue squad months later.
Krueger poked fun at the reveal that Ben was “devoured” even though he wasn’t a supporter of cannibalism for survival, quipping, “They definitely ate me. I remember I did have to go in and get a head mold made for my body because it’s on a stake. That was a traumatic experience. They definitely devoured me, but I don’t know how much of me is left.”
What does this mean for Krueger’s chances of making some kind of onscreen return?
“The cool thing about this show — as we know with Jackie [Ella Purnell] — is that characters always come back,” he teased. “There’s always either a flashback sequence or a ghosty type sequence or something like that. I certainly would not be surprised. While I don’t know for sure, I would not be surprised at all if Coach ends up making an appearance at some point in the future.”
Keep scrolling for Krueger’s answers to the bigger questions about Ben’s death — including what comes next:
Was There Ever a Chance Ben Could Live?
“There is always a chance on TV shows. Writers go into a show with a plan and then s— can hit the fan or audiences can respond in a different way. Story lines can always shift over the course of not only individual seasons but across the multiple seasons throughout an entire series,” Krueger noted. “I can say in this case, I was told from the beginning that Coach Ben would bite the dust at some point in season 3. That was always the plan.”
Krueger couldn’t deny that he “selfishly” wanted the plan to shift, adding, “I was like,’Oh, it might be cool if they changed that plan and had Coach Ben alive in the future and in the present day story line.’ I just think there’s some interesting dynamics there. However, I always really did think that for the sake of the show, Coach Ben dying and then the ripple effect that has on the rest of the characters is so rich.”
He continued: “But as we’ll see, literally as soon as Coach Ben is gone, it’s like a whole chain reaction of stuff goes down that kind of leads to exactly where they are now. It’s cool that it’s the inciting factor that pushes these characters into the rest of the show.”
What Made Ben Not Want to Fight to Survive Anymore?
“There’s two things [at play]. One is my perspective as an actor that isn’t actually the story that the writers were telling. But it’s something that I came up with, with one of my coaches that I work with a lot. But we played a lot of undertones and we had a lot of things going on internally that translated in different ways on screen,” he noted. “What I loved about the sixth episode when I first read it was it took me reading it a few times and I was like, ‘Wait, did we just do an in-episode time jump?’ We go through this really cool transition and this montage where you see the leaves changing and the little shelter that they built for me getting bigger and bigger to protect me from the elements.”
Krueger realized that Ben’s imprisonment “has been dragged out” over the course of many months on screen.
“At some point, Ben finally just realizes that regardless of what happens, this isn’t going to end well for him. Even if somebody came along and rescued them right now, there’s probably not a very happy ending in this. He’s been through so much pain and so much torture,” Krueger said. “At some point it’s like euthanasia. It’s like assisted suicide. When somebody is suffering, it’s like, ‘Please just help me out.’ The mind can only take so much and you finally just hit a breaking point where it’s like, ‘This is better for me and it’s better for you. Let’s just all do the right thing here.’”
Who Does Steven Think Burned Down the Cabin?
While trying to convince Natalie to aid in his death, Ben revealed he was the one who burned down the cabin at the end of season 2. But is that the truth — or just Ben’s way to force Natalie to assist him out of anger?
“As the actor playing the character, I actually think Ben burned down the cabin. That was something that I worked with privately. However, I think the distinction is Ben didn’t do it to try to kill them. That’s something that I was playing with a lot in my own mind — where I thought that it was a little bit too much of a simple answer to say Ben did it or didn’t do it,” Krueger explained. “I wanted to go a little bit deeper and figure out what makes this more interesting. That was what we came up with. I burned down the cabin not to kill them but because I saw them descending into this really dark place as a group. And maybe this wakes them up, it snaps them out a bit and maybe it motivates them to come together again as a team.”
The actor had a different perspective as an audience member, adding, “I would be so lost and confused about who burned down the cabin. I think that’s exactly the way that we intended it. I’m not sure that we ever truly find out — or are supposed to find out. My logical brain thinks we’re in an old wooden cabin and there’s just a giant open flame in the fireplace and candles all over the place. Even when we were on set filming, there were multiple times when I was worried with all the candles and flames. It can happen that easily and quickly. Everybody’s very quick to rush and blame a human being. I think it was just a powder keg waiting to happen.”
Why Was Natalie His Choice for Help?
“The calculation in Ben’s mind is like, ‘OK, either this can end with my closest confidant and ally mercifully helping me end my life — or this can end in an even more violent and gruesome way where somebody who hates me decides to do it themselves.’ So neither of those is great but one is certainly better than the other,” he detailed to Us. “That absolutely played into Ben’s decision where you can see some of these girls getting more and more pissed off. You can see tension starting to form within them about, ‘Why are we keeping him alive? Why are we force feeding him? Why are we doing all these things to him?’ The longer that goes on, the more there’s going to be a split in the group, which isn’t good for anybody. It’s like a little community service act or event.”
Krueger did acknowledge how Natalie’s choice to help Ben will continue to push her toward addiction and deteriorating mental health as a result of the trauma that took place in the wilderness.
“I don’t think Ben was also thinking very straight in those moments. If I was in my right mind as an adult, that’s not a burden that you should put on a teenager because she has to carry that for the rest of her life,” he said. “In the immediate aftermath, we see the fallout almost instantaneously. The excuse is that, at that point, I’m halfway gone already. I hardly even know the words that I’m saying.”
Krueger praised Thatcher for bringing her all to the scene, telling Us, “Filming that scene was one of the highlights for me of the entire series. From the first scene that we had together back in season 1, I just knew instantly that we really liked working together. We’re very similar as actors as far as our process goes and our love of the craft. It was really fitting and it actually lined up really beautifully that that was the last scene that I filmed. It was a really nice sendoff to end it with her.”
Were There Any Moments That Got Cut From Ben’s Brutal Final Episode?
Steven Krueger as Ben Scott in Yellowjackets. Kailey Schwerman/Paramount+
“I remember being very, very tired by the end of it. The force feeding scene was not fun at all. And I actually haven’t watched the full episode yet so I know that they’ve cut around it a little bit. We got a lot of pretty gruesome footage so they cut around it a decent amount and gave us the idea of what was happening. But it was pretty gnarly in the moment,” he noted. “I actually vividly remember at one point we were just in the heat of the moment and that stick that gets shoved into my mouth got shoved in and my lip accidentally caught on my tooth. It got pushed down and by the end of it, I was bleeding and they were like, ‘Wait, is that makeup blood or real blood?’ I was like, ‘I think it’s real.’”
He continued: “But at the same time, everybody did such a good job choreographing that and making sure everybody’s safe while making it look real. That’s a really fine line. It was a very exhausting last episode. I looked like I was dying so compliments to the team.”
Preparing for season 3 also required that Krueger lose a significant amount of weight that he has yet to fully gain back.
“It makes sense for the story to appear emaciated. I’m out there living by myself. I certainly don’t have access to a whole lot of food. I just thought it served the character really well and physically it did something for me as well,” he detailed. “I truly felt physically weak at times on set — never in a dangerous way — but I do think that it served a lot of what was going on psychologically as well.”
He added: “It did take a while [to start gaining the weight back]. Even to start reintroducing a normal meal pattern, it took several months. I’m still honestly kind of a little bit below weight-wise what I was. But it’s a process and it’s all part of it. As long as you do it in a healthy way then it can be really beneficial and serve the story.”
What Does the Cannibalism Signify?
Ben voiced during his life that he didn’t support eating another person, despite the need to survive in the wilderness. That was not honored by the girls, who “devoured” him the first chance they got — and Krueger didn’t disagree.
“It seemed like they were doing just fine as far as food went at that point. The first time when it was Jackie, everybody was starving. It was winter and there wasn’t a lot of food around. That was for actual survival. This time around, they’ve got animals and are growing vegetables so they could eat that,” he noted. “We’ve now moved into this territory of cannibalism for the sake of ritual, which that’s a whole other story. This is the first time that we’ve really seen them cross the line into something that they would really be in trouble for back in the real world. You can explain away somebody dying and having to eat them for sustenance and survival. This was murder.”
Krueger is curious how it will continue to trickle down.
“This is the first act that kicks off a long series of many acts where this is now indefensible when they get back. It shows you exactly the path that we’re going to start down to get to that point that we first saw in the pilot episode,” he added. “There’s this really interesting juxtaposition between people being so enthralled and intrigued with that first episode where we saw these girls literally being in a savage clan where they are people hunting each other, murdering each other and eating each other. People were like, ‘Whoa, this is so cool and dark.’”
He continued: “All of a sudden now, I feel like I’ve seen people saying, ‘Oh my gosh, they’re so mean. Why are they acting like this? They’re not sympathetic at all.’ And I’m like, ‘What did you think you were seeing in the first episode of the show? How do you think we get there?’ There’s got to be several steps along the way where you don’t like these people and where you might feel like they are irredeemable regardless of the circumstances. That’s an interesting evolution as far as how people are viewing the characters.”
Is Steven Surprised About the Resurgence in Support for Ben Before His Death?
“It’s cool but I very distinctly remember — I don’t know if it was the same people — but there were a lot of comments last season like, ‘What is Ben even doing? He’s so worthless. He’s not helping at all. He just lays around in his daydreams and they should eat him next.’ What I think is so cool about this show is that’s how quickly things can change,” he joked. “The writing is so magnetic and so dynamic because you can go from one season where some people hated Ben and now all of a sudden they want to figure out how to keep him alive so we can see him in the future. It’s just a testament to the writing, honestly.”
Krueger concluded: “It’s so fun and it keeps fans guessing. It’s a little heartwarming knowing that all of a sudden people have an attachment to this character. That just speaks to the fact that we’ve created a really, really cool story line for good old Coach this season.”
Could Steven Return in Another Capacity?
Steven Krueger as Ben Scott in YELLOWJACKETS Kailey Schwerman/SHOWTIME
Yellowjackets fans might be surprised to find out that Krueger is also a director. Could that be the way he would come back to the show?
“I think my analytical answer would be [I would love to direct] any episode they would let me. But I have a passion for the action type of episodes and anything that is a little bit more suspenseful,” he shared with Us. “I like creating that eerie and mysterious tone throughout the course of an episode — or my short film [Leaving the Light] is very much that tone too. I would love that.”
Looking back at his time on Yellowjackets, Krueger is grateful for the chance to play Ben.
“I think that Ben spent a lot of his life pretending to be somebody that he wasn’t — and that didn’t turn out great for him. If there’s one thing that people take away from it is you got to live your life and you got to be true to who you are and be authentic,” he shared. “This is by far the most challenging role I’ve ever played. It’s by far the best role and the best overall job that I’ve ever had. I feel like I’ve grown tremendously as an actor over the past several years as a result of this role and getting to sink my teeth into something like this. I just hope that I’m able to carry some of that over into whatever comes next.”
