‘Yellowjackets’ Season 3 Premiere Breaks Series Record for Showtime

Yellowjackets made its long-awaited return to Paramount+ with Showtime last week, and Season 3 is already smashing records set by its predecessor. Debuting in 2021, the series tells the tale of a New Jersey high school girls’ soccer team that crashed in the Canadian wilderness in 1996, and how – for better or worse – that event helped shape their adult lives 25 years later.

Per Variety, the Season 3 premiere of Yellowjackets amassed over 2 million views across Paramount+ and Showtime last weekend, which is a big increase over the Season 2 premiere back in 2023. According to Paramount Global, the first episode, “It Girl,” achieved the series’ highest streaming viewership ever, boasting an impressive 58% increase over Season 2’s “Friends, Romans, Countrymen.”

There are many factors in play as to what went into the huge viewership increase for Yellowjackets Season 3, including the fact that when Season 2 debuted, Showtime was on its own back then before being absorbed into Paramount+ in 2023. There’s little doubt that the additional subscribers helped bring more eyeballs to Yellowjackets, thus padding those premiere numbers. Then there’s what’s known as the “Netflix Effect.” Yellowjackets Season 1 was added to the streaming service back in October 2024, which brought a whole new set of eyeballs to the series as it shot to the top of the charts. That surely helped increase Paramount’s subscriber base, who in turn viewed Season 2, and then tuned into Season 3.

‘Yellowjackets’ Season 3 is Dividing Fans and Critics

Despite those impressive numbers for the Season 3 premiere of Yellowjackets, it’s off to a rocky start in terms of how it’s being accepted. While it’s Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with a 91% from critics, fans have held it to a higher standard, giving it just a 72% thus far. That being said, though, it’s still a huge improvement over Season 2’s audience score, which sits at only 44%. Yikes!

“Yellowjackets continues to succeed in its nuanced understanding of how different minds process trauma, suffering, and self-preservation — through horror elements and impressive dialogue — and that’s enough of a reason to keep tuning in,” said MovieWeb’s own Bianca Piazza in her excellent review, while Erik Kain from Forbes had a differing opinion:

“Yellowjackets has lost not only that deliciously frightening sense of mystery and creepiness that kept the story humming, but also the humanity that made its characters so compelling to watch.”

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Further highlighting the divide, user B P on Rotten Tomatoes says Yellowjackets Season 3 “will have everyone buzzing for months to come,” and calls it “darker, bloodier, and more intense than ever.” By contrast, Jason M calls it “hot garbage,” adding: “The acting was so bad that I could not make it past the first episode. If the show has nothing of quality left to offer, then there’s no reason to continue watching the series.”

Still, Paramount has to be pleased with the numbers Yellowjackets Season 3 has managed to pull in so far, but will it be able to maintain that viewership over the remainder of the season? You can be counted among the masses by tuning into Yellowjackets each week on Paramount+ with Showtime, with new episodes dropping every Friday until its conclusion on April 11.