Yellowjackets season 3's newest cast member addition suggests the show is going all in on community

Yellowjackets has been filming for a few months now, and it sounds like there's a new cast member that could be roped up, tied up, dead in a year.

As initially reported by Deadline yesterday, Joel McHale, best known for his role as the ever-asshole Jeff Winger on Community, has joined the third season of Yellowjackets' third season in a guest role. The official Yellowjackets Twitter account confirmed the news a little bit later in the day, splicing photos of McHale amongst footage of the show's opening, saying "Welcome to the hive" in the caption. Details of his character haven't been shared as of yet, but considering it's McHale, we can probably assume he's some kind of asshole-type character, an archetype he seems to find himself slotting into pretty frequently.

McHale joins an already strong cast, made up of actors like Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci, Juliette Lewis, Tawny Cypress, Sophie Nelisse, Liv Hewson, Ella Purnell, and Lord of the Rings' Elijah Wood. For those that haven't seen the show, it takes across two points in time, one set in the Canadian wilderness in 1996 where a group of high school girls crash landed and have to survive, the second timeline returning to some of the same women 25 years later in 2021 as they deal with the ramifications of what took place all those years ago.

The show's first season came out back in 2021, its second finishing May 2023. It'll likely be a bit longer of a wait until season 3 is released though, as last year's writer's strike put a pause on the show's pre-production schedule. Production began back in May of this year, so hopefully it won't be too long until we get to pick things back up again.

We should also be seeing McHale return to his role as Jeff Winger sometime in the next few years, as the long-awaited Community movie is currently in pre-production. Six seasons and a movie, after all!