Yellowjackets’s ‘Pit Girl’ Always Thought It Would Be Her

ABLUpdated 1 week Ago6 Mins read4

Spoilers follow for “Full Circle,” the season-three finale of Yellowjackets.

Since the very first episode of Yellowjackets, fans have speculated about the identity of “Pit Girl,” a popular nickname for an unidentified character from the very first scene of the show. She’s a girl with dark hair running barefoot through the snowy woods in a white nightgown and a heart-shaped pendant, fleeing her bloodthirsty teammates in the Canadian wilderness — but she falls in a hidden pit lined with sharp stakes, and the team feasts on her flesh that night. The character is an enigma, the focus of one of the series’ biggest mysteries.

Earlier in season three, the show introduced a frog scientist named Hannah (Ashley Sutton), a likely candidate for Pit Girl. But she turned out to be the final red herring before the real reveal in this week’s finale: It was Mari Ibarra (Alexa Barajas) all along. She’s the latest sacrifice, chosen by the team after drawing the unlucky Queen of Hearts card before the hunt. Many fans have suspected Mari from the beginning — there are only so many characters with dark hair, though the actual opening flash-forward was shot with a stunt double — but watching her run toward an inevitable end feels like an especially tragic full-circle moment after a season that allowed us to see an often-immature, unkind character in a new light. “For so long, so many of the fans were rooting for Mari to finally just be gone. Be Pit Girl,” Barajas says. “Seeing such a vulnerable side of Mari this season allows you to root for her, hopefully.”

At what point did you learn that you’d be playing Pit Girl?
I remember when I first got cast, I got to watch the pilot, because it was filmed before I was even attached to the show. I remember going, “Oh my God, I think that’s me.” I always had a hunch that that was me. Once it was officially confirmed, I had a talk with the writers and the creators of the show.

Was that conversation before this season?
It was during this season.

Oh wow, so you really weren’t sure for most of your time on the show.
I was sitting there with the fans theorizing who it was going to be. With some theories, I’m like, “Oh, this is too much, I’m not going to read all this.” But they get so creative, and they’ve been right about a lot of things.

In the season premiere, Mari falls in Ben’s pit, which felt like either foreshadowing or just a winking tease about the common theory. But you didn’t know at the time.
I didn’t know. We’d been theorizing for so long that she is Pit Girl, but maybe having one moment is too quick, so why not be in the pit for longer to really get that satisfaction of Mari being in the pit? Those were my thoughts.

Walk me through shooting that hunt sequence. Were there specific beats you had to recreate from the flash-forward?
Yeah. I remember reading the episode and thinking, “So you have the picking of the cards, and then you have the chase, and then eventually you get to her falling into the pit.” I got to collaborate with the hair team and wardrobe team. I was like, “What if it’s a slow burn, even through the episode, even though you’ve already been waiting for so long?” We kind of slowly reveal to you that Mari is Pit Girl, so we made sure that her windbreaker was zipped all the way up, and my hair was actually up during the picking of the cards. Then, once we get to the scarecrow of it all, you see, “Oh, okay, the windbreaker is open,” and as it’s coming off, the hair is coming down, and you see the dress underneath, then it’s fully Pit Girl–ified.

It was really fun shooting all the running sequences, trying to match the pilot: how she was moving her arms, and hopefully the fear, and eventually her final run before falling in. We were on location, but it was all fake snow.

Setting aside the Pit Girl of it all, what did you think of Mari’s story this season?
It’s so fun that we got to know Mari better and see more of her come to life, to see different sides of her that even I hadn’t seen. It was cool to slowly shed her layers. It took a while for her to get there. She literally had to be, like, about to die to finally be like, “Okay, fine, this is who’s really inside.”

For a while, after Mari makes her way back to the group, she sort of just gets reabsorbed without drawing attention to herself. You kind of want her to defend Ben more strongly, because it seems like she does believe he didn’t burn down the cabin and that he’s a good guy. Where is she coming from at this point in the story?
She comes back, and she wants to fit in with everybody so badly, and then it all kind of flips on her and she’s feeling guilty because she didn’t really want to lead them to Ben and now he’s suffering all the consequences. That guilt is what makes her go back in and not stand out. She really did mess up, and now that she fits in, she almost doesn’t want to, because it came at such a big cost.

After Nat mercy-kills Ben, Mari kind of privately reprimands her during the feast, but it feels like she might actually approve of what she did. How did you play that scene?
That’s one of my favorite scenes of the season. Mari is so conflicted in understanding her own feelings, but is so grateful for Natalie and wants to say “thank you” for putting him out of his misery — but also is still so terrified of the group and too scared to outright stand with Natalie and be like, “You did something that was good.” That was Mari’s way of saying “thank you,” even though she’s terrified of what that could come with. The stakes are so high as to what happens when you’re in the wrong with the group.

At times, Mari can be one of the most mean and off-putting characters, which I mean as a compliment. But in this season, we see a slightly more tender side of her, and Shauna has kind of become the villain. In a Shauna-versus-Mari match-up in the past, you’d be rooting for Shauna and want Mari to get taken down a peg.
For so long, so many of the fans were rooting for Mari to finally just [makes throat-cutting motion] … be gone. Be Pit Girl. Seeing such a vulnerable side of Mari this season allows you to root for her, hopefully. Shauna’s got a lot more on her plate and is a lot angrier. I want to say what Mari would’ve really wanted was for them to be friends, but she was too afraid of her. She wanted to just feel accepted by her but could never get that, so instead she’s pushing back.

Why do you think they butt heads so much?
I think she’s the only one who is willing to call her out. At least at the beginning, she was the only one to be like, “I don’t care what happened. We’re all going through stuff. She doesn’t just get to get away with everything now,” which in some ways is insensitive, but she was willing to say something as long as everybody was around to keep her safe.

It does feel kind of fitting that Shauna stepping in during the card-drawing is what ends up dooming Mari, even if she doesn’t know Tai and Van’s intended target.
We have the conflict with Shauna at the beginning of the season, and now it comes full circle. Even though she’s not the one to push me in the pit, she’s still at fault for my death.

I want to talk about Mari’s relationship with Lottie. She used to be a true believer when it comes to the wilderness. How has that changed?
Back in season two, they were all going through such a dark time with the winter and so much lost hope. She was trying to latch onto Lottie and whatever bit of hope was left. As the winter is gone, and you see us thriving at the beginning of season three, she doesn’t have to hold onto it as closely because she’s feeling more hopeful and happier. Then Lottie pushes so hard on the other end — Mari was holding onto Lottie for a hope of rescue, and then as soon as Lottie took that away, we really see a flip with Mari to go, “Nope, don’t side with you anymore.”

Mari’s last interaction before falling in the pit is with Lottie, and Mari just says, “Oh my God, fuck off” and runs away.
I remember reading that line and being, like, “Yup.” If Mari’s going to have some famous last words, these are it. The most Mari that Mari can get.

You’ve said you’d want Olivia Munn to play a grown-up version of you in that timeline. Do you think about what might have become of Mari if she’d made it out of the wilderness?
She’s a shit-disturber at heart, so she’d be doing some of that in the future in one way or another. But selfishly, as much as I would’ve loved a counterpart to stay on the show forever, on the other side, I’m kind of happy I never had to share Mari. I got to keep her all to myself.