This Is The Biggest Question You Probably Have About Yellowjackets

Showtime’s Yellowjackets arrived just before Thanksgiving as a critical darling, with rave reviews claiming the show could be the next Lost. It’s an understandable comparison; the series begins with the 1996 plane crash of a private aircraft carrying a high school girls soccer team called the Yellowjackets. The survivors, almost exclusively students, spend 19 months lost in the Canadian wilderness. Twenty-five years later, someone may be murdering the survivors in the present day. But many people aren’t watching Yellowjackets, largely because they don’t know *how* to watch it.

Yellowjackets is assisted by having a truly fantastic cast. It stars Melanie Lynskey (Two and a Half Men), Tawny Cypress (Unforgettable), Juliette Lewis (Secrets and Lies), and Christina Ricci (Mermaids) as the present-day survivors and Sophie Nélisse (Monsieur Lazhar), Jasmin Savoy Brown (The Leftovers), Sophie Thatcher (When The Streetlights Go On), Ella Purnell (Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children), and Sammi Hanratty (Shameless) as their teen counterparts lost in the wilderness.

The 10-episode season began on Nov. 14 and will run weekly on Showtime until mid-January. Each episode becomes more mysterious, with possible fantasy overtones in the past and people having visions in the present. And of course, there is the murder and the fear that whoever did it will come for the rest.

Showtime’s parent company, ViacomCBS, seems to be trying to get people into this show, and the network has put the premiere (entitled “Pilot”) in a couple of places to watch for free. For instance, it’s up on YouTube in full for anyone to watch. It’s also on ViacomCBS’ free streaming service, PlutoTV.

But how do you watch the rest of it if you don’t subscribe to cable with the premium cable network Showtime as an add-on? Luckily, Showtime is available as a stand-alone service one can subscribe to directly, under the name of Showtime Anytime. So that’s one way you can watch, even if you’re a cord-cutter. But that’s about it right now. Unless you subscribe directly or have a cable login with Showtime, there’s no way to watch it, at least not until the season is over.

However! Once the show’s season ends, it’s expected to appear on at least one streaming service: Hulu. Hulu already has a landing page for Yellowjackets prepped and ready to go, but no episode is available yet. Showtime series also tend to wind up on Netflix, so there is a good chance it could turn up there 90 days after the season concludes. And there’s the new Paramount+, where ViacomCBS is moving its content, so hopefully it will end up there too.

Until then, for those with Showtime, Yellowjackets Season 1 is airing weekly with new episodes every Sunday at 9 p.m. ET.