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This article contains spoilers for You season 5.

When scream queen Jenna Ortega quit Scream VII, the pop culture world speculated on a variety of reasons as to why. Some said it was in solidarity with Melissa Barrera, who had been fired from the production due to her pro-Palestinian comments online. Others said it was because she was not happy with her new contract for the film. And perhaps the most popular theory going around was that the production conflicted with Netflix's Wednesday season 2, in which Ortega plays the titular role. Now, we know that Ortega left the production because she didn't have faith in it, as she said in an April interview with Deadline.

However, Wednesday seaosn 2 did keep the star from returning to another serial killer thriller in which she had played an important part: that is, Netflix's You, season 5.

Let's back up a bit - for those unfamiliar, Ortega was part of the You season 2 cast as Ellie Alves, a brave (if naive) 15-year-old for whom main character Joe Goldberg feels a sense of responsibility. For a show that was based around just how toxic of a villain Penn Badgley's Joe was, Ellie & Joe's relationship led to one of the most heroic (or at least, understandable) things Joe does on the show, which is to murder a pedophile that had tried to harm Ellie.

At the same time, Joe's past as a killer is discovered by Ellie's older sister, Delilah, which leads to her being locked in Joe's infamous glass box. When the box is discovered by Joe's then-love interest, Love Quinn, Love murders Delilah to keep the info from getting out. So yes, Joe does save Ellie in one way, but in anothre way, he ruins her life.

Smash cut to You, season 5, in which all (well, most) of Joe's past victims come back to haunt him, eventually leading to his very public downfall. You'd think that Ellie would be a part of that avenging force, but Ortega was nowhere to be seen. And according to the You showrunner, it was precisely because of her Wednesday schedule.

"We just couldn't figure out a way to make it work," said Michael Foley in an interview with Business Insider. "That was a thought that I'm sure when we were putting things together, we felt like maybe we could make this work, and we just simply couldn't."

However, Foley did reveal that, at one point during the planning stages, there was a storyline in You season 5 where Ellie Alves did come back. Specifically, the story would have seen her assisting Dominique (Natasha Behnam) and Phoenix (b), two online investigators that play a big part in facilitating Joe's downfall. Seeing as how Elli's character was shown to be a social media whiz and blooming detective for her own part in season 2, this storyline would've fit right in with her character.

But consider this - at no point in You did the creators ever consider renaming it, "Ellie." You might be able to see why she made the choice she did.

You season 5 is streaming on Netflix now. Wednesday season 2 part one comes to the platform August 6; Part 2 arrives September 3.

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