Welcome to the Yellowjackets 201 recap. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to type those words!!! I am so, so excited to be back recapping my favorite show on television and the main reason I won’t stop talking about cannibalism in my everyday life. Before we get into the recap properly, I just want to remind regular Autostraddle readers that I write recaps a bit differently than some of the rest of our team. My recaps are not image-heavy, do not go perfectly chronologically, and rarely touch on every single thing that happens. I tend to focus on overarching themes and the points that standout the most to me and move around nonlinearly.
The Last Buzz section at the end is for any extraneous things I still want to touch on that don’t fit in anywhere else in the recap. If there’s something I didn’t talk about in the recap that you want to talk about, hop on into the comments where I am very active and love to hear theories, predictions, and thoughts. Let’s chat!
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Catch up on season one recaps. A+ members can also join me for a virtual watch party of the premiere tonight at 8 p.m. eastern. Today is a great day to become an A+ member, which helps keep the majority of content on Autostraddle free to read, including these recaps!
Welcome back to Yellowjackets, where things have changed. It’s winter! The meat from the bear slain by Teen Lottie is almost all gone! Adult Lottie is here! Teen Shauna sees dead people! WAIT IS THAT “SEVENTEEN” BY SHARON VAN ETTEN?
Yes, continuing its early-cemented legacy as having some of the best needledrops on television, Yellowjackets season two opens with one of my favorite #sadgirl musicians Sharon Van Etten crooning:
I know what you wanna say
I think that you’re all the same
Constantly being led astray
You think you know somethin’ you don’t
It looks…very cold out there. Nat and Travis ready themselves to head out to both look for game and for Javi, who has been missing ever since Shauna told him in a demon voice to run on the night of the Doomcoming “party.” Those porn magazines they found when they first arrived at the cabin sure do come in handy as additional insulation under their animal pelts and cobbled-together winter fits! Everyone is doing great. Before they head out, they participate — somewhat hesitantly — in a lil ritual with Lottie where she draws on them with ash and makes them drink tea spiked with her blood. Lottie takes credit for the fact that they keep coming back alive and also makes sure to fingerpaint the Yellowjackets symbol — whose meaning we still don’t really know — on the window. We’ll come back to Lottie!
I’m going to skip ahead a bit to my favorite scenes of the episode: Teen Shauna talking to Dead Jackie. We’ve seen Adult Shauna imagine and talk to dead Teen Jackie in season one. But now we see the origins of this haunting. As far as timelines in the premiere go, the wilderness timeline picks up two months after Jackie got freezer-burned to death following her explosive fight with Shauna that saw her banished from the cabin. The present day timeline hasn’t moved forward as much, starting pretty much immediately after Nat is kidnapped from her motel room and after Adam has been killed and disposed of. There’s a special third timeline, too, which I’ll get into. But for now, let’s talk about Shauna in the shed with a diary, chatting it up with her dead best friend.
“i’ll tell you how i’m doing: NOT WELL BITCH!”
The smash cut from Shauna talking to an imagined alive Jackie to Jackie’s lifeless, bluish corpse is so immediately haunting and really emphasizes just how off the deep end Shauna has gone, consumed by guilt and grief. We see Jackie filling out a game of MASH, and in the back of our minds we have to hold onto the reality that it’s just Shauna playing the game…with herself…her traumatized brain slotting Jackie in. The explanation as to why Jackie had movies in her journal in season one that she would not have been alive to see is, of course, that these are actually Shauna’s journals, that she is pretending to be her dead best friend in the margins of her life. I pretty much called this. The MASH page we see in season one is the game we watch unfold in this premiere:
“Jackie’s” journal, in season one
After their relatively chill — but disturbing — game of MASH, Shauna later in the episode argues with Jackie’s corpse about Jeff. “Jackie” wants to know how Shauna and Jeff started, and she uncovers that Shauna kissed Jeff first. This is all Shauna’s inner turmoil bursting to the surface. She never got to confess any of of this to Jackie, so now she’s confessing to her corpse. It’s fucked up! The others in the cabin are concerned, but not enough to actually do anything about it, all a little unsure what to say to someone who is talking to their best friend, especially when that someone is pregnant with her dead best friend’s boyfriend’s baby. Things escalate between Shauna and her human popsicle of a bff, and she pushes the body. Jackie’s ear falls off. Shauna panics and tries to reattach it, but when it becomes clear that’s not happening, she pockets the ear.
It’s time to consider the important question posed at the end of season one: Who the fuck is Lottie Matthews? As aforementioned, there’s a third timeline in the premiere, and unlike going back to before the crash like season one sometimes does, we’re instead in 1998. We get our first brief glimpses into the actual rescue, some of the Yellowjackets emerging to a swarm of press wanting to know what happened to them out there. Teen Lottie’s rich parents are concerned because she hasn’t talked or eaten since the rescue. They put her in electroshock therapy, which triggers memories of that strange underground industrial tunnel thing she also hallucinated about during her lake baptism with Laura Lee (RIP). Where is this! Why is this! In what appears to be a mental institution, Teen Lottie consoles another patient by placing her hand on her chest and telling her to breathe. We see Lottie do this again in the past with Travis, easing him out of a panic attack brought on by the ongoing mystery of Javi’s disappearance. Only, when she soothes Travis out of his panic, he gets a boner (and also sees a vision of the tree altar thing, with light puncturing it). I’m wondering if we’re going to end up getting a love triangle situation between Travis/Lottie/Nat, because television loves a love triangle, and Jackie’s no longer around to drive a wedge between Travis and Nat. I’m also still holding onto hope that Lottie is queer.
“and that’s why I believe if Jackie had only thought warm thoughts, she’d still be with us today”
Early in the episode, we meet Adult Lottie, played by new castmember Simone Kessell (who is mommi but I digress). Lottie has apparently taken her ability to place a hand on someone’s chest and calm them down and turned it into…an empire? A cult? She’s out in the woods — a different woods — giving motivational speeches to a bunch of people wearing purple about how no one can save them but themselves. We can check back in on Lottie when we eventually get to Adult Nat’s whereabouts.
Adult Shauna is in a dark room being interrogated about the murder of Adam Martin. Well, it’s a mock interrogation, being led by Misty inexplicably using a voice changer as she asks increasingly absurd questions. Shauna is not very good at answering said questions, prompting Misty to say: “The only thing you should ever say to the police is I want my lawyer. That’s why I put it on the cookie.” CUT TO:
Ah, Misty, I’ve missed thee.
As if that weren’t enough, Misty also suggests Shauna take home a “punch kit” of the “Hawaiian 5-0 punch” that she made that is just Hawaiian punch with a cool name, and yes, she wants Shauna to take some in a container to go with a borrowed ladle. All of these women have a tendency to revert to teenage versions of themselves periodically, and this screams Teen Misty Desperate To Make Friends. Speaking of which, Teen Misty does make a new friend in the woods. She’s still being frozen out by the team — but not quite as literally as Jackie was — for collectively poisoning everyone. But a gaggle of new girls from the JV team are introduced in the episode and include Crystal, a certified theater dork who goes around singing showtunes and volunteers herself as Misty’s new vocal coach. Are we perhaps seeing the origins of Misty’s love of showtunes?
Taissa and Nat were supposed to come to this little murder cover-up training session, but Nat is busy being kidnapped, and Taissa is busy buying a new dog named Steve for Sammy to smooth over the fact that Biscuit is missing and it’s probably her fault. As we know, Biscuit is more than missing; he’s missing his head. And when Taissa arrives at school to pick up Sammy and surprise him with Steve, Simone barges in to tell her to stay the fuck away from Sammy. She gives Tai an ultimatum: Quit public office and seek help for whatever caused her to behead a dog and create a creepy sacrificial altar in their basement or Simone and Sammy will no longer be in her life and she’ll go to the press.
The problem is that Tai doesn’t know what Simone’s talking about. She hasn’t seen the altar in the basement yet. But when she goes home, she crawls through the vent just like Simone does in the season one finale. She sees the Blair Witch ass art project for herself, and when Steve runs in (protect Steve at all costs!) she picks him up and says: “This was a mistake. I’m gonna do better with you.” It’s such a fantastically unnerving horror moment, delivered expertly by Tawny Cypress who, in case you missed it, came out as queer in the Shudder LGBTQ horror docuseries Queer for Fear, and her coming out realization happened when she was a teen watching none other than her now-costar Melanie Lynskey in Heavenly Creatures. Even though I’m worried about Taissa’s sleepwalking, ever since we’ve had confirmation that “the bad one” is indeed her in some sort of fugue state, I’ve been thrilled about seeing more range from Cypress, who so often has to just play the “straight guy” in scenes. But we get to see her be funny, scary, and emotional in the spanse of this premiere.
funny!
scary!
Our lovebirds Teen Tai and Teen Van are also grappling with the complications brought on by Tai’s sleepwalking, though thankfully there are no dogs to behead in the wilderness. The freeze also means Tai doesn’t have easy access to dirt to shovel in her mouth either. PLUS, Van has come up with the perfect solution: She and Tai sleep quite literally bound together by rope in the attic so that Other Tai can’t get up to any middle-of-the-night shenanigans. The only downside is that sometimes Other Tai yanks so hard that Van ends up with bloodied wrists (“Maybe I just want you to tie me up, ever think of that?” Van teases when daytime Taissa notices the wounds). At one point, Taissa wakes Van up by kissing her, but when she bites too hard on Van’s lip, it’s clear this is Other Tai, and Van’s exclamations make her snap out of it. This indeed all seems more serious than just a simple case of trauma-induced sleepwalking. Taissa appears possessed, and we know her future self is capable of violence when in this state. But Van insists she’ll do whatever it takes to keep Tai safe, even if that means perpetual rope-burn of the wrists. In a very goth gay move, Van chooses to tell Tai she loves her for the first time by using the blood from her lip to fingerpaint I 💗 U on Taissa’s arm. It would be cute if it weren’t so spooky! But also it seems exactly like the kind of metal gay shit a head-over-heels teen would do, especially one surrounded by casual starvation and violence day in and day out. In any case, Taissa loves her back! And says so with her words rather than her blood.
Adult Nat’s absence from the interrogation-cookie cake-Hawaiian punch party can be explained by the fact that she’s chained to a bed somewhere very far away. Enter: Autostraddle fav Nicole Maines as Lisa! Lisa’s the designated kidnapping supervisor for squirmy, screamy Natalie, who takes one look at her necklace with THE symbol on it and says she knows everything she needs to know. I still have questions, but oh well! Nat smooth-talks her way into getting close enough to Lisa to stab her in the face and the hand. Listen, never think you can outsmart one of the Yellowjackets. These women know how to survive, even if it means stabbing someone.
Nat breaks free and stumbles out of her cabin and into a community of more cabins. She eventually finds herself in a clearing in the woods where a bunch of people in animal masks are performing a ceremony by burying a naked man alive. There’s Lottie in all her occult-y glory. Nat wants to bash her head in with a large stick, and no one doubts for a second she couldn’t do it, but Lottie buys herself some time by saying she has a message for Nat from Travis. If there’s one thing that’ll get Nat to back down, it’s that.
“if you’re going to stab me in the face with a fork at least give me a cool scar”
Citizen Detective Misty is on the case of the missing Nat, showing up at the motel to investigate why her “best friend” hasn’t been answering her calls and texts. She describes Nat thusly to the no-fucks-to-give motel manager: “Brunette, stunning, looks like she’d stab you.” It’s delivered perfectly by Christina Ricci, and it’s also very prescient of Misty given that Nat does indeed do some stabbing in the episode.
While Teen Shauna is busy pacing around the cabin thumbing her dead best friend’s ear in her pocket, Adult Shauna is busy covering up a murder. Indeed, as Misty suspects, the cover-up job is not complete. But Shauna doesn’t tell her this and instead leans on her husband Jeff “There’s No Book Club” Sadecki who might as well be working for the “McDonald’s chicken nugget department” because he’s “selling six pieces like it’s his job,” a joke he proudly makes before remembering it is indeed his job to sell furniture. Shauna remembers Adam had an art studio, and she’s also for some reason still hanging onto his ID. She enlists Jeff to help her handle things.
Jeff and Shauna arrive at Adam’s studio, and at first Jeff is in good spirits, cracking his little dad jokes, riding the high of selling all that furniture. But then things take a sharp turn when he sees Adam’s art. It’s all Shauna. Just endless paintings of Shauna. She looks stunning! But I imagine it’s somewhat upsetting to be surrounded by artwork of your wife made by her dead lover she was cheating on you with. But the ever-loyal Jeff doesn’t storm out, doesn’t start a fight. Shauna seems to want a reaction from him, but he just looks sad. Then they have this exchange:
Shauna: The thought of you with someone else always scared me, but it also turned me on. Someone else’s tongue in your mouth, their smell on you. I used to think that made me some kind of pervert.
Jeff: What do you think now?
Shauna: That I like being the way I am.
It’s one of my favorite exchanges in the episode, because it so simply and searingly touches on the fucking disaster that arousal can sometimes feel like. Shauna’s turn-on here tracks given that the thing that drew her to Jeff in the first place was the fact that he was not hers, that he specifically was Jackie’s. While I do think sexuality evolves and shifts in life, I also believe that some of our specific arousals in adulthood are easy to trace back to younger years. But when we’re teens, we often act on such desires in the most chaotic and self-destructive ways. It’s easy to draw a throughline from Shauna confessing she imagines him with other women back to Teen Shauna in the pilot asking Teen Jeff — her best friend’s boyfriend at the time — to tell her he loves her during sex even if it’s a lie. As Jeff puts it himself in season one, secrets have always been a part of who he is.
But still, even if it’s tied up in what turns her on, it of course isn’t fair for Shauna to have cheated on Jeff. She’s not looking to be absolved here, but I think she is looking for a path forward with him, one where she’s more honest about what it is she really wants. I find it mordantly hilarious that Shauna and Jeff are way more fixated on the affair than on the murder. Dead Adam looms over them, but not in the way you’d expect. Jeff takes his cue. He bends Shauna over and fucks her against a table of paintings. I’m left wondering if this is indeed what Shauna was looking for in that moment. We know she performed more of a dominant role with Adam. Does she want to be dominated by Jeff? Is she doing this because she thinks it’ll make him feel better? But also, she is ultimately the one in control of that moment in my eyes. I’m curious to see how things unfold between them; it sounds like they might explore more of her kinks within their marriage.
Shortly after they have sex and destroy Adam’s paintings, we have the privilege of bearing witness to what is easily one of the best scenes of Yellowjackets — nay, all of television. Jeff sits alone in a parked car, clearly silently spiraling over the fact that he just fucked his wife in the art studio of the man she both had an affair with and also murdered. Who can blame him for needing A Moment™? His hand floats up to the phone on his dashboard, and he scrolls through music before stopping, very deliberately, on his song of choice to score this spiral. The dulcet tones of “LAST RESORT” BY PAPA ROACH fill the car, as Jeff air-drums and punches his way into some semblance of control over his life, which has indeed been cut into pieces. This scene is high art.
Jeff spends so much energy on his little parked car mental breakdown that he’s covered in sweat by the time he joins Shauna for a little backyard barbecue of her teen journals and dead lover’s license. They accidentally catch a tree on fire in the process of burning evidence, and I love when this show dips into suburban comedy of errors. Is it just me or is covering up a murder bringing Shauna and Jeff closer together? I’m smelling vow renewal!
Back in the cabin, Teen Shauna’s still got a loose ear to consider. During the episode’s final montage, scored by “Cornflake Girl” by Tori Amos, she paces with the ear in hand. “Things are getting kind of gross” Amos presciently sings. In the final shot, Shauna bites into the ear, and we cut to credits. And now we know why the episode is titled “Friends, Romans, Countrymen,” and if you still don’t get it, just scroll on back up to the top of this recap and look at the headline I gave it.
honestly looks kinda like a mushroom
My first thought: Finally, some cannibalism! We haven’t technically seen cannibalism since the pilot, and we still don’t know how much of that sequence is real or who they’re really eating. My second thought: There is something just so beautifully on-the-nose about Shauna consuming Jackie. I love when we see extreme expressions of the id on this show, and that’s what this feels like. Sure, it could be partially stemming from just being pregnant and starving, but I think there’s more to that when it comes to Shauna wanting to eat part of Jackie. She already had an unhealthy obsession with Jackie when she was alive; her death is bound to make it mutate and grow.
While I think both are deeply flawed and played a role in the dissolution of their friendship, my rewatch of season one really drove home just how unfairly Shauna treated Jackie. Shauna accuses Jackie of treating her like a sidekick, but Shauna contributes so much and gives so much weight to the slotting of each of them into specific roles of alpha and sidekick. She projects her insecurities onto Jackie, casts herself as inferior. Or maybe it’s not that simple. Maybe Jackie pushed her in that direction after all. It’s hard to parse it all out, and I feel myself bringing my own teenage baggage to the table in how I look at it. But that’s what makes it so brilliant. I feel like one could make so many arguments as to why Shauna acts the way she does, why Jackie acted the way she did. My favorite mysteries to solve on Yellowjackets are always the unsolvable ones. The series has pushed its characters and story to the brink, making it so that one girl biting into another girl’s ear isn’t just believable on a logistical level of starvation but on a deeper, more psychological level, too. Remember: The horror of the very first seconds of this series does not rest in the fact that someone is being eaten but that she’s being hunted. We’re only starting to see what these characters are capable of. We’re only starting to see the ripple effects of what they’ve lived through. Season two starts quietly, technically. There’s nothing more tender than Sharon Van Etten. But she really does wail on “Seventeen.” Even in its quietest moments, Yellowjackets feels like it’s screaming.
Last Buzz:
- Jeff being the type of person who says joke setups hoping he’ll just come up with a punchline makes so much sense. I never could have predicted this, but I actually think I would protect Jeff with my life.
- No official Elijah Wood sighting yet, but we hear his voice as Misty reads a post on her Citizen Detective forum from a fellow C.D. who has some theories about the disappearance of Adam Martin. He attempts an overwrought telegram bit, and Misty promptly downvotes him. Are they destined to hate each other? Love each other? Classic enemies-to-lovers? Can’t wait to find out!
- Misty reading Nora Roberts books is a great detail.
- I also loved to see “Hello Birdie Pets” in Misty’s call log. In addition to being a Citizen Detective, she’s also a proud Bird Mom.
- Callie is really starting to remind me a lot of Teen Shauna. That way she called her boyfriend clingy! That way she called Shauna “so fucking selfish!” I hope we get some more texture to Callie this season, but I also understand why we haven’t yet, because tbh I don’t think Shauna really wants to know her daughter that badly.
- Callie finds the burnt remnants of Adam’s ID, so she’s still very much onto Shauna’s shenanigans.
- “Cornflake Girl” feels like an especially fitting song with Shauna, given the repetition of “rabbit,” a recurring animal motif in Shauna scenes across the series.
- Teen Lottie seems convinced Javi is alive, but Teen Nat thinks she’s giving Travis false hope. There’s like…no way Javi is alive right??
- Between blood tea and blood-written messages of love, the girlies are getting a little TOO COMFORTABLE WITH BLOOD!
- Lots of new images in the intro! Including a Lauren Ambrose sighting! What stood out to you?
ITS THE GREATEST TIME OF YEAR
sorry in advance for the fact that i’m about to blast papa roach next to you
love means never having to say you’re sorry (for blasting papa roach)
comment award
“She never got to confess any of of this to Jackie” uuhhhh what makes you think she ever would have? Come on now
BUZZ BUZZ, BITCH!! LET’S FUCKIN GO!!!
LET’S GOOOOO
buzz buzz betch!
👂🏼
Wait… who is Rick in the MASH game? I am trying to remember if there was a character by that name.
Aside from Jeff (who is there for obvious reasons) the other options are Coach Scott and Travis – people who are obviously in the woods with them. If the fourth name was just someone from home, wouldn’t it be Randy?
Am I reading too much into a name written in a prop in season 1 (the fact they are calling back to it like this makes me feel it wasn’t just a throwaway prop moment), am I forgetting someone from S1, or might that possibly be Cabin Guy’s name?????????????
I think it says Nick actually but I also have no idea who this is!!
Ahhh!!!! So excited right now! I’m just finishing my 3rd rewatch, and as of this post am on episode 5. I’ve been counting down the days for this premiere.
BUZZ. BUZZ. BUZZ. BUZZ. BUZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!!!
rewatching season one was SO fun! i’m really glad I did it immediately before season two
How is Jeff quickly becoming one of my favorite characters? (Sadie is in my ear currently telling me ALL THE REASONS she thinks Jeff is a Capricorn. Sorry, reasons she KNOWS he is a Capricorn.)
Also Taissa clutching Steve and saying she is going to do better is possibly theee most haunting moment of Season 2 so far.
IT WAS SO CREEPY AND GOOD LOL I also love knowing that Tawny Cypress is a horror head; I feel like she’s channeling a lot of iconic horror performances already this season
truly the second papa roach started playing i was like “ok jeff is the best character”
Okay that one painting of Shauna that Adam did–a portrait on a black background with her face all eroded and skull-like and monstrous!!!! HE SAW HER!!!!!!!
Loooooved that detail and almost included a screencap!!
YESSSSS
i also want to know what happened to all the paintings and if i can purchase one
Maybe they will do an auction after the series finale!!
Definitely look into that!
oh my god i’m loving the theater kid representation
I LOVE THAT LITTLE FREAK!!!! SHE IS ME AT THAT AGE
Once again, reading these recaps is my *favorite* part of Yellowjackets season! Kayla, you are awesome ❤️
But I need to know 1. Where did all these new girls come from? 2. Why did they replace Akilah? 3. Why is no one talking about this??
In “Doomcoming”, I was willing to overlook the sudden appearance of new girls, as it seemed like part of the berry wine-/mushroom-induced hallucinations; however, the random intro to Crystal in the new season is pushing it. Wouldn’t we have been aware of such an annoying character from the beginning? Also, there have been so many aerial shots since the crash, highlighting the total number of girls stranded. It seems like they *just* realized that they need more people around, to be eaten in later episodes. Did the writers not think this through? I feel like I can’t get over this detail, in a show that I love and that has previously proven to be really good with details.
Is anyone else struggling with this plot hole??
Once again, reading these recaps is my *favorite* part of Yellowjackets season! Kayla, you are awesome ❤️
But I need to know 1. Where did all these new girls come from? 2. Why did they replace Akilah? 3. Why is no one talking about this??
In “Doomcoming”, I was willing to overlook the sudden appearance of new girls, as it seemed like part of the berry wine-/mushroom-induced hallucinations; however, the random intro to Crystal in the new season is pushing it. Wouldn’t we have been aware of such an annoying character from the beginning? Also, there have been so many aerial shots since the crash, highlighting the total number of girls stranded. It seems like they *just* realized that they need more people around, to be eaten in later episodes. Did the writers not think this through? I feel like I can’t get over this detail, in a show that I love and that has previously proven to be really good with details.
Is anyone else struggling with this plot hole??
Ack! Apologies for being bad at technology and double posting (how do you delete comments?).
After reading more comments about ppl that found Crystal relatable and sweet, I felt bad for calling her annoying – that wasn’t directed at anyone here! I was just heavily annoyed about her sudden appearance. So sorry!
Kayla! I am so thrilled your recaps are back! Yellowjackets is a little intense/scary for me and your recaps provide the perfect medium to engage but also feel less immersed/trapped than I do with an audio/visual experience. Can’t wait to read more of your work this season!
Yayyy thank you so much for reading along! It means a lot
Same! I *always* read the recaps first and process them for a few days before I sit down to watch the show. I have to work my way up to it!
So all signs point to Javi have gone the way of Jackie, but Lottie is usually right, right? My girlfriend thinks that they’re actually relatively close to civillisation and Javi found his way back to people… but presumably that would have triggered a search party. Also on the subject of Javi, do we think that Shauna remembers telling him to run in a demon voice? I’m guessing not?
So I do tend to trust Lottie’s intuition but I also kinda keep waiting for her to be wrong about something major. Because I wonder if that what leads to her silence after the rescue and her eventual evolution into a cult leader-like role? Like some major misstep hinged on her premonitions
I would kind of assume that if Lottie messes up it’ll be nearer the rescue. Either a steer away from a rescue, or a death, or even the faking of a magic? I feel like 18 months is still a length of time I don’t understand. Why so long? Why any rescue at all at that point? Do they decide to stay? Wouldn’t spring bring motivation to move on?
I’m the girlfriend saying Javi made it to civilisation but I’m genuinely scared about what state he’ll end up in if I’m right. Poor love.
True! I mean, he *could* have made it back to civilization but been to injured or too traumatized to be helpful with a rescue right away. 🤞🏻
yeah i’m torn on this one. don’t see how javi could have survived (unless they are close to civilization but then for some reason the rescue took another ~year? and also the way they pan over the woods at the start of the ep has me questioning why/how there happens to be even one cabin there. like there’s NOTHING else. then there are lottie’s intuitions which do have weight but i like this idea about her eventually being wrong about a major thing (or really, THINGS), potentially leading to a major misstep. last season adult tai mentions to shauna when explaining why she pays for nat’s rehab how they owe their lives to nat, which seemed more significant than just how all the survivors might all owe their lives to each other, and we have nat set up in opposition to lottie so wondering how all that plays out. also a living javi should have potentially come up in relation to travis last season but i know it doesn’t mean much with the mystery being an important story device and all.
yes i also wonder if shauna remembers that!
I was under the impression Shauna doesn’t remember but also maybe she does and she’s just so focused on Jackie guilt she doesn’t have room for Javi guilt.
And yeah super curious to see how rescue logistics pan out, though I don’t foresee us learning too much on that front this season? But maybe! I think it depends how much time jumping they end up employing
yeah i don’t think we will either, probably too soon. i do love the post-rescue timeline though. nat’s mapping could totally be what they were referring to! but it could also be something she did to neutralize lottie or a threat to them being hunting victims, or all of those things. but actually it makes sense that being responsible for their rescue was what tai meant by that comment, because that’s what assured their ultimate survival and nothing else. so i’m for this theory that nat’s mapping is a significant – if not the – factor in their rescue.
also that makes sense re: shauna, that it’s one of those things since we’ve been given no indication yet that she feels any type of way about it.
I wonder if Nat’s mapping is the reason they feel they owe her? Or has something to do with it?
I do feel like the mapping will likely become significant to their way out of the woods!
While watching this episode with my girlfriend, I blurted out, “I think I’d bottom for adult Lottie,” and they immediately paused the episode, sat straight up, and silently stared at me for several terrifying seconds before saying, “Oh my God, you totally would.”
lolllll
Okay so at one point Nat and Travis come across some melted snow by a tree, as though someone was sleeping there / there was maybe a fire? I think? Is that them thinking that maybe Javi is out there somewhere?
oooo good catch!!! i’m gonna have to go back and find this
I THINK that is what I saw. They could have also been looking for animal signs. But IDK it gave me a sense there was something that could have been Javi but they weren’t sure.
Gonna look for it during the watchalong tonight.
I thought this was the heart tree, and the warmth was connected to Travis’ vision while being touched by Lottie? I still can’t square up the meaning. But if it is a magic warmth then there’s a logic there?
I thought it was the magic tree too but would need to rewatch!
It definitely seemed like it could be where Javi was being kept alive by some weird woo woo shit. The visuals of the tree in Travis’s moment with Lottie and Nat’s inquisitiveness saying something was weird about it and tagging a tree nearby all makes me think there’s something happening there.
1) It’s hilarious to me that there are people in the world who have not spent months counting down to this day and organizing their whole weekend around it, I woke up at 5am like a goddamn kid on Christmas over here and I am not the only one
2) The exact moment Misty revealed the lawyer cookie I knew we were all gonna be okay, this series is still perfect
3) Kayla you are my favorite and your recaps give me life, thank you for your service <3
thank you so much!!!! it’s always my hope that these recaps bring something a little different to the table than the mainstream discourse around the show
They totally do, Kayla! Out of desperation for more Yellowjackets content last night my partner and I watched a couple of random bro reaction/recap YouTube videos and it was bleak. No analysis, constant mispronounciations of character names, surface-level recounting of what happened. Your recaps are a balm of thoughtful queer analysis!!
thank youuuu so much that really means a lot!!! i put a TON of time into these and I love how much we all get to talk about it in the comments! feels like a nerdy, spooky club haha
I decided not to start watching until the last episode is about to premiere (cause I’m that annoying person who has to binge everything at once in proper sequence.) But Kayla I do want to say that I really enjoyed all your recaps from last season and I look forward to getting to see all your coverage for this one!
Thank you so much!!
I hope you know that I specifically immediately searched “Autostraddle Yellowjackets 201” the second I finished the episode. Forever my favorite recaps and favorite way to avoid any life responsiblities!
Ahahhaha LOVE THAT, thank you!!
THIS!!
Same! Now get out of my head.
I can’t wait to see how Travis buys into Lottie’s supernatural/religious stuff in the 1990s timeline. Reconciling what we saw in this episode with Natalie’s comment last season that “Travis didn’t believe any of that” is going to be interesting!
I was thinking about this too!! She seems so adamant that he doesn’t believe in it but we’re seeing a lot of evidence suggesting otherwise
Right?!
Is Natalie in denial as an adult about Travis believing?
Does Travis buy in at first and then shit goes down and he changes course?
Ugh, I can’t wait to find out.
right! and now allegedly travis gave lottie a message to give to nat?! did travis and lottie stay in touch?!
Ack, I assumed Lottie meant she had a message from Dead Travis, like she can hear spirits or whatever. But Travis & Lottie keeping in touch is such a better theory!!
No
Sorry for the random “no.” My phone does not like loading the comments section, apparently, and that was a confluence of clumsiness on my part, lol
I’m very interested to see where the Travis/Natalie/Lottie tension goes and what secrets are lingering in there.
Not a direct thread to this, but I also can’t wait to see how Tai’s statement last season that Natalie is the reason they were rescued plays out. If she and Travis were on again/off again as adults (even in an abusive/unhealthy relationship), I’ll be interested to see where Travis’s emotional allegiances end up by the time they are rescued.
Surely it all hinges on Javi’s ultimate fate, yeah?
I had the theory that Lottie can predict future happenings so she tried to get to Travis before he killer himself to save him but she was too late then did a ritual as some sort of final prayer/ritual for the dead which explains the candles being there and the shape.
With Lottie’s minions bursting in right as Nay was about to kill herself, I wonder if they tried to do the same for Travis but they were just too late.
The theme so far with what we’ve seen with Lottie has been predicting death, right? Like every premonition has lead to something dying? That’s why the Javi being alive thing is strange to me… that would sort of go against how we’ve experienced her premonitions so far. Not saying it can’t happen but I agree it’s thought to believe Javi is still alive.
Ooh, that’s a good point about the timing right before Nat’s attempt.
Her premonitions that we’ve seen so far have definitely heavily featured death or potential death. With the red smoke and river of blood one, only some (all of?) wolves died but Van was obviously in rough shape for a bit.
I think Lottie also has been shown to not reliably be able to sense imminent danger, because she didn’t have any premonition before Laura Lee’s death and she didn’t sense anything awry before the near death of Travis’s with the Doomscoming.
The positive feelings around Javi still being alive is DEFINITELY an outlier from what we’ve seen from Lottie so far. It feels more like manipulation than anything else at this point.
And this is why I love this show, there’s so much uncertainty!
oh yeah good points! I was kind of like how did Lottie’s purple people KNOW Nat was about to kill herself? But if it were based on a Lottie vision then potentially she could have seen something with regards to Travis, too. Nat seemed so convinced that someone else was there, like who lit the candles you know? I like where this theory is headed!
Olive,
Lottie did predict Laura Lee’s death though. When Laura Lee baptized Lottie, she sees the big explosion behind her head but Laura Lee said it was about god. But agree about the wolves and Van sitch.
I only caught that detail on my rewatch! I think Lottie knew something terrible was going to happen to Laura Lee but think she wasn’t quite fully in her “premonition” element yet maybe? I was excited to catch it on the second time.
oooh interesting i like this idea
Yes this show is hilarious at times and disturbing at times but it’s also so so sad. The way the Jackie-Shauna relationship is portrayed is so affecting. How many other shows go this deep into complicated relationships between girls? Even though it’ll be difficult to watch at times I can’t wait to see how it progresses and how they explore the trauma. The acting and writing is so good!
sooooo good! and i feel like this premiere really plays to the strengths of the actors right off the bat
Cannibalism is just what happens when you love someone just a bit too much
Also Sophie Nelisse ate that… literally!
akjshdjwjshshajsj
I think Javi is NOT alive and that’s why Travis goes from defending Lottie’s magic to not believing.
yeah there has to be a reason Nat is so adamant that he wasn’t a “believer”
i wonder if he was on the fence/played both sides/undecided and his “tell nat she was right” was some final realization of being with nat in the whole nat v lottie thing that we’re seeing evolve in both timelines.
yeah it’s admittedly hard to read a lot of his reactions to things!
it’s baaaaack! my thoughts:
– this episode was so good but I kept checking the remaining running time every five minutes and saying “WHERE IS LAUREN AMBROSE”
– Misty angrily downvoting Elijah Wood on fake Reddit was so funny help
– Lottie comforting her psych ward roommate is giving Girl, Interrupted (1999). a trailblazing queen!
– that shot of Misty in front of the red curtains in the opening credits is absolutely fucking terrifying and immediately made me think of the black lodge in Twin Peaks
– I wanted to scream at Shauna and Jeff for waltzing into Adam’s studio and touching everything without gloves, and then having actual sex?? guys you are leaving your DNA everywhere! Misty would be absolutely fuming! but I guess one thing adult Shauna is going to do is to be a complete idiot re: affairs and murder cover ups
– Shauna didn’t even cook that ear 😭
yes to the Girl Interrupted comparison!! am excited to learn more about Lottie’s post-wilderness life.
Wow yeah Jeff and Shauna are wildly bad at murder cover up
RAW EAR!!!!!
Misty’s gonna be so mad they messed around in the crime scene! Maybe she needed to make a cookie for that.
I know Shauna is ANNOYED by misty but she she should REALLY BE LISTENING TO MISTY RN
for real. and misty’s like “i know we missed something,” and i’m like SHAUNA MAYBE NOW MENTION the back tattoo!!
“Shauna didn’t even cook that ear.” OMG, I’m dead. 🤣🤣
oh and one last thing, my friend was like “what if they remade Pirates of the Caribbean and kept everything the same but Juliette Lewis was Captain Jack Sparrow” and now that’s all I can think about
!!!!!!!!
INCREDIBLE, I need this to happen.
Dying!! ☠️🤣
I am only now realizing that i never questioned this last season but what happened to the rest of biscuit?
There is most of a dog somewhere. So is there evidence of Tai taking the dog? Is someone going to turn up with a recording of Tai killing biscuit? There never seems to be any evidence left behind of Other Tai’s doings just the end results.
I love that Misty insisted that Shauna borrow a ladle because if she takes the ladle than either Shauna has to come back to return it or Misty has an excuse to visit.
YES, my partner said the same thing about the reason for the ladle! Oh, Misty.
Re: the rest of Biscuit, clearly Other Taissa is as type A as Regular Taissa and is much more proficient at covering her tracks than Shauna and Jeff “Let’s Have Sex at a Crime-Adjacent Scene” Sadecki.
ok but now I can’t stop thinking about Misty saying “a torso is useless” re:getting rid of the remains of Adam’s body lol.
but yeah hmmmm also seems like Teen Tai at least is pretty easy to wake up out of these fugue states. beheading a dog would take a lot of strength and effort! have her sleepwalking “powers” amplified?
Just finished rewatching season 1 before the new ep and THERE’S NO BOOK CLUB??? reminded me how much I love Jeff but the Papa Roach jam sesh really cemented it.
I need a supercut of Jeff moments
“what, there’s no book club!?” might be my favorite line.
“That was a mistake. I’m going to do better with you” is a close contender for new best line!
i can not get over Tawny’s perfect delivery of that creepy ass line!!!!! it’s like so funny and scary AT THE SAME TIME
Did anyone notice that the other side of Nat’s new map addition said “Grade 12”? That’s a Canadian term, right? Americans would use “12th grade” in that context (or “senior year” elsewhere) (or do you say “Grade 12” too?)? Do you think that means the paper came from the cabin?? Or am I just overthinking this? Maybe a Canadian props person?
hmmm yeah I kinda doubt they found the paper in the cabin as it hasn’t been occupied in soooo long. “Grade 12” is indeed kind of awkward wording for the U.S. I think? but may have just been an oversight. And I’m not surprised that some of them would have brought homework/practice quizzes/etc. with them. I remember doing that as a high school athlete going to tournaments for sure
You’re probably right; I just get excited when I see Canadianisms, ha ha
I’m an American teacher and to me Grade 12 isn’t something I would ever say out loud, but I wouldn’t think twice if i read it on a form or something, so I think it’s most likely just their school work
Anyone have any ideas on what the symbolism with the deck of cards could mean? In the first season, episode 8 Natalie makes the off hand comment that the deck of cards Travis is playing with have no queens. In the Intro of season 2 we see someone burning the queens in the deck! I thought they were found like that but now I don’t know!?
Anyone wanna bet on Shauna feeding Jackie to the rest of them?
My theory on Javi – they never find his body. Nothing is more torturous then thinking “what if?” He’s definitely dead, but how can you really know?
And it also seems like maybe they’re using the deck of cards to determine chores, right? Because Misty “draws a four” and has to go get the water
I don’t have any answers except to say at one point Misty says she “drew a 4,” and that’s why she has to go get the water for the group- so I think the cards must end up playing some important role.
also I thought the same thing about Shauna! that she might be the one who introduces them to cannibalism, without them even knowing by just slowly replacing the “meat” that she brings in from the shed.
would kind of be a parallel to her feeding jeff and callie rabbit but waiting to tell them after the fact
Did anyone else immediately think they introduced those 3 new girls just so there would be some characters the audience doesn’t really care about for the main characters to eat? Because, like, we know Shauna, Misty, Tai, Nat, Lottie, Van, and Travis all survived. So that only leaves Mari, Akilah, and Coach Scott as potential… dinner… out of the main characters from last season. IDK, I just think those 3 newbies are doomed.
OR. DO YOU THINK THEY EAT JACKIE? DOES SHAUNA SECRETLY FEED THEM JACKIE???? So gross but I can’t not think it.
ALSO. I know this has been said already but the soundtrack to this show is SO GOOOD. OFC Jeff would listen to Papa Roach to have a mental breakdown. And when “Cornflake Girl” started I swear I ascended to another plane for a second. You can’t just play that song and not expect a 40-something lesbian to die a little, I mean COME ON.
I definitely think the group cannibalism starts with Shauna secretly feeding Jackie to the group! She probably doesn’t tell them when they run out of bear meat.
yes definitely. and they were there last season too, just without lines.
Yeah I love that we have some new characters and hope they weren’t introduced for the SOLE purpose of being disposable but also I am convinced they do die out there because the reunion last year made it seem like only members of one graduating class survived
The reunion thing still kind of bugs me because reunions are typically for one graduating class so then why was Ali (who was a freshman in the 1996 timeline) there at the 2021 25-year reunion and also seemingly running the whole thing? It makes no sense because she wasn’t in their class!
Exactly! I thought the same thing about Ali. It makes no sense for her to have been at the reunion.
The only hand-wavey explanation I can see is Ali’s desire for attention and association with the plane crash Yellowjackets. She wants to be one of them so maybe she planned and inserted herself in their reunion for that reason?
yeah I think Ali’s presence can likely just be explained by her general nosiness and desire to be seen as a surviving Yellowjacket even though she wasn’t there. I’m ultimately fine with that loose explanation bc the actress was a delight lol. but I do think my theory that only members of the same class survived the woods could be true. which means rip jv girlies
It bugged me that they seemingly retconned Ali to be a senior after the pilot. Like, a lot. The storytelling re: Ali is kind of weird to me all around. Because for the time that the crash victims were missing until the rescue, Ali would have been considered kind of as the sole survivor from the team, and maybe gotten a lot of media attention from that as “the yellowjacket who should have been on that plane.” I guess it depends on her personality whether she’d have a bunch of survivor guilt or milk it or what. I would think regardlness she’d have concern and also trauma around her teammates all being potentially dead. So then when she’s at the reunion telling people “did you know I was supposed to be on that plane” I’m like dude there’s no possible way that everyone doesn’t know that. Then it’s extra weird that she’d need/want that status to be taken away when some of her teammates are actually found ALIVE. Let them have their thunder.
Possibly Ali married someone in the 1996 graduating class, which I think might have given her access to the reunion committee (I think???? I have never attended any high school reunions much less tried to help organize any), and then she took over planning the reunion out of her burning desire to be associated with the Yellowjackets and ride the coattails of the crash’s infamy.
@Rayna I had the same thoughts/questions. I chalk it up to a rare lapse for this series: lazy writing. The whole thing was so weird that it seemed like Ali was reminding US, the viewers, in case we’d forgotten. If Ali has further story ahead, then maybe that’s what it was. If not, then . . . LAZY.
I am SO CURIOUS to know more about 1998 and what happened immediately after the rescue! That was the most interesting part of the episode to me. Well, aside from the very ill-advised kinky sex (what were they thinking?!?!?)
I wanna know how much of a role they played in their own rescue! Because I would assume official rescue efforts would have halted after like a year? But also Lottie’s parents were private plane rich so maybe they kept it going
Yeah, I don’t even think they would have searched for a year especially after winter set in (I’m mainly thinking about some local missing persons cases for comparison but maybe plane searches are different?).
Would Lottie’s dad have really paid for a search, though? From what we’ve seen of him, it seems like her disappearance solves an annoying problem for him… he doesn’t seem to like or care about her much except as a problem to “fix.”
yeah true, this is the second time we’ve seen him treat Lottie as a problem to be fixed. her parents don’t seem interested in giving her any agency or say in her own mental health.
something that keeps coming up in these comments is the fact that Adult Tai and Adult Shauna really seem to credit Nat with getting them out of the woods — emphatically not Lottie. I wonder if we’re building to a Teen Nat/Teen Lottie power struggle and if Teen Lottie ends up being majorly wrong about something in terms of getting them out of here and Nat ends up finding the real escape.
Also I suppose the footage we’re shown isn’t even a “rescue” it’s not like we see a team swooping into the cabin and getting them out. It’s more like their homecoming than a rescue
“I wonder if we’re building to a Teen Nat/Teen Lottie power struggle and if Teen Lottie ends up being majorly wrong about something in terms of getting them out of here and Nat ends up finding the real escape.”
Yes!! This is what my partner was theorizing last night while I was reading her all of these comments and the recap (which was amazing and is the best Yellowjackets commentary out there IMO, so thank you for creating this space for all of us!!).
So we’re thinking that maybe (as other commenters suggested) Lottie ends up being wrong about Javi being alive, this leads Travis to no longer believe in her (as adult Nat alluded to) and then something (Javi or something else) maybe leads to a schism in the group, and then maybe Nat and her mapping leads to an escape somehow.
Do we think the rest of the group knows about Nat’s mapping? I suspect they don’t because it seemed hidden, and Nat and Coach have grown closer so I think this is a just-the-two-of-them project. I don’t think Travis knows she’s doing it during their excursions either.
My partner also thinks that maybe Javi escaped to civilization somehow and that leads to a rescue, but they’ve got another year or so left in the wilderness so I don’t think so.
With that comment about Nat being responsible for their rescue, and Nat’s role for the team in the woods, and especially with her map-making this season, I keep returning to the true story of Uruguayan Air Force flight 571.
That flight was carrying a men’s rugby team when it crashed in the Andes in 1972 (the team infamously cannibalized their dead to survive, and that story is undoubtedly one of the inspirations for the show).
In that case, after two months (they had a pretty intense death rate due to being on a frozen mountain and being hit with an avalanche. 12 people died in the initial crash, 17 died in the following months) two of the survivors climbed to the peak of the 15,320 ft mountain they were on and then down the mountain into the valley, where they eventually (after a 10 day hike) found three men on horseback in the valley, communicated that there were 14 still-living survivors of a plane crash on the mountain in need of rescue, and one of those men then made the 10 hour ride on horseback to the nearest police station to report what he had been told, resulting in helicopters finding the crash site and the survivors (his companions, along with another man he encountered during his ride, got the two hikers on the brink of death from exhaustion, starvation and exposure to somewhere warm where they could rest and eat while he was making his trip).
Which is all to say that I think Nat’s map making and ever expanding hikes through the woods around them while out hunting with Travis may eventually lead to her finding a hiker or someone like that who will be able to alert the authorities that they are still alive, and where to find them.
yes i couldn’t get enough of this timeline either! i mean i couldn’t get enough of the whole episode, almost like it felt for so long like we knew all we were going to ever going to know about anything yellowjackets so i felt like i was eating up every detail of the continued story of the past timelines – but i was especially fixated on the little we got of the post-rescue. it was also crazy how the winter vibes changed the whole energy of their life in woods so it felt like an entirely different place and cabin.
i think they probably are instrumental in their own rescue vs a search time finally locates them and the nat v lottie power struggle is v real so i like this idea that nat leads them toward rescue while lottie’s efforts are hindering them, whether intentionally or not. the idea that she could be intentionally sabotaging things in order to be this antler-queen-cult-leader figure out there also just surfaced the memory of misty destroying the radio and i wonder if she’ll confess to someone at some point.
buzz buzz buzz can’t wait to be peak annoying this season! strongly contemplating a literal red string board!
thots:
-when we had our lil tete a tete (oreille a oreille?) with Jackie and Shauna I was like ohhhh she’s fucked up-fucked up! Love that the haunting is a thing that has happened for years
-honestly iconic of Lottie to turn the worst thing that ever happened to her into a MLM hashtag girlboss
-new themed snack just dropped! Can’t wait to go to the great American cookie at the mall and confuse the underpaid worker
-correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t teen Misty ask Van-the-storyteller to recount CATS around the fire? I assumed that was her theatrical root! Also Crystal girl I am worried about you
-very exciting that the JV squad get names and storylines this season! The first season having necessary covid restrictions on extras means that all we had was theories and trying to match elbows in blurry screen caps but now we feast!
-Tai recognizing that she caused this biscuit-shaped family rupture but not being like…upset? Was deeply creepy! And #stevewatch will be diligently manifesting the safety of our new pup
-Van’s love confession was very Angelina jolie/billy bob Thornton blood vial necklace but somehow the teen gay of it all was cute? The power of Liv Hewson!
-I loved that Lisa was wary of Nat but still fooled by her ploy. Survival at any costs indeed
-cannot believe how much I love Jeff honestly? The old fashioned dad crap is his love language!
-as soon as Jackie’s ear came off I knew Shauna was going to eat it and yet? Still surprised! I wouldn’t have expected her to be the first but now I can’t picture this descent any other way
-I think (hope) Callie is going to get more to do this season! At the very least she knows her parents are hiding something and she suspects it’s a whole ass murder
-my head knows Javi is hella dead but my heart wants him to be alive in the abandoned mine/tunnel/caves that have been theorized for this season
these are all really good thoughts that i agree with.
Yeah I want to believe the tunnel Lottie keeps envisioning is some sort of mine/path out but there’s so little to grasp onto at the moment!
Omg. Is the thing in the symbol the baby???
I hope you all appreciate this intellectual comment.
music was incredible as usual and also my question is always: will they or will they not eat the baby………?
omg
the writers have said they definitely won’t eat the baby – that’s a line they didn’t want to cross because it’s just a bit too dark, even for this show
THE MUSIC!!!!!!!
I think they should at the very least eat the placenta
Omg. But do these kids even know that Shauna has to birth the placenta? Obviously we know she lives but I am still so concerned for this whole childbirth situation. And what happens to the baby? If they don’t eat it, does it die? Does it live and Shauna gives it up for adoption when they get rescued?? Does Shauna have a 25-year-old child out there somewhere??? The unknowns about this baby are killing me.
yeah i don’t know how educated on human anatomy/biology/etc these teens are lol
they should definitely eat the placenta. maybe misty knows about afterbirth? i also cannot deal with all the unknowns about what happens to the baby. realistically, a lot would threaten the survival of the fetus & eventual child (not talking about cannibalism) but story-wise i can see it being more complicated than simple idk. i get weird vibes that nobody outside of those woods knows about it and the baby doesn’t make it out but there’s not much of a basis for it other than that these layers of trauma for shauna don’t seem to be acknowledged by her fam etc.
Yes! We found out last season that Jeff read Shauna’s journals a long time ago and I feel like she had to have written about the baby so even if it didn’t make it out of the woods alive, Jeff knows about it. But like, they never talked about it? Just how much repressed trauma do these people have? (A-fucking-LOT, apparently.)
To me, the only thing that makes ALL of these observations make sense is that Shauna miscarries. Therefore no baby, no conversation about a baby, no reason for Jeff to mention it, and the writers keep their promise not to mix baby and cannibalism. 🤷♀️
One thing I *think* I remember from the first season is when a wedding photo is shown of Shauna and Jeff, I’m pretty sure she is pregnant in it. Does anyone else remember this??
I think Javi is alive, because A. remember the red creek? Iron in the water? There could be a mine, or tunnels that he’s camped out in and B. finding Javi alive would only cement Travis’ loyalty to Lottie.
I think even if Javi is alive he’s not making it out of the woods, because I think Nat would have made some reference to him when Travis died or tried to get in touch with him
I wish I could post a photo here of me wearing my Citizen Detective shirt with Misty’s mug on it all day.
I have been waiting for the moment when these recaps would come back! I’ve added some thoughts on comments but here they are in one place.
-we have only seen Lottie predict death not life, right? This is where I get hung up on the whole “Javi is alive” thing. Not saying it can’t be true, it just doesn’t seem to track with her premonitions thus far.
-I think Lottie saw Travis’s death in a premonition and they were just too late to save him so her and her followers did a final ritual explaining the pattern and candles.
-Misty is going to get Elija Wood to help her with Nat’s kidnapping to get him off of Shauna’s tail but I have a feeling him and Misty will fall in love but at some point misty is going to have to choose between him and her trauma bond. I don’t think he’ll win out.
-I loved the juxtaposition of how Simone is (rightfully) engaging with Tai and how teen Van engages with Tai. I think there is something to that with adult Van coming into the mix at some point.
-Jackie is totally gong to be consumed unknowingly by the team.
-Jeff is everything. Him and Steve will be protected at all costs.
-I find myself being really annoyed with Callie in this show. But also, I think about… holy shit, you’re privy to a lot of the fucked up shit your mom is on.
-sex in the art studio… while it was all messed up, I couldn’t stop thinking about DNA everywhere. “Let’s scratch the face off this paining but leave our fluids and fingerprints everywhere.”
– my partner made this comment after our rewatch, but when Tai, Simone and Sammy are at the psychology appointment for Sammy, the doc is basically just diagnosing Tai because Sammy isn’t involved in the biz from first season… I don’t think.
-Travis mistaking a fox corpse for Javi was so so sad.
-this show is my all time fave and your recaps are the first thing I look for after I watch.
Yes, I was thinking the same thing about the juxtaposition between Simone’s response and teen Van’s (idealistic) response. I agree that that’s what’s going to lead Taissa back to Van, and I wonder if Van’s perspective will have changed in the intervening years.
yeah Van’s reactions read real for a teen, but I would hope she has some slightly healthier perspective now because the ways she’s willing to sacrifice her own well being for Tai aren’t necessarily great!
Thank you for reading and for sharing all of these thoughts! This one REALLY stood out to me: “we have only seen Lottie predict death not life, right?” I think you’re mostly right! Usually her visions mean something bad is going to happen to someone. Van did live, but something bad obviously happened. So regardless, it’s fair to say that even if Javi were somehow alive, something bad has happened to him.
Yeah, definitely. This is the only show that I nerd out this hard in the comments section on my favorite recap. Thanks for creating this! I will be a frequent commenter. :)
yay! nothing makes me happier than when these comments surge into the triple digits! happy to have you!!
This was the perfect show to unwind with after a long and frustrating work week where I can’t just eat the coworkers that bother me.
The cards – the way Akilah (Mari? I don’t remember) told Misty she drew the four, and Misty’s outrage that she’d done it every day that week – they’re already manipulating the card drawing I would bet a lot on that. Do the queens eventually mean you are the one to be hunted down and eaten? I would probably remove them from card decks after that association too. If I even played with cards. And there’s still Jackie’s necklace on the girl in the opening sequence. And now Jackie in the meat freezer and officially the first one eaten by a friend. I see a system evolving.
Very excited to learn more about Lottie’s cult! Why do purple and orange symbolize? That was a symbolic burial alive right? Or was it. Either way, big fan of her cult’s overall bacchanalian aesthetic for their night time rituals. We need a massive in person autostraddle meet up that’s just a yellowjackets costume party in the woods (sans eating and/or burying people alive).
I wish they’d started season 2 closer to the bear killing/trunk alter or hope for more flashbacks. How has Lottie asserted control enough that Nat and Travis will drink her blood tea? Seems like it would take more than just killing a bear! Considering the number of people and strong personalities how has she gotten enough backing that it’s easier to give in than resist?
I know it’s a compelling show because I’m actively trying not to let the lack of storing acorns and eating pine bark bother me. Or Van’s minimal scarring and two fully functioning eyes and not dying from sepsis or gangrene. Or frozen corpse logistics. When ears fall off from the cold it’s frostbite and the tissue dies, not snapping off because it’s brittle. And I’ve handled frozen animal corpses enough to know they can withstand being accidentally knocked into a wall – but loved the ear breaking and eating nonetheless! And maybe it is realistic. I have never hung out in a frozen friend meat shed!
I wish I could give this comment 1,000 likes.
I, too, loved this episode!! I was totally compelled and didn’t check my phone once lol. Just some musings:
-Shauna’s daughter gives big Little Narc Vibes but part of me hopes she isn’t actually going to rat out her parents and is instead trying to use this info as a blackmail-ish way to get closer to her mom, or maybe she’ll use it to pry some sort of details about Shauna’s time in the woods out of her, since she seems so curious about it and hurt she doesn’t know more
-Jeff’s Papa Roach scene followed by putting out the Tiny Tree Fire was amazing
-The fake reddit made me lol
-I’m worried the girls have already started to eat Jackie and part of Shauna’s hallucinations are her denial/refusal to directly accept what she’s actually doing/cooking
-I know this isn’t canon but I really in my bones feel like Jackie and Shauna’s friendship is a representation of comphet, at least on Jackie’s part; there are many valid reasons other than lesbianism to not have sex with your high school boyfriend and almost break up over it, yes, but IDK, I feel like Jackie was in love with Shauna tbh!!!
-Misty’s lawyer cookie got me lol
-Nat’s escape and confrontation of Lottie was epic, though it did bring me out of the scene a bit because I don’t believe they would have left her boots on or that she wouldn’t have tried to use her heels as a weapon!!
-I’m really worried musical theater girl is going to get eaten :(
-Part of me feels like Travis does believe Lottie when she says his brother is alive, and her ultimately being wrong is why he isn’t a believer/what he means when he says tell Nat she was right (that Lottie isn’t really magic or etc). BUT another part of me wonders if that’s just too obvious, and maybe like, Javi did something wild?? Like got rescued and pretended not to know where the rest were to have some fame or maybe was rescued and held by a different cult… like why is just ONE cabin out there, are there off-the-grid randos just out of sight, etc? Or maybe someone’s already killed him (or found him dead, etc) and they’re eating him?? sorry i can’t stop trying to figure out who is being eaten on this show don’t mind me!!
yeah I think on any other show, Javi’s fate would be pretty clear (he froze to death) but on this show, it could be kinda…anything!
I was so sure right up until the end of season 1 that Shauna was in love with Jackie! And Jeff was like…as close as she could let herself get to being with Jackie herself.
– I think that Nicole Maines’ character is Shauna’s wilderness baby.
– At some point Shauna is going to go full on zombie attack on Jackie’s corpse.
I think Lottie’s assertion that Javi is alive isn’t coming from a premonition on her part, it’s just an expression of hope like she tells Nat.
I am 100% convinced that Javi drowned in the lake on the night of the Doomcoming and they’ll discover his corpse when the ice thaws in a few months.
– I (shamefully) didn’t do a full season one rewatch before this dropped but my big question in the present day timeline is: did our four main ladies know about Lottes present day NXIVM meets bachanal sendup cult? Gotta assume Misty at least would know but if so why wasn’t lotte the obvious suspect for the original blackmail? And/or Travis’ death and the symbol left?
Or was there some oblique reference in season one that I missed because they didn’t want to give away that adult mommi Lottie was still alive and (??thrivingish???)
– Also, I’m starting to get the sense that the idea we were left with from season one that in the woods they eventually splinter off into two distinct groups and that Shauna, Tai, Nat were (probably) in the generally “good” (or maybe “better”) group might not be so true. It’s going to be more complicated than that. I love when this show plays off of the audiences own biases, especially those we’ve picked up from inhabiting both (all?) timelines. It’s a way of making the audience complicit that never feels forced or like I’ve been lied to or tricked..I see what I did l and how I got there.
– in similar vein I totally agree on Jackie and Shauna, I defs brought my own high school rich mean girl baggage to the table and that slow reversal is such a beautiful guy punch.
i can’t tell how much the girls know about Adult Lottie’s whereabouts or how remote her little commune is! I suppose it’s possible they don’t know a ton, but Nat also put two and two together with that necklace pretty quickly
Crystal entered singing “The Glory of Love,” a song I immediately recognized and know all the lyrics to, despite not having heard it probably since high school, and i said to my friend, “Finally, a Yellowjackets character I identify with!”
Love that they have added an optimistic musical theater (and jazz music–Glory of Love isn’t a showtime) lover who wants to be friends with everyone to the show. I agree with everyone that she will probably be eaten. As I also probably would have been in her shoes.
hahahaha yes I IMMEDIATELY connected with Crystal!
So my thought was actually that Crystal may have learned it from watching Beaches, like I did, (I am the exact age of the adult characters in the show).
Bette Middler was my gateway drug to musical theater, lol
Beaches was also referenced during Shauna and Jackie’s fight in the season one finale.
This is the happiest season for all us, weird queers. I miss this. So, now, I think more than anything Shauna raised a Jackie, her daughter is more Jackie than Shauna. Maybe she did a like a way of penance. But also she does the same thing, she became the other person through sex, remember when she masturbates in her daughter room? But also, she have a lot more patience but a little detachment from her daughter.
oh hmmmm yeah I can almost see Callie as a combination of Jackie and Shauna which…..is gay.
I’m glad this show is back. I cringed at Jeff and Shauna in the art studio, I also didn’t need a scene of Jeff air drumming in his car. Jeff is the creep who was blackmailing them in season one. Misty’s scenes were great, the Nora Roberts, and the fake interrogation. I wonder if we’ll find out anything else about the detective she poisoned. Nat stabbing her kidnapper was also good, I like her not hesitating to defend herself and try to escape-she’s not plotting and planning, she’s stabbing and running out the door. I hope it works out for little Steve, Tai is so good at being creepy. I also hope she gets some kind of help for whatever is going on with her. I’m glad we got to see adult Lottie, and the JV Yellowjackets.
That’s a weird take. I loved Jeff leveling up to meet the requirements of the situation.
i have no theories of my own just here to say i love your recaps and am so excited for the new season of them!!!
Same. I feel like any new theories right now will make my brain hurt.
I was inspired by you all to rewatch the first season. I completed the task in one day. Now I’m even more excited for the second season. BUZZ BUZZ.
I’m catching up on the recaps but “loose ear” had me rolling.