The Yellowjackets finale doesn’t deliver what we want, but might have what season 2 needs
A second season of cannibalism, cults, and complicated women cannot come soon enough.
TV Reviews Taissa
[Ed. note: Showtime released the Yellowjackets finale Sunday at 12 a.m. ET via streaming.]
When many Yellowjackets fans (myself included) heard that this series was intended as a many-season story, and the mysteries wouldn’t be neatly concluded by episode 10, we raised a skeptical eyebrow. But we have been proven wrong. Now in the season finale, there seems ample material to keep this story going, and the first winter hasn’t only just hit the wilderness.
And thank goodness season two is happening. Had this been the note that Yellowjackets had concluded on, I would have had to have led the comments section in a protest march on because it’s not the great crescendo we were hoping for, but does manage to set up some exciting new propositions for season two.
In the present day, the women have come together to help dispose of Adam’s body. I’ve said it once and I’ve said it again, Misty is a psychopath but she’s a great friend. She collects the cleaning supplies from her job (12% of murderers are caught shopping for cleaning supplies, don’t you know) and sets to work—luckily without witnesses and security cameras. “We’re just destroying evidence!” Misty gleefully says, with one of Christina Ricci’s peerlessly terrifying grins. Unfortunately for Shauna, since she’s the one with the knife skills, it’s down to her to cut her lover’s body into pieces. It’s a sweet moment when Nat looks at her, aware of how difficult a proposition that is and reassures her, “I’ll help you.”
While sawing off his head and hands for Misty to ingeniously sneak into a recently departed patient’s coffin (great friend, but a terrible nurse), Nat and Shauna bond further, even if Shauna think’s that Travis probably did just die by suicide. Melanie Lynskey’s restraint as an actress makes many of her most devastating lines hit harder. Covered in blood, she plainly states, “What if the truth is we are all just fucked in the head from what happened to us?” It’s a moment that makes all that happens in the wilderness ever more depressing. That those girls fought and starved and survived only to get to a place where a death by suicide seems a perfectly reasonable option.
The reunion finally arrives and Taissa, Nat, and Shauna arrive walking in slow motion, like an edgier version of the plastics. Misty quickly rushes to walk in alongside them and, grateful for her body-disposing expertise, they all seem to welcome it. Frustratingly, despite the multiple episode build up to the reunion no new adult Yellowjackets are introduced. When the party ends, despite having re-connected Shauna and Jeff, it comes as a huge letdown.
Even if Misty is thrilled with how the evening goes, it proves an infuriating red herring as a viewer. Misty and Jessica the PI reach an agreement, and Misty agrees to let her go, even kindly returning her cigarettes to her, though they are a “terrible habit.” But just like in their first interaction, Jessica underestimates Misty, and a few puffs in her car later collapses, presumably dead thanks to a couple of well-placed injections of fentanyl. Farewell, Jessica—sad we couldn’t have more from Rekha Sharma in season two but always good to appreciate just what Misty is capable of.
In the wilderness, the Yellowjackets are having to confront just what Misty is capable of, too. The girls wake up in a daze, strewn on the ground like they’ve fallen out of an airplane, some of them having to address nearly murdering Travis, and are initially unaware what happened to them. It doesn’t take long to get the truth out of Misty, that ’shrooms meant to poison the coach were in the stew. That seems of significant comfort to Shauna, a reasonable explanation as to why they behaved like a pack of wolves, but Jackie remains furious.
Lottie seems unfazed by this information, clearly feeling the ’shrooms were only a vessel to connecting with something real. When a bear appears behind her, she calmly takes a knife and plunges it into the back of its skull, saving them all, presumably providing ample food as well as the the fur outfit and mask Misty was wearing in the premiere episode.
But, there are things that also cannot be unsaid. And when Lottie shoved Jackie into the closet in episode nine and hissed “You don’t matter anymore!,” she meant it. Jackie, still under the illusion that she holds the same power that she did when strutting down the hallways of high school, confronts Shauna in front of the group. “Shauna was fucking Jeff!” she yells, playing it like a trump card as if that would somehow elicit great sympathy to a group that has watched half of their friends die horribly.
Shauna, a pregnant teenage plane crash survivor that just filleted a bear and almost murdered a guy while on ’shrooms, has finally had enough of Jackie’s shit. A wonderful furious performance from Sophie Nélisse as she yells back about the way Jackie has always treated her as a sidekick. “I don’t even like soccer!” She lands the ultimate insult with aplomb: “High school was the best your life was ever going to get.”
The Yellowjackets are clearly favoring Shauna, and Jackie’s attempt to have her evicted fail. Instead it is Jackie that finds herself out in the cold alone, with no one but herself to blame. High school really is over.
And finally, we have it. What really happened to Jackie is solved. She dreams of being re-accepted by her friends but it’s just a sad final delusion. Having failed to light a fire and being too proud to come back inside, she curls up on the cold damp ground alone. The next morning, Shauna wakes up and a fresh blanket of snow is on the ground. Shauna runs out, but it is too late. Jackie is stiff and blue, frozen to death in the night. It may not be the spectacular demise many of us were waiting for, but the traumatic effect on Shauna is tangible, and it feels like a sincere source for her alienated numbness 25 years later. Much like Nat with her father, Shauna didn’t technically murder Jackie, but came close enough that the guilt will haunt her like she actually had.
And while we don’t technically get a new Yellowjacket, one is hinted at. Nat is kidnapped in the night by a group that are loyal to Lottie. Are they the people who killed Travis? Is Lottie alive or are they worshipping a dead teenager? What do they want with Nat? Bring on season two, I say.
Stray Observations
- Taissa won the election! A twist most of us could see coming a mile off. I’m hoping it came down to Misty’s single vote.
- More surprisingly, Simone finds a small shrine in their basement that contains the head of their dearly departed dog. How this connects to everything is anyone’s guess as much of what is going on with Shauna seems to pre-date the plane crash.
- Van and Misty kneel down behind Lottie in the snow. I see Shauna and Taissa being lured over too at one point. After all, they said Nat saves them from something.
- Travis might be dead but he’s still my least favorite man on the show (yes, worse than Randy or the fella with no eyes). Nat saved his life and he still mocked her with how he “got laid.” I don’t care if he is traumatiszd by his dad’s death, he’s still the absolute worst.
- Was the world’s most suspicious man just a nice normal guy?!? Adam is on the news, having been reported missing, which suggests he was, at the very least, an artist called Adam. So much for all our theories. Sometimes in life, a manic-pixie dream boy with no internet presence finds it delightful that you rear-end their car and yell at them; coincidentally starts showing up at places you are; lies about their background; buys books about you and pretends not to know who you are and… is just a nice guy. Go figure.
- Thank you all for all these theories. I think the comments section of these recaps have been some of the most interesting TV discussions on the internet. One time someone said I was “just like Misty,” but I’m going to take that as a compliment.
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I don’t even like Travis but I don’t think you’re being empathetic enough here. He was needlessly cruel to Natalie but he was clearly putting up a front to deal with the trauma of being sexually assaulted and almost killed and eaten. He’s not handling it well but would you?
I’d normally agree with you 100%, but Travis has been a jerk to Natalie for awhile.So his behavior here felt more like a continuation in a long line of needless slut shaming and crybaby behavior that just happened to occur after the Doomcoming incident.Not to mention his completely horrible behavior to Javi – his own brother. Travis has been The Worst since day one.
Travis is pretty on-brand for a 90s troubled teenage guy. I don’t think he’s the “best” or “worst”, he’s an accurate portrayal of a dude from the era who’s not internally enlightened enough to know how to fix himself and doesn’t have outside sources guiding or forcing him to improve.The slut shaming obviously came from his own feelings of inadequacy and I think he was aware enough to know he was being a complete ass but didn’t know how else to act, that’s how sexually active young women were seen and treated at the time by society in general not just beta-male virgins jealous of or obsessed with their partners’ histories. He could be a better person and maybe in 2022 he could be but this is exactly what I remember a hell of a lot of “sensitive” teen guys to be like in the 90s.I’m not defending him just saying it’s a great and well written character and it’s kind of a disservice to just say he’s “the worst” like a soap opera heel.
Agreed. Travis is a total dick, for sure, but he doesn’t really know how not to be a dick. Apologizing to Nat rather than maintaining the facade is, I presume, a step in the right direction. BTW, where did they spend the snowy night and what’s going to happen when they get back? They’re already pissed off at the rest of the gang for what they did to Travis, and, unlike Jackie, I bet they can survive outside the cabin on their own. Definitely two camps forming next season?
I missed it too the first time I watched but if you look closely when Shauna finds Jackie, Nat and Travis are amongst the onlookers, so the must’ve made it back before the snow came.
Still doesn’t tell us where Javi is. Maybe he found refuge in the plane fuselage?
Yeah that’s going to be a big question for next season. He had even less protection from the elements than Jackie, and he was almost as ill-equipped to survive, so I don’t know how he will survive. Maybe he finds shelter, and this provides the basis for a new setting where Nat and Travis join him and break away from the main group.
Definitely missed that, thanks. Will have another look!
I’d normally completely agree with everything you said, but I’m also factoring in Travis’ non-Natalie based behavior too.Travis has been actively awful to Javi – his own brother(!) – both prior and post crash. I was willing to chalk up the former to typical sibling dynamics, but the latter feels pretty inexcusable. He and Javi (whose already at a highly impressionable age) survive a plane crash – and not only does Travis *not* make any effort to comfort Javi, he has also actively shunned him.Didn’t Travis also push Javi away when they confirmed their father’s death? I can’t remember fully, but I feel like he did. And yeah, Travis could’ve been in shock at that moment, but we certainly don’t see him making an effort to amend that later.Travis deciding to look for Javi in the S1 finale is the first time I’ve seen him display anything remotely resembling sibling affection.So I’m not trying to paint in dichotomous colors with regards to behavior and just say Travis is ‘bad’. But his behavior to Javi, along with his behavior towards Natalie, adds up to a fairly unsympathetic person…IMO, of course.
He did, I believe. He was being a dick about the gum thing, but then later after he got the ring from their father’s body, he gave it to Javi so he’d have something a bit more permanent of their father than gum.
Travis deciding to look for Javi in the S1 finale is the first time I’ve seen him display anything remotely resembling sibling affection.To be fair, he does spend an entire episode subjecting himself to the trauma of exhuming his recently-deceased Pa just to give Javi his ring.
He retrieved that ring off his father’s corpse just for Javi. He’s trying the best he can while in DEEP mourning.
Yah I feel he’s just a very repressed teen boy, who even out in the wild, is completely rigid in his ability to emote and communicate. That’s just how insidious toxic masculinity is, and Nat is effectively the most mature/capable person out there but still is consumed with the responsibility of navigating some other dudes problems.
I agree with this summation completely. As someone who was a teen in the 90s, Travis is one of the more realistic depictions of how a lot of guys were. Also, the amount of trauma he’s dealt with out there (and we don’t even know what was going on with his family pre-crash, but it was SOMETHING) is heartbreaking. He’s not on that team, he resented that team, he’s ill equipped to take care of his little brother who is also in mourning, and he has no male peers out there with him. Even though it’s not a competition, I feel the absolute worst for Travis & Javi out there.
I was going to mention Javi too. He seems to have been surprisingly cold to the kid – one almost wonders if the whole reason he’s shown teaching him to tie his tie is so they have some warmth to flashback to! When did he start looking for him? Nobody seemed to notice he was missing for quite a while.
Yeah, it’s kind of funny that it’s understood that his being a boy means he gets more leeway for beng a jerk – and we all understand why.
*Thank you*. It’s driving me NUTS how people keep defending his terrible behavior to both Natalie and Javi. As if being male in the 90s is carte blanche for acting like a jerk off.And he was behaving awfully *before* the plane crash, but people want to give him every possible leeway for it.
Yeah I read it as him shutting down because yeah, he’s been through a lot of trauma: He saw his dad fall to his death (twice), he had to exhume his dad once, he was sexually and physically assaulted, and his brother is missing. I’d be an emotional blank slate.
Being told you’re just like Misty IS a compliment, Leila. Misty is the best…that is a hill I’m willing to die on. ;-)I thought I’d be more upset that more mysteries weren’t solved by the finale, but the show addressed enough for me to feel as if it wasn’t a cheap delay.Shauna threatening Randy at the reunion was amazing. Melanie Lynskey can go from girl-next-door sweet to menacing on a dime and I’m here for it.Speaking of Shauna, I wonder if her daughter is going to assume that *Jeff” was behind Adam’s disappearance considering she’s always underestimating her own mother.The scene alternating between the dog’s head/human heart table and Taissa’s face upon winning made me wonder if we’re supposed to assume Taissa set up that tableaux (in another fugue state).Did anyone else think the man in Jackie’s death vision looked like adult Jeff?I also liked that Jackie’s death was somewhat mundane. It actually heightens the needless tragedy of her death, IMO.Lastly, I feel like we’re supposed to think the people who kidnapped Natalie are being directed by Lottie. Especially based on the necklaces they’re wearing. But what if it’s a misdirection and they’re being led by *Van* – especially based on her major change in belief system this episode.I’m sad the season is over. I haven’t been this obsessed over a show in I don’t know how long. And that it was a female fronted ensemble dark dramedy was ::chef’s kiss::.
Well I guess I subscribe to Showtime now. I initially only did it for the two month .99 cent per month rate & was going to cancel. But I probably want to rewatch & maybe they will get s2 out in a reasonable amount of time & I am for sure committed to the show now
I subscribed as well, to show my support for this show.
if you really wanna show your support, only subscribe when the show is airing. that’ll really send the message
I did this exact thing specifically to see this show. I’m absolutely keeping it.
I personally don’t think Lottie made it out of the woods, that she may have even been betrayed by some of her followers and killed, so they could escape and be rescued. And now, the few diehard devotees are coming back for revenge.Alternately: Lottie survived but was deemed to be so unhinged that her claims were dismissed, and she was hospitalized, and perhaps only just recently was released, explaining the long gap in time between the events in the woods, and the postcards.
I think Lottie IS alive, and the show wants us to *think* that she’s behind Natalie’s kidnapping (and by extension, the modern day cultists).Because while I think Lottie did empty Travis’ bank accounts, I wonder if *Liv* is behind the cultists. And I only say that because she clearly had a major shift in her belief system following her near-death experience. Consider how certain she was and upset she got when she thought Taissa was going mock her.When watching, it made me think of those people who have ‘born-again’ experiences that drastically alter their worldview.It wouldn’t surprise me that in S2, while Lottie starts the cult in the 1996 timeline, Liv is leading it by the time of the 2021 timeline.
Liv = Van?
LoL…yup. The name of the actress who plays Van is Liv Hewson. I was mixing up the names. Thank you. 🙂
Yes: the actress playing Van is Liv Hewson.
It seems as though Lottie is definitely alive in the present day. Here’s showrunner Jonathon Lisko’s response to the question about casting adult Lottie from Variety:I can’t really reveal who they are, but yes, we’ve had some really fun, vivid discussions about who could play adult Lottie. I can’t really tell you much more about Lottie in 2021, because I feel like that might kind of spoil the story that we’re marinating on.I feel like the intuitive interpretation of Jonathon’s answer is that they are casting adult Lottie and so, you know, she’s alive.
True. But it still could still be both things: Lottie is alive but Can could be running the modern day cult. I wouldn’t put it past the show to do such a red herring considering the Adam/Javi tease. A good portion of viewers thought that was an obvious potline but it turned out to be the opposite.BTW, how did you do the quote attribution in your response?
I don’t know if the Adam/Javi thing is dead yet. I can’t remember anyone actually saying that Javi is dead. Also can’t decide whether it would be narratively satisfying if Lottie is big bad of the series.But yeah, just hit the “Aa” button on the right. Feels pretty slick.
Can’t we assume that Jeff sent the postcards? That’s the reason why Shauna didn’t get one, all part of the blackmail scheme?
the postcards were from jeff which is unrelated to Travis’ murder and the abduction other then it lead to them being aware of it indirectly.
You and me will keep each other company while dying on our Misty loving hill.
Misty is fabulous!
I am assuming taissa is the one who cut off her dogs head, or at least we are “supposed” to think so, as who else would have put that there, she blanks out, etc..
That’s certainly the suggested explanation if that scene was meant to be realistic, but it’s so surreal that it’s hard to know what to make of it. What sort of house in the world has a large room like that in the basement hidden entirely behind a flue grate?
You might be onto something with Van. I think they gave her those distinctive facial scars so when an adult actress shows up down the line with those same scars, we recognize her immediately.
Misty is a psychopath! Sure, she’s a super interesting TV character, but I’d run far, far away from someone like that in real life.I haven’t read through all the comments yet, but I can’t be the only one that thinks Misty killed Travis, right?
Yeah, I thought the this with Tass was obvious. Shes been sleepwaking. The lady in the tree and the bad one are her when shes sleepwalking. Her son denied everything to the p-doc. Thats because its actually been Tass the whole time. She was the one who painted “spill”, which makes the scene where she decides not to quit even darker, she was the one who framed her son. and she was the one who took the eyes out of her sons doll and beheaded his dog. “Night person” Tass clearly has issues with that kid- its clear its not her biological son, and I suspect she subconsciously sees him as competition for her wife who she admitted she isnt passionate about. So this antipathy is acted out by night Tassia, and their is also clearly dark side to her ambition although she isnt conscious of it, which was shown in the pilot when she swore she didnt mean to do what she did to the frosh.
Yeah, Adam was just a regular guy, and his suspiciousness was a red herring. This was more or less confirmed in interviews. Shauna falling for him, the way their relationship went, doing things with him she would never do in her bored housewife role, and then her non chalance after killing him speak volumes about Shauna’s character.
The thing with Lottie also seems obvious. Lottie believes in what I’ll call “the operator” She even said at the seance they wouldnt be allowed to leave till they spilled blood. Nan (lesbian white girl) like Lottie had a near death experience. My guess is more and more of the girls are going to be seeing things lottie’s way as time goes on- but keep in mind none of this is explicitly supernatural. Sure it seems that way cause its a show, but if you were there would you think that or would you just point out a lot of weird shit is admiittedly happening but there are rational explanations for everything. It seems Lottie sacrifices the non-belivers. And that the big secret, they didnt just resort to cannibalism out of desperation, it was ritual cannablism- just beofre they got resucued.
Nat said Travis never believed in that shit. Which seems to imply he just pretended to to survive. If so, and Lonnie has restarted her cult (there were eight survivors) maybe she killed travis because she found out he never believed it. The modern day colut members kidnap nat and in this trailer for season 2 we see some kind of hypnotherapy. Maybe this is the cult trying t figure out whether or not Nat really believed. The note from Travis could have been forged, or it could have referred to something else- maybe he realized Lottie was after him and that was what she was right about. OR it could be a forged note to convince Nat that there was something supernatural going on.
Keep in mind we see the symbol on the tree when they crashed, but Lottie was the first one in the attic- she could have carved those symbols in here as her delusion is a self fulfilling prophecy. Hell, she could have even been the one to do something to the bear to further the girls belief that they couldnt beleive and was responsible for the explosion.
They mention cults in the season 2. Assuming lesbian white girl is still alive and part of Lottie’s cult, that leaves one survivor unaccounted for. My moneys on Travis’ youger brother. if Travis was going along with it to survive, he probably encouraged his brother to do the same. Watching the interviews and reading, they dont directly reveal things, but they do say more then they intended. When the supernatural comes up, they are very ambiguos. In the interview they said its a question they cant really answer. Is the supernatural influencing their trauma, or as they said, is one person’s mindstate influencing the rest to perceive things as supernatural? I feel like that isnt going to be answered, its going to remain up to interpretation. as thats part of what they want to explore.
These things im saying are foreshadowed in the show, not really guesses. Also, it seems like Shauna is going to have the baby out there and its going to get eaten, which might be more of the guilt factor that lead her to marry jeff and sort of live out Jackie’s life as she imagined it, including filling in journal stuff for the nest few years which the writers said was very intentional and not an accidental anachronism.
Basically, it seems like they put a lot of thought into everything and nothing is buy accident. They even mentioned would we find out more about the dead guy and the cabin. I feel like what I have descirbed isnt enough. They said they werent going to pad things out and had more story to tell. They also let it purposely ambigous how many girls there are, as weve mainly seen a few particular characters but in group scenes there are clearly more girls we know nothing about. They said they are going to introuduce more characters, and my guess is that as characters we know bite the bullet, future non-survivors will be fleshed out more and perhaps what they were doing during that summer and fal will also be shown.
The author did make one mistake. He mentioned how Jackie saying Shauna sleeping with Jeff filed to impress because they had seen half their friend die.
so far in the 1996 timelines, the deaths are the two pilots and steward, one coach who is the father of two buys, and one of their teammates from the plane crash
since then, only two girls have died, Jesus Girl and Jackie.
Some where else, someone mentions jackie as the first death since the plane crash, but they seemed to forget about Jesus Girl who died in the Cessna explosion.
There is more to Adam. He is likely part of Lotte’s cult. He has the symbolic tattoo. He talks about taking Shauna to a cabin in the woods to meet his “friend”. The “loan sharks” are part of the cult and made Jeff give them copies of Shauna’s diaries. This led to them knowing the type of guy to send to seduce Shauna. They need the “survivors” back for some reason. That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.
I just go back to the idea of the car crash being orchestrated as being too much of a stretch. And I think it would be a mistake to make this cult to have that much reach. I think they should be really small and isolated. Talking Heaven’s Gate, just a few dozen members living in a rented mansion small. Plus you have that pushback by Melanie Lynskey, who felt some real hurt that people thought Adam had to have some ulterior motive to want to be with her. I think Adam legitimately liked her, and his death is a tragic portrayal of how Shauna’s self hate and guilt prevents her from accepting the love of others.
the car crash being orchestrated as being too much of a stretch. Although…did Shauna not rear-end him? Or think she did while distracted? (Might be misremembering that.)Stopping short to cause a bump from behind is a pretty standard insurance-scam ploy, and even *idiots are capable of pulling it off.
(*One used it on a friend of mine and the insurance rep called it from the dashcam video.)
There were fewer answers than I hoped for, but the ones we got felt big & satisfying & definitely set up an interesting s2. I bet they add a couple of prominent actresses as grown up Van & Lottie, at least, next season. My choices: Alicia Witt and Fairuza Balk I hope that Misty rescues Nat next season, cementing them as BFFs in the present, much to Nat’s eye rolling chagrin
My pick for Lottie (if she survives) is Shannyn Sossomon. She checks every box. She has an intense, ethereal quality that makes her an idea guru. She’s got an acting cred going back to the 90s so she fits the pattern there. And she has a mixed ancestry very similar to Courtney Eaton’s, each descending from European and Pacific islander heritage. That’s going to be an important factor to ensure racial sensitivity and representation. As for Van, I’m pretty open here. Sarah Snook has been discussed, though I suspect she’d be impossible to get being on a competing network’s flagship show. She probably has a non-compete clause. Alicia Witt would be good. I really like Lauren Ambrose, or Julia Stiles. I’m so bummed that Jackie’s death means we won’t get to see an adult version played by Robin Tunney.
Lauren Ambrose is on a different, lesser known horror show already. (Servant, although maybe that’s wrapping after the new season?) Plus, I just can’t see it personality-wise: she’s more surly-sarcastic than funny-sarcastic.
At that I didn’t realize. What do you think of Julia Stiles? I think she’s got the right demeanor and with red hair, would be an excellent analog.Some are calling for Drew Barrymore, I guess on the strength of her having played Liv Hewson’s mom on Santa Clarita Diet, but I think that would be disastrous.
I definitely think Stiles is the best fit personality-wise; she often got cast as the wise-cracking teen from what I remember. There’s enough of a superficial resemblance to sell it, too, although Stiles’ presentation feels a little too femme for Van.I could also kind of see Melissa Joan Hart, if I squint?I think a lot of people in the Drew Barrymore crowd are hoping for an Ever After reunion.
Alicia Witt is a better actress and age appropriate. Even Christiana is too young for her part…or more she plays younger the women she be around 44/45 Ricci is just 40…Juliet is 50+ I don’t care what Wikipedia says along with cypress who is lovely, but is about 3 years older than she says she is… Christina looks comically out of place next to the other actresses. They just should have made her character a freshman vs. the rest of the girls.
past 30, people just age different, speeds up for some and not much happens in others. I would never think Ricci looks out of place in that group.
I’m born in ‘83 and look extremely young and understand that. But, Juliet looks like a bag of leather while Ricci looks like a women in her late 20’s early 30’s honestly and Melanie is someone who has always had a young face. It just looks weird and the costume people try to age her up with hair and makeup and it makes it look all the more laughable.
I mean Lewis’ character has lived a life of substance disorder, makes sense for the character. I think Lewis is one stunning lady. I also think Ricci has had some very natural looking injectables and is glowing in her pregnancy.
It’s funny, I actually thought the opposite. These characters are only 4 years older than I am, and Misty looks pretty close to many of my friends. There’s lots of Shaunas, too. As for Nat, she’s supposed to look “like a bag of leather” because she’s been a drug addict for a couple decades. In and out of rehab, drinking hard, etc. I look at Misty and Nat together and can see the difference but, to me, it just help drives home how different their lives have been since they were rescued.
That’s a mean thing to say.
Juliette is 47!
If you believe that I’ve got a lucrative deal to cut you in on involving some pretty jazzy leggings
I like Shannyn Sossamon. She also was on Wayward Pines with Juliette Lewis, but I can’t remember if they had any scenes together.
How tall is Shannyn? What’s so scary about lottie is that she towers over the girls. I have a feeling shannyn. Is on the tiny side.
She’s 5’8; Eaton is 5’10. So close enough that they could make it work I think.
Put her on platforms for every episode?
Eaton was one of Immortan Joe’s wives* in “Mad Max: Fury Road”. I only bring this up because of the height thing. The movie literally cast all these insanely tall*, willowy models to play each ‘wife’. *(I use the term from the movie. I realize the women were trafficked)**(The shortest, and only non-model, was Zoe Kravitz, but it’s hardly like she’s lacking in beauty).
And Kravitz’s casting was a really interesting choice because her character is supposed to be the only one of “the wives” who has real experience outside of the Citadel, i.e. she can handle weapons, is a fighter, so it’s a good choice that while they cast models for the other roles to emphasize their grooming, Kravitz reflects something of an outsider who was selected.
Shannyn Sossomon is a fantastic pick for Lottie.
I think Julia Stiles would be a great pic. Though she’s kinda generation after the others, she’d be a good pick.I just don’t think Shannyn Sossomon has the really acting chops to go head to head with the main adult four
The creators of the show actually dropped a couple major “answers” in a Vulture interview from a couple days ago:
1) Jackie is definitely dead, not “maybe, sorta”; they envisioned Shauna continuing entries in her diary after returning home, so that’s why movies listed post-1996 were there; and they had no idea people would freeze-frame it as an Easter egg
2) They had to pitch the show as 5 seasons because that’s what Showtime execs expect from every showrunner (so that you can demonstrate you won’t run out of ideas), but suggest it could definitely end earlier if it logically makes sense, and don’t want to drag it out for the sake of dragging it out (*cough* Weeds, Homeland, Dexter).
3) There are definitely other surviving Yellowjackets we haven’t seen yet in the present timeline, and (jokingly) took casting suggestions. One was Claire Danes (!)
Claire Danes looks just like Laura Lee, but unless that character comes back as a ghost…
I like Lauren Ambrose for Van personally. Lottie is a bit harder for casting I think maybe they would benefit from somebody fairly unknown.
Shannyn is a great choice for Lottie, but my pick is Mary Elizabeth Winstead. She’s younger than everyone else, but I can just chalk that up to demon cult energy 🙂
Unfortunately that’s a non-starter. Courtney Eaton is mixed Asian and Maori ethnicity (and some European) and has said casting someone of similar ethnic background is very important.
Good point, I was also thinking Moon Bloodgood, as well, but she isn’t Maori.
It’s going to be a big challenge to find that right person in terms of honoring Eaton’s heritage, while also embodying the character. It may be they’ll have to cast an unknown. Given the casting choices made thus far, I trust they’ll find someone great.
Omg Jackie totally has that same eye roll Robin did in the Craft.
Tunney would’ve been perfect, so perfect. Now all we can hope for is the occasional ghostly cameo by Purnell. I hope she haunts the eff out of that cabin and its survivors.
Robin Tunney! Finally someone was able to name the person I kept picturing in my head that looks just like her. Thank you, it was driving me nuts.Julia Stiles certainly looks perfect for it, but I don’t think she’s good enough for this show. Lauren Ambrose would be great.
I’m holding out the slimmest of hopes that maybe we’ll get a dream or fantasy scene of an adult Jackie, just so my Robin Tunney casting fantasy can still come true.
If Karyn Kusama is involved with the show moving forward, I vote Megan Fox as Lottie.
I’m torn between Shannyn Sossamon and Tia Carrere for adult Lottie, but Tia would be a most excellent choice as a 90’s icon. “If she were president, she’d be Baberham Lincoln.”
Tia would be amazing to see, Ricci, Lewis and Lynskey all are queer icons in their own right and so is Tia, she’d fit in perfect with the queerness of the show.
Unfortunately I’dont think Tia Carrere is a good pick precisely because she’s a 90’s icon. We all remember her from Wayne’s World which came out in 1992 when she was in her mid-20’s.
Need to throw in a vote for Merritt Weaver for Van as my pick.
OMG, getting Merritt Wever would be amazing. She is fantastic in everything she’s in and she convincingly resembles Liv Hewson (the actress who plays Van).
Yes! Merritt Weaver would be a great adult Van.
*Wever
Fairuza Balk would be so perfect. She is truly a witchy lady. I’ve been listening to my Craft soundtrack along after watching this show.
No performance was more iconic in the 1990s than Fairuza Balk in The Craft
This statement is so ridiculous that I feel compelled to list all the more iconic performances of the 90’s.Alicia Silverstone in CluelessSamuel L. Jackson in Pulp FictionTom Hanks in Forrest GumpKate Winslet in TitanicJeff Goldblum in Jurassic ParkKeanu Reeves in The MatrixJohnny Depp in Edward ScissorhandsSusan Sarandon and Gina Davis in Thelma & LouiseMorgan Freeman in The Shawshank RedemptionJeff Bridges and John Goodman in The Big LebowskiArnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2Joe Pesci in GoodfellasAnthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs
This episode wrecked me. I’m struggling to think of a death that has gotten to me like Jackie’s has. It was so sad, so lonely and devoid of purpose. It was the best bit of manipulation of audience expectation since Psycho. We expect Jackie to play in important role. She was going to be the Antler Queen. Or a leader of one of the rival groups. She was going to become again the leader that Coach said she was. Or she was going to be the ultimate mean girl like she seemed poised to become in episode 8. But in the end, the reality was she really didn’t matter. Five months so far in the wilderness, and she couldn’t even manage to make an adequate fire to keep herself warm.
This is a show that is ultimately about how we carry with us the trauma of cruelty we suffered, and the regrets of cruelty we inflicted. I think that is why it has connected with people the way it has. That trauma can take many different forms, and one persons’s experience cannot really compare to another’s All experiences are valid.I was trying to think of why the finale hit me so hard, and what it came down to is that growing up I had a very similar experience, as both a “Jackie” and a “Shauna.”In elementary school I had a friend who I will call Jason. I can’t tell you how we met, only that for a few years in elementary we were best friends. At least, I thought of him as MY best friend. My only friend, really (because I definitely have shades of Misty, being an outsider, socially awkward, dorky, etc). Jason and I would bike all over town, go to the movies, play videogames at each other’s houses, have sleep overs. We shared a love of science and technology and built a pretend race-car out of a wagon and cardboard that we’d ride down the hill in his back yard. The first trip I ever took away from my parents – a community organized day trip to an aerospace museum several hours away – Jason and I went together.Then when we came back to school from summer break, around fifth grade, it was like a switch flipped. He had new friends he hung with at recess. He started playing more sports and explicitly did not invite me to join. He started to bully me. Harass me even. It got so bad, that the teachers became concerned that Jason had changed so radically, and he and I went to a joint session with the school counselor. She put it to him, point blank, why he didn’t want to be my friend any more, and he said, “He never was my friend. I never liked all that stuff he did, I was just playing along.”The friendship ended, and when we started middle school, he went to another school, and we never saw one another again, aside from a brief encounter when we were both taking the ACT. In later years, I would hear from my parents that they encountered him at a restaurant, and he told them he’d like to get reconnect with me. I didn’t for one minute think to reach out. It was one thing that we ceased being friends. He had denied that we ever had been friends. That was beyond my ability at the time to forgive.in 2009, ten or twelve years after we last met, I learned Jason was dead. He had been at a friend’s house, in a not-so-good part of town. The friend was into drugs, and several young men who lived in the area decided to rob him in the hopes of scoring his supply and whatever money he might have. They barged in held the two at gunpoint, and then after grabbing what they were looking for, shot them both dead. Jason as far as I know didn’t have anything to do with it, he was just hanging out one afternoon, and was in the wrong place at the wrong time.I’ve thought about him frequently in the now 12 years since he died. Thought about what might have happened, if I had tried to reach out to him, if I had been more forgiving and perhaps sought to understand WHY he did what he did to me. Maybe he was going through something serious in his personal life, and it manifested in a change to his personality. Maybe I could’ve helped him, or nudged him toward a different path, away from the one that led him to hanging out with the wrong crowd, and which put him in the wrong place. Maybe just that tiniest bit of effort on my part, would’ve led to him being somewhere, anywhere else, the day he was murdered.But it’s too late, and I’ll always carry the pain of his rejection of my friendship, and my failure to reach out when he offered amends. I look back on my youth and find little about it that is worth sentimentalizing. It has made aging a rather nice thing because I tend now to look ahead, rather than back, and take each new day as it’s own, new opportunity, which is not something Jason has.
And with that, some final observations to wrap up this, the finest first season of television I’ve ever seen:
– I’m still not convinced Lottie is alive in the present. I’m not sure she’d have willingly come out of the woods. My long term theory is that at some point some of the survivors, probably led by Nat, rise up against Lottie and kill her, seemingly ending the hold she has on the others, and allowing them to seek rescue. I think it may be that some of the survivors, perhaps led by Van (who I believe does survive) reconstituted the group and still worship Lottie. It would also explain why they needed Travis’s money. If it were Lottie, she would presumably have her family’s wealth. The cult may need that money to further their aims, and used Lottie’s name as a cover.
-I hope the medics get Jessica some narcan in time, because I’d love to see her go gunning for Misty. But fentanyl is a lethal opioid, particularly if you have no tolerance built up.
– Part of me wondered if Misty is in league with the cult and has been their eyes and ears on Nat, Tai and Shauna. But I’m not sure she has that kind of long term loyalty. She goes with whichever group is strongest at the moment, so eager is her desire for inclusion and acceptance.
– Tai however, really has me wondering at this point. She’s having fugue states of course, but then when she won the election, she flashed a knowing grin. Did that alter, and the sacrifice, in her mind achieve her victory? Is she now a true believer? Plus, the reveal that Jessica is a “fixer” raised some dark implications for why Tai hired her. What if Shauna, for instance, HAD entertained her lucrative offer? Would Tai have had her killed? She strikes me potentially more villainous than Misty, because she hides who she really is. To quote Hamlet, “One may smile and smile and be a villain.”
-I was for a long time not on board with the idea of there being supernatural elements in this show. I’ve changed somewhat. I’ll put it this way: I’m all for the inexplicable. I just hope it doesn’t go OVERTLY supernatural and we people with magical powers doing superhuman feats, or a ceremony to resurrect some dark being. And yet, I sort of WANT to believe in the supernatural, and the hope that it means that Laura Lee and Jackie live on in some form.
– If the writers by some chance read this, please don’t make the cult some kind of powerful, nefarious group wielding major influence behind the scenes. I’d much rather it be some small, determined group, than something on the scale of Scientology in terms of reach and menace. -Things are not looking good for Javi, since he had less protection than Jackie and no fire, and presumably was out in the wilderness. I rather like the theory that the bear ate him, and its odd behavior stemmed from consuming the shrooms he had previously eaten.
-She was only on screen for a few minutes, but it was enough to make me wish Tai would break Allie’s other leg.
-there’s been a great discussion about the passive-aggressive implications of Melanie Lynskey’s physical looks, with all the theories that Adam had to have an ulterior motive for dating Shauna. Not pleasant, and no on deserves this, and Lynskey’s work has been stunning. I think Adam was simply what he presented himself to be, and legitimately liked, even loved, Shauna, and the tragedy is that Shauna has such guilt and self hate that she couldn’t see him for what he was.-Misty’s interaction with her coworkers hit me close too. As someone on the autism spectrum, I have totally missed cues, and said things seemingly in rote, like how she speaks almost as if reciting stock phrases, which results in her misgendering a coworker.-I am so NOT going to my high school reunion. Well that’s all my frazzled brain can come up with. I know others have different feelings, but I’ve never been this excited, or engaged by a television series. It’s been a thrill to discover it, and watch the fandom grow, and I hope it will continue to grow, so we can see it brought to its creators’ full vision. Until then, take care of yourselves, and go listen to some banging 90s indie rock.
Thank you for this post. Couple quick thoughts.. I thought Misty said “see you later, girls” as some sort of sarcastic remark to coworkers she knew didn’t like her? Maybe I’m wrong.
Also, the “Cult of Lottie” is giving me strong “Guilty Remnant” from “Leftovers” vibes.. survivors out for blood/revenge/something sinister..
Apropos, considering that Jasmine Savoy Brown, who plays young Taissa, plays Evangeline Murphy in The Leftovers.
I’m making my husband watch The Leftovers right now, and we just started S2, and he was all “where do I know that girl from?” And I practically squealed “SHE’S TAISSA!!!!!!” (Although internally, I was more like “where do I know that girl from” in the first ep of Yellowjackets. Ah, Evie, you little minx.)
Regarding The Leftovers (in my top ten) & the Guilty Remnants, I thought exactly that.
Please God let Ann Dowd show up!
I don’t normally have the wherewithal to read long posts, but I read yours, and I’m glad that I did.
It was too long in hindsight. I’m shit at self editing, but I hope what I put out there was good.
Disagree. It was the perfect length, and your backstory only added to it.
I’m shit at self editingSame. (And always anxious about it. Waaay too many re-reads of sent emails after-the-fact.)
But I am glad you let it rip, up there.
Jackie’s death knocked the wind out, as intended; reading/writing it out helps.Thank you for your honesty, the thoroughness of your analysis, the deep cut of your “Jason” story, and the extra observations/insights: very much appreciated.
This is such a good post. Your frazzled brain is impressive. I take your point about Melanie Lynskey’s physical looks and Adam. I do personally think that the show did present Adam as being extremely suspicious, and reading him as such wasn’t necessarily a dig at her (extremely beautiful) appearance.
And I don’t think you did either. Lynskey’s comments were directed more at the reddit community (to which I belong) which is overwhelmingly very positive and fun, but there was definitely a contingent who felt that the fact that Adam was into Lynskey’s character indicated something underhanded on his part, and in turn a passive-aggressive swipe at her physical appearance.
Nah, Adam is too suspicious and him seeming to be just a guy also seems to be a red herring. Even taking out the physical, a young good looking guy does not normally try that hard to seduce a middle aged married, non rich, woman with kids for it to be he just fell in love a first sight with a woman who rear ended his car. Might be it, but they certainly made the whole thing suspicious enough I kind of doubt it. If it were a schulbby middle aged guy married with kids and some 20 something gorgeous woman was doing to him what Adam was doing with Shauna, I don’t think anyone would bat an eye at the same conclusion.
Thank you for all of these thoughts.First, although I’m sure you don’t need advice from an internet stranger, please know that almost everyone goes through the same sort of friendship break up at around the same time. It’s so sad, especially when you can’t figure out why your former BFF all of a sudden doesn’t want to hang out with you any more. I had the same thing happen to me and I watched it happen to my daughter too. I think it’s often the case that one kid “grows out of” the things they enjoyed doing as kids (or, even more often, I find, someone in their life bullies/ridicules them for still liking to do something they did as kids) and in an effort to seem more grown up, they turn their back on the things and the people that they loved. It’s hard and it hurts, but there was nothing you could have done then (or later on) to change things. I’m sorry that Jason met such a terrible end.Yeah, in the end, I do kind of like that Adam may have just been a cute guy who thought Shauna was hot (because she is) and wanted to go for it. It’s still sus that he had that book about her, though. I’m really hoping that’s not the last of Javi we’ve seen – but he could have survived by building a fire larger than a coleman burner output, I think. So hopefully he hasn’t gone the way of Jackie.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the show. But also, thank you for sharing your story about Jason.
How this connects to everything is anyone’s guess as much of what is going on with Shauna seems to pre-date the plane crash.You mean Taissa? Struggling to understand how the shrine Simone found could have anything to do with Shauna.Apparently, knowing basic French could help you con others into believing you can channel French Canadian spirits when your plane goes down in the wilderness. And your parents thought Spanish was the practical foreign language choice!
bear poutine for the gods!
Mari tells Misty that they’re not gonna trust her with the food and we see Misty serving the meat in the 1st ep soooooooo… and she instigated the confrontation with Jackie to get the group off her back about the shrooms! I still maintain that Adam is Coach Martinez’s love child. I think he’s in the cult and that connection would be motive to join. The back tattoo he had will lead to the body being identified.Tai and Van are def gonna hit a snag as we see Tai is clearly trying to appease Van in an effort not to drift. Van seems to be the one who truly believes in Lottie whereas Misty is defaulting to whoever has the strongest influence in order to secure inclusion.Tai & Misty? Neither of them mention Jessica to the girls. If it is indeed Lottie (Jessica said she fixed things for the rich), why empty Travis’ bank account? Is she strapped for cash after all the settlements her family most likely had to pay? Cults do need to be bankrolled. Exactly how much money was in Travis’ account?
That’s why I agree I think Lottie is dead, or perhaps institutionalized, and the cult is now comprised of her followers.
But then why would Suzi have learned that “Lottie Matthews” took the money?
I think it’s an assumed name. It would be too suspect for the actual person to use their actual name. But if the cult is comprised of her followers, they may have adopted the identity for the purpose of covering their tracks.
Wanted to add that I feel for Callie bc Shauna is passing on trauma to her.
and a few puffs in her car later collapsesi feel misty was pretty messy with this. everyone has a ring camera and jessica’s car can be traced to misty’s house. i guess misty could lie her way out of that though. i don’t want jessica dead so i’m assuming the ambulance came just in time with that narcan. i just realized that misty still has a box of fentanyl chocolates lying around ready for whoever she wants to kill next lol.When a bear appears behind her, she calmly takes a knife and plunges it into the back of its skull, saving them allit more looked to me that the bear was sacrificing itself to them. lottie did say that they wouldn’t be hungry anymore.Jackie is stiff and blue, frozen to death in the night.i was hoping for full on villain jackie in present time but i guess not. it would’ve at least been nice to have her in the other faction. i think nat would’ve shit talked the uppity out of her but she just seemed too fated to death. thank you ella purnell. you were a great.
Simone finds a small shrine in their basement that contains the head of their dearly departed dogtaissa’s sacrifice to win the election? maybe. it makes me question her black outs. she definitely is blacking out but also maybe she is conscious and cognizant and intentionally doing some of these things.Nat is kidnapped in the night by a group that are loyal to Lottie.her power. let’s see where this goes…
What the world needs right now is a scene where Misty and Natalie, surrounded by lavender-clad henchfolk, fight their way out – Natalie putting holes in peoples’ thoroughly-laundered brains and Misty pitching perfect fentanyl/Linder’s fastballs.
No mention of Nat asking Shauna “Do you even remember how to do this?” whilst she was dismembering Adam? With that said it makes it seem like Shauna is no stranger to hacking people up and it may be something we see from young Shauna in future seasons.
I wonder if this isn’t just in reference to her being the erstwhile butcher of the group; not necessarily of humans.
She was extremely comfortable doing it to a human, though. I’ll be shocked if it was her first time.
Pardon me if I missed it, but was that not Shauna’s dream at the end, not Jackie’s? That’s the way it read to me anyways. I’m not positive of the implications, and maybe it is meant to be ambiguous.
It read like Jackie’s to me that Shauna was also watching somehow. A shared dream before she died.
I personally read it as Jackie’s dream, her dying thoughts, and the cut to Shauna wasn’t meant to imply it was her dream, so much as it signals her passing, and Shauna’s awakening to realize something is gravely wrong. I’m fascinated though, given the extent to which Shauna has assumed Jackie’s intended life (marriage to Jeff, homemaker, never left town), could indicate, if we go the path of the supernatural, a shared life, that Jackie is now a part of her. I get some real “Alias Grace” vibes here…
Surprised at these readings. I saw it as a completely literal sequence set in the afterlife, which we’ll see through Jackie’s eyes for the rest of the show.
I didn’t even think of it as Jackie’s dream; they distinctly showed Shauna waking up right after.
YES. And oh mannnnnn I worry about that baby bump. Everybody seems to be SERIOUSLY JAZZED when any MEAT shows up. (omg I just remembered her chicken birth dream! and now I’m hungry all over again. they need a rescue oatmeal drop. they need a SHITLOAD OF SALT to keep that bear fresh from squirmies. and now I’m NOT hungry anymore.)hey! What happened to whittlin’ avi? And, is chewing off a hangnail like “soft cannibalism” bcuz then all of us, especially in hs or in a book club…til S2! Great job, Misty-Leila! x
This review is ironically deeply unempathetic which fits considering this TV series is all about losing empathy. Jackie wasn’t the villain- she was a teenage girl who wasn’t able to adapt to a terrifying new reality and who’s best friend betrayed her and showed absolutely no remorse about it, rather turning it on her. It’s not fair to Jackie to be blamed for shaunas frustrations on the real world- it’s not Jackie’s fault that she never spoke up for herself. Jackie didn’t bring this on herself at all. The night before she saw the girls reject her and nearly murder someone, and then she was ostracised. Of course she didn’t go back inside. Also, Travis is the worst? Really? Again, they are TEENAGERS. he is a kid who on top of surviving a plane crash and watching his dad die, also was nearly raped and murdered the night before, and is out trying to find his brother who is probably definitely dead. Gee I wonder why he’d be lashing out
agreed. Jackie was one of the few things keeping those girls from losing their humanity. Her death is going to have some major ramifications for the group.I also think Nat is a foil to Jackie. Nat is destructive with her relationship to herself, and Jackie is destructive to relationships around her. I think when the girls say Nat saved them, it’s because she’s the heart of the group and also why she’s carried the most trauma. Jackie wasn’t the heart, but she was the rational skeptic.
Hers and Laura Lee’s demises will prove crucial in hindsight. LL was both a source of hope and optimism and dare I say strength, and she kept Lottie’s visions grounded. Her absence deprived the group of all those qualities, while Jackie, for all her seemingly shallowness and inability to adapt, and her throwing of parties and seances, represented the lives, the innocence they left behind, and their dreams of the future. She symbolized their reason for getting home. With her loss, they have no real link to who they were, and are now free to become what they wish.
well put, I think that’s why Jackie’s death really was a gut punch. She was just a teenage girl doing teenage girl things, an innocence Nat had already been robbed of despite being the empath of the girls. Things are going to get really uncomfortable.
You’re going to feel her presence (or absence) that’s for sure. Everyone will realize the joy they lack now that she is gone. She was able to bind them together in common cause, whether it was a pep talk, or a party. Survivalists will talk about how morale is a crucial part of making it out of a survival situation alive. You need something to do, whether it is to journal, or read or play games. That is important, and it’s not something anyone but Jackie is really capable of organizing, and in that absence, I can see Lottie’s influence metastasizing as everyone is looking for some kind of PURPOSE.
Something has been bugging me about Laura Lee and the plane, and this may have been brought up but this is the first AV Club article on the show I’ve been participating in, mostly due to I just binged the whole series this last week, but…The fire in the cockpit originated with Laura Lee’s stuffed bear, didn’t it? Is it at all possible somebody did something to the bear to cause it to spontaneously combust?
That all depends on your perspective on the show as being rational or supernatural. I, taking the more rational perspective, think the fire must have started somewhere below, and what we saw was not the bear as the source of ignition, but catching fire as the flames impinged the cockpit area. But if you ascribe supernatural explanations, then it is possible that the intended read was for the bear to be the source of ignition. And there are some viewers who are speculating if the death of Laura Lee is the “sacrifice” necessary for the food to return, and the burning of the bear foreshadowing the arrive of the bear to the camp. Personally, I really love the show creators’ explanation, that to them, it really doesn’t matter what the explanation is for these occurrences. What is important is what each character takes away from it, and how it informs their future actions and behavior. I rather like that, and like the idea that the show never says either way, but leaves it up to us as the viewer. I DO NOT want this to come down to evil super powers and spells and shooting lighting bolts and anything blatant.
I am still in denial about Laura Lee’s death. It was so unfair (but she should have listened to the coach who begged her not to try to fly the plane). And everything was downhill after that, we had already seen that she had a way of resolving conflicts in the group in a positive way that otherwise was utterly lacking
“Jackie wasn’t the heart, but she was the rational skeptic”I see her more the way CineCraft does – not as a rational skeptic but as the symbol of their real life back in society. She continued to be that. She wasn’t considering any of this stuff seriously to be the rational skeptic. Her rejection of the crazy was more emotional (for good reason) than rational imo.
yeah, I guess I meant skeptic in that she was still viewing things through the lens of an ordinary teenager. But makes more sense to just call her the tether to society and the past. On some level I think with Jackie stopping to eat and her avoiding survival skill learning, she knew they were never going back to their world. And even if they did they would never recognize it as the same.
I was terrified for Jackie. Those girls are traumatized and not in touch with any empathy. It’s getting to be purely about survival and they’ll start weeding out the undesirables. This show stresses me out so much.
Yes, Travis is the worst. He’s been through a lot, like they all have, but his cruelty towards Nat is just awful. And Nat just keeps taking it, because she’s so sensitive to his pain, and she loves him, but JFC, she’s had the patience of a saint with the way he lashes out at her again and again. They’re going to have to show me a seriously awesome turn around for his character for me to understand present day Nat’s suicidal loyalty to him. Cuz this guy? So far he aint it.
He’s not the worst anything. He hasn’t been anymore shitty than anyone else out there when they get mad, deflect anger or things of that nature. I don’t approve of how pissy he gets about things. I never like it when people can’t use their words. It doesn’t make him terrible though.
What I’m understanding of Nat’s character was that up to this point Travis is probably the best guy she’s been with. He’s someone that’s hurting, like she is, and that’s probably the only person she can emotionally connect to. Also, with what they’re going through in the woods, the only person that can possibly understand what she(they) will go through. Especially after how she handled things with Kevyn. There’s no one, for better or worse, that can replace Travis.
Yeah the “Travis is the worst” bit threw me. What has he ever done? I had to scroll up and make sure it was the same reviewer as I don’t recall that objection before.
“Jackie didn’t bring this on herself at all. The night before she saw the girls reject her and nearly murder someone, and then she was ostracised. Of course she didn’t go back inside.”Absolutely – but in a practical sense, she died because she chose to sit outside next to a fire that wasn’t warming her instead of going to go back inside – she wasn’t locked out or thrown out.I completely understand her motivation and have sympathy for her, but her death was the tragic conclusion to her own attitude throughout the season as much as it was the tragic conclusion to Shauna’s simmering resentment, which may have been gotten past in a way that was healthier for them both if they were back home.
You lost me at “this TV series is all about losing empathy.”
Disagree strongly with all your takes on Jackie, she is a just teenage girl (literally no one is “the villain” in this) but also very entitled one who never adapted to the reality that they were in. And all of her attempts to reinforce high school (and its social hierarchy, where she didn’t have to do anything special to rise to the top) in the wilderness were only met with the situation deeply worsening.Remember the girls didn’t just side with Shauna because they liked her more, she was actively contributing to their survival, and they were beyond caring about the betrayal that Jackie just couldn’t leave in HS where it belonged. They didn’t just side with Natalie while on shrooms because of girl/boy high school politics, but she and Travis were actively contributing to keeping them alive and Jackie was fucking with an already tenuous relationship dynamic they all depended on for selfish and petty reasons.
Jackie rarely pitched in, actively criticized any others efforts to improve their situation from the beginning (i.e. would have not found the lake/cabin), and then both intentionally (i.e. screwing Travis) and unintentionally threw wrenches into an already barely livable situation (i.e. seance, doomcoming) because, like the adult women delusionally can’t leave the woods, she delusionally couldn’t leave high school (just like Shauna predicted would have been her fate if the plane had never crashed). So to me she isn’t some kind of martyr, is definitely not a realist, and almost certainly brought the wrath of the other girls on herself (like the “unempathetic” writer said). No one deserved what happened them in those woods, Jackie included, but let’s not put her on some kind of pedestal just because she died terribly.
However I do agree with you in Travis, the writer completely glossed over his multiple sexual assaults the previous night (only attributing his rudeness to residual feelings about his dad, which are also valid). His line about “at least he had sex” was probably his teenage brain’s feeble attempts to rationalize/valid his jumble of emotions after the assault (especially in the 90s when male sexual assault wasn’t even mentioned). In fact, I see a lot of parallels to him and Dani’s shitty boyfriend in Midsommar. Was he somewhat culpable for what happened to him? Yes at least initially, but intial consent is not a catch-all. Jackie was too blinded by her petty vengeance quest (and horned up) to realize he wasn’t right in the head.Is he shitty and immature? Yes. Is it at least somewhat understandable with the full plate of issues he was bringing to the table (placed by his dad and society)? Also yes.I think that’s what this show is best at, explaining why/how/what led to these characters fucked up/terrible decisions without making an effort to validate them.
I love this show, but the thing this finale really brought home, especially with Jackie’s death, is that the survivors are all pretty awful people. They are all definitely meant to be antiheroes. Yes, they went insane in the woods and there are definitely some supernatural aspects at play, but they pretty much murdered Jackie. And there is another girl they chased into that bear trap at the start, so that is at least two. Shauna also basically murdered adam too for no reason, although she did think there was a reason. And Taissa also beheaded her dog. I think Ravi ran and he might be one of the reveals in the adult world that he lived and wouldn’t surprise me if he got out on his own. The girls were acting insane and with Shauna’a warning he bolted and might have thought his brother was dead.I love it specifically BECAUSE they are all rotten and crazy. That is a brave choice and informs why they are so protective as adults as to what went down in the woods. They know they formed a cult and killed their friends.
The girls obviously are all guilty of and going to be guilty of terrible things, but saying they “pretty much murdered Jackie” is just flat out wrong. It’s Jackie herself who first tries to turn someone out of the cabin when she tells Shauna to get out – but she’s not trying to kill Shauna any more than Shauna is trying to kill her when she refuses to leave and says if Jackie doesn’t want to be in the same cabin with her it’s Jackie who should leave. Or Mari when she sarcastically suggests that Jackie might feel better not in the same cabin with them, since she has just said she thinks they’re all crazy.The coach and Tai both tell Jackie to stay inside. And while the coach is told to stay out of it, the only thing that makes Jackie leave the cabin is Jackie herself. She rejects Tai’s support (again), accusing her of wanting Jackie rejected the entire fucking time. Her going outside at that moment is no death sentence. She could have stomped around and come back. But she’d have had to slink in and probably get a few more sarcastic remarks, so she stays outside. The cabin door isn’t locked. Nobody’s keeping Jackie from coming back into the cabin when she gets chilly. It’s her pride that keeps her outside. The last time Shauna sees her she’s sitting by a fire, cold but perfectly fine. She would have been saved if Shauna had gone outside to talk to her like Tai suggests, but nobody thinks Jackie’s in actual danger sitting a few feet from the unlocked front door.
It’s clear that Shauna feels like she killed Jackie, but there’s a pretty straight narrative line from the first time Shauna confronted her about her not doing her part to declining the grubs and trippy stew and pitching Doomcoming in terms of their being likely to be dead in a few weeks. Teenage stubbornness is definitely part of it, but I’d argue that Jackie thought her only options were starving to death (and soon) in the cabin where she had no allies or possibly freezing outside that night. It’s doomy af, but it’s not irrational.
The worst, hands down, is Coach Ben. He doesn’t have authority over the group, obviously, but as the sole adult in the room it didn’t occur to him to open the door and bring Jackie in from the cold? Maybe he was afraid of what the other girls (especially Lottie) would do, but that’s contrary to anything in the show itself, where nobody ever threatens him and he sits around pulling faces. The. Worst. Big picture, the weird group and character dynamics point to some larger problems with the writing on the show. At the beginning of the season they set up three mysteries – the ritual cannibalism, the postcards, and Travis’ death. They resolved the postcards, and they kinda sorta resolved the other two (basically, “It’s all Lottie”), but there were a lot of wheel spinning subplots. Basically this is classic, unfocused “mystery box” TV. It has compelling or affecting moments and an interesting premise, but it isn’t making any sincere gesture toward telling a cohesive story. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, and the second season will be more focused and commit to actually demonstrating what happened in the woods instead of teasing it for another ten hours. But if the show ends without a satisfying conclusion, it won’t be the streaming service’s fault, it’ll be the writers fault for squandering time.
Can we take a moment to talk about just how FUNNY this episode was, along with all mystery and trauma? Seriously there were lines in there that topped “Wait, Book Club isn’t real?” in their delivery. Like Misty saying “Who died?” when she comes in to clean up the dead body. Shauna saying “It’s just like riding a really fucked up gruesome bike” as she dismembers the body. And basically every line that Allie said, but especially “Word definitions dot net defines reunion as…” (that it’s .net and not .com made it even funnier).
BUT! I have one bone to pick with this episode. While I love love love the queerness of Tai saying Van thinks Sporty is the most under-rated Spice Girl, ‘Wannabe’ wasn’t released until July 1996. And I know they were pretty ubiquitous but even the Spice Girls wouldn’t have managed to penetrate the Canadian Rockies…
also Misty having such a different reaction from the other girls during the reunion slideshow was pure LOL
Everything about the reunion was so grimly hilarious, even though I (probably like everyone else) was hanging on the edge of my seat for Allie to welcome Jackie onto stage
They dropped the “Allie is a freshman” plot from the pilot, aged her up to be in the class of 1996 and gave her a terrible fake Joisey accent. Ugh.
or the couple of times where they just decided that cassette players have built-in speakers and can be amplified by placing them inside a bucket like a frigging iphone
Here are some inconsistencies between pilot and show proper:1) in the pilot, Nat is hanging out with two goofy “burnout” guys. By episode 4, her best friend is the dude who later becomes a cop. I think they either couldn’t or didn’t want to work with either of the 2 male actors from the pilot or figured it wouldn’t be believable that either of them would become a cop. The point is, why introduce those characters at all and then give her a new best friend? It smacks of moving in a new direction and just hoping no one will notice.2) Shauna masturbates to a pic of her daughter’s boyfriend, who then, as a concept, disappears from the series completely.There’s another big one I just can’t remember now.Some things that get orphaned at some point during the series:1) Taissa’s mud-slinging battle with her political opponent and her decision to expose his daughter’s addiction or not.2) Sammy. The poor kid gets blamed for everything, goes into therapy, then disappears from the face of the earth.3) Soccer. You’d never know they’re on a soccer team after episode 2, except for when someone asks if they would’ve won nationals during the seance. I know people think that’s not really their concern now, but I feel like they became a dance team instead of a soccer team. They don’t care about sports at all (and only Shauna has the courage to admit it :-)). Granted, in the present day, Nat does give advice to her friend’s son–I admit, I loved that injection of actual craft talk about the game of soccer.
Isn’t Kevyn one of the kids she’s hanging out with? I could be wrong, but I just figured he was the goth one, the other one being the goofy dude whose cousin scored them acid.The senator’s daughter’s drug problem plotline was set up to show that Taissa is hounded by rumors that she is a cannibal, and as a hook to have Sammy start acting out before the reveal of the “woman in the trees” stuff. Sammy’s dropped off a little because he isn’t living with Taissa anymore.So I feel like some of this stuff is explicable and wasn’t distracting to me. The soccer thing is weird, though, it doesn’t really make sense that they’re not talking about that more. Seems like an oversight, but maybe it just isn’t what they want to focus on.
I didn’t really think about how Shauna’s daughter’s boyfriend stops showing up, that is also a little weird. But the daughter is generally only shown at home, so probably off with him other times – they could have shown him at the Halloween party, I guess.The thing where Allie is no longer a few years younger than the rest of the girls, and has a totally different accent, doesn’t make sense, and *is* distracting to me.
This is just one of MANY, MANY inconsistencies/plot holes in this show. It’s really messy.
I don’t think “getting the Spice Girls wrong by a year” is really a plot hole.
“According to word-definition.net…”Edit: oops you already mentioned that.
i think the gruesome bike line was my favorite this ep
People overanalyzing this show about the music drops I warned that the show might not be “Lost” level of meticulous about the dates of things. Especially in a first season, as you kind of have to learn if a show is real anal about stuff like this. Like Jackie’s diary and people zooming on it to see songs not released yet and thinking Jackie was alive. I think the evidence is in that they did not put that much thought on the dates and were just going for “mid 1990’s songs)..but they may do better next year to clean that up now they know people are looking and paying attention to this stuff
When Misty playfully asked “who died?” myself and my husband *howled* with laughter.And her interactions with Natalie (from her silent reaction in the closing moments of the penultimate episode [when Nat asks for her help] to the lecture on cleaning supplies) is dark comedy perfection.Ricci is killing it in this role.
For me the winning line came from Nat… as Misty gets into the car carrying tupperware & they’re about to drive to Adam’s apartment to dispose of his corpse.“You were planning on leftovers?”Priceless!
I don’t feel like it’s overreacting to say that Ricci’s performance is on par with Heath Ledger’s Joker.
Christina Ricci has pretty good comic delivery, doesn’t she? But, yes, I did love word definition.net. I guess “site where you can look up the meaning of words.net” was already taken.
48 hours old, not approved yet.
I’m curious if Season 2 will solve the mystery of Young Nat’s hair. They’ve been stranded in the woods for months, and she doesn’t even have roots showing. Did she pack a four-month supply of peroxide for Nationals?
Melanie Lynskey and Christina Ricci I feel like really excel at the breakneck changes in tone and the switches between drama and humor, or just the pitch black blending of them.Two amazing scenes: Shauna threatening Jerry in an ice-cold way that we obviously know she is capable of backing up, then sweetly thanking the server for the tequila shots, and thanking Jerry in a more familiar way for being a good friend. And Misty making mutually insincere plans for future collaboration with her just released hostage/ partner, who yet again underestimated her, but we can see in Misty’s eyes that something more is happening than we immediately understand. What other actresses make those scenes work? Not many, and maybe none make them work as well.
YES to everything you just said.In a cast full of stand-out performances, it’s Lynskey & Ricci that are right at the very top. Lynskey is incredible at going from polite suburbanite to spiky fortitude on a dime.And Ricci’s performance reminds me of a perfectly made pink cupcake that has a hidden razor blade at its center. You’ll enjoy the hell out of it even as it cuts you up from the inside.I will be livid if neither of them receive any award recognition.
Season 1 was…fine? The 4 characters in the present were all various shades of awful (I get it, products of trauma and whatnot), and I struggled to care about them. The plane crash scenario was just so silly I couldn’t stay involved. They would have been found in days, black box or no. It’s set in the 1990s, not the 1890s, and a plane crashing in a forest would have left a very visible scar that any S&R aircraft would have found. I’ll probably still watch season 2, but C+ from me.
I never read any of those women as awful (aside from the big things like murder), but otherwise just complicated and real.
Murder’s a fairly big deal, add that to adultery for Shauna. Taissa refusing therapy for her child as well as just being generally unpleasant. Misty for the spying and, oh yeah, kidnapping. Natalie is probably the least offensive with only some firearm and drug use.I’ll give you complicated, but I stand by awful.
I think you’re seriously underestimating how enormous the Ontario wilderness is. We know they do, eventually, get found. But anyone familiar with the region knows exactly how believable it is that they’d never be found at all.
I think the scene in the cabin prior to Jackie leaving all but confirms your point. I get the trauma, I get the effects of the drug, etc. The way they casually brushed off attempted murder (a murder which would have occurred in a most brutal fashion) and the fact none of them even slightly cared about Shauna’s betrayal confirmed, for me at least, that none of them are good people. Bad situations can certainly turn good people bad to a certain extent, but fundamentally you do not excuse murder in such a cavalier manner if you’re a decent human being. End of story.
Meh, I’ll give the kids a pass. They are just kids, in an extremely stressful situation. Also, they were unknowingly dosed when the murder you’re talking about was on the table. Most importantly, that murder didn’t actually happen.It absolutely looks like they’re getting on the bus to crazy town next season, but thus far nothing unforgivable has happened on the mountain, in my mind.
…playing it like a trump card as if that would somehow elicit great sympathy to a group that has watched half of their friends die horribly.Only two of the girls had died at that point, I’m pretty sure. One in the crash and Laura Lee. …Having failed to light a fire…Almost positive she had a fire going, it just went out while she was sleeping.
Spot on. Jackie had real trouble getting a fire going (which I found almost sadder than her actual death, that after 5 months, she still couldn’t start a fire), and when she did, it was woefully inadequate. You certainly can survive outdoors in frigid weather, but you need a big fire, and you have to keep it fed.
Exactly. Jackie’s death was perfectly set up, the payoff to a whole season of her holding onto her pre-crash self/view of the world. This is actually why I could never understand all the theories of her being AQ, or her leading a rival tribe or whatever. Her main defining feature was that no one would ever look to her as a leader under these circumstances. She had no intention of dying outside but had no realistic idea of how dangerous it was.
It just struck me how pathetic and out-of-touch she truly is when she commands Shauna to leave the cabin. She obviously doesn’t know that it’s going to snow, but she may have literally been sending her erstwhile friend out to die. Her own expectations are so out of whack about their situation that she apparently doesn’t think about that.
So what was Nat right about?? Answer me Showtime!!Tbh the reveal of a capital C Cult via a break-down-the-motel-door moment feels… deflating? It feels a world away from the methodical dread of the first episodes, which was more my speed. They really did the thing where they hit the throttle + the nitro in the last ten minutes of the season.I guess the big question going forward is whether the show was pulling an Unreliable Narrator on us with present day Tai, or whether she did all her pagan stuff while sleepwalking. Her big smile post-reveal and her improbable win at least raise the possibility that she is, as they say, a blood magus.Randy is a good friend… but in this show, that’s how you get pulled into the world of darkness.WHO is the dark man inviting Jackie into death? Looked like Dexter, but could it be… adult Javi? Is it future or is it past!Showtime is going to Showtime this show, in time… I don’t look forward to it.
Two more points:- I’m more interested in this show as a collision of haunted women and the looming spectres of their past than a Dexterfied / Ozarkian proliferation of new loose ends to tie up to keep the engine turning. As it goes on the show leans toward the latter. Eg, Shauna’s daughter putting two and two together almost immediately.- Further, didn’t Adam have a back tattoo? That’s a pretty fucking big hole in Misty the supercriminal’s “the torso doesn’t matter” hypothesis.
I’m sure that was intentional by the writers and will come back to haunt them..
Yeah, Misty is wrong about the torso thing – even if she packed a bag with some of his stuff, people are going to notice he’s gone, and a torso is going to have DNA to match to his relatives, even if it doesn’t have a giant tattoo. Right?
I thought the man who invited Jackie was the guy who died in the cabin?
That was my takeaway as well, though the way the show presented it this was all a guilt ridden dream/premonition of Shauna, not Jackie.
I thought it was total *wish-fulfillment furnished by Jackie’s dying brain.
(*Initially, until the body’s vague awareness of something very bad happening intruded, hence the full apology, hot-chocolate. group-hug love-fest blending into the dead welcoming her).I took Shauna’s jolting awake –
1) with the cold, 2) because she’s on constant edge, 3) because she’s pregnant
or 4) she suddenly has to pee (see #1 & #3) –
as just a brutal jump cut from Jackie’s final dreamworld to reality hours later…
Might be wrong, but that interpretation both creeps me out more, and weirdly reassures that Jackie did not ‘die alone’.
I thought the man who invited Jackie was the guy who died in the cabin?It’s strange, because he speaks English in her, um, death vision (?) but French when he’s possessing Lottie (?), unless that wasn’t him at all.
I don’t think it’s either – Lottie speaks French and Jackie speaks only English. In Lottie’s imagination French is appropriate for spirits. The guy’s plant book was in English, wasn’t it?
I agree – cults are usually a kind of narrative crutch when the writers can’t figure out any more believable way of making people behave crazy. Plus, they come with all the appropriate negative emotions already loaded, so the writers don’t have to do anything to make them seem evil because the audience assumes that they are evil and capable of anything anyway. Are there any movies about cults where the cult is great and everyone else are the dicks?Also, just struck me as weird that when you write “fillet” in the past tense, you still don’t pronounce the “t.” But I REALLY want to…
I think the cult in this instance isn’t like a cult we think of in our world. These aren’t people in civilization drawn to somebody who’s going to fix their problems. It’s folk horror – people living in the wilderness and rediscovering the type of pagan nature religions natural in that setting.
Agreed — slow-burn cults are much more interesting.
I’m almost certain that it’s the head coach. I re-watched the conversation between Jackie and the coach in episode 1, and he very much sounds the same.
If Adam wasn’t Javi, then…where’s Javi?
I wish I had more faith that Showtime wasn’t gonna Showtime, because I really enjoyed this season. It kept me off balance in a way that few shows have managed to do, featured an impressive number and variety of standout moments, and managed to make me cackle on a regular basis. I have no idea where S2 will go, but I can’t wait to find out.
My understanding was that it was Shauna’s dream, not Jackie’s.
So. Shauna wakes up. Generally that means it’s her dream. But for it to be her dream, she’d have to be dreaming of Jackie dying (when she really is) and seeing LL saying “it’s not so bad,” etc. I’ve thought about it, and I don’t think I’ve ever had a dream in which I inhabited a different person’s POV, but of course that doesn’t mean it isn’t so.I think the main argument for it being Jackie’s “dream” is that it would then be the experience of her dying. It’s like when you dream a song and then find it’s really your clock radio going off (except she didn’t wake up). Jackie is physically dying when she sees LL, the other guy, etc. It’s the experience of her dying. I don’t know which it is, but it’s much more compelling if it’s Jackie. As I wrote in another comment, and as someone else mentioned, that would mean Jackie not saying she loves Shauna after Shauna says she loves her—in her own dream. And Jackie’s dying thoughts including everyone saying they love her—I don’t know who wouldn’t find that poignant to the point that it almost makes you want to curl up in the fetal position. I think it’s virtuoso writing.If it’s Shauna’s dream, she’s basically dreaming of Jackie being a frosty jerk and herself being nice—plausible, but as something created by writers: why?
Definitely more compelling if it’s Jackie’s dream and you’re probably be right. I just understood it as Shauna’s because of the way it was edited and it didn’t “feel” like a trick cut.
This turned out to be a pretty good new series. I thought it was overrated at first but these last four or five episodes were great. The writers know how to balance funny comedy and unsettling mystery/drama. “Shut the fuck up, Doug!” Ha!I’m glad the Christian character didn’t turn out to be cliched evil like usually portrayed in this genre. In fact, she was rather likable, strong, and kind. Let her be a model for how Hollywood writes religious characters in genre TV (and this is coming from an atheist).I was surprised Jessica the fixer didn’t try to murder Misty, or at least sock her in the face, after Misty released her. Very devilish for Misty to make Jessica choose her own death in a way and based on her own temptation. But, yep, Misty is super helpful, and caring, if you stay on her good side. Ricci and Lewis were a blast together.So I guess Jackie’s journal was faked with pop culture she couldn’t have known about. I hope it wasn’t a very lazy production error or a red herring based on a continuity cheat.I had the thought that Van could be the Antler Queen, with the wolf attack and her scar being the indicators of her evil turn. But Lottie works too.Grade for season: B+.I think both “Kiss From A Rose” and that Peter Gabriel song in this episode were covers, not sung by the original artists. Maybe it was much cheaper for the show that way.
Speaking of “Kiss from a Rose,” I’d still like to register an implausibility complaint that so many people in those woods knew the lyrics perfectly in episode 9. That was one of those songs that a car full of people would be belting out until certain parts of the verses, at which point everyone would just drop out or start singing gobbledygook. I suppose if someone had the CD maybe it came with lyrics. I, alas, just had the cassingle.
We still don’t have an answer for the cult ‘symbol’ that pre-dated the group crashing, it could just be some random graffiti the original builders of the log cabin left behind or something the light aircraft pilot did before he died but it clearly takes on some significance for the cult. Are the people who designed it still out there? The assumption would be that they are but there’s no indication that non Yellowjackets join the group in the wilderness so far…Anyway, I really enjoyed the series and can’t wait for what comes next.
– They all say they’ve done terrible things, and when Jessica says to Misty, “You killed, survived and ate each other, that’s not to bad”, Misty shrugs then looks at her, making it seem they did things worse than just eating each other. That’s why I think Shauna gives birth, and they sacrifice and eat her child to whatever woods god they are praying to. Maybe they sacrificed and ate some additional hikers they found?- The severed dog head makes it look like Tae sacrificed the dog to give her the win of the election, and it looks like it works.- In the first episode, it looks like Mari is the one that was chased down and eaten. (How she got Jackie’s necklace I’m not sure.) When they were eating her, I counted 7-8 people. So who are those 7-8 that survived? We know: Tai, Shauna, Nat, Travis and Misty. So that leaves 2-3 that are left. That would make sense if these survived: Lottie, Van and maybe someone else? Shauna said in the diner, “the others”, so there’s at least 2 that have survived. Also, we never hear about Travis’ brother in present time, so we can conclude he died in the woods.- The man in the cabin in Jackie’s dream appears to be the man that died in the cabin, so the woods are collecting all of their souls?- Who carved those symbols in the woods? The man that died in the cabin, some other groups? I like to think it’s Lottie, and she’s slowly slipping into psychosis after she ran out of her medication.- Why did Misty need to poison the cigarettes then throw them into the garbage? Why didn’t she leave them in the purse, or better yet, kill Jessica in the basement? Seems a lot easier and cleaner.
Making it look like a fentanyl overdose instead of killing Jessica in the basement does seem to save a lot of time when it comes to clean-up and corpse disposal. We’ve seen that Misty is more than up to getting rid of a corpse, but it does seem like a hassle.
Throwing the poisoned cigarettes away at first and having Jessica ask for them seems like a risky move without many benefits though. My first idea is that it’s an excess of caution – Jessica might remember Misty’s fentanyl speech when she threatened to poison the chocolates for Grandpa and be wary of consuming something Misty had access too. She might be less wary though if the cigarettes were retrieved from the bin, because then it seems more like Misty didn’t plan to give them to her.
In my personal risk assessment the risk that Jessica would not think to ask for her cigarettes back in her hurry to get away from Misty is higher than the risk that she suspects them of being poisoned, but in such matters I would rather trust Misty’s instincts, not mine.
I’m on the other end – Jackie’s death is one of the more understated and affecting things I’ve ever witnessed on TV. She proves how stubborn she is and how unskilled she is (something that the coach lays out in the first episode: she’s not fast, etc.) – everything about the scene is absolutely pathetic. She’s trying to build the fire with a lighter of all things; in all this time, she hasn’t figured out how to build a fire. She dreams that she’s loved – she’s hopelessly narcissistic but so insecure she doesn’t know unless people verbally express to her their affection. That dream hit hard. Even though she was relentlessly shitty to her teammates, the show did really well building morally ambiguity into her character. She may have been awful, but she was raised by awful people. She had no skills, but she was literally told that it didn’t matter.The same can be said of the line just before (?) the one quoted in the article, when Shauna talks about how after the crash and the time in the woods, the “light drained out of everything,” which also hurt.But also super funny. God bless Misty’s soul, wherever it is.
She’s trying to build the fire with a lighter of all things
TBF, the lighter wasn’t the problem, it was that she didn’t have any idea to build a fire (and likely not enough wood to do so even if she knew how).
The show is doing a very effective job of making it seem like supernatural stuff is quite possible, but not quite confirming that. Also we don’t know how much our core four believe in it—Nat says that Travis didn’t believe “that stuff,” but did they? Or they probably did, but do they still?Mostly the supernatural stuff seems to have centered on whether Lottie has visions or not, which is unclear but I would not rule out. But now it seems equally in question if Taissa used black magic to win the election & if her night personality that did that is taking over
Based on the finale, I think the “one” thing they are being mysterious about (on purpose) is whether or not there is an outside supernatural force on this show, or if the girls just believe it to be so. Both explanations are still valid.
-My favorite lines:
“If you ever tell anyone what the two of you did, I will fucking end you. I will gut you like a pig, and if they find your body, which they won’t, it won’t matter because you will un-fucking-recognizable. Understand?”
“Sooo, you’re mad then?”- “I voted for you, and I only registered so I can get jury duty.”-Excellent use of “Come Out and Play (Keep ‘Em Separated)”-I still believe there’s a Wendigo involved in all this-Grown up Nat had me worried at the end
-If Christina Ricci doesn’t get an Emmy nom, we riot
I was very nervous about Natalie. I could see them killing her off in such a spectacular fashion just to let the audience know we can’t count on anyone being safe. But god am I relieved because I can’t handle losing Juliette Lewis on this show!
Did anyone else notice on the tv report about Adam, it was said “He’s been missing for several weeks.” He just died that day. So maybe he was part of Lottie’s cult after all? Absolving Shauna of his murder?I was disappointed in the finale. It was a whole 10 episodes of mystery and no revealed answers just to end with…more mysteries? Is Tai evil, sacrificing the dog so she wins the election? Is Lottie/Van/Ben/Javi alive? UGH.Is Tai going to be converted to the Church of Lottie afterall? Because she seemed the most hesitant out of all the girls. Give me SOME answers!
He just died that day.
It’s not clear how much later that night on the couch was, but it wasn’t the same day—the first present-day shot after the reunion dance is somebody sweeping the gym floor with daylight streaming in.
The report doesn’t say “several weeks,” it says “last seen Monday” and “several days.”
Jackies death is very similar to wirts in over the garden wall
Over the Garden Wall, also with Melanie Lynskey! (Odd that a deceptive bluebird is one of her best roles)
“Curse you lady! You’ll die someday, and I’ll laugh. Hahaha!”Lynskey’s characters have trouble with getting lost in the woods, don’t they. And having to eat maggots.
Was it not clear that we’re supposed to assume that the pagan ritual in the secret basement room is why she wins the election? That definitely felt like what the show wants us to think. I’m still not 100% positive about the supernatural explanations (although the bear bowing to sacrifice itself was definitely more than suspicious), but it seems like she sacrificed the dog to turn the election in her favor. I’m guessing that their cannibal forest magic/beliefs/whatever depend heavily on ritual sacrifice. The writers are clearly keeping their options open on whether or not to go full genre with the show, but that at least seems to track with what we are currently being shown. This show rules.
the way the scene was intercut with the victory announcement certainly made it seem that way.
At the least I think we’re supposed to assume Tai things so, which is more important.
Most of my thoughts/queries have been put forth by all you fine folk below me here. /kudosBut.WHO’S FUCKING HEART WAS IN TAI’S BASEMENT SHRINE?!
Wasn’t it the missing dog’s heart in Tai’s basement shrine?
Honestly, it’s been so long, I literally do not remember. 🙁
I will do a re-watch and report my findings.
Thinking about our main characters and I do believe Nat is the most sane and together, in spite of the relapses. Misty is nuts, Shauna is a murderer (and probably not for the first time), Tai has some real black out episodes that are very dangerous.
Juliet Lewis totally owns Nat!
The fact that no new adult Yellowjacket was introduced at the reunion was such a huge missed opportunity (and would have been a bigger twist than anything this episode delivered).I’m not sure Misty was sold on killing Jessica the PI; I mean, Jessica could have walked away but she asked for the cigarettes. I felt like Misty was almost purity testing her — giving her a chance to live “correctly” and letting her die when she chose not to. Happy for Taissa but how is a politician in 2021 not on social media constantly? Literally, that’s the job. Also, elections aren’t called on a schedule. They’re done when a tally has been settled. So weird.I hate all the bad animal CGI in TV shows. At least the eagle in Peacemaker is deployed for pure silliness. It really undercuts in dramas — there’s simply no tension because the oddly rendered cartoon is clearly not existing in the same physical space with that actor.
Also, I really appreciated that they dialed way back on the 90s needle drops after the first few episodes. Why doesn’t anyone in the 90s listen to older music? I was alive then and we definitely did!
They did throw in Ultravox’s Vienna which came out in 1980 and the High School reunion had the Divinyls ‘touch myself’ which was released in 1990
Point 1: fair.Point 2 is stretching it a bit.
6 years is a lifetime when you’re a teenager
Also, also: I may be dumb but DNA negates the whole need for decapitation and removal of hands, right?
that assumes one has DNA on file, right? Which presumably could happen since the friends/family are now looking for him. There must be some hairs etc in his apartment
Someone already beat me to it with regards to an explanation, but DNA only helps if you have the source match already on file. If Adam doesn’t have a criminal background, it’s highly unlikely law enforcement will be able to find a match for his DNA.Unless they ran it against one of those ancestry databases where people submit their DNA to find out their ethnic/racial background.And LE can only do that if they have probable cause that the person committed a crime*. So while the show could introduce factors to make such a choice possible, the likelihood of them doing so is pretty slim.*(There has been real life examples of LE using such databases to compare the DNA from a crime scene to a database sample. But it was also because LE had IDed a particular person as the prime suspect…which has always been murder cases. That the sample committed – but wasn’t a victim of).
I told you so. Season two, if there is one, is going to set up more and more dark threads so every episode has a social media hook for people to post about. But most won’t be resolved. That’s the pattern with these shows now. They never know how many seasons they have. Each season is too short. So the story arcs have to be abbreviated but filled with eye ball magnet cliff hangers. If we could go back to 20 episode seasons so story tellers could take their time we wouldn’t feel so ripped off. But those days are done.I like this show. Some of the performances are amazing (excepting Juliet Lewis; who is like a grating stomach ache and her adult performance doesn’t mesh with the nuance of the younger actress, who is much better, in any way). But it is waaaay too cynical. Everyone has an evil agenda. Those that do not get punished. Dark and complex doesn’t have to be cynical. Cynicism is a form of bitterness pretending to be intelligence. And I’m sort of sick of it. I doubt I’ll stick with a S2.
I agree with Lewis. Sorry to others but yeah she is grating and I have always found her acting to be..not great
If we could go back to 20 episode seasons so story tellers could take their time we wouldn’t feel so ripped off.
You’re describing either a soap or a procedural and neither would be an improvement.
“And it’s just gonna keep getting colder and not I better put on a coat cold. We’re talking dying feels like falling asleep cold.” -Tai, episode 7I was back and forth on this show for most of the season but have been fully in with the last couple episodes as I thought the show would wimp when it came down to the present-day storylines, particularly Shauna’s affair.Before realizing it was a dream or hallucination, I was worried about where Jackie’s hot cocoa came from since Javi was missing and I think he was the last one we saw with chocolate.As a biologist I appreciated that the bear did not have nearly enough fat stores built up to survive the winter. It reinforced certain beliefs about Lottie’s powers, but the bear probably just smelled the berry moonshine.
Read an interview with the writers on the Variety site and they discussed the finale and confirmed some things that people might be interested in. (SPOILER) obviously, but not really for viewers as the writers revealed these little things1. Jackie is absolutely dead and that is why Shauna is so messed up in 2021, because she kind of killed her by her actions.2. Jackie’s journal showing some things that happened after her death was not a production error and they are going to do something with that. 3. Jessica is also very dead and Misty killed her. Misty was not going to write a tell all and that was a ruse4. Looks like Lottie is around and will be an adult in season 2.5. Taissa killed the dog and she has two personalities that she has known of for a long time and is kind of embracing it by seasons end.
So glad to read that about the diary. It always seemed like Shauna’s entire adult life was based on Jackie being dead – and it makes even more sense now that we see what happened – so those entries being there on purpose with some other explanation always seemed like the best option!
Loved the finale, although episode 9 remains my favorite, and i will agree that the reunion was underwhelming.So i guess season 2 will see Shauna, Taisa, and Misty trying to track down Nat? I’m guessing Misty will be the 1st to notice she’s missing.The cult of Lottie!! Although it seemed like her family was extremely wealthy so it seems weird her cult would do something suspicious like empty Travis’ account for a presumably small amount of cash. I wonder if Van is involved somehow but i guess her fate is still up in the air.And tbh, based on what we’ve been shown in the flashbacks, Lottie seems to be the real deal. We haven’t really seen her make any predictions that turned out wrong, to my recollection. So can’t really blame people for following her, again just based on what we’ve seen. You can see that flashback Misty is gonna be the rule enforcer for Lottie’s burgeoning cult, so eager for acceptance that she’ll constantly be looking to other-ize somebody – probably Ben is in for it soonest.Speaking of Ben, poor guy has tried to intervene twice, been ignored both times only to see someone die. Feels like he is the last voice of rationality now.Well that little shrine certainly puts a new twist on Taisa’s sleepwalking exploits, seems like she could climb trees and eat dirt on autopilot but setting up that shrine (and the symbol in blood to boot) is next level. Man that was creepy!! Much as i enjoyed Misty, the kidnapped investigator plot really didn’t go anywhere, and releasing her only to poison her with cigs seemed like a weird way to go about it. But no big deal. Really looking forward to S2. The only subplot i’m not really looking forward to is the inevitable “Jeff and Shauna’s zany antics as they frantically try to keep the murder plot from unravelling” after either the torso gets found too soon, or daughter or Randy blabs. But that could be okay too, just not exactly groundbreaking stuff.
I get this an incredibly common trope in movies and TV, but has anyone EVER seen in a real life a reunion at the actual school the people attended? Every reunion i have ever gone to, seen advertised or heard about IRL, is at a banquet hall/hotel/club/etc. This always drives me crazyhas there been a reunion at the gym in a US high school anytime in the last 50 years?And even if it happens in VERY rural areas, this is set in NJ just a drive to Manhattan. There was no club to rent?
I just watched the show, so that’s why the reply is so late. My ten year reunion was indeed at a country club/restaurant, but the night before, they had an informal reunion in the High School cafeteria.
People have had VERY elaborate conspiracy theories about this show from the start…and it seems like none of them have come true. From “Adam is Javi” to “there will be another Yellowjacket at the reunion” the show has instead been very straightforward. I would perhaps compare it to “The Invitation” by Karyn Kusama…a movie with zero dramatic tension because it is so clear it is exactly what it appears to be from the first moment…or “The Sacrament” from Ti West…ditto. Despite what the reviewer says, there isn’t any question that Tai made the altar in the hidden room. Also, although it is very tempting to say Jackie’s last moments were Shauna’s dream because it shows Shauna waking up right after…or that it was a shared dream…Shauna has to look around before she sees Jackie’s body…if that means it was Shauna’s dream that she just shook off or doesn’t remember then the ambiguity doesn’t really serve the story, it’s just sloppy, but this show is very messy script-wise (and people give it way more credit for being sophisticated or meaningful than it deserves). I will say that my guess is that Lottie emptying Travis’s bank accounts means Lottie is alive…but the conspiracy theory that it is a cult being carried on in her name is plausible, or that some of them stayed behind and survived this whole time so they wouldn’t be mentioned at the reunion (but Misty probably would have stayed also). Mari is the best candidate for dying in the intro…but it could still be Lottie if she is ousted from Queenhood.Man I hope Juliette Lewis has something to do next season instead of be a living downward spiral (the trope of her not answering the phone at the end was nearly too much for me). Also that they restore Nat’s character, which has been entirely subsumed by Travis (ironic in this show).
I agree that this show is much more straightforward than some fans wanted to believe. But in fairness, in a first season we do not know yet “what” kind of show it is. I do think whether there is some outside supernatural force is purposefully vague though. And what happened to Javi is probably the biggest mystery not shown yet
It just seems that when we see Jackie frozen and dead peoples’ first reaction is to say “maybe that’s not jackie and jackie is a doppelganger and jackie is actually van who we will see when she is grown up played by the same actor playing javi!” It’s honestly bridging the gap between pop culture and QAnon sites at this point. Someone said they thought Melanie Lynskey hallucinated that her diary was missing (also pretty stupid device of the show to have a completely unprotected unencoded diary be the motivator for many of the main events of the show so far). The show itself is in a pretty bad L O S T space where it’s too far down both paths at the same time for either of them to make sense once they pick a side. In LOST that side was smoke monsters and stupid men in white and black suits and no explanation for three-footed statues. Def seems like they are on the “wouldn’t it be cool if” and not far enough down the “how will this be ultimately explained” chain of reasoning. In any case, I’m in favor of picking it being supernatural and running with it because there isn’t a good DID explanation for an altar of dog head.They left out there “where is javi” but that was so last minute that I’m not really focused on it as a huge mystery.
I agree. I actually stopped reading forums for a while after the first time I read a reddit forum with Javi is Adam and Adam is a figment of Shauna’s imagination.That’s just people having weird ways of understanding what it is to watch a show. When something happens, they automatically say “well, that must not have happened.” I don’t understand the idea of thinking a character doesn’t really exist.However, Van dies at the end of an episode (though, to be fair, I suppose we don’t know she’s dead) and then is burning on a funeral pyre when it turns out she’s not dead.Shauna finds glitter in her closet where Adam had not been…and kills him…and he’s ultimately not the person who did the blackmail.The Jessica character says she’s a reporter but she’s not but she’s actually being paid by Tai to deceive Tai’s former teammates.Therefore, the show kind of invites speculations about “well, maybe X is ACTUALLY…” . But I think when two characters talk to each other, unless there’s a good reason, you don’t just say “I bet that one character doesn’t exist.” That’s high school English class crap.About the writing: I think it’s “sloppy” as you say in terms of pacing and in terms of continuity when it comes to the wilderness plotline. But I think it’s great in terms of good characterization, compelling situations and plot points, and in some cases, really showing people in very real existential crises in an unflinching way.
4 days without approval
6 days
Jeff remains a precious jewel, and Shauna reaming out Randy for his stupidity at the reunion was great.So my theory is that Lottie definitely becomes the de facto leader in the wilderness, and either due to being poisoned (shrooms or berries or some other hallucinagen) or a mass folie a deux situation, most of the other survivors end up following her example. Perhaps Nat, being generally a very rational person, is the one who finally “breaks the spell” and that’s why Taissa specifically feels like she owes her so much. Misty would have just been happy to belong and Shauna is the kind of person, I think, who would be able to disassociate from her behavior in the woods and excuse it, but Taissa holds herself to a higher standard. Nat “saving” her from being in the thrall of Lottie would engender some long-term gratitude.Anyway, as to that theory, my guess is Lottie’s still alive and leading some of the survivors even today. (Hopefully Van!) They killed Travis and are coming for Nat next.Ugh, teen Travis sucks. But he sucks in exactly that way that teenage boys so often do suck. I love that this show has these teenagers in really extreme, terrifying conditions but continues to allow them to act exactly like teenagers – petty jealousy, feeling outside of the friend group, worrying how they look, etc. At the end of the day, whatever happens in the woods goes beyond cannibalism. Jessica (RIP) is right: so they ate each other; so what? It’s going to be the human sacrifice or warring clans or something that they’re trying to keep secret, not that they had to eat their teammates to survive. (I’m presuming they won’t start with Jackie)I think my favorite little joke of the finale was introducing grown up Allie and her having THE MOST Jersey accent of anyone since Janis from Friends. As my husband and I were binging the show, I kept complaining that no one sounded like they were from Jersey at all, but I guess Allie had all of the accent sewn up.Simone, you gorgeous dummy, never crawl into the spooky, bloodied chute in the creepy basement!
Some people in these comments seemed disappointed by the reunion scene, but Allie and Randy absolutely made it. Fabulous minor characters, having their own complete inadequacy cast into direct relief by the immensity of this tragedy that their whole town must still somewhat be under the shadow of.
One theme in this series is unrequited love. In the midst of all the themes about transgression, cruelty, the question of necessity vs. ill intent, there’s also unrequited love.“When did you fall out of love with dad?”Jeff absolutely loves Shauna. I don’t know that she fell out of love with him, but there’s an imbalance in their relationship. He’s more valiant than he needs to be.Misty has unrequited love for the coach and teen Nat has it for teen Travis. In the end, she still feels a certain love for him, and her emotional torment regarding his death is one of the most affecting parts of the show.Then, we have teen Shauna. It’s kind of touching and poignant how she needs Jeff to tell her he loves her—it literally gives her an orgasm. And sadly, she says she won’t hold him to it. That’s just brutal—it’s great writing, and it gives us our first real look at the psychology of teen (who becomes present-day) Shauna. It’s an example of what I love about the show’s writing, just how complex it is. Shauna needs to be loved and told she’s loved, yet amazingly, she doesn’t tell him she loves him. Why should she, when his telling her is role playing?Then, Jackie. One of the first pieces of her characterization is her not telling Jeff she loves him during their quasi-sexual tryst. She mentions this later to Shauna. Poor Jeff.This is to me one of the most compelling parts of the show, and it’s great writing. Jackie wants to be loved, but she can’t tell people she loves them. She’s supposedly an inspirer and a leader, but when it’s time to give compliments to people, she just can’t do it. She’s awful to Shauna in Ep 4 or 5 when Shauna is trying to get her to do more chores. Shauna compliments Jackie and Jackie says Shauna makes people feel judgy. What the hell?I think where the unrequited love theme really bubbles up is in Jackie’s death. Again, the writing accomplishes something kind of incredible here. As some others have said, Jackie’s death *was* sad. She’s neither villain nor sympathetic character, not solely. She’s both. I liked her no matter how bitchy she got, over and over.Because she’s tragic, and she hurts herself more than other people, as Shauna said during their blowout.It’s tragic and poignant. If we agree that the “dream” near the episode’s end was Jackie’s (even if we see Shauna waking up right after it), it’s just brutally gorgeous, beautifully harsh writing. Jackie dreams of Shauna coming to her and apologizing. She doesn’t apologize in return. Shauna says “I love you.” Jackie doesn’t reciprocate—in her OWN dream. Think about that. She doesn’t think like that. She has the whole group saying they love her, and she doesn’t respond. Love is to be received to her. So while it’s said that her dying thoughts are needing love—that is, in reality, not given her—she can’t help but be a bitch about it in her own mental processes. That’s amazing to me. These characters need and want love and first they’re too young, then too broken to know how to honestly express it or to return it or to really appreciate it. Like the airplane that “doesn’t want” the dead guy to leave, they feel the need to capture, own, and manipulate because of their unfulfilled psychological needs. All the characters are ugly and worthy of our sympathy at the same time.
This is a really fascinating way to look at it. Thank you
Glad you enjoyed it!
I get what you mean about Jeff loving Shauna more than she loves him – I found it quite moving when he defended her against Jackie’s parents for instance – but I think he’s barely as valiant as he needs to be to make up for blackmailing his wife and her friends exploiting their worst trauma. When he offers to go to prision for Shauna that’s clearly also an expression of very justified guilt.
“I think the comments section of these recaps have been some of the most interesting TV discussions on the internet.” I’d love to participate, but for some reason, all of my replies take DAYS for approval. I can see this isn’t the case for other users, or at least other comments post right away.
For example, this one is 3 days old and hasn’t been approved? Who do you have to blow to be able to participate in this forum in a way that there’s some chance someone would see your comments?
Your comments have to be approved by someone who is not in the grays. The problem is not very many people read the gray comments. I make it a policy to approve any comment I see that is not trollish, because I think the system is crazy and unfair, and the only reason I am an approved user is because I was on AV Club before Gizmodo bought them, and I would suspect most approved users here have the same story.The only thing you can really do is beg one of the writers to approve you, then your comments will be automatically approved.
Thanks for the explanation. One of the goofiest systems I’ve ever heard.
That’s why they’ve been bleeding users ever since Gizmodo Media took over. I know I sound like an old man shouting “get off my lawn”, but this site had much better user engagement in the pre-GM days.
Getting bought out by a major company is usually the beginning of a long downward spiral for independent pop culture sites. The same thing happened at Television Without Pity when they were bought by Bravo. Their best writers found better jobs and are still players in the pop culture industry, and their users slowly abandoned them until they shut down the site. The same thing is happening here.
this was a really bad last few episodes – the facts that so many distaff fans are fangirling it helps to explain to me why y’all like the Kardashians and the Bachelor – yellowjackets was bad and stupid
I don’t see any other mention made of it, but it’s a pretty clever goofy pun with the episode title. “Sic Transit Gloria Mundi” most directly refers to Jackie’s death. The way she is lionized in memory (represented most directly by Allie in this episode) as a perfect golden high school queen (literally the prom queen), forever taken too soon, makes her loss symbolic of the loss of the “glory” of their high school years.Meanwhile, for Shauna Jackie represents a symbol that is both golden and hated. She cannot escape the memory of Jackie, and as many have noted seems to have adopted Jackie’s life in her absence (her boyfriend, her parents, the suburban mom fate that Shauna derided this episode). It’s the “Transit” part of the phrase that rings so ironic for Shauna, because Jackie never really leaves her. Meanwhile the world, for Shauna, as she tells Taissa, is hollow and stripped of light and joy.And then, of course, there’s a straight-up pun, because the woman from Misty’s work who died was named Gloria. Gloria’s passage from the world carries with it a bit of unexpected baggage, in the form of Adam’s dissected head and fingertips. Misty, the well-read ray of sunshine that she is, would no doubt approve of the delightfully layered triple reference.