Hi! Welcome to your Yellowjackets 304 recap, where we will be discussing the episode “12 Angry Girls and 1 Drunk Travis,” which was written by Julia Bicknell and Terry Wesley and directed by Jennifer Morrison. Yes, that Jennifer Morrison! Of House M.D. fame! Catch up on past recaps (and the comments sections), and buckle up! This is a pretty brutal episode! Remember to bury any spoilery comments by front-loading a couple sentences of non-spoiler thoughts/commentary, as the first couple lines appear in the sidebar on the homepage.
The episode picks up after the events in the cave (which were apparently quite divisive among viewers) from last episode. The crew leads a captive Coach Scott toward camp. Shauna, Van, and Akilah are walking together, and Shauna insists “it wasn’t that weird.” It, referring to the fact that they all experienced a shared nightmare together. I mentioned this in the comments last week, but I really recommend reading Jonathan Lisco’s interview breaking down the episode, which touches on some of the cultural connotations of shared dreamspace that I also mentioned at the end of my recap as well as the neuroscience of memory/remembering.
At camp, no one can agree about what to do with Ben. Shauna wants him promptly punished for trying to burn them down in the cabin, something Ben has pretty convincingly claimed he did not do. I believe him. Ben has long been a foil to the feral hive mentality of the girls. Natalie says the fire could have been a freak accident, which is my personal theory as well, though I’ve been enjoying the speculation in the comments that it could have been Other Tai or Misty. Nat declares they should have a trial. A two-thirds majority will determine the outcome, which Shauna, bloodthirsty, opposes, but Nat says she’s meeting her halfway by not sticking to the unanimous vote required of criminal trials. Given the episode’s title and the characters’ conversation here, I wouldn’t be surprised if a recent homework assignment prior to the plane crash was to literally read Twelve Angry Men. I read it in school when I was a little younger than them. Tai, who I’m guessing was either in student government, mock trial, or model UN in her pre-crash life, swiftly volunteers to be the prosecuting attorney. Nat will be the judge. They’re briefly stumped on who to serve as his defense attorney before landing on the obvious: Misty. She reluctantly agrees to it.
Adult Shauna and Jeff are at the autoshop to have her car checked out after her little brake failure incident last week, which Shauna is still convinced is Misty’s doing. She asks the mechanic if it was a cut brake line, and he says no, it was a brake booster failure. So she speculates someone tampered with the brake booster, and he denies this, too, saying it was just a normal failure. Could it have really been just an accident?
It wouldn’t be the first time Shauna perceived danger where there was none, Adam being the most egregious example. I write about the natural phenomena of “coincidences” on this show a lot, and this particular episode has me thinking a lot about accidents. So many tragedies in life are just that: accidental. What if no one burned down the cabin? What if no one tampered with Shauna’s car? That’s not to say there aren’t very real, deliberate and meditated acts of violence and harm that happen in the universe of Yellowjackets, but perhaps not everything is intentional malice. This is a series, after all, that begins with one big accident: a plane crash. I don’t believe anything caused it other than mechanical failure, though I know there are fan theories out there about the wilderness causing the crash and there being some bigger picture conspiracy afoot. In truth, I’m not the kind of viewer who overly speculates about why certain things occur on this series, though it can make for fun thought experiments and conversation starters in these recaps. But to me, it’s almost more interesting to consider the randomness of the horrors that occur.
And if I’m right about the cabin fire being an accident, then the only characters carrying out actual meditated, intentional harm are Ben’s prosecutors. But I’ll come back to that.
Jeff (we missed you last week, Jeff!) thinks the car problem is karma, and he’s determined to repair the Sadecki household’s karmic debt. Later, Shauna finds him sorting things for donation. Apparently, Jeff read a WikiHow page on how to get good karma points. In addition to donating random shit to charity, he’s going to find a cat that has been missing from the neighborhood for over a year. Callie asks if they’re going to do charity because they put Lottie out on the streets. Jeff is very concerned about the karma deficit! What’s actually going on here is he’s feeling immense guilt and doesn’t know how to deal with it. Shauna indulges him and agrees to do some volunteer work. Callie is out.
Taissa calls Lottie, who is at the bank doing something. The show really makes a point to make sure we see she’s at the bank and has some sort of deposit or withdrawal slip, so this is bound to mean something at some point. Taissa wants to asks Lottie what she meant outside the ambulance when she said “it” was pleased with them and they’d soon see. Taissa is still looking for answers about the waiter and Van’s new cancer prognosis, something she sees as connected but could also technically be a coincidence, his death a freak accident with no real meaning beyond that. These characters though — as a result of their traumas but also just as a result of being humans who seek answers and meaning behind death — rarely accept anything is a coincidence.
Back in the wilderness, Akilah hesitantly approaches Lottie and tells her about the “twisted dream” she had in the cave. Nothing perks Lottie’s ears like psychic hallucinatory experiences, so she’s locked in and wants Akilah to share more about the cave. Given her little drug experiments with Travis, which have seemingly left him even more traumatized than he already was, I do not have a good feeling about where this is headed for Akilah.
Misty visits the prisoner Ben and slaps him, asking how he could have possibly burned down the cabin after everything she did for him. He once again denies it, and she says prove it. “Yeah?” he asks. “How? With a high school mock trial at the end of the fucking world?” The whole thing is a farce, he claims, and he’s right. These are kids playacting at some sort of judicial process. Again, more on that soon! Misty tells Ben he can’t call it a farce “out there,” in front of the others, many of whom are taking this very seriously and want his ass dead.
Back in the present, Tai and Van are making a game out of fate on a not-so-romantic date day in NYC. They’ve bought a deck of cards and taken the Queen of Hearts out to leave on the sidewalk. They watch to see if anyone picks it up. A few people do before putting it back down, but then a random guy decides to pick it up and pocket it. “Fuck, It chose,” Van says. They get up and follow. What exactly is their plan here? It does feel thematically tethered to what’s going down in the past, where the girls have essentially made a game out of determining Ben’s fate with their mock trial. In both cases, the characters don’t see what they’re doing as a game at all. They’re intensely self-serious about it, and that’s what makes it all very unnerving rather than goofy, even though their behavior is indeed goofy! What are y’all doing!
In the wilderness, Van gets the trial started, announcing The Honorable Judge Natalie. Nat emerges wearing a set of antlers. I think we’re long past the days of a single Antler Queen theory. The Antler Queen is more like a position of power and authority anyone can step into. For now, it’s Nat. Tai, taking this all very seriously, calls Mari to the stand. They realize they forgot to swear her in, so Lottie brings the deck of cards to her and recites a wilderness-themed oath.
These proceedings really are a disorienting blend of humor and horror. The balance works! The humor underscores their youth and, as coach put it, farcical nature of a mock trial in the wilderness. But those reminders of their youth and the make-believe nature of the whole thing also amplifies the horror. They’re collectively acting as judge, jury, and (probably) executioner for this innocent man! There is absolutely no reason they need to be doing any of this! Ben’s life is in their hands, and there’s nothing he can do to get out of such an absurd situation. The fact that they’re all approaching it in such a humorless and intense way is terrifying! In many ways, this is more disturbing than their literal cannibalism.
Tai asks Mari if Ben is deranged and if that’s why he held her captive. Mari says he didn’t want her coming back to tell them where he was. “He didn’t want us coming to get payback,” Mari says. Shauna nods, as if this proves he’s guilty. Misty cross-examines Mari next and asks if he said payback for what. Mari says she assumed, and Misty very sincerely says the old “ass out of you and me” adage. These girls have clearly seen a legal procedural (I like speculating which 1990s one they are basing these little performances on — maybe early seasons Law & Order or Night Court).
On their quest to pay their karmic debts, Shauna finds that Jeff has brought her to the assisted living facility where Misty Fucking Quigley (which Shauna once again says verbatim) works. Shauna is not happy about this, and neither is Misty. She friendship broke up with Shauna last episode. Shauna says she wants to mail the bill for the brakes to her. Misty wants an apology. Sweet, clueless Jeff says it seems like something is going on between the two of them. No one ever accused Jeff of being a citizen detective.
Misty is thrilled to place Shauna on tapioca duty. “This is better than an apology,” she says with an evil little giggle. Misty would take revenge over atonement.
Misty in the past is interrogating Shauna on the stand and trying to build a narrative that Shauna was the one to start the fire. She points out that the fire happened the same night Nat was chosen to be leader. Misty pushes Shauna’s buttons trying to get her to admit she wanted to be the leader. She brings up Shauna’s dead baby and having to carve up Javi. She’s lucky Shauna doesn’t stab her; Shauna isn’t exactly someone whose buttons I’d push. Tai then wants to talk to Shauna, too. She asks Shauna if she thinks Ben is a hero, and Shauna adamantly says no (never mind the fact, as some of you pointed out last week, that Ben saved them all from the cave. If he really wanted them dead, he could have easily left them there). Tai and Misty bicker during this whole process, again reiterating that they’re teen girls who have let their squabbles escalate to the point that we’re now watching their coach go through a murder trial.
Tai asks Shauna why she doesn’t think Ben is a hero, bringing up the fact that Ben didn’t help at all when she was in labor. Tai asks what he did while she was in labor. “Nothing,” Shauna says. “He just left me. I was bleeding and in so much pain, so Natalie went to get him. And he just looked at me and said ‘all I did was press play on a VHS tape’ and then went back to his room.” I do indeed think about this moment from Shauna’s labor episode a lot. It’s the definitive moment where it becomes clear Ben’s adulthood doesn’t actually tangibly make a difference out here. He can’t be what they need him to be. And that’s not entirely his fault. He doesn’t have the answers or the solutions, just like them, and that’s an incredibly tough pill for them all to swallow. We’re taught so much as kids that adults can save us from difficult situations, but often, they fucking can’t. It was both a huge failure on Ben’s part to not be a more supportive presence during Shauna’s labor and also a completely understandable reaction from him. He doesn’t know how to deliver a baby any better than the rest of them.
Tai asks Shauna why she thinks Ben started the fire. Shauna says because he judges them. “He’s judged us this whole time,” she says. “He’s not one of us, and he hates that. It terrifies him.”
There it is. Her words are ironic given that that’s exactly what they’re all doing to Ben here: judging him. They’re enacting the worst kind of judgment, too, the kind that is punitive and potentially lethal. The Yellowjackets have become dangerously factional, and any difference of opinion or dissent is seen as a threat. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say they’re inching very close to forming a fascist society. This whole mock trial is predicated on what they know in the outside world, and what they know in the outside world is a culture of incarceration and punishment. They’re replicating the realities of the outside world but on an intense and microcosmic scale. No one is here telling them this is the way to run things, but they’ve ingested years and years of social conditioning to believe this is how the world should work. Their suburban New Jersey lives before the crash were scaffolded by these punitive rules and systems with an emphasis on assimilation and homogeny. We know different girls have different class backgrounds, but all of them come from this 1990s American suburban context. We watch the Yellowjackets going through this trial process, and it looks archaic and feudal on the surface, but when you really examine it, it’s just as farcical as the actual U.S. legal system tends to be.
Ben has done nothing wrong, but it doesn’t matter. The second he opted out of cannibalism, he marked himself as different and therefore dangerous in the Yellowjackets’ eyes. Part of what they’re feeling is perhaps guilt for making those survival choices. But they’ve also constructed a society in which cannibalism has become an agreed upon norm. Ben doesn’t agree with it. That makes him a dissident. It’s a fascinating upending that happens here. Cannibalism is usually portrayed as transgressive, forbidden. But in the society constructed by the Yellowjackets, it’s Ben’s refusal to participate in this rite that becomes a transgression.
Van and Tai in the present are still following the man who picked up the card. Van seems to think the whole thing is a little absurd, and yet, she keeps walking of her own volition. It’s like she’s outwardly in denial but subconsciously believes Tai’s theory that something mystic is happening here. Again, what’s their plan?!
At Misty’s workplace, Jeff is helping Randy — who volunteers here because of his DUI — run the bingo game. The problem? Jeff is too damn good at being a bingo host. So he ends up replacing Randy entirely and making a lot of new geriatric fans. Everyone loves Jeff! I relate!
Misty goes to check on Shauna on tapioca duty. First, she stops in Svetlana’s room and finds a letter seemingly written in invisible ink, one of Walter’s signature moves.
Shauna’s listening to “The Sign” when Misty walks in on her. Misty’s dismayed to see Shauna enjoying herself when this was meant to be a punishment. She still wants an apology. “I’m sorry…for not knowing why I should be sorry,” Shauna says in what reminds me a lot of how the women on any Real Housewives show “apologize.” A true non-apology! Misty then has a rage fantasy where she stabs Shauna in the back with a knife, but it’s only that, a fantasy. (In many ways, the trial in the wilderness seems like a rage fantasy come to life.) Misty storms out of work, but not before picking up the invisible letter…and a few of the pieces from the puzzle Svetlana was working on, just to be chaotically evil!!!
In a mirror, Adult Lottie is practicing saying the words “I understand that I hurt you.” She’s preparing to apologize to someone, but we’re not sure who yet.
In the wilderness, Lottie is on the stand. Misty asks her about history, which Lottie apparently has an A in (any time little pieces of their before lives at school pop in, it’s like a poked hole in this new reality they’ve constructed for themselves). Misty asks her about examples from history of people who don’t adhere to certain belief systems burning places to the ground. Lottie agrees there are famously examples of this from history. Misty suggests that anyone who didn’t believe in Lottie’s belief system could have been the one to burn down the cabin: It could have been Shauna or Nat or Gen (“You could go either way, probably,” Misty says of Melissa, perhaps just a reference to Melissa’s indeterminate loyalties and personality so far or a cheeky joke about her queerness). Misty points out Lottie could have had motive, too. She could have been upset the wilderness didn’t want her to be the leader anymore. Misty’s whole point? That it could have been any one of them to burn down the cabin. I agree, which is why I think it was no one. Reasonable doubt? She’s certainly established it. I hope I’m never tried in the woods by a bunch of teen girls after a plane crash, but if I am, I hope Misty Quigley is my lawyer.
Tai thinks she just lost the trial, but Shauna lays some new information on her: Nat knew where Ben was hiding and that he was alive. Could this be enough to change the course of the trial, which was starting to bend in Ben’s favor?
Adult Shauna is wrapping up her volunteer duties by putting stuff away in the walk-in freezer, when someone CLOSES HER IN. This is a lot more stressful than Carmy’s incident in The Bear, especially if we’re to take Shauna at face value in her belief that someone is out to get her. (Walk-in freezers have internal release mechanisms, but they do sometimes fail and there have been real-life cases of people dying in them.) Shauna starts beating on the door with a hunk of frozen meat, but no one is around to hear her. Instead, she immediately starts hallucinating Jackie inside the freezer with her, which makes sense given the way Jackie died.
Tai and Van follow the complete stranger who they’re hoping idk DIES? into his apartment building and up the stairs to his door. He goes inside, and they stand outside of it, trying to figure out their next move. “You’re not butch enough to have locksmith tools,” Van says after asking how they’re going to get in. Tai reaches for the door, and it’s not even locked. It’s pretty obvious here that this is Other Tai, no? Her general demeanor is off. And Tai never believed in any of this! Van talks her down from entering the man’s home, and Tai tells Van to meet her at the edge of Central Park in an hour.
In the wilderness, Tai calls Nat to the stand. Yes, the judge! They’re perfectly content to remake the rules of their trial but can’t reimagine what a different approach to society would be beyond this punitive outside-world-mimicking one. Tai asks Nat if she ever thought Coach Scott caused the fire, and Nat says she thinks anything could have caused it. Here’s where Tai drops the bomb that Nat knew Ben was alive and out there and ordered them not to look for him anyway. “He wasn’t any kind of threat,” Nat says. Shauna refutes this, sticking to her belief Ben is a threat.
Misty next does what every lawyer in need of a hail mary on the television program The Good Wife used to do: She calls the defendant to the stand. Ben is going to speak for himself.
Jeff has found a very good audience for his dad jokes and congeniality, living it up at the senior home while his wife is busy trapped in a freezer talking to her dead best friend. It’s so fun to watch Melanie Lynskey and Ella Purnell play off one another; Adult Shauna has hallucinated Jackie in past episodes, but never for this long. Jackie tells Shauna she is all talk, throwing accusations around about someone targeting her without actually doing anything about it. This is of course Shauna’s own id talking to her. Her rage and thirst for revenge that we see very much at the surface of her teen self lurks just beneath the surface of her adult self. It can come out at any time. “I’m the most interesting thing about you,” Jackie says, making it clear this is still an insecurity and fear of Shauna’s, all these years later. “It’s okay, you’ll be warm soon,” Jackie says, threateningly.
With Ben on the stand, Misty desperately tries to get Ben to say he likes working with teens, but he’s intent on not lying. He admits he was never really interested in working with kids or being a soccer coach. He says he only really stuck around because the team was the best in the state and he hoped it could lead to a better gig eventually. He did like teaching, even though he didn’t think he would. “I liked coaching you,” he says, “because you guys were annoyingly fucking relentless, and you were underdogs. I kinda like those. I am one. Grew up one, stayed one.” That relentless cutthroat nature of the girls on the soccer pitch that he was initially drawn to is the exact thing damning him now. His words are devastating! He really just is a guy who has tried his best, who connected with the girls for being an underdog just like them. And now those underdogs have become his overlords.
He points out that he had plenty of opportunities to hurt them through the years. He could have turned them in when they got shit faced before a tournament instead of pretending he had food poisoning to cover for them. He could have told Tai and Van’s parents about their relationship when he caught them in the parking lot together. And he could have put Misty on the team instead of making her equipment manager when he knew she’d get hurt and bullied if she actually played. He wanted to look out for these kids the way his parents never looked out for him. He loved them and cared about them, but then they got to the woods, and they cut his leg off impulsively and didn’t listen to him. “I was scared that I maybe was next,” he says of his decision to leave.
He confesses to having been a coward by leaving. “I left you and I shouldn’t have,” he says. “I acted exactly the same way that my parents would have, and that is embarrassing to me. It is shameful. And I am so fucking sorry, Shauna.”
This is a real confession, a real atonement. It is so much more real and meaningful than anything this sham trial seeks to bring. Ben is not guilty of burning the cabin down. He is guilty of abandoning the girls and of reenacting his parents’ neglectful patterns, but he knows that, and he is sorry, and nothing the girls do to him will change any of that, will fix any of it. He is guilty, but he does not deserve to be punished. He has an opportunity to choose differently this time; they all do. They can stop this trial any time. They can realize they’re seeking a form of justice that is not possible.
Jeff returns home from his great day at the senior home to find Shauna holding a random cat she got from a shelter in Manhattan. Jeff thinks it’s literally the cat from the flier he found. Shauna tells him of course it isn’t, but they don’t have to tell the family that, the cat looks close enough. It’s not…exactly an actual act of goodwill so much as another Sadecki Family Lie. Even when these two are trying to hard to do good, they miss the mark. Maybe they should worry a bit more about parenting their teenage daughter than elaborate cat hoaxes.
Van meets Tai in the park, and Tai is finally making good on the date Teen Van proposed all the years before of getting her a pretzel and going on a carriage ride. “Linger” is playing as this happens! It would be romantic if you could forget everything that came before it and also aren’t left wondering, gravely, what Tai got up to in the hour leading up to this rendezvous. Is she so far gone that she would have circled back and killed that man? Something else nefarious? Whatever she did, I can’t imagine it was good, especially if she’s Other Tai at the moment.
It’s time for the jury’s final vote. Misty, Tai, and Nat are exempt from the voting. By the first vote, there isn’t a definitive two-thirds majority for innocent or guilty. Nat decides they’ll vote again until people change their votes and a two-thirds majority is reached. They vote over and over and over again. Shauna interrupts the vote to make her case for guilty. She does not mince any words about it, and she gets some people to change their votes, including Gen, Lottie, and Travis (who based on the title of the episode is apparently drunk through all of this?). Shauna has her majority.
Melissa approaches Shauna and says this is what she had been talking about. “Do you feel that right now?” she asks Shauna. “That’s fucking power.” Yes, the power to condemn a probably innocent man!!! Again, it’s terrifying how many cues these girls are taking from the outside world and outside power structures in the formation of their wilderness society.
Melissa and Shauna squeeze each other’s hands, but Lottie is the only one who notices. She sits next to Travis who has drawn on a piece of bark a bunch of bodies looking up at one body floating in the air. “It’s the outcome,” he says.
At home, Misty logs onto the murder boards and receives a text from Walter saying he just heard about Lottie and asking if she’s alright. Misty scrolls through the murder boards and finds an image of Lottie, dead in a stairwell. We transition to the crime scene where cops are already present and see she is indeed very much dead. Furthermore, this place of death looks a lot like the stairwell Teen Lottie dreamed about in the wilderness — a tunnel-like industrial stairwell with candles strewn about it. Did Lottie know somehow this was where and when she would die? For now, there are no real answers, the episode ending on this death reveal. I do appreciate this show’s willingness to kill off major characters. It keeps the stakes high. And Yellowjackets dying as adults — like Natalie and now Lottie — after they survived so much as teens has a heartbreaking pathos to it.
But even more devastating than Lottie’s death in the present is Ben’s verdict in the past, a verdict that Lottie surprisingly contributed to. You would think Lottie’s mental health struggles and lack of agency around them in her youth would perhaps make her more skeptical of this judicial system. Then again, Lottie’s dad is the one who hooked the girls up with a private flight, so she obviously comes from extreme wealth where these punitive policies are even more strictly enforced. That’s the world she comes from. Right before we see her change her vote, we also cut to a sequence of the screaming trees that could suggest she feels she’s being told by the wilderness to vote this way.
In any case, the trial confirms what has been true for a while now, which is that the systems these girls have created in order to survive are also killing them, because they’re too similar to the systems of the outside world that depend on oppression and stratification to run. Forget “mean girl” politics; these are just classic American politics if you think about it. We often describe the girls as going feral, but in truth, they’re returning to what they know. In the absence of civilization, they’re rebuilding a civilization that makes sense to them, even if it does not actually make sense. It does not make sense to put Ben on trial, even before his heartfelt confession and apology. They don’t know this, but he has a whole food stash! Probably medical supplies that were also in that rations box! If they had let go of their hunger for revenge and law and order, they could be benefiting from that. By pursuing the trial, they not only hurt Ben but themselves. It’s a perfect paradigm for how carceral systems work in real life, harming us all.
Last Buzz:
- I can’t figure out how to hyperlink footnotes, so let’s nix those for now.
- These recaps remain free to read, but all the work I do is generously supported by AF Media members. For $4 a month, you can be a part of the community supporting our work. Also, stay tuned for members-only Yellowjackets news soon 👀
- Mock Trial at the End of the Fucking World would have also made a great episode title.
- As far as Cranberries needledrops on this show goes, the “Zombie” one went way harder than the “Linger” one, but I do like this sad love song playing over doomed lovers Tai/Van.
- WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO BEN NOW?
- Who is responsible for all the high-end whittling happening in the wilderness? Those soup bowls in the premiere? The gavel here? It’s giving Williams and Sonoma hand-carved wood products.
- Lottie’s death is sure to be divisive, so let’s talk about it! Tell me where you stand!
- “The Sign” playing in an episode in which Tai and Van are recklessly pursuing “signs” is fitting.
- This is a really fucking good episode for Sophie Thatcher.
– I think that them telling us Mari’s full name (Mari Ibarra) means that she’s the eighth survivor. So why haven’t we heard from her? I think they also answered that this episode when Jackie says, “It’s not just what you did out there, but what you did when you got back.” They came back, and Mari wanted to cash in on this newfound fame. To keep her silent, the other girls killed her.
– I don’t think that Lottie is dead. I think she met up with Walter and they faked her death. Lottie to try and get Shauna sad over her death. Walter to lure Misty out of her funk.
I really do hope Lottie’s death is a fake out because I feel like the actress is doing good work but isn’t being used that fully and I do want to see her more.
unfortunately i don’t think it’s a fake out due to interviews said actress has done — in which she also actually expresses frustration with the fate of her character
was truly THRILLING to learn Mari’s full name lol. and yes I do think the girls probably did some wild stuff post-rescue. i have a lot of thoughts on timeline for the rest of the series that i’m saving for my finale recap in a few weeks
On the west coast of the US, paramount+ lets me watch after 9pm on Thursdays and was SO ready to read your recap this morning!
The misty lawyering of it all — so good! And I’m so excited to know everybody’s theories about Lottie.
Also, I find coach to be so boring. Is it bc he’s a man? Maybe! Or maybe he’s just so serious. If they’re gonna kill him though, wouldn’t they wanna save him for food in the winter?
hahaha 🫡 love my yellowjackets warriors who come to the site READY on friday morning. i wake up at 6:30am so i can add screenshots (my screeners have a watermark on them so I can’t prep ahead like I can the text of the recap)
i love coach!!!!!
What a hero!
Ha! I actually love the male characters in the teen storyline but I’m not as in love with the male characters in the adult storyline as other YJ fans.
i do think Ben is the most interesting male character on the show
I know we love the girls, but damn the actor who plays Ben did an amazing job acting this episode.
Before the episode even started I was chuckling imaging Mari on the stand, and I was right to! “Oh shit.” got me so good!
I noticed the girls going to a punch bowl thing in the background of the episode so I wonder if they were all kinda tipsy? For a minute I was on the theory train for them hallucinating their little perfect village, but Ben’s response seems to undermine that one.
Tai is definitely not the prosecutor you’d wanna face, because even if she thinks you are innocent, winning means more to her. Misty gets the MVP award of the episode as a defense attorney.
Tai clocked Van’s hand shaking while paying for pretzels and now I’m wondering if she already killed the guy and it didn’t work, or if she’s gonna wait to ditch Van and go back and kill him.
Who was Lottie apologizing too?!
yes absolutely incredible ep for Steven Krueger!!!
oh i didn’t clock the punch bowl, gonna revisit that.
i do love that Tai grows up to be a lawyer but for something as boring as land use lol. she had her 1 experience of being a prosecutor in a murder case and said nope never again
the thing is, i feel like lottie has a long list of people she could be apologizing to. shauna and callie obviously. but also, she ran a whole ass cult so her followers?
Regarding your comment that Lottie has a long list of people she could be apologizing to – I think when you narrow it down to who she actually feels she should be apologizing to or needs to apologize to in order to get something, that wipes out a whole lot of people. She clearly felt no guilt regarding Callie or Shauna, for instance. She did want something from Callie, but Callie wasn’t mad at her, so Lottie wouldn’t need to make an insincere apology to get on Callie’s good side. I don’t see where Lottie would have needed Shauna for anything, and based on the way she hung up on Tai, Lottie had no use for Tai either.
Hmmm.
truuuue. so maybe this isn’t about the yellowjackets and instead connects back to the cult?
I thought it might be Lisa as we haven’t seen or heard of her at all this season
Mari’s “oh shit” is maybe my favorite throwaway line from the entire series. So good.
i’m not always TOTALLY sold on this actress BUT she does nail little comedic moments like this for sure
Why do u like Jeff so much?? He’s a bad guy too this is all his fault
everyone on this show is a “bad guy” (gender neutral) lmao. (except maybe coach). and Jeff rules lol
this was my favorite episode of the season so far!!!
does anyone else think there’s a chance Tai is the one that killed Lottie? They tried to choose a random person and it didn’t work, so it makes sense that she’d assume it would have to be one of the girls. and her reaction to seeing van’s hands shaking seeming lowkey angry would make sense if she was somehow involved.
from a not-in-story perspective, killing off simone kessell feels very weird? she has so much more story to and mystery to unlock and it makes season 2 adult timeline realllyyyyyyy feel like filler. what was the point of introducing an enigmatic cult leader with secrets and an undying belief in the wilderness of she’s going to die? simone kessell is clearly pretty unhappy about it and quite frankly so am i!!
I also thought they were setting up the possibility that Tai killed Lottie! And, this gets me thinking that they actually set up a possibility that *any* of our known survivors killed Lottie: Shauna was in Manhattan at the time adopting a cat, Misty left the nursing home “hours” before Shauna did, and we don’t know what Tai OR Van was up to during that hour apart. And of course they’ve been implying (probably) Melissa is lurking about menacingly. Honestly, I’m not thrilled about the possibility of the adult timeline adding yet another mystery, so my hope is that this will be a device to explore the dynamics between all the survivors + tie them to the past storyline in a way that clears up some mysteries instead!
This would also make Van’s hand shaking at the end more ambivalent in its meaning: is she shaken by having just killed Lottie or at least having seen her dead? Is it shaking *despite* someone killing her (and Tai seeming surprised/angry about it points to her having been that someone)? Is it shaking *because* someone killed Lottie and it worked, which might feel like the surge of adrenaline she chalks it up to? After all, she wouldn’t have noticed the adrenaline surge either other time it “worked” that we’ve seen – the first time she had just chased Shauna through the forest trying to kill her+ then watched Lottie get shot+ Nat die, and the second time she and Tai were making out in an alley after dining+ *literally* dashing. Those are both very high adrenaline scenarios! A surge of adrenaline that leaves Van’s hands shaking might be the sign it’s “working” and they just wouldn’t have been able to clock it until now.
I don’t want Lottie to be dead, but as long as the actress gets plenty of flashbacks and hauntings, I’m into where they might take all this!
yeah, Shauna, Misty, and Tai all could have plausibly done it. the only one I’d maybe rule out is Van. but i like the work you’ve shown to explain how it could be, especially the shaky hand.
i think unfortunately we’re not going to see the actress anymore based on post-ep interviews
definitely very into this theory that it could have been Tai and feel like there were little breadcrumbs laid for that, but i also can’t tell if that’s a fakeout.
i struggled with the cult stuff last season and wonder if yeah this is almost a way to reset all that, which is frustrating. VERY interested in the fact that Simone is being so forthcoming in the postmortem interviews
Can you link to the interviews you’re thinking of? I’m kind of trying to have Autostraddle be my only vector for YJ rabbit holes as a part of a general attempt to be more deliberate about engaging with the internet these days.
Bad Tai believes that the waiter’s death led to good results for Van, and the waiter was a stranger.
I love Jeff so much, he’s just trying to be a good dad and husband!
The acting was top notch this episode, young Misty and Ben especially. His dialogue was heartbreaking. I definitely thought we were going to see what Tai had done in that hour before she met Van, like how we saw the Biscuit altar in season 1. Let’s not forget what she can get up to! But it’s cool the show left it ambiguous.
Onto spoilers, I’m disappointed in adult Lottie’s death. I really liked the actress and her dynamic with Callie. It’s disappointing to me when they kill off the adults we care so much about as teens, I don’t know.
There are so many mysteries the show still needs to address, I just hope it doesn’t get too convoluted.
NEED to know what Tai got up to in that hour ! especially if she’s the Other One rn
i’m not really feeling lost in the mystery sauce atm. i think they’re dealing with one central mystery even if they don’t realize it’s connected like i think lottie’s death + whatever keeps happening to shauna is all the same mystery. and then I think Tai and Van are chasing down a big ol nothing basically
Ok I am worried for my show! Overall this episode was a miss for me, despite some of the fun stuff we got. Teen Shauna has become such a bully that I am having a very hard time watching her. And meanwhile Travis, who has *also* suffered two devastating losses, is retreating further into himself. I appreciate how this show illustrates the different ways grief and trauma can fracture us, but this episode had me struggling with nearly every character and storyline. (Seriously, what WAS Tai & Van’s plan????) I also agree that killing off Lottie at this point was… weird.
MVP to MFQ, Attorney at Law, though! Would watch the hell out of that spinoff.
imo the version of Teen Shauna we’re seeing now is the closest aligned to Shauna as an adult. she IS a bully.
need a Misty legal procedural set in the universe of The Good Wife called The Good Cannibal
That is a good point re: Shauna! I’m realizing that because Melanie Lynskey also has so much comedy material (and chops), it conveniently dilutes the fury her teen self is carrying all the time, and makes the stew (sorry) a bit more palatable… for me, anyway. Sophie Nélisse is amazing; I just want a little more nuance for her this season. Though it is kind of great that she does a lot of her seething in a t-shirt with butterflies on it, lol
brb writing a spec script for the good cannibal
yeah i think as an adult she has just gotten better at “hiding it” but the teen version we’re seeing is all id + her true nature when unchecked. agree that sophie nélisse is outstanding! i think part of why i am vibing with the character’s intense rage and lack of dynamics/nuance is that it feels like teenage angst but just dialed way way up as a result of her isolation and the violent trauma she experienced last season. tbh i was not very nuanced with my feelings as a teen either!
Can we say that, per what we’ve seen of Teen Nat out in the woods, that at her core, she was actually a good, kind person at heart? If so, that just makes Adult Nat even more of a tragic character. Because she was the adult that carried her baggage way more on the surface than the other adults. With her more heightened conscience + her already budding substance abuse issues pre-crash–naturally, she’d be the one the least equipped to hide her pain through the years.
I can see that; this is an interesting perspective, which gives me things to think about going forward.
As a rule I don’t read comment threads, but the ones on these recaps are an integral part of Yellowjackets season for me. Everyone is thoughtful and smart and funny, and folks can have different takes and opinions while still engaging in good conversation that enriches the pop culture experience! What a refreshing notion.
(replying to myself but really this is a reply to ed’s comment about Teen Nat it just won’t let me reply to that one)
yes, I’ve always thought Nat was a tragic character and a morally good one. i feel like Nat and Van have more in common as adults than with anyone else. Van ended up isolating physically by moving somewhere remote and Nat ended up isolating via drugs. but both are good, kind people, especially as adults. also interesting to think about in the context of both of them having parental trauma (Nat’s abusive dad and his death, Van’s alcoholic mom — both also seem to be possibly the only poor kids on the team)
(and now responding to bee!)
agree!!!! these are my favorite comments to read on my own work, hands down. it feels like a real conversation and a real chance to add depth and layers to interpreting the show, because so many of us have different interpretations but also just different focal points. thanks for contributing! have been loving your thoughts this season
*patiently awaiting your the good cannibal spec*
As am I ! If Elsbeth happened, then there *has* to be a Quigley.
Thinking about them being relentless soccer plays makes me wonder if a different group of teens would respond differently to the wilderness. Like a drama group. Though I guess then would more likely to mixed genders.
Hopefully that has covered the spoilers!
I am enjoying Melissa playing a Ladg Macbeth role to Shauna, a much more interesting version of their dynamic than I would have thought!
I think Stephen Krueger was phenomenal in this episode. It looks like his run is coming to an end but he’s been a brilliant performer.
Jeff would end up in The Bad Place and be so upset about it.
LOL drama teens in the wilderness would be such a mess.
ooooo love the Lady Macbeth comparison!!
As you might have guessed by those two points I was a drama teen!
i was too haha! studied musical theater at a performing arts high school
I am yet again reminded why I prefer engaging in this community over YJ twitter lol. Appreciate your recap and thoughts!
I really really want to be onboard with the writers’ vision for this season. Very much agreed that I appreciate their willingness to kill off major characters, but I’m waiting to see if this feels earned.
lol love yj twitter but it’s def a different vibe
i’m waiting too! too hard to know rn, wanna see how they handle the aftermath esp emotionally for the characters
Haven’t been on twitter for a while, but was engaging in reddit and have stopped as it just feels like people want to talk about the show being bad all the time. And I love it! I appreciate you can critique something you love, but endless posts of people not trusting writers and talking about how they don’t like Shauna (she’s not supposed to be likeable!) has bummed me out. So gonna hang out here more!
to be completely honest, i did NOT anticipate how divisive this season would be. i’m all for differences of opinion though! and what i love about these comments sections is that even disagreement is expressed super respectfully — not exactly the reddit vibe.
also yes v surprised people are “turning” on Shauna when her extreme rage, bloodthirst, etc is exactly the point (and is who she has always been? and also just seems like a natural reaction to the events of last season?)
I think the divisiveness that we’re seeing on reddit with season 3 stems from fans feeling the first season promised a more straightforward show that would end up veering towards a supernatural explanation to the woods stuff. Also, season 1 lacked episodes with cryptic (but v. important) fever dream sequences open to interpretation that would come later.
I also think that in recent years, with streaming making between season hiatuses longer in duration, fans are left more to their own devices on sub-forums, often for multiple years, to conjure up all these outlandish theories about future plotlines. Then, when the show returns, they hold it against the writers that plots don’t mirror fan theories. (Good luck, last season of Stranger Things!)
With the misinterpretation of Shauna–I think Americans will just always bristle at unlikable protagonists.
omg the subreddit is a miserable place now, all they want to do is nitpick and complain. like if you hate the show this much, stop watching at this point!
yellowjackets twitter can be a LOT and is too focused on shipping in my opinion, but otherwise has the best and most nuanced takes on the characters. every other social media platform – reddit, tiktok, instagram, facebook I assume – is filled with comments about how much they hate shauna and how ben is the true #hero of the show. the love for jeff is so disproportionate as well. like, this is a show about women and of course you’re all centering the male characters and refusing to empathise with the girls. of course! but yellowjackets fans on twitter, for whatever reason, do not do that, and they mostly have empathy and curiosity for the female characters.
Hi, long time reader and first time commenter here. Love your recaps! I absolutely agree with everyone hoping Lottie somehow faked her own death for Lottie purposes, but wouldn’t it be interesting if Callie killed Lottie? I could see her going to meet up with her while her parents were out volunteering all day. Maybe she said something about Shauna that just didn’t sit right or maybe she told Callie what happened and she reacted very badly?
welcome!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE this theory so much, especially since it has so far been a really interesting Callie season and I’d like to see that pushed even further. She was suspiciously absent for a lot of the episode, and I also love thinking about Jeff and Shauna being so fixated on this karma thing that they aren’t doing the good they SHOULD be focusing on aka parenting their child. love considering that Callie has a good chunk of Shauna in her, too.
I would be *very* into Callie being Lottie’s killer. We don’t know what she was up to all day either!
After thinking about this all day, I’ve realized the bigger reason this episode felt so off to me: It didn’t have the spookiness we have come to know and love, and was just deeply upsetting in a very human way.
Without some sort of fever dream or red river or disappearing corpse or sacrificial crow here and there–did we even get the symbol?–the dark comedy of the adult timeline has less to bounce off of, and the girls falling in line behind a dangerously single-minded Shauna deciding she should be leader, running roughshod over their tenuous democratic process, and intimidating everyone until she gets her way (sound like anyone who’s currently in charge of a country?) is sickening to watch, especially right now. I am certainly no stranger to grief-induced rage, but I do also hope teen Shauna gets a little less one-note in the rest of this season because it is a LOT to take, and I want to root for her at least a tiny bit.
Beyond being a bit nonsensical, the Tai & Van scenes didn’t feel nearly as exciting for me either–whether sexy or scary–as they usually do, and even Lottie’s death (which should be a big deal!!!) fell weirdly flat. I’m not sure if this is a combination of writing, directing, and/or where we are in the story (maybe there IS nothing supernatural at play, and we are staring to experience a bleakness the characters know to be true). But the vibes just felt… lacking.
I’m curious if anyone else feels similarly? Thanks as always Kayla, for your excellent recaps!
see, i think that’s what actually made this episode scarier to me. but i totally get everything you’re saying! thank you for the in depth comments! i really appreciate it!!!
Tai/Van scenes were def the weakest spot for me this ep. like what on earth was their plan and if Tai is Alterna-Tai, then her motivation makes sense somewhat but what’s Van’s excuse?
For Van I think it was a lot of taking each step not believing the next would happen. So she doesn’t think anyone will be chosen, and she doesn’t think they will be able to follow someone and she doesn’t think the door will be unlocked. And it’s only at that point that she backs down. It mirrors the adult hunt at the end of the last season, except then Shauna is the only one who wants to back down.
yeah she did have a very “go with the flow” vibe or almost like she didn’t quite believe what they were doing even as they were doing it
I wonder if Van ended up killing the guy in his apartment while maybe Tai did go after Lottie to try and understand the ambulance statement.
But Van shaking made me and my partner wonder if she ended up staying behind because all of the coincidences just lined up enough for her?
Van jumped the fuck back into the hunt last finale, after resisting +being jaded about everything the whole time before it. Honestly, I was surprised she was the one to snap them out of it this time – which contributes to the thought she might have been the one to kill Lottie. Like, it was less, “what are we doing, this is crazy” and more “what are we doing, this dude is small potatoes, if we want more time let’s give It what It really wants.”
Kayla, I really appreciated your recap this week. Pointing out some of the harmonies between the girl’s society in the woods reflecting the darker parts of our society were totally on point! Your commentary is incredible as ever.
Spoilers below.
I am not sure how I feel about Lottie’s death being so cut-and-dry? The show has definitely made us believe characters were dead in the past (Van, lookin at you baby) and then revealed later on they are not, so until this is addressed in later episodes I can’t help but feel something fishy. Also, my partner and I could not get over the Tai-Nat exchange: “I want a redirect” “I don’t know what that means.” Like the absolute farce of a trial they’re putting on. So funny and frightening at the same time.
MARI IBARRA I LOVE YOUUUUUUU
thank you so much!! means a lot!!
yeah so i said this in a few comments above but unfortunately seems like a real death given the interviews the actress has done after the fact. i do think the situation might not be what it seems, but i do think she’s dead
It makes so much sense that Jeff is the sort of guy to go on wikihow for answers, honestly Warren Kole is doing such an unbelievable job with his part I love Jeff so much. Also idk if any of you have seen Lynskey saying “Jeff” in her natural accent but it rules.
That puts the kibosh on the Akilahs mouse theory of their settlement, these high school girls are really good at building shelters! I like how in the teen timeline Shauna’s getting progressively more bloodthirsty while adult Shauna is getting more and more paranoid. Also re: the cat, that woman just does not know how to be good.
Lottie!! Nooooo!!! I like the detail that she addresses herself by her full name though, I don’t think anyone else in the show has done that.
“jiff” gets me every tiiiiiimeeeee i love watching her interview vids lol. also one of the only times i thought i could detect a hint of her accent slipping through was when she told lottie to “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE”
Jeff is amazing. Those who can see it almost see everything. https://thespikemodapk1.com/
i know this is spam but it’s making me laugh aksdaskdjsakjsadkd
There is one thing about YJ that I have been mulling over for a while: most of the girls (and all of the survivors) are only children. Does this have some deeper meaning or is it just more convenient for the writers to not have to explain why they never talk about the families they left behind. The only people we know have/had siblings are Akilah and Travis/Javi. This is kind of a pet peeve of mine in most shows, it doesn’t reflect society very well, because most families have 2 or more kids/stepkids/adopted kids.
Now for spoilers:
I was also really disappointed that they killed Lottie off. With both her and Nat’s untimely deaths, I feel like now there are answers we will never get to know. What did Lottie mean by saying the necklace didn’t mean what Shauna thought? It sure as shit seems to symbolize the next person to die in every iteration we have seen so far. But Lottie also wasn’t there the first time they put it on the target of the hunted, so maybe she doesn’t know WTF she’s talking about. Also, what were her plans with Callie? What was she doing at the bank? What REALLY happened with Travis that night?
The further Shauna devolves into a ball of murderous rage in the teen storyline, the further divorced from her adult persona she gets. I’m starting to struggle to see how she can made it back to being the wallflower type of personality when they return since she is so overtly bloodthirsty in the wilderness.
Another area that could be mined for so much interesting backstory is the girls’ dynamics with their parents before/after. Tai’s family seems the most functional from the scene we saw in the pilot, yet she never reaches out to them during her slow descent into madness. Shauna and Jeff visit Jackie’s family every year, but her own parents don’t seem to be present in their lives. We know nothing at all about Misty’s family other than they are rich enough to have a pool and she has her own phone line in her room. It just seems like since the adults are all in the same town they grew up in, they would have a more regular relationship with their families.
i honestly hadn’t really thought about the only child thing! only child household rates were indeed pretty low in 1980, when a lot of these characters were probably born. every only child i knew growing up WAS very involved in sports though I will say lol
so interested in how people see a divergence between the shauna we get here and the shauna we get in the present. i think they’re literally exactly the same. i’ve never seen her adult self as a wallflower? she’s always simmering with rage, and a lot of it has come out lately.
Awesome recap! I really loved your points especially about the girls copying what they have seen IRL for their “justice” and how somehow cannibalism has become the norm and Ben an outsider for refusing to participate when ordinarily it would be the opposite.
But I wanted to encourage more thought about this part: “Misty is thrilled to place Shauna on tapioca duty. ‘This is better than an apology,’ she says with an evil little giggle. Misty would take revenge over atonement.”
Yes, superficially Misty would. But in the end her “revenges” tend to be quite minor – tapioca duty, kicking Ben’s crutch out or making him puke or slapping him…not that these assaults on him were great, but none of them came close to being life-threatening. Despite her words to Shauna, she’s actually pretty willing to take an apology and to listen to another person’s explanation – look how hard she worked to defend Ben at the trial, after he talked to her after she slapped him. Her crack to Shauna about tapioca duty being better than an apology may have been more of a “well, I’m clearly not getting an apology from you, so I’ll pretend that this is better”.
Who in this episode is truly someone for whom revenge is better than atonement? Shauna. She gets a heartfelt apology from Ben, and she still leads the charge for a guilty verdict and bullies her way into getting it. She’s actively trying to get Ben killed.
you’re totally right about all of this! misty is…misty lol…but we’ve seen over and over again how much she is disrespected, excluded, and bullied and how it contributes to a lot of her behaviors. she does want an apology — and rightfully so. often a lot of misty’s worst actions were in service of protecting people in her life.
and shauna yes is the most ruthless/selfish/unwilling to forgive. i thought ben’s apology was going to win her over. i’m actually way more interested in the fact that it didn’t
And the way Misty is constantly disrespected, etc. by her “friends” and yet she hasn’t killed any of them goes further to show that she’s not really dangerous in that particular way. As you said, her worst acts, like the murder of Jessica Roberts, have been for the sake of protecting herself and her “friends”. Misty will accept even the tiniest gesture or most insincere apology (if Shauna had left it at “I’m sorry” instead of going on to make it a no-pology, I believe Misty would have been entirely content) and move on, otherwise she would have killed all these people years ago. The way she briefly fantasized about stabbing Shauna actually underlines this; she only fantasized about it and she promptly just left instead, taking a little petty satisfaction in stealing that woman’s puzzle pieces on her way out the door. Her revenges when she believes she’s been done wrong, even when they’re nasty revenges, have a fundamental pettiness to them.
Shauna, though? She killed Adam. She’s trying to kill Ben. In a sense, she killed Jackie. She beat Lottie to a pulp, though that was more “the universe did me wrong” than “Lottie did me wrong”. That last one, by the way, might go towards your interest in why Ben’s apology did not win over Shauna – despite any apologies or vents for her anger, her fury is just never-ending. She beat up Lottie as a way of getting out her anger over what had happened and she’s still murderously angry.
totally yeah, you won’t find any disagreement here about Shauna being a worse person than Misty lololol. I keep saying it, but I’m so surprised that people are so thrown off by Teen Shauna’s behaviors this season — this is who she has always been!!!! maybe people ARE forgetting about her beating Lottie to pulp out of sheer anger over losing her baby even though Lottie is not the reason she lost her baby. Shauna is probably my favorite character tbh it is so rare to see a teen girl character with this much unbridled rage
I sort of think the whole point is that none of the survivors are cleanly “good” or “bad” (or even “better” or “worse”) people, they are all just capable of everything humans are capable of: rage and manipulation and tenderness and connection and fear and persecutory delusions and desire and hatred and coldness and thoughtlessness and joy and pain and bravery and bloodthirstyness…Nat said it best in s1 when she pointed out that all of them were equally fucked up, some of them just hid it better. Investing in which of these characters is “worst” or “basically a good person” shows more about which forms of expressing damage (via explosions, manipulations, anxious attachment, bullying, compartmentalization, cynical dissociation, a perpetual victim narrative, etc) *we the viewers* find understandable or scary or triggering or whatever. It’s a rorschach test, and they’re all equally ink blots.
young Shauna is really putting in her bid to be the new supreme in this episode. I think the trees screaming as she interfered with the trial outcome could lead to her getting Lottie’s blessing — that was certainly what got her to change her vote. And that blessing would, I think, still hold a lot of weight. Tai has also obviously been gunning for those antlers all season, but she doesn’t have the same support system in Van that Shauna has in Melissa (whoever commented on her being very Lady MacBeth — super accurate!)
I also really appreciate them having a physical manifestation of “the wilderness” with the trees screaming. It really sends home how things are escalating for all of them.
Overall I thought this was a really strong episode. The karma plot with Jeff felt a little contrived to force Misty and Shauna back into a room together but I’ll allow it. The divisions forming amongst the teens have made the wilderness storyline feel almost scattered for most of this season — not in a bad way. Mostly just unsettling, feels like a powder keg. This episode brought them all back together regardless of how they voted. They’re all implicated.
I’m definitely sad to see how things have turned out for adult Lottie. After 3×3, I was thinking about how I’m finally starting to see the connective tissue between her teen and adult self. Teen Lottie’s evolution is getting closer to the cult leader personality, and adult Lottie is sort of regressing to her childhood vices. Was hoping to watch them continue to meet in the middle. Also interesting that we’ve lost 2 known “leaders” in the present day. I wonder if the teens ever decided on another leader after Nat. If so, I’d say they have a pretty big target on their back as an adult.
… Unless it’s Shauna. The strong hints at Melissa being around make her a suspect. All we can do about adult Melissa (If the hints are to be believed) is speculate. But if she’s trying to enact some sort of vengeance on former leaders because she’s /still/ trying to give Shauna a leg up…. idk!
all good points!
i’m loving the screaming trees too!
i do think shauna is gunning for leadership and has been for a while. melissa continuing to lady macbeth shauna in the PRESENT would be wild and i’m kinda here for it
After binge watching s2 and s3 so far (and immediately reading these recaps after every episode!) I am thrilled to be caught up!
Thoughts on this episode –
– 3×3 was right about at my spooked-but-still-enjoying-this limit, so I was glad we had a little break this time around.
– Mari cracks me up. Her “oh shit” after being called as a witness, chef’s kiss.
– Really saw Juliette Lewis-isms shining through in Nat during the trial. Sophie Thatcher did a great job this episode!
– “And you had an A in history, right?”
– I was literally on the edge of my seat during the final scene/reveal! Tbh I don’t really enjoy any version of Lottie we’ve seen so far, so I am just fine if adult Lottie’s death is not a hoax. But… the way she was practicing her apology and the timing do make me think she and Walter are faking her death, as another person suggested!
Also, since I didn’t watch 3×1 in real time –
Van leading the summer solstice celebration? Gay and relatable.
I thought the SAME THING about Nat seeming so much more like adult Nat in the trial scenes. Down to her voice seeming much closer. I appreciated that.
after having seen Sophie Thatcher in a lot more non-yellowjackets projects now, it makes it so clear how intentional she is about her Juliette Lewis-isms! this was a great great ep for her, even though she doesn’t necessarily get like a central storyline of her own
Jeff is BACK!! I love him and I love that he is so well liked at the retirement home. He finally found a place where he is really appreciated for all of his dad jokes! I love this for him. I also find the differences between him and Shauna so interesting in this episode. He is trying to take so much responsibility for killing Kevin when really he showed up to take the blame for Shauna then everyone else around him made decisions to take lives. Yet he’s trying to atone for it all while Shauna is just like …. Here, I found this cat. Let’s lie some more.
Lottie taking money out? Or creating an account for Callie. I just feel like she’s still very obsessed with Shauna’s offspring in general and that it would make sense for her to keep that going.
I’m really ready for them to bring in the Melissa story line more… if she is indeed in the adult timeline, bring her out!
I also found myself missing Walter this episode. But loved that misty thinks the paper is a note.
The supporting characters are just really great. They give a much needed comic relief to the overall tragedy that is the adult timeline.
Lottie has felt less and less relevant in the teen timeline so am not too surprised that she’s feeling less relevant in the adult timeline. I’m interested in reading her interviews. I haven’t seen anything yet.
Shauna in the freezer felt so fitting. And that she again wanted to blame Misty for something she didn’t do. I get why Shauna has this feeling about Misty as Misty’s first real transgression in the wilderness was to destroy the black box because she felt needed for the first time in the wilderness. But I do feel bad for Misty. I hope that her and Walter can figure something out.
I said this in a comment on someone else’s post but the Van shaking hand made me wonder if she did something nefarious to the apartment guy. Tai leaves her there and everyone has an hour. IMO Van is a follower with some skepticism but we’ve seen it numerous times where she ends up buying in. That’s what the scene felt like to me. Tai leading, Van following but skeptically but then when the door was unlocked, could Van have given into the story that the wilderness chose?
I think there is a LOT more to the Van and Tai plot. I did love the season 1 call back to the pretzel and horse ride comment.
Okay, that’s all the thoughts I have for now, I think!
So like… does Taissa even remember that she has a wholeass wife and child at this point or nah?
have been wondering about this lol but i get tawny cypress did an interview where she says they’ll be in the season at some point
This part!!
YES love the contrast between jeff/shauna for sure!
yes if melissa is in the present timeline, bring her OUT!!!!
ooo interesting theory about lottie + callie! would be a way for lottie to continue to influence callie even after being dead
yeah you’re not the only one to mention this Van shaking hand theory, and i’m starting to suspect her as well! i’m def interested in the fact that it could have been any of them — tai, misty, van, shauna — but that also makes me start to think it was none of them lol
thank you for your thoughts!!!
Not super significant, but my guess is that it’s going to turn out that a note from Walter is actually on the puzzle, not the letter. That maybe Misty will end up seeing invisible ink on the pieces she grabbed and have to go back and put the rest together. How would that fit in with anything more significant? I have no idea, I just had a pretty strong vibe about it.
Still not sure how I feel about the season overall, but I’m excited to have it be my first where I’m watching as episodes come out instead of binging much later!
yayyy love that you’re watching live because then you can follow along with these recaps!
super interesting theory about the puzzle!
Can we not give notes on my karma, please?
I actually really liked this episode, and I liked the Linger needle drop more than I’ve liked a needle drop all season. It feels like a callback to 2:09 that makes Tai and Van’s romantic park time really ominous and creepy?
I was trusting the process on Natalie’s death and it feels like it’s really been dropped this season so far, which makes me really nervous that they’ve killed Lottie mid-season.
The worse Shauna gets, the more compelled I am by her, but I’m also soooo taken in by Misty and Nat in this episode! I’m seeing so much of their adult counterparts in them, more and more as we go on.
HOW MANY TIMES DID THEY VOTE!!!
Stomach-churning stuff all around!!!
curious to hear more of your thoughts on Nat’s death being dropped this season! i feel like it has been really emotionally resonant in different corners, including Nat’s past but also Misty’s arc which is being almost entirely driven by it.
“The worse Shauna gets, the more compelled I am by her” SAAAAAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE HER EVIL ASS
fr how many times did they vote that’s the most stressed i’ve ever been during a “legal” proceeding on television
i think i just miss her presence, maybe? i see her in misty for sure, less with the other yellowjackets – maybe especially i’m feeling it absent from van and tai, but they are really in their own world. perhaps she is just haunting the narrative!!! i would love to see more of her, the way we see jackie, haunting misty, but it’s possible i’ve been spoiled by the literal ghosts of the series to not see the other ways nat is haunting the characters and the narrative.
the main way i think it’s been dropped, i guess, is legally speaking – like are we going to loop back around to dead kevyn tan and everything else that happened on the compound in the season 2 finale? nat was written off as an overdose, i suppose, but it feels a little bit tidy for me. although maybe that’s what makes it so scary.
SHAUNA HAS TO LASH OUT because it’s literally not just the death of jackie and her baby that are fueling her. she HAD to kill her humanity to FEED THESE GIRLS. she HAD to butcher javi to feed them. she has never believed in It but she has to be the most in touch with her animal instincts so that everyone else can live and no one has fucking acknowledged what that is doing to her, has done to her! oh, we’re all scared of your mom? YEAH, LOTTIE, YOU ALL CREATED HER!
i’m very thankful for these recaps since none of my friends are caught up on the season yet <3
jeff vs randy at a retirement home is the lighthearted drama i didnt know we needed LOL. It is interesting to see how quickly Jeff turns to his own mini belief system once death is involved with the karma, interesting to think what teen Jeff would’ve been like in the wilderness
as far as lottie theories go… Is it possible walter would do something to Lottie to get Misty to talk to him again? I’m still wary of what his whole deal is. Or is he just like an insert of a sociopath without the plane crash trauma to blame it on, acting as a foil for the women?
I also think Tai has been super scary this season, teen and present. It’s overshadowed by shauna’s overt rage, but tai leaving her family behind with seemingly no regret, seeing the death of the waiter as a sign rather than anything sad at all, everything with that commercial, locking in on killing a random stranger, even canceling the call for a mental health team for Lottie last season..and then in the teen timeline being so eager to prosecute coach-it’s alot! I’m still intrigued by the possibility of night tai being the one who set the cabin ablaze.
haha yes love these thoughts on Jeff, his approach to karma points really does evoke something almost childish, a lower stakes version of what the girls developed in the woods in terms of meeting hard shit with a belief system that attempts to make sense of it and give control where there is none.
i did have this thought about walter! like he’s orchestrating something for them to “solve” together
tai is def ON ONE and yeah it’s quieter than shauna’s rage but still deeply disturbing. her enthusiasm as prosector!!!! messed up. made me glad she didn’t go a fully evil route with her lawyer career (“I practice LAND USE” is still one of my favorite line readings on the show ever lol)