The Season One finale of Yellowjackets aired tonight, and y’all, it has been a WILD ride. Obviously, we have much to discuss, which is good, because like the gals trapped in the wilderness, we’ve got way too much time on our hands until the next season. I’ll start us off with a few points of interest—i.e. there be spoilers ahead!!!!—and then I hope you’ll join me in the comments for a lot of baseless conjecture and bananas theories.
Okay, like I said, if you haven’t watched episode 10, halt here! Turn back!
I am serious. Misty Serious. So don’t say I didn’t warn you!
Aaaaalllright now that it’s just us:
- Jackie died! Even though the list of favorite movies in her journal says otherwise! Are we to assume the writers just didn’t double check that IMDB trivia?
- But also, Jackie dying was pretty sad. And needless. Then again, hypothermia is preferable to being hunted and then eaten so… who is the girl who dies in the pilot?!
- The gals’ reunion entrance was TOPS! Especially to the tune of the Offspring! I will go on record saying that was an inspired choice. Come out and play, bitches!
- Quoting Beaches just about killed me.
- Lottie can eff off, Misty is MY QUEEN. The body dumping knowledge! The funeral trick! The lacing of cigarettes! Girl, I will be your date to the reunion (and do “shooters” with you) until the end of time.
- So, it’s a problem that Shauna’s daughter knows about Adam, right? Right.
- Are we to assume there’s a secret society/cult? Inspired by Lottie?! I can’t wait to see the HBO documentary about it.
Overall, it does feel like the writers have a plan for at least the next season, so I’m buckled in and COMMITTED. How do y’all feel? Join me in the comments but please know that FYA Book Club is actually for real, Jeff.
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I feel like there are so many things that have been shown to be like… definitive proof (e.g., Jackie’s death, Lottie as Antler Queen) that I’m still skeptical of. It’s only after reading interviews that I’m like OK MAYBE THAT’S REAL AFTER ALL.
That being said, Jackie’s death does make total sense, given her lack of survival skills and inverted social status in the wilderness vs. high school. Still a tragic way to go.
I also LOVED the Keep ‘Em Separated entrance! And lol at Misty inserting herself, as always. Adult Allie was also hilariously like… milking her tenuous connection to Flight 2525? I’m sure there’s a bit of survivor’s guilt, but she definitely has main character energy.
One thing that bugged me SO MUCH was how Nat didn’t have her hairnet on properly, like why would meticulous Citizen Detective Misty even allow that!!
Oh, ALSO — Misty’s dismissal of the torso being unimportant without identifying features of the head and hands. But Adam had a big-ass back tattoo! I hope Shauna at least had the foresight to take care of that.
Now that they’re finally completely honest with each other (minus incriminating details that the other is better off not knowing), I kind of hope Shauna and Jeff make it lol. My only other hope right now is for Adult Lottie to be cast at least somewhat similar in heritage to Courtney Eaton, as per her wish.
I keep saying that I love that the finale left me with more questions than I went into it with (while still answering some of the questions I had at the start). However my biggest question is if it was cold enough for Jackie to die of exposure, wtf happened with Javi, Nat, and Travis???? They’re not back at the house that morning, so?????
If we have to wait a year or more for season 2, I’ll be so mad!
I at least saw Travis back at the house! He was on the porch when everyone else came out. (I think I saw someone online say Nat was there too, but I for sure noticed Travis.) Javi, however, idk.
I did also see that the plan is to at least have S2 start in 2022, so fingers crossed!
There’s also still the possibility that Adam was Javi, and Shauna didn’t recognize him because it’s assumed he died in the wilderness.
OMG when I tell you I SCREAMED at the end of this episode.
Major takeaways:
– I definitely think that Lottie has them forming some sort of cannibalism cult and she’s the reason the other girls are MIA as adults. Someone mentioned Shannyn Sossamon would make a great adult Lottie and I gotta agree! I love that she was pretty background for the first half of the season but is emerging as a villain. It was also pretty clear in the first episode and in flashbacks that Lottie’s family has a lot of money, which would give her the ability to have people do her bidding in the present day.
– I was a little disappointed with Jackie’s death. It felt anticlimactic in the grand scheme of things. It now makes sense why Shauna has so much guilt about Jackie, but I found it hard to believe that the other girls wouldn’t coax Jackie back inside after Shauna went up to bed. Even without snow, she was totally gonna get eaten outside. I just felt like Jackie was starting to cause a split in the group and it was going to make for some very good S2 drama.
– HOWEVER I can see how someone freezing to death at the first snow is symbolic and a catalyst. The girls are desperate already, but I think they need to see just how dire winter is about to be and that winter = death for them in order to be desperate enough to let Lottie (?) convince them to start eating each other.
– Do we think Taissa is IN the cult but sort of “undercover” with Nat, Shauna and Misty – maybe she’s been tasked with keeping an eye on them and making sure they don’t talk to anyone about it? OR is Taissa not in the cult but doing crazy shit while she’s sleepwalking as a trauma response from being in the wild or being a FORMER member of the cult?
Random thoughts:
– I both felt bad for the bear (dumb, I know) and didn’t believe for a minute that a single knife wound would kill it! That stab would feel like a papercut to a grizzly!
– Feeling more confident that Mari is the one we see get murdered in the pilot. They’ve set her up nicely as a mean girl with no backstory, which makes her very expendable. That said, there are sometimes scenes that give us glimpses of other girls out there with them. Like how many people are in the group?
– I told my husband I will ONLY go to my 25th high school reunion if they only play songs that were popular in 2003. The entire reunion soundtrack was top notch, but that is to be expected from this show.
– Shannyn Sossamon as Adult Lottie would be great! I also like Reddit’s suggestion of Sandrine Holt.
– I hope Taissa isn’t evil because I LUF HER 🥺🥺 ALTHOUGH I do like what Nat said about all of them being fucked up and that everyone else is just better at hiding it than her. Poor Simone, Sammy, and Biscuit, though!
– I read Redditors fanwank that the bear was offering itself to Lottie by kneeling and she had stabbed into an artery, thus the ease.
– I think the Reddit count was like 6 or 8 unnamed players? Definitely want more about the rest.
– This was also an episode that didn’t have anyone as the main focus of the flashbacks. Wondering if they’ll do those again in the future, or just general wilderness flashbacks only. (More pre-crash flashbacks would mean possibility of Jackie, though! In a non-hallucination capacity.)
It could be a tactic to keep things interesting in upcoming seasons – slowly rolling out more players/flashbacks that are out there with them. This was a LOST tactic that I always liked.
True! Or even the named survivors like Akilah, Van, or even Mari ugh. And Coach Ben! (Still very amused that the actor graduated from The CW shows to this!)
Yeah, I think the way Jackie died is an important harbinger of impending winter. Sure it wasn’t dramatic but it reveals how easy it is for the cold to kill them so they need to PREPARE.
I also felt for the bear! That scene earned a major eye roll from me because when the show gets all supernatural, it feels unnecessary. Like, sure, you can chalk some things up to them starving/being on shrooms/living in extremely traumatic circumstances but there’s enough to explore here without adding in some kind of spiritual element. The show is definitely walking that line, like, it COULD be spirits, or it could just be teenage girls freaking out because they have to survive in the wilderness. I hope it sticks with the latter in S2.
Aw, man, I am in the completely opposite camp from you when it comes to the supernatural aspects, Sarah! It’s really been the hook of the show for me, and I’ve been frustrated at how slowly, stingily, and vaguely the supernatural/witchy/folk horror elements have been delivered. That’s not to say that I don’t think that the characters and structure are interesting, but I want to know the story of the old woods, and the people who have left the symbols on the tree and the attic floor of the cabin, and see how the girls become ritual hunters led by a priestess. When I watched The Society, the interpersonal drama and struggles with the establishment of their community were enough for me to not care too much about what happened to cause their predicament. With this show, I always wish we got to spend more time in the past and feel that some of the scenes with the adults drag and are less interesting (with the exception being anything with Misty!). But I feel that the last two episodes of the season were outstanding television, and would say that it gets better and better throughout the season.
I thought the bear scene was gorgeous and so unexpected. Loved it. Loved the discovery of Tai’s basement altar, and the earlier twist that she was the lady in the tree. I knew she did something to the dog. The question that remains is, is she possessed since the seance, possessed by the man without eyes since childhood, or having fugue episodes?
Also, I tend to be fascinated by the idea that some people we deem “crazy” are actually having supernatural experiences, are time travelers, stuff like that. From the first episode, I was really worried about how much Lottie would suffer without her meds, and I love that going off of them has empowered her instead of crippling her.
I definitely think that the kidnapping at the end means that Lottie is a cult leader. The kidnappers were all wearing outfits that suggested being in a cult. This explains why there was evidence of lit candles in some sort of circle underneath where Travis was hanged. Her family was loaded, though- her dad is the one who chartered the private jet to the championship, so I’m wondering why she needs to empty Travis’s bank account. I guess she ran out of money.
I’m wondering if they’re going to eat Coach Ben!
I just like the idea that the seemingly supernatural elements MIGHT be supernatural… or they might not. It’s all a part of the unreliable narrator aspect of this series. Though a friend of mine said that she thinks Taissa’s offering is what won her the election which I did not even consider but yeah, that makes sense!
Also, if y’all haven’t read the Vulture recap, you MUST. They capture some details that I didn’t, including Misty’s HIGHLY INTERESTING reading material:
https://www.vulture.com/article/yellowjackets-finale-recap-season-1-episode-10-sic-transit-gloria-mundi.html
I thought Jackie’s manner of death was pretty perfect. She’d gone on and on about waiting to die, upped the drama factor with Doomcoming, had the long awaited blowout with Shauna, and then died in the most banal way. No cinematic wolf attack or plane explosion, just stubbornness and ineptitude. Totally preventable for her at that moment but a legitimate warning of winter ahead.
I have been avoiding these threads with theories because I was behind on the show, so this is my first time seeing the Adam as Javy idea and my mind is BLOWN.
The wild theories are absolutely part of the fun of this show! And this isn’t a speculation but speaking of mind-blowing, a friend in my book club just told me that the actor who plays teen Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) was Liesel in THE BOOK THIEF movie!!!
Teen Misty was also Young Chuck from Pushing Daisies! THE TALENT.