Welcome to our Yellowjackets Sting Meter. We’ll measure the erratic, unexplainable behavior of the show’s main lineup, ranking them according to how dangerous, deadly, and certifiably insane they appear in each episode. Who’s a whacky worker bee, and who gets crowned Mad Queen of episode eight’s “It Chooses”? Let’s find out.
“Does a hunt that has no violence feed anyone?”
It’s the question left lingering in Lottie’s brain at the end of this season’s seventh episode, and one that finds its answer in episode eight’s “It Chooses.” We’ve seen Yellowjackets‘ group of teenage castaways go to great lengths in order to survive. They’ve killed animals, feasted on a dead teammate, and invented deities to pray to. But until now, their choices were passive and reactive. They made the most of what little luck they had and picked the best of some bad options.
What happens though when these girls wield their sacrificial mysticism and starvation-fueled depravity against each other? In this week’s episode, we find out. And while the survivors go on their first group hunt in the past, their adult selves are unearthing some harsh truths in the present — in Lottie’s sharing shack of all places.
Queen Bee — Lottie Matthews
Charlotte Matthews is not well, in the past or in the present. After inviting Shauna to use her face like her own personal punching bag, Lottie’s tenure as the group’s sole woo-woo witch doctor is in jeopardy. She’s peeing blood and rambling about making use of her corpse should she die. She doesn’t; obviously, but her sorry state forces the rest of the girls to embrace the darkness that’s been lingering just outside the cabin walls all winter. In the present, Lottie’s gone full Jim Jones. She’s ignoring her own problems — vivid hallucinations and imaginary therapists — and instead, offering a deadly solution to the issues plaguing her old friends, though Shauna, Van, Tai, Misty, and Nat aren’t super receptive to her methods. (We can’t imagine why.)
Nat
Juliette Lewis still feels a bit lost in the present timeline. Her older Nat seems to be a more devout follower of Lottie’s cult than even Lottie herself at this point, but to what end, we’re still not sure. Perhaps Adult Natalie will be the one to make the shocking decision to drink the Kool-Aid, thus completing the sacrificial cycle she started in the past. We’ll let that chilling thought rest and instead praise Sophie Thatcher’s performance in this episode. Nat’s been stuck in limbo as an antagonist to Lottie’s spiritualist leadership and as a love interest for a sidelined character but in “It Chooses,” she finally breaks free of both. Forced to sacrifice herself for the good of the group, she escapes into the wilderness, finds help from Javi, and ends up offering his life in exchange for her own. It’s a brutal twist made all the more heartbreaking because of the bond Nat and Javi shared, not to mention Travis’ early-in-the-episode declaration that she’s a good person.” Is anyone a good person on this show?
Shauna
In the present, Shauna’s understandably spooked about the whole “police found the dismembered body of my ex-lover” development and her paranoia triggers a sharing shack confessional that upends the careful truce the adult Yellowjackets have struck. There’s an epiphany that happens in this episode: Shauna isn’t a very good criminal. Sure, she can butcher a body like it’s her business, but everything that comes after — the secrecy, deception, and evasion necessary to get away with a crime isn’t her strong suit. She’s all pent-up rage and spontaneous decision-making and her sloppiness is endangering the people she cares about most. In the past, the physical manifestation of her anger has cost the group its leader and tempted them to embrace their own sinister natures. Someone cue up Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero” because hi, it’s her, Shauna Shipman is the problem.
Akilah
So much happened in this episode. Teen girls went hunting one of their own. A young boy tragically drowned. A cult leader invited her friends to play Russian Roulette with freshly-brewed euthanasia medication. And yet, the revelation that poor Akilah has been carrying a dead mouse in her pocket all season still felt like the most shocking bombshell of the night. This is what Ratatouille would look like as a horror movie.
Misty
You can either give specific instructions for how deep to dig a grave in order to bury the body of a friend’s f*ck buddy, or you can pick up a shovel and do it yourself. Misty learned this week which option is guaranteed to keep her out of jail. While she’s dealing with the incompetence and performative morality of her fellow murderers in the present, in the past, Misty is nursing Lottie back to health. It’s not her fault Lottie suggested cannibalism as a means of survival, thus setting the group on their current path of eating each other in order to survive. But, it’s not not her fault either … What was that? Javi’s death you say? Yeah, that was all her.
Van
In the past, the cracks start showing when Van (a seething, almost rabid-looking Liv Hewson) leads the charge to hunt and kill Natalie. In the present, Van’s pissed no one told her about the murder party – although to be fair, she hasn’t sent out her terminal cancer invitations yet either – so she tosses Shauna’s keys into the woods which kicks off this whole Jonestown reenactment. Lottie might be right. Something is broken in Van and she probably doesn’t have enough time to fix it, so doing what she can to help the friends she’ll leave behind is the next best thing.
Tai
Tai’s sleepwalking episodes are back and personally, we blame the belt soup.
Coach Ben
Coach Ben goes on a walkabout at just the right time and manages to find a cave system Javi likely used to stay alive during the coldest months of the winter. Whatever you do, Ben, stay there!
Jeff
Poor Jeff. He took one look at Adam’s dismembered body and hallucinated Shauna with electric carving knives for hands musing about grating someone’s skin off like a rind of pecorino. He’s too soft for this world.
Citizen Detective Thread
- Is Walter going to help Misty, or turn her into the police? To that end, how much are we betting that Walter becomes the group’s next sacrifice to the wilderness?
- Is the cave system natural, or some kind of man-made structure?
- The hunt’s definitely going to end up splitting the group into factions, right?
- Just how deep did Natalie dig that hole?