In 1996, a girl’s high school soccer team from New Jersey is flying over the Canadian Rockies on their way to Nationals when the plane crashes, killing the pilots and multiple passengers and leaving the rest of the team stranded for 19 months in the wilderness. Two springs. Two summers. Two falls. Two winters. Lots of teenage angst bullshit, not enough food, and no psychiatric medication. The team, Wiskayok High School’s Yellowjackets, were on a private plane paid for by a teammate’s father. The Yellowjackets consisted of Jackie Taylor, Shauna Shipman, Taissa Turner, Van Palmer, Natalie Scatorccio, Lottie Matthew, and Rachel Goldman along with multiple characters with unknown last names such as Laura Lee and Mari, and then Akilah, Crystal, Gen and Melissa who are formally introduced in season two. There are a number of unnamed extras throughout season one that make it harder to get a final count, so to make it easier we’re only counting named players. They were accompanied by their manager, Misty Quigley, head coach Bill Martinez, his two sons Travis and Javi, and assistant coach Ben Scott. Rachel, Coach Martinez and the flight crew consisting of two pilots and one flight attendant died (quite horrifically, actually) in the crash, while Coach Ben was severely injured causing him to lose a leg, leaving sixteen total survivors.
In 2021, the survivors of that 19 month shit show, referred to by the media as the Yellowjackets, are living their day to day like any other normal people. They have refused to say anything to the media about what happened to them out there, causing much public curiosity but effectively killing any real inspection into their current lives. Shauna is a stay at home mom, with a husband and daughter. Taissa is a successful politician, running for senator. Misty is part of the nursing staff for an old folk’s home. Natalie is just getting out of rehab (again), which seems to be the worst of it. Well, at first.
What Happened Out There?
For the sake of my time and yours, I’m just going through the main, cannibal related plot points of the 1996 timeline. Most importantly, Lottie starts a cult! She begins to have strange, prophetic visions when her medication runs out after the crash, talking about an “It.” The girls find a strange symbol scattered about the cabin they’ve taken over as home base and the surrounding woods. They also find a small plane near the cabin! Laura Lee decides to study the plane’s manual since she used to fly a similar one with her grandfather, eventually attempting to fly the plane to civilization to save the group. The plane ends up exploding over the lake, killing Laura Lee and any hope they have of being rescued. As the group is now sure they’re going to die out there, with no food and winter on the way, they decide to throw a party! An end of the world shindig they coin Doomcoming, which is completely innocent and fun until 1. Misty pulls out shrooms that she meant to only drug Coach Ben with but they end up in everyone’s stew, effectively drugging anyone who eats it and 2. Jackie decides she wants to have sex with Travis, who has been messing around with Natalie up until recently, because her boyfriend knocked up her best friend, Shauna. This is where Lottie’s cult shit begins to really rear its ugly head. Lottie, Shauna, Mari, Akilah, Taissa and Van are all hanging out, tripping balls, when they realize that Travis and Jackie have gone off on their own. Lottie starts talking about how Jackie is “taking something that doesn’t belong to her,” rallying the other girls to go deal with the situation. Dealing with the situation ends up meaning locking Jackie in a closet and hunting Travis like a deer until Natalie, who’s been off having girl talk with Coach Ben (while also tripping balls) in the woods, returns and stops the rest of the girls from killing Travis.
The morning after, no one is pleased. Misty is in trouble for the shroom stew, Jackie is pissed at everyone but especially Shauna, Travis is acting very weird, Javi is missing, Coach Ben is tired of this nonsense and a fucking bear shows up for breakfast! A bear which Lottie somehow gets to roll over for her before plunging a knife in its throat, successfully convincing a few more girls that she’s not crazy, and that there is an It she’s getting messages from and It’s name is the Wilderness. Lottie’s new believers insist on a prayer before their bear meat dinner, which snowballs into a massive blow out between Shauna and Jackie. As a result, Jackie decides to sleep outside and Shauna decides to let her. In the morning, they find a couple feet of snow on the ground and Jackie frozen solid outside, ending season one with 14 survivors.
Season two opens a few weeks into winter. They’re running very low on food, they can’t find any game, Shauna is very pregnant, Javi is missing and Jackie’s body has been sitting in their meat shed since she died. Shauna, who has taken on the role of the butcher and spends the most time in the meat shed, has taken up a habit of talking to Jackie, which quickly develops into arguing with her, braiding her hair and doing her makeup. Taissa is the one who finds out about this habit, and quickly decides that it’s time to cremate Jackie, which would have been a great idea if a pile of snow didn’t fall (or was maybe pushed?) on top of her burning pyre, cooking her like a Thanksgiving turkey. Waking up to the smell of freshly cooked meat, everyone but Ben cannot resist the urge. They eat Jackie. The only two people who really talk about it are Van and Tai – Tai doesn’t remember eating her and is deeply disgusted, while Van is in disbelief that Tai could possibly not recall eating Jackie’s face.
A lot more happens between Jackie and the next act of cannibalism, but, again, for time’s sake we’re jumping. Lottie volunteers to take an insane beating from Shauna, who just had a stillborn baby and is under the impression that the rest of the group ate him, hinting at the damage that eating Jackie did to her psyche. Lottie is possibly on her deathbed, so she tells Misty not to waste her body if she dies. She tells them to eat her if she dies. These girls have gone from her teammates to her devout followers and they cannot bear to lose their prophet. They decide to sacrifice someone, believing that maybe the Wilderness will spare Lottie if they give It someone else.
To pick their lamb, they draw cards. Whoever gets the Queen of Hearts dies. Natalie, the only one still firmly rooted in her skepticism, draws the Queen of Hearts and won’t go quietly. She insists Shauna has to look her in the eyes if she’s going to kill her, and then bolts when Travis decides he can’t watch and tries to stop it, turning the sacrifice into the Hunt we see Pit Girl in. Javi, who they found running around in the woods after being missing for two months in the dead of winter, tells Natalie he can hide her, if she just follows him. They’re running across the lake, everyone but Ben and Travis chasing them, when the ice cracks under Javi and he falls in. He can’t get a grip on the ice and can’t stay afloat, he’s begging Natalie to help him like he helped her when Misty grabs her and tells her it’s him or her. If she saves him, she’s they’re next meal. They let him drown, and the ‘96 plot for season two ends with them eating him, leaving a whopping 12 survivors since Misty accidentally murdered Crystal.
Why Did It Happen Like That?
Assuming, like the Yellowjackets do, that everything happening out there happens for a reason, why do these specific people get eaten? What is important about how they die, and are then prepared and eaten? Is it really the Wilderness that chooses? Or is it them? Or is it just what happened?
The series opens with a hunt scene, the prey being a teenage girl rather than a deer, now commonly referred to as Pit Girl. It’s clear this is an organized, intentional hunt, not something she happened to stumble into. There are traps set for her, the other girls are prepared to cook and consume her and they seem practiced in doing so, each one carrying out their specific role with no hesitation. Not only have they killed this girl but they have made a cult-like ritual of hunting, butchering, eating, and as we find out in season two, choosing her. In these scenes, the girls doing the hunting are easily turned into predator animals with their feral behavior and primitive masks, the only distinguishable parts of them being their teeth ripping into the meat of their teammate. Choosing not to identify the girl they were hunting has the opposite effect, it makes her painfully human. Not knowing which character Pit Girl is makes it easy to imagine any of them in that position, especially with her nondescript clothing and hair that only serves to rule out certain characters rather than identify her. Adding her palpable fear as she runs and the twitch of her fingers after she’s fallen on the sharpened sticks makes it even harder to think of her as an animal, as prey to be hunted and eaten. Beginning the series with this – the opening theme says – point of no return immediately creates an atmosphere of dread. How could these girls go from dancing in the locker room together to practicing ritualistic cannibalism? What could make someone do that? How do they become the women we see in the 2021 timeline? What happened out there?
Jackie is only the tip of the iceberg. She is the exact opposite of Pit Girl. None of the girls had wanted to really harm Jackie, and especially not fucking eat her. But the Wilderness did. It sent Lottie after her and Travis, then on that shroom powered hunt. It made it snow when Jackie went to sleep outside. It shoveled the snow onto her pyre, turning it into a steam cooker. Jackie is the very beginning of the process we see with Pit Girl because the Wilderness wanted her to be.
But why did It want that? Maybe because she posed the biggest threat to Lottie indoctrinating the rest of the group. Coach Martinez made her captain because of her social influence, and even when the girls were annoyed at her in the Wilderness, she still had that power. She organized the seance in the cabin, she proposed Doomcoming, she got Travis to sleep with her, even when literally everyone in the cabin was deeply annoyed with her or thought the idea was stupid. In order for Lottie, the Wilderness’ prophet, to spread the good word, Lottie needed all the social control. Before Jackie dies and winter begins, everyone except Van and Mari agrees that Lottie is off her rocker, that there is no It. The fight that sends Jackie out to die starts with a prayer to the Wilderness. After she dies, Lottie quickly gets comfortable giving her blessings and leading her prayers. The Wilderness saw a powerful, headstrong opponent and It had her dealt with, then gave Its followers a lovely feast as a reward. But what the fuck is the Wilderness?
Was It really something out there? Something that has stayed with them their whole lives? Or was It really just them all along, like Shauna said? What then? What does it mean if everything they did out there was all really just them all along, with nothing and no one to blame but themselves? Is that how Shauna becomes who she is in 2021? Living with the guilt of her causing her best friend’s death and eating her. And then Javi…
Javi’s death takes the Yellowjackets a step closer to what we see in the Pit Girl scenes. The choosing has begun, letting the Wilderness tell them who to hunt and eat with a deck of cards,or in Javi’s case, broken ice. They’re becoming organized in how they eat people, letting the Wilderness take the blame and the guilt for them. Well, for most of them.
Poor, poor Javi. The final innocent, a child, one of the only two people who didn’t eat Jackie and wasn’t complicit in her death. Trying to save Natalie from the Hunt and begging her to save him as he drowns makes that innocence painfully apparent. Travis apologizing to his body, Natalie throwing a cloth over him, Shauna’s inability to look as she butchers him – they know they’ve hit a new low, a point of no return. But, like with Jackie, it’s easy to believe that the Wilderness wanted him. Why else would the ice break under him, when it could’ve easily broken under any of them? Why would Natalie be saved from the Hunt if It didn’t want her as their leader? Why else would the snow have fallen right on top of Jackie if It didn’t want them to eat her? Why would Van have survived the fire, and then the wolves, if It didn’t want something from her? Why would Lottie be getting all these visions if It wasn’t giving them to her? This can’t all be coincidental, just shitty luck, can it? There has to be a reason behind all of this, right? But why, exactly, would It want Javi? The group easily explains that Natalie pulling the Queen out of the deck of cards, effectively choosing her as a sacrifice, means the Wilderness wants her as their Queen – but taking Javi instead? Why would It want Javi dead? Did It want the last of their innocence gone? Did It want proof of their devotion? Or were they all just so fucking desperate for food they would take anything, even a child? But this can’t be their fault, can it? It’s what the Wilderness wanted, not them. They’ve killed a child, and they’ve eaten him because that’s what the Wilderness wanted. If it hadn’t been him, it would’ve been Natalie because that’s what the Wilderness wanted. They hunted Natalie, and let Javi drown when the ice broke under him because that’s what the Wilderness wanted. How much worse could they get? How much more could It want from them?
featured image from Showtime
