Yellowjacket’s Season 1 Finale: Unraveling the Big Questions of the End

“If someone digs, we do it all fucked.” That was the promise Shauna (played by Melanie Lynsky as an adult) made at the end of Showtime’s first episode Yellow jackets. Ten weeks and a lot of digging later, we have – well, more questions.

It should come as no surprise that a mystery box show is appearing with five seasons or so of the planned plot didn’t offer much explanation at the end of the first season. In a way, the finale felt like an acknowledgment that the series was becoming a “new one.” Lost‘ – that it would brazenly hoard its revelations about how the team needs to store food for the winter. We still know very little about the circumstances of Travis’ death, or where the rest of the Yellowjackets are, or what’s happening with the baby.

But when all is said and done Yellow jackets It’s more about the ride than the finish. Some big questions remain, but the season also featured some standout set pieces, and with season 2 confirmed, fans (hopefully) won’t have to worry too much about answers (one day). And so we reflect on this season finale and the questions that will continue to plague us as we await the next episode.

[Ed. note: As you might have surmised, this post will be spoiling the end of the first season of Yellowjackets. Read on at your own peril.]

Zoscha: Despite all comparisons to other shows of its kind, Yellow jackets felt unique against the TV landscape, the perfect desolate place to escape in time for the holiday season. I don’t think the writing was always the smoothest, but it was clearly smart enough to build a mystery that could last some waiting. So to kick things off, what surprised you the most about the last episode of the season?

Joshua: This is going to sound weird, but… Taissa wins her election? One of the more interesting things about Yellow jackets Fanbase is that today’s story isn’t discussed that much, at least not from what I’ve seen. It makes sense: when you start out with a bunch of teenage girls doing cannibal shit, it kind of takes up all the oxygen in the room. But the most Yellow jackets didn’t come back to it! Much of the show is small, personal stuff, and my surprise is where today’s Yellowjackets end up – I assumed their lives would start to unravel, but Taissa succeeds (although privately it does not kosher) Shauna seems to be keeping her family together despite killing a guy, and Misty is…Misty. The one person who seems to take the most is Nat, who is kidnapped just before attempting suicide. We’ll get to the past in a bit, but I want to know: where do you stand on today’s stuff?

Zoscha: Today’s stuff isn’t my favorite overall. It has nothing to do with the actresses – they’re all great and bring out not only interesting new ways of their characters, but also interesting echoes of their past – but rather that there’s nothing I want more than to see all the characters bounce off each other. So while the 1996 Yellowjackets timeline holds out the promise of weird, creepy cult shit that will eventually lead to cannibalism, it’s also just plain fun to watch as the various factions form and reform. For me, the present picked up momentum in the latter half of the season when we found out that Taissa was also “the bad guy” in the tree her son saw and the remaining Yellowjackets came together to (try to) stop an extortionist .

So I guess my biggest surprise from the finale is that we didn’t get any more of that! All season, everyone I know has been fancasting the adult versions of the other surviving Yellowjackets, and I think I really convinced myself that we would see one of them reuniting given how set up this was as a season-ending event. (Though Taissa and Shauna said there was “still no sign of the others” for months in the pilot.) That being said, it was all worth it for the reveal that Lottie appears to be still alive and more influential than ever exercises? Could be.

Joshua: I’ll be honest, I don’t particularly like putting the mystery together on shows like this. I’m in for the ride. Stuff like Jeff says, “There was no book club?!” or an unwise seance deep in the woods. But I think you’re right: the 1996 story is just so packed with plot and character that today’s story feels a little sluggish in comparison. I like the focus on Shauna’s marriage, but that comes at the expense of the other Yellowjackets today and all the scenes where they interact. Maybe that’s intentional: maybe next season will focus more on Nat and so on. But none of that has gained momentum since Travis’ murder, and the show, which spends an entire season holding back who else might have survived, feels unnecessarily coy. Are you a big fan theory person though, Zosha? Who do you think is still alive?

Zoscha: I’m not usually a big fan theory person, and even with that Yellow jackets I don’t find myself in the puzzle box parts of the show as much as others do. But the joy of a joint viewing show pleases Yellow jackets is that you suddenly find that your brain is filling in things differently than the people around you – how and when the group might fragment (or shrink) in the woods or who is still alive. We knew Jackie didn’t make it, but the revelation that she died because she stubbornly refused to sleep inside the night a snowstorm hit (Coach Ben wyd man, you are the adult) is neat: At some point we know the Yellowjackets will be more aware of who lives and who dies, but at this moment any loss is tragic. And that’s the best way to make sure Shauna really feels it.

But to answer your question, I hope Van is alive. So far she’s unkillable, and (perhaps cult indoctrination aside) I think so to hope she didn’t come to see her again because she lives in a cabin in the woods and unlike the others has found her contentment. But so much of it ends up feeling kind of foolhardy; Finally, we know that eight of them attend a cannibalistic ceremony near the crashed plane at some point during their time out there. It was getting dark! But I think at this point the biggest mystery to me is the overall narrative that has formed around them: the reception to the reunion was pretty rosy overall, but who else pulled it off? In what condition were they discovered? How much does the general public know and what parts are kept to themselves?

Joshua: Yes, and that is the strength of the path Yellow jackets tells his story: The road to cannibalism is a slow one, but it starts with things that are already there! Like you, I think it’s very smart that it’s just a regular old argument that leads to Jackie’s death and that the doomcoming didn’t ultimately end with them killing anyone. They’re all capable of horrible things, and it makes every step closer to what we saw in the premiere all the more horrifying. That means I am curious about the decision to make his darkest characters the two prominent non-white Yellowjackets — something only underscored by his overwhelming interest in ’90s white nostalgia. This ties into another tricky line Yellow jackets goes – what’s up with Lottie? I know the creators and actors are aware of some of these things, but how do you think it’s dealing with it so far?

Zoscha: Pretty much every story arc that deals with “is it supernatural or is it mental health?” push me out I think the success of Lottie’s story so far is that there is no therapist in the narrative telling her to ignore what turns out to be a very real supernatural entity; Instead, it’s the teammates who give in to her in their own way, just… awfully right when she says things. Especially since they are all weakened by hunger, trauma, and hopelessness, they may feel like they need something more.

But as a friend recently said to me: it usually doesn’t do much to not tell your audience something just to hide it! And as you say, the longer the show refuses to solve the mystery, the more the narratives weirdly calcify around what we know. It certainly seems like every cult (Lottie’s cult?) that Nat has kidnapped in the present is the one responsible for Travis’ murder. But we still don’t know why or what he thought was right (and it seems like Juliette Lewis has some thoughts about what we owe to Nat’s character, if only for her own sanity).

What’s the one thing that’s gonna haunt you until Yellow jackets Season 2 premieres?

Joshua: That goddamn puppy head. What the hell man. (No, but really: please let the messed up stuff come, I love it.)

Zoscha: To me, it’s Nat’s bleached hair — the fact that it hasn’t grown back after months in the woods seems like the strongest argument for supernatural interference yet.

You can now watch the entire Season 1 of Yellow jackets on showtime.