Yellowjackets: Edible Complex
March 31, 2023 5:35 PM - Season 2, Episode 2 - Subscribe

Tai speeds through an unexpected reunion. Nat shacks up with Lottie.
posted by The Notorious SRD (14 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Shauna is a complete sociopath, but she's no Hannibal Lecter-style mastermind, that's for sure. It's not really clear to me why Kevyn hasn't already arrested her, other than he may be worried about somehow getting himself in trouble if Adam's disappearance can be connected to Natalie. I'd forgotten this subplot until rewatching some of last season with my partner recently, but Nat fired rounds from Kevyn's service pistol that he knows of but can't account for. If he has any reason to guess those bullets are in Adam, well...
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:07 PM on March 31, 2023 [2 favorites]


I lol’d so hard at the snow falling on Jackie’s pyre. Low and slow, baby! Evidently, the malevolent spirits are also competent pitmasters. 😁
posted by Mr. Excellent at 7:34 PM on March 31, 2023 [5 favorites]


The evil Taissa reflection in the mirror was super creepy and well done, and the same baleful expression made a comeback just before the car crash, which I thought was an excellent way of giving us a little "oh shit" moment.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 7:08 AM on April 1, 2023 [1 favorite]


Of course Elijah Wood is an evil little nerd.
posted by tofu_crouton at 7:13 PM on April 1, 2023 [2 favorites]


Shauna, this is no place for a very pregnant teenager to get into a fistfight. Save it for Waffle House.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 7:53 PM on April 1, 2023 [3 favorites]


Wondering if Jackie will have a cameo later this season in the poop bucket
posted by The Gooch at 7:27 PM on April 2, 2023 [1 favorite]


I read that the Jackie-B-Q was rice paper with jackfruit and while it smelled and tasted okay at first, it was a long enough shoot that it was gnarly by the end and Samantha Hanratty (Misty) hurled.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:54 AM on April 3, 2023


Our new pet theory is that the "big secret" the girls are hiding isn't cannibalism -- it's that they made a human sacrifice (Shauna's baby) in the explicit hope that it would appease the weird eyeless man-spirit in the woods and allow them to finally get rescued. Then, everyone swore to never mention Shauna's sacrificial baby once they got back to civilization for obvious reasons, including hiding the baby's existence from Jeff.

Think about it:

- near-death experiences trigger "visions" in various survivors
- Lottie's cult engages in a ritual where they pretend to bury a follower alive
- Travis trying to fake-hang himself to get answers but accidentally dying instead (IF THAT IS WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED, LOTTIE!)
- Evil Tai sacrificed Biscuit, which is essentially a family member, in order to win her Senate race
- Shauna is weirdly sentimental with Adam's things after he's disposed of, even keeping his DRIVER'S LICENSE (wtf Shauna!) in the same safe as her / Jackie's shared diaries. He's yet another human sacrifice she has trouble letting go of, much like her long-lost baby?

If that theory holds, then maybe the person we see running away and falling into the punji stick booby trap at the start of S1 isn't being hunted for food at all.

Instead, maybe that person's simply running away from the ritual where they sacrifice the baby and accidentally falls into a trap that Travis + Nat set up to catch any predators that get too close to the cabin/campsite.

I can easily see the girls being divided into 2 groups (those that are cool with sacrificing Shauna's baby and those who aren't). We've certainly seen Tai, Lottie and Van starting to embrace "paganism"/superstitious rituals vs. those who reject them outright (Natalie, Coach, Misty).

I'm starting to think none of the girls ends up hunting each other for food at all, and any cannibalism that happens is strictly on accident like it was in this episode. After all, you can't afford to waste anything when you're starving!

I'm fine with being wrong about this, but that would also explain why only some survivors are still in touch (but not all) as adults.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 11:09 AM on April 3, 2023 [7 favorites]


This episode was a return to early S1 creepiness, yikes. (Also when I said I wanted more Laura Lee, that is NOT what I meant).

I feel like the season break did not serve the actress playing teen Natalie; she's leaning way too hard on the Juliette Lewis voice now.
posted by grandiloquiet at 9:15 PM on April 3, 2023


I watched Season 1 last year, and my wife recently got hooked on the show, so I rewatched the first season with her. We're now caught up on Season 2, as well. One thing I don't think the show has done well is depicting the survivors' post-rescue lives realistically. We don't know the circumstances of how they were found, but once they were found, it's certain that federal agencies would have descended upon that crash site and what became the Yellowjackets' home for 19 months. The feds must have all kinds of evidence from the site. I find it hard to imagine the adults in the present wouldn't have legal representation or PR agents or stalkers.

I like the theory about sacrificing Shauna's baby. I had assumed that the daughter in the present was the baby from before, but I think even a bratty teenager would be a little more grateful toward her mother about the first 10 months of her infancy.
posted by emelenjr at 11:18 AM on April 4, 2023 [1 favorite]


I had assumed that the daughter in the present was the baby from before, but I think even a bratty teenager would be a little more grateful toward her mother about the first 10 months of her infancy

Timeline doesn’t work (crash was 1996 so 25ish years ago compared to present show time where the daughter is college age, so would have been born a few years after the events of the crash). I’ve heard one fan theory floated around that the young woman in charge of taking care of Nat at Lottie’s compound (the one Nat stabbed with a fork) is actually Shauna’s daughter.
posted by The Gooch at 8:32 AM on April 5, 2023


Then, everyone swore to never mention Shauna's sacrificial baby once they got back to civilization for obvious reasons, including hiding the baby's existence from Jeff.

Shauna is a pretty dedicated journal-er - even if she didn't mention the sacrifice itself, it's clear from what Jackie discovered that Shauna named Jeff as the father. And Jeff's read those journals, and had several years to process it on his own... seems odd that he didn't bring it up directly, unless she's already told him some time back about the pregnancy and how it ended. At which point, the story better match what Jeff read in the journal..
posted by FatherDagon at 12:53 PM on April 6, 2023 [1 favorite]


I laughed when we cut back to the clearing and Misty was putting the finishing touches on the funeral pyre, because of course she was.
posted by Mogur at 4:16 AM on April 8, 2023 [1 favorite]


Of course Elijah Wood is an evil little nerd.

Always was.
posted by Apocryphon at 12:19 PM on May 20, 2023


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