Yellowjackets Episode Recap: A Normal, Boring Life

 

In the final third of Season 3 of Lost it seems like rescue has come to the survivors of Oceanic 815. A pilot claiming to have come looking for another survivor says that her freighter is just off the coast of the island and that it will take them all home. During the season finale Ben, the leader of the Others, becomes aware of this and does everything in his power to stop the survivors from calling for help. “If you do, it will be the beginning of the end,” he warns Jack repeatedly. At the climax of the episode the pilot is about to call for help when she is stabbed in the back by John Locke, who has arrived because ‘the island’ has told him that he has to do this. A stunned Jack makes it clear he’s going to make this call, despite the warnings of both of them and does. By this point, the viewer already knows that the people on the boat are not who they claim to be.

When Season 4 begins Locke learns of this from one of the other survivors. To be clear, he didn’t know this before he killed the pilot but finding a chance to use someone who is already weak – his closest friend on the island died during the effort – he pushes him to manipulate the rest of the survivors into going with him rather than staying on the beach and being rescued. This leads to the biggest divide in the survivors so far. A team of scientists then arrive and make it very clear that ‘rescuing you isn’t their first priority’.

We are at roughly the same point in the past in Season 3 of Yellowjackets when rescue looks like it has come (and I don’t think its by chance that it comes in a group of scientists.) But after watching ‘A Normal, Boring Life’ last night’s episode it’s already clear of the critical differences between this and a similar point in Lost. True, the moment rescue seemed apparent the most delusional member of the survivors Lotte put an axe in the back of one of the scientists but we already know from the previous episode, this attempt will fail. And it raises a question that probably never occurred to any fan of the show to this point, certainly not to me? Is it possible the only reason the survivors got rescued was because they didn’t have a choice in the matter? There’s a lot more to unpack of course but let’s start in the past.

From the very first minutes of Season 3, it has been clear that not only have the teenage survivors lost any sense of morality but have now become focused only on the wilderness and nothing else. We’ve seen how selfish and self-centered they’ve been so many times during the season but this point is driven home when they finally tie up Hannah, the woman who they just chased through the woods and threatened to kill and started to pepper her with questions about why nobody has come for them. The fact that they’ve killed her husband and the threat of violence is very clear to her is bad enough that they think they can just talk to her normally, but when she tells them that she doesn’t have the answers about what happened to them and they take that as a reason she can’t be trusted shows that at the end of the day how narcissistic so many of them have become. They have given in so fully to the idea of being chosen by the wilderness and their ‘specialness’ that the idea the entire world stopped when their plane fell from the sky is a concept that they can’t grasp.

For the record, if we’re going by the calendar of the show it’s at least the late summer of 1997. There’s been a presidential election, Bill Clinton is in the middle of the scandals that will threaten his presidency and there’s a very real possibility that the world is obsessed with Princess Di and Dodi Fay-Ed right now. And this isn’t an airliner going down in the middle of the Pacific Ocean; this is a prop plane with a lacrosse team going down in the Canadian wilderness. The internet and social media didn’t exist in 1996 but the idea that what happened to a small plane carrying a group of teenage girls having a life span of more than a few weeks in even the eyes of local media is ludicrous.

At this point we’re seeing the signs of a clear divide in the Yellowjackets, one that comes to a head at the end of the flashbacks. We already in the present how this will end so it’s worth pointing out that the people who are currently leading the argument to stay – Lottie, Tai and Shauna – will all eventually be among the saved. This leads to my strong suspicion that when it happens it will come only when the Yellowjackets have no way to back out of it.

As to the divide, it’s worth noting right now who wants to go back: Natalie, Travis, Van and Misty (for the moment). Natalie (Sophie Thatcher)and Travis (Kevin Alves)  as we clearly see absolutely don’t buy anything regarding the wilderness. Travis has clearly been trying to persuade the other survivors that this is just lunacy but by now he knows that he’s in the minority. This would explain why Nat and Travis kept getting drawn to each other in the present: it wasn’t just their shared trauma but the certainty that they were the sanest ones among the crazy people.

As to the ones who want to stay there are multiple ironies in play. The biggest is clearly with Tai (Jasmin Savoy Brown). In her scene with Van, who clearly wants to go home, she’s worried about what will happen if the truth comes out and the amount of lies they’ll have to tell. She’s clearly afraid about the rest of them to hold the cover story in play. Of course, as we all know, the cover story did hold for 25 years and Tai was among the most instrumental in blowing it up in the first place. There’s now a very good chance that one of the major reasons Tai and Van ended up breaking up had to do with the fact that she wanted to go home and Tai didn’t.

Shauna’s motivations (Sophie Nelisse)  are vague at this point but I’m increasingly beginning to believe that she sees this as her chance to be Jackie, unencumbered by rules. She doesn’t believe in the wilderness any more than Nat or Travis do; she just sees it as a way to be in charge. At this point whatever remaining sympathy we might have for her in the past or the present is completely gone. We know that Shauna is going to win this argument and be responsible for the deaths and almost certain cannibalism of these two innocent people for the sole reason of being the leader. It’s worth remembering that Shauna had just been given the crown the moment rescue came. This is the first time she’s had absolute power of any kind and she’s already made it clear that she has no intention of giving it up.

And in the present, it’s now very clear how deep that narcissism still runs. She has entered the home of the daughter of one of the scientists who we knows she’s killed with a knife in her hand. Then the woman comes home and she sees she has a daughter. I have little doubt at this point Shauna would have killed her and her daughter. What stops her is the sight of the woman’s wife. She clearly sense something and picks up a knife of her own. It is here we learn of a new survivor, Mari. (Hello, Hilary Swank!)

This comes as a momentary shock to Shauna because the others have thought Mari was dead. We later learn Mari faked her death and has been living a false life as the lover of the teenage survivor and it has become real. Shauna’s first reaction is telling: “Was this because you couldn’t have me?” Gone in a moment is the pretense that this is because she wants to keep her daughter and husband safe – or if she even loves them.

The conversation between the two takes up the majority of the episode in the present (yes, there’s more I’ll get to it) and it is doubtless the episode Melanie  Lynskey should submit for consideration for an Emmy. It is in this conversation we realize her darkest, deepest secret – and it’s not even that surprising. As an adult Shauna can’t get over the fact that she peaked in high school and it is impossible for her to believe that anyone else misses the glory days. When Mari tells her she has a normal, boring life and that she’s happy, Shauna dismisses the idea outright because the only time she was truly happy was when she was in the wilderness, the center of everyone’s attention. She couldn’t accept the rest of the world wouldn’t know about what had happened to them (meaning her) and she can’t accept anyone would be happy with a normal life.

So much of what has happened in the present has been set in motion by Shauna, and while we initially thought it was just by happenstance Mari makes it very clear Shauna likes blowing up her life. Shauna continues to deny it saying her daughter knows who she is and she loves her. “Now who’s lying?” Mari points out quietly.

And it’s worth noting while this is going on Callie and her father have come to the realization of just how toxic Shauna is, if not entirely how dangerous. Callie has realized it in the last episode and Jeff is beginning to realize it himself. Jeff has been willing to be led by Shauna far too much this season, so when he makes the decision first to check out of the hotel without telling his wife and then to reconnect with the Joels (where tellingly, his deal goes much better without her). There are signs he’s beginning to realize that if he wants to keep his family safe, it has to be away from their mother.

That may be the best answer for everybody. Throughout the episode Shauna continues to argue about the constant death threats against her, this time choosing to blame them all on Mari. Considering she blamed them all on Misty just two episodes ago, it’s increasingly becoming clear of just how deeply paranoid she is. And it’s clear just how crazy Shauna is well before the final moments. Even when Mari keeps telling her about everything that happened to her, including Natalie’s death and Lottie’s cult Shauna starts making excuses for it even though she wanted to have Lottie locked up in the first place. Shauna looks at all of the horrible things that are happening around her and can only see a world where she is the victim. “The only way to be safe is to be the last one alive,” she tells Mari simply. The idea that she was ever under threat in the first place is not something she will accept.

What’s becoming nearly as unsettling is that at this point in the show Misty – Misty! – is looking very much like the only survivor who still has anything resembling a moral compass. She calls Jeff to tell him where Shauna is and what happened – something that her husband had no idea about it – and asks him if he can tell her where she was when Lottie died. Showing what might for her be considered tact, she stops short of telling him what she told Shauna. When she learns how bad things are for Van she tries to be a caregiver, only to be stopped by Tai who demands they go to palliative care. Then she watches in horror as Tai tries to prepare herself to kill a dying man in an effort to keep Van alive. Misty is horrified (which is something) and gets Tai out of there before she can be caught. It’s pretty clear that she couldn’t do it for long and one wonders what she’ll think if she finds out what ‘Tai’ did in the aftermath.

At this point in Season 3 the writers are reversing our expectations of everyone we thought we knew about those who came back and that is especially true for Misty. We’re not sure what she will do in the past but her actions in the present now seem to be less of a person who is a spy and busybody and more of a woman who is, in her twisted way, trying to atone for her actions. It’s not clear yet if she’s accepted her role in Natalie’s death but it seems to becoming obvious that she is realizing that the people she’s been trying to protect all this time not only don’t appreciate her but may not be worthy of her protection. It’s still unclear at this point if Misty ever believed in the Wilderness the same way that many of the others did but she clearly took Coach Scott’s death very harshly. That may be one of the reasons why Natalie came to her in Season 1 rather than Tai or Shauna even though both were more outwardly respectable. She remembered the break in the past and she knew how dangerous both of them might be.

And at the climax in the present Shauna finally reveals to all of us how dangerous she is. In the most horrific act she’s done that can’t be excused she leaps on Miri,  bites a piece out of her, and demands she eat it. “You really are crazy,” Miri says. At this point, the only one who might still be able to deny it is Shauna herself.