At the halfway point of this
decade, it’s now very clear that the two dramas that – among their many, many
other strengths – have leant themselves to the greatest wild speculation
among their fanbases are Severance and Yellowjackets. Not since
the days of Lost have we as fans come away from each new episode trying
to figure out ‘wtf?” and revising whatever speculations we had at the end of
it.
Severance has just ended its second season
(which understandably we’re all still reeling from) so now let’s turn to Season
3 of Yellowjackets. One of the biggest difference between the two series
is that, even three seasons in, the writers are still leaving open the
possibility that everything that is happening in the past and the present has a
logical explanation for it and that everything that seems unexplainable in the
series can either be blamed on mass delusion or hysteria in the past and the
understandable burden of trauma in the present. We’ll have to wait until the
end of the third season to see if that theory will still hold up but for now I
want to speculate on a question that has been occurring to me with each new
season: which of the survivors is the most responsible for everything that is
happening both in the past and the present?
SPOILER WARNING FOR THE SERIES
AND MUCH OF SEASON 3 BELOW
The writers have been very clever
each season in this regard. In Season 1, our suspicions were based that it was
Misty (Samantha Hanratty in the past; Christina Ricci in the present.) After
all Misty had destroyed the black box in the aftermath of the crash in a
desperate attempt to find friends and affection and given how everyone was
treating her in the present as well her ‘protectiveness’ during that period, it
was the easy theory to believe in.
Then in Season 2, when Lottie
assumed her place as Queen of the Wilderness, it was easy to assume that she
was the mastermind. After all, almost everything that unfolded during that
season – the formation of the idea of the cult, the cannibalism, the hunts –
was based around Lottie’s behavior which we knew even then was built in
schizophrenia. When we learned she was still alive in the present – and more importantly
both running a cult not that far removed from the past and not on her
medication – it was easy to believe that. The fact that she was the center of
the hunt that was the climax of Season 2 in the present – which resulted in
Natalie’s unintentional death at the hands of Misty – it was easy assume that.
The one person I think everyone
was sure was not the villain of the peace was Shauna (Sophie Nelisse in
the past; Melanie Lynskey in the present). After all, from the moment we’ve met
her we’ve assumed that she has walked away from her bright future before
getting on the plane and living as a housewife and mother in New Jersey to
punish herself for what happened in the wilderness. We’ve believed that because
she was pregnant by Jeff – who was Jackie’s boyfriend before the crash – she’s
been trying to atone for everything that happened to the person she thought was
her best friend, among that accidentally killing her and having her be the
first ‘feast’ of the series. She never believed in the myth of ‘the wilderness’
which everyone after the crash seemed willing to go along with and after her
baby died, she seemed like the victim. It seemed that everything she’d done
since was punishment.
Except, looking back on it
during the last two season, the writers have been dropping hints in the present
that Shauna has always been preferring the chaos and violence that happens to
her.
To review, she assumed Jeff was
having an affair and then began a illicit relationship with someone who
rear-ended her in the first season. She didn’t seem to have a problem lying to
her husband about it, and did seem to do it way too easily. Then when it seemed
that this stranger was one of the people spying on her, she turned on him and
stabbed him to death. Then she learned not only was this guy completely
innocent but Jeff had never been having an affair. (“There’s no book club?!”)
She then had no problem letting Misty, who she’d been going out of her way to
ignore all through Season 1, cover up the murder and provide a false alibi.
Then in Season 2, after a carjacking,
rather than go to the police, she hunted the chop shop owner down and held a
gun on him. She made it very clear that the thought of killing excited her, but
we chose to believe it was a bluff. Then she went out of her way to withhold
the truth from Callie (not very well) and when the cops began to investigate
and tried to use Callie to find out the truth, she actually seemed okay with
the idea of her sleeping with him to negate any effect he would have on the
investigation. This was a bridge too far for Jeff and he more or less insisted
that she get together with her survivors at Lottie’s cult.
While they were together we got
another sense of her ability for deception: she said she had no memory of what
really happened after the crash, that was all fuzzy. This was the first big lie
we knew she was telling; Jeff had read her journal which she had locked in a
safe which had a very complete record of what really happened in the
wilderness. In the climax of the season when the hunt targeted Shauna and
Callie at the end we tended to forget that.
But in Season 3, both in the
past and the present, the writers are really seeming to argue that far from
being the person who ‘bad things just happen to who’ as Callie points out last
night, Shauna may very much be the cause of all the suffering. I’ll deal with
this in both timelines.
First, there is the fact that in
the past she refused to accept the idea that the celebration of the wilderness
was anything but insanity. She also seemed determined to find Coach Scott, who
the camp is sure burnt down their cabin as shelter at the end of Season 2. She
also seemed to be mourning the loss of her child.
However at the end of the season
premier it now seems clear all of this was a front. Shauna seemed to be
determined to emulate Jackie and become a version of her. She started by
manipulating Mari (who we still don’t know her ultimate fate yet) by kissing
her, clearly trying to turn her in to an acolyte. Then when it became clear
Coach Scott was alive, she began to demand a hunting party and basically
insisted that they kill him. During the trial, it was clear Shauna was trying
her hardest to manipulate the prosecution so she could get what she wanted. After
Scott’s plea, it seemed that they might truly find him innocent – but she
essentially bullies and badgered everyone into voting guilty. (I have a theory
as to why she pushed so hard, which I’ll get to later.) Then she basically
insisted they sentence him to death, was the angriest when Lotte insisted they
needed Scott to get rescued, and when Natalie put Scott out of his misery, she
was by far the angriest. Not because she wanted him to live, but because this
was clearly a chance for a coup. She then essentially ordered Natalie to ‘prepare
the feast’.
And as we saw in last night’s
game changing episode when the research team came and found out what they were
doing, she by far wanted them killed. “When they come to rescue them, they’ll
rescue us. And we can do this with no witnesses.” As we learned in the
present none of this part was in Shauna’s diary and it’s clear in the last two
episodes she’s been very clear that her family not learn about this.
In the present Shauna has become
more unstable and manipulative as well as believing that everyone is out to get
her. Much of this is becoming delusional thinking. When her brakes were cut
with Misty in their car, she blamed Misty for doing so which was beyond absurd.
When Shauna and Jeff went to Misty’s rest home she took over kitchen duties and
saw no reason to apologize for her horrible behavior for Misty. When the
freezer door got closed on her, and she began to hallucinate Jackie was there,
she blamed Misty for doing it even though we’d seen her leave well before that
and despite being told otherwise. When Misty revealed that Lottie had been
murdered the first words out of Shauna’s mouth were to accuse Misty. She then
proceeded to track down Misty and get in the way of her investigation,
ostensibly because she suspected her but just as likely to stop her from
learning the truth. She never told any of this to Jeff or Callie and when she
came back home, she insisted they get out of town once they fond the tape that
Callie received in the season premiere.
Once there she again withheld
information from Callie and Jeff, ostensibly to keep them safe but just as
likely to protect herself. She called Van and demanded her help, then basically
showed them the tape – now revealed to be the recording from Hannah one of the
female scientists about the massacre that happened – and didn’t tell either Jeff
or Callie about what happened.
And in last night’s episode Shauna
figured out who might have sent the tape – the child of Hannah who was the
result of a teenage pregnancy. She clearly had every intention of tracking her
down and killing her without telling anybody and had Misty not intervened with
what she had learned, it’s unlikely the remaining Yellowjackets would have
joined her. And while that was going on, a theory I’ve had ever since Lottie
was killed seems to have been proven: Shauna is responsible for Lottie’s death.
That is the most logical
conclusion: Shauna disappeared and has a flimsy alibi and of the survivors she
has by far the most motive to kill Lottie. It’s not just that she nearly killed
Callie, it’s that it was becoming clear that Lottie was revealing too much
about what really happened in the forest to Callie and she didn’t want to come
out. At this point given Callie’s suspicions, it’s clear she’s certain her
mother is hiding things and isn’t the innocent she claims to be.
And the fact remains that Shauna,
after seeing Van go into the hospital with cancer (which until now she knew
nothing about) waited all of ten minutes before abandoning Misty and her
friends to drive out to Virginia to carry out her mission. By this point all of them do suspect
she’s responsible for killing Lottie – Misty accused her outright – and she has
no desire to be near them.
This brings me to a theory I’ve
had ever since Coach Scott denied setting the fire. More and more, I’ve been
inclined to believe he was telling the truth, which begs the question, who did?
And there is an obvious suspect: Shauna.
As those of us who remember
Season 2 know Shauna believes that she gave a healthy birth and hallucinated
her classmates killing and eating him. When she awoke she was told the baby was
stillborn. This is by far the most logical explanation given the circumstances
but considering Shauna’s festering attitude towards the survivors ever since
the ‘wilderness myth’ began, it’s just as likely she believed that what she saw
really happened. So she set the fire to kill her classmates who she thought
were ‘completely f---ing nuts’. Everything she did with Scott was to provide a
scapegoat and stop people from looking any further.
We’ll have to wait and see if
that theory has any truth to it but it would add to the picture of everything
we’ve seen of Shauna in the present: someone who wants to believe that she’s
the innocent bystander in all this and is the victim of a persecution complex
when in fact, there truly is something monstrous in her soul that loves the
chaos and violence as much as anyone else.
This actually brings me back as
to why part of me really believes nothing supernatural is happening in any form
on Yellowjackets. Call it the Walter White theory, particularly in
regard to Shauna. What if this horrible thing that happened is just as an
excuse for bringing out the worst nature in every single survivor behavior that
was really always there? It’s clearest in Shauna, who fits the milquetoast type
model Walter was at the start of Breaking Bad but I’m beginning to think
it could just as easily apply to many of the survivors. It’s definitely there
in the case of Tai, particularly in the present and its there in spades for
Misty. Lottie is a harder case to measure – her mental illness has always clouded
the issue – but her adult life would seem to echo that.
For some it does seem like they
are punishing themselves for what happened but now that we know more of the
story, in the case of Natalie and Travis, it makes a terrible amount of sense
as to why they were so messed up when they came back. Natalie tried to be a
good person, a good leader when she was in charge and as a result, she had to
pronounce a sentence on Coach Scott and then had to put him out of his misery –
and then butcher him for everybody’s pleasure. Travis was carrying a similar
burden and considering he is raising doubts about Lottie’s vision at this juncture,
he must have spent his entire life living with so many deaths – including his
own brother – based on following the delusion of madwomen. And if both of them had to live with
what happened to the researchers – who we already know didn’t come back from
the wilderness with everyone else – their guilt could only have been
exponential.
This theory would also explain
why Misty has been hanging on so desperately to the idea of being a protector
and of a ‘trauma bond’ between them. She
feels immense guilt that she failed to save Coach Scott’s life when it counted.
Everything she’s done since – in her twisted, horrible way – is a kind of
atonement for everything that’s happened since then. Perhaps the reason Shauna
in particular loathes Misty is because she was the biggest obstacle in her plan
to have Scott killed.
It would also explain the real
reason none of the Yellowjackets have stayed in touch over the last twenty-five
years. It’s not so much about trauma or even the horrible things they did to
survive but the fact that eventually they threw away any sense of morality in
what they were doing – and they clearly liked it. With some of them, particularly
Tai, it’s clear they have no problem using this as a shield for their worst
natures and destroying themselves.
We’ll have to wait until the end
of the season – and perhaps the end of the series – to know if this theory will
hold up. But there’s a part of me who thinks that it might be Ashley Lyle and
Bart Nickerson’s game plan. I wouldn’t see it as a cheat if it were. Peak TV
has demonstrated so many times in the last twenty years about just how awful
men can be below the surface given the opportunity. Wouldn’t it be great if the
most female driven series this decade offered that as its same message?
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