Photo: Paul Sarkis / SHOWTIME
Spoilers continue for Yellow jackets through episode nine, “Doomcoming”.
Yellow jackets it’s awash, for lack of a better term, weird shit, with enough ambiguity to make you wonder if what you’re seeing is real, imagined, or somewhere in between. On the one hand, you can enjoy the show for the ensemble’s dedicated performances, perfect soundtrack choices, and thoughtful portrayal of, in Dr. Ellie Sattler’s words, “sexism in survival situations” without treating it like a puzzle. to be unlocked. On the other hand, whether in the 1996 or 2021 timelines, there are inexplicable things that are simply very funny to theorize! What about that monstrous eyeless man and that flash of red in Taissa’s gaze? How long can a individually owned furniture store really survive in an IKEA, Ashley and Bob era? Why is Shauna’s daughter Callie such a brat? Is Lottie, revealed in “Doomcoming” as Queen Antler from the premiere episode, really clairvoyant, and is her visions actually the future? And that symbol carved into the trees and floorboards of the attic of the cabin does not look like the body of a woman, pierced and hung with a hook?
That final query is next to the series’ longest-running mystery, the one that was presented in the opening minutes of the premiere and has since stalled. Yellow jackets like a ghost. Who dies in that opening scene? The sequence is about 90 seconds long, and it’s creepy and brutal. A girl runs through a snowy forest, bleeding from her foot, wearing what looks like a thin nightgown. (It is happening, very sadly, Wind river.) As she runs, crying and panting, the young woman passes various symbols carved into tree trunks (including one that looks like a vigilant evil eye) and totem poles made of bones, feathers, and bark. The subtitles tell us that there are “whispering voices” everywhere, including “distance calls”, “squawks”, “gasps”, “screeches” and “howls”. Then the young woman falls into a deep pit full of spikes and dies.
Is she running away? Are you being hunted? Either way, she ends up hanging upside down and bloodless, then seemingly murdered, roasted, and eaten by Queen Antler, her six masked followers, and Misty, the only survivor to reveal her face at the end of the episode. (Samantha Hanratty, who plays Misty, was the only cast member on the set in Mammoth, California, during the filming of this sequence; all others are played by stuntmen.) Now we know after “Doomcoming” that Lottie is the queen of the antlers. but we are no closer to knowing the identities of the six girls who are not Misty, or the one they kill.
Here’s what we do know: the girl is tall, has dark hair, and wears the gold heart necklace that she wears around Jackie’s neck in her first official on-screen moment (receiving unsatisfactory stuff from Jeff in her room Jersey before the accident). ). We also know that the person cannot be Shauna, Tai, Nat, or Misty, for whom we have met adult counterparts. (Remember in episode three, “The Dollhouse,” Jessica tells Tai, “Some of you love living off-grid,” but no other adult survivors have come forward yet). much to follow, and yet. Winter is coming in the Canadian wilderness, and before the end of season one “Sic Transit Gloria Mundi,” I ranked my guesses about who that mysterious teenager turned into food might be, from highest to lowest probability.
Photo: Kailey Schwerman / SHOWTIME
Mari is the number 2 girl in the popularity hierarchy (like Courtney and Whitney in Go ahead, from Jackie’s list of curiously anachronistic favorite movie characters) whose purpose is cruelty. Think of how quickly she glides alongside Jackie into the lake once she realizes that Jackie and Shauna are training, and how easily she suggests that she and Jackie move their lockers together when they get back to New Jersey. She is a follower, not a leader (she joins Tai in an attempt to find help; agrees to return once the going gets tough; supports Lottie in hunting down Travis), and she will never be the queen bee. If he was, he would probably be a real jerk about it; I’m thinking of Shannen Doherty in Heather vibes. He’s tall and has black hair, and his B-level Yellowjacket status means his death would still be shocking, if not necessarily narrative breaking. I could see Mari complaining about something harmless (not getting the skin she wanted?) In such an annoying way that the other survivors said, “Ugh, let’s eat it now.”
Photo: Kailey Schwerman / SHOWTIME
Yes, we know that Lottie is Queen Antler. But when it comes to looks, with her height and beachy waves, she could be the running girl, right? This would be unexpected, but could be an option if the deer crown is something that can be passed between the girls. Does anyone come for Lottie and claim the Antler Queen mantle for himself? A deposition! A glass! Eat your heart The crown.
Photo: Kailey Schwerman / SHOWTIME
This is the easy choice, but let’s indulge it. We see Jackie’s heart necklace first, then she gives it to Shauna, then Shauna gives it back to Jackie, and now Shauna and Jackie are in the awkward place where the latter knows the former was sleeping with her boyfriend, but she He didn’t ‘I didn’t say anything because Jackie is a messy bank who loves drama and psychological mind games. What if Jackie’s complete lack of outdoor skills turns her from teammate to prey? He hasn’t been chopping wood. She is pretty bad at collecting water. She pissed Van off very early by fleeing the fire on the plane instead of trying to save her. (Van is definitely the girl standing by the pit in that co-ed soccer jersey, right?) And Jackie slept with Travis, who “doesn’t belong” to her, according to Lottie. Maybe that’s enough to put her on everyone’s “ostracize and eat” list?
Photo: SHOWTIME
However, I wonder: What happened to the necklace that the girl was wearing? Could someone have put it in their pocket after taking her out of the well but before draining her body? Perhaps this necklace, like the ring that Travis gives Javi, is a gem to be reckoned with in the 2021 timeline. And if Jackie is actually a time traveler, well, that opens up several other possibilities.
Photo: Kailey Schwerman / SHOWTIME
How many Yellowjackets are there? There are 11 players on the field during a soccer game, and let’s say each position has a substitute player. That would bring the Yellowjackets team total to about two dozen, which is in sync with the number of girls we see frolicking in the lake and on the beach in “The Dollhouse.” But that number certainly shrinks or expands as the series desires. The cabin is always full of sleeping figures, but not all of them attend the session and some disappear during the mushroom-induced assault and chase of Travis.
Do you remember them, the two on the far right of Shauna and Travis?
Photo: SHOWTIME
Or her, to Natalie’s right?
Photo: SHOWTIME
Or they?
Photo: SHOWTIME
Probably not, because they haven’t been given names or screen time. So maybe it’s cheating, but the actresses who play Yellowjacket # 1 (Mya Lowe), Yellowjacket # 2 (Princess Davies), and so on? It certainly appears that they are only left to serve as meat.
Photo: Paul Sarkis / SHOWTIME
I’m contractually bound to bring up this theory, because certain Vulture staff believe it: They don’t think the inauguration girl was eaten at all! There’s a lot of suggestion in how this opening is filmed and edited, and I certainly think they’re leading us to believe that the meat that we see being cooked on that grill was human. But my colleagues are not mistaken that we do not see a scene of human carnage in the style of the first season of The horror, and we don’t see anyone lift a leg like a gigantic ramrod and gnaw on it. So maybe that meat is actually bear, deer, or wolf, and we’re just projecting our worst cannibalistic guesses onto these girls, as are so many others, from people who write unauthorized books and magazine articles about them to Taissa’s opponent for the state of New Jersey. Senate. In the bottom of my heart, however, I believe one hundred percent that they ate that girl and that they are going to eat again. Do you remember the zeal with which Misty bit that jerky from the gas station? She has flavor! I have no doubt, but only time will tell.