Yellowjackets Finale: What’s Next for the Team’s Matriarchy

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Spoiler alert: This piece discusses plot points from the Yellowjackets season 1 finale.

If ever you need your faith in humanity restored, just remember this: Yellowjackets ended its first season a hit. Showtime’s teen-girl survival chiller owes a good bit of its popularity to its Lost-style mysteries, which have had obsessive Yellowjacketologists dissecting those puzzle-box elements in various online forums. (Misty would be so proud.) I, too, have lost hours debating whether Adam is grown-up Javi and trying to identify the girl who gets skewered in the pilot’s cold open. And yet, I came out of Sunday’s finale—which confirmed that the victim was neither Jackie, who froze to death, nor Lottie, who is apparently still alive—far more eager to talk through the season’s sneakily subversive themes.

Because adolescence is a gauntlet, and because women are still the second sex, almost every story pop culture tells about teenage girls is also in some way a story about the horrors, physical and emotional, society inflicts on them. That includes many roles that made Yellowjackets’ stars famous. Juliette Lewis played a notorious spree killer scarred by sexual abuse in Natural Born Killers. Christina Ricci portrayed a beautiful young hostage in Buffalo ’66. Melanie Lynskey made her debut, in Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures, as a sick child turned delusional murderer. What we rarely see are depictions of young women cut off—or liberated—from their social context.

Yellowjackets corrects that failure of imagination by stranding its team of soccer champs in a wilderness so remote, it practically qualifies as the hypothetical “state of nature” that political philosophers dreamed up to imagine how humans behaved before the dawn of civilization. A few male passengers survive the crash, but one is a child, one is a nervous virgin (well, until Doomcoming) and the third is a gay amputee; they pose no physical threat to the ascendant matriarchy. Instead, the most vocal opponent to this new way of living is the team captain, Jackie, who quickly devolves from suburban golden girl to nihilistic woodland outcast. Her death from hypothermia in the season finale severs the Yellowjackets’ last tie to the old social order.

(L-R): Sophie Nélisse as Teen Shauna and Ella Purnell as Teen Jackie in YELLOWJACKETS, “Sic Transit Gloria Mundi” Kailey Schwerman/SHOWTIME

No matter how many cliques they sketch out, most stories about high school presume a binary between winners and losers—cool kids and nobodies, jocks and geeks, mean girls and their prey. That includes Yellowjackets. But, as is its tendency, the show has a darker read than its predecessors. Back in New Jersey, even among these extraordinarily talented girls who are the pride of their school, only Jackie really thrives. She has the beauty, the wealth, the planned-out future, the supportive sidekick in Shauna and the devoted boyfriend of four years, Jeff, who doesn’t push her to put out. Sure, Jeff and Shauna are hooking up behind her back, but Jackie only learns about that after she’s lost everything else in the crash. When reality doesn’t jive with her desires (see also: Shauna’s early acceptance to Brown), no one dares shatter her illusions. To reference another ’90s touchstone, it’s like she’s the star of her very own Truman Show.

Her flourishing comes at a cost to the others. In the series premiere, Travis and Javi’s dad explains that he made her captain not because she’s the strongest player (“Shauna’s faster, Lottie’s got the best footwork by a mile, and Taissa…”), but because she alone possesses “influence.” She’s steady and charismatic enough, under normal circumstances, to keep her teammates grounded. If pragmatism of that sort is rare in teen girls, that’s probably because it can take a lot of magical thinking to get through female adolescence. But Jackie never needs to dissociate because the world she inhabits revolves around her. When she stops Shauna from pulling Van out of the burning plane, the implication is that Jackie—for whom Shauna is just an extension of herself—instinctively prioritizes her own survival over that of anyone else.

Meanwhile, what do the surviving Yellowjackets have to go home to? (R.I.P. Laura Lee, who had Jesus.) Misty was a friendless creep, hence her surreptitious dismantling of the plane’s black box to prolong her adventure with the popular girls and her beloved coach. Lottie, the once and perhaps future Antler Queen, has super-rich absentee parents; in one early scene, we watch her swallow antipsychotics under the cold eye of a uniformed maid. Bleak! Van’s mom drinks, Taissa’s outward calm conceals a well of subconscious rage, and the two of them are also, by all appearances, still closeted. Natalie’s family is a tragedy of true-crime proportions. As minor as Shauna’s pre-pregnancy problems are by comparison, it’s clear she’s going to lose it if she has to spend much longer hiding her own light so an inferior student and athlete can shine.

(L-R): Courtney Eaton as Teen Lottie and Sophie Nélisse as Teen Shauna in YELLOWJACKETS, “Doomcoming” Kailey Schwerman/SHOWTIME

This is the kind of suffering that makes people seek out something beyond their material circumstances to give their lives meaning. Remember the scene in the pilot where Jackie teases Shauna about that time she “tried to be Catholic”? (It also draws teens to brooding music, and never more so than in the ’90s, when alt-rock invaded the Top 40 and suddenly you could hear Kurt Cobain or PJ Harvey screaming about abjection on the radio. Even the MOR hits that show up in Yellowjackets, like Seal’s “Kiss From a Rose,” drip with morbid romance.) Whatever this violent new pagan cosmology turns out to be, that emerges during the psilocybin frenzy of Doomcoming and develops into a faith after Lottie predicts an end to their hunger and then kills an eerily submissive bear, the spiritual appetites it satisfies probably predate the crash.

And this is where Yellowjackets becomes more than just a smartly written, well-cast survival thriller. Over the course of its first season, the show also inverts our assumptions about the trauma these middle-aged women carry. At first, it looks as though they bear the scars of 19 months in the wilderness, regardless of whether cannibalism was part of the experience. But for a while now, I’ve been getting the sense that the players who outlived Jackie and Laura Lee never felt freer or more alive than they did while ensconced in their bloodthirsty matriarchy. Nat is a teenage drinker and an adult alcoholic, yet in the penultimate episode she mentions to the coach that she hasn’t been tempted by the bottle of liquor she found.

It‘s the civilized, patriarchal world that drives her to drink—and Shauna to despair, and Taissa to compartmentalize her political aspirations into one box and, er, blood sacrifice into another. (Misty was probably never not on a path to derangement.) Although I’m also pretty certain that Van is still alive and working for Lottie, this is the only fan theory I can wholeheartedly endorse.

Contact us at letters@time.com.

Sophie Nélisse on the ‘Yellowjackets’ Finale and Theories

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Unless you’ve been stranded in the remote wilderness for the last two months, you’re probably aware that it’s a Yellowjackets world and we’re all simply living in it. Showtime’s cooler version of Lord of the Flies is eating us all up with a sordid story of a high school girls soccer team who survives a plane crash that lands them in the not-so-great outdoors, where they remain left to starve–or not–for 19 months.

Thanks to impressive performances from veteran actresses like Juliette Lewis and Christina Ricci, who play the adult versions of the survivors, plus a band of breakout newcomers like Sophie Thatcher, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sammi Hanratty, and Sophie Nélisse, it’s safe to say Yellowjackets has satisfied the TV bloodlust clearly craved by the masses.

Ahead of tonight’s Yellowjackets season finale, Cosmo spoke to series standout Sophie Nélisse (aka teen Shauna) about the show’s wildest fan theories, the future for our favorite spiraling teenagers, and the time she sat at a table read with Melanie Lynskey (aka adult Shauna) and thought, “I’m getting fired.”

Cosmo: This show has become a hit seemingly overnight because of how much it has to offer—a fresh story about women’s survival, well-realized characters, and sharp, suspenseful writing. What in particular drew you in?

Sophie Nélisse: When I came onto the project, I had only read the pilot and was hooked from the beginning because I loved every single character. I thought they were so unique but also complex. They had these gray areas where you cared for them but kind of hated them too.

I also loved that it was a mostly female cast who embraced their flaws, which we saw right off the bat in the pilot. For Shauna, there’s that early reveal of her sleeping with Jeff [her best friend’s boyfriend], and yet you’re still kind of rooting for her in a way. And even with Jackie, there’s something sweet about her and you care for her even though she is kind of a bitch (laughs).

One thing the audience learned about Shauna this season is she’s a very layered character whom we can’t always predict. What’s it been like for you to portray someone who maintains such an air of mystery? How much were you able to work with Melanie Lynskey [who plays adult Shauna] in determining how she should be read on screen?

Shauna has a little bit of every character. I think she has the leadership and the strength of Taissa, yet the kindness and sweetness of Laura Lee, but also the craziness of Misty. She can lie very well and I think she can be quite unreasonable at times. There’s a lot more going on in her head than we think, and she definitely has this dark side that she herself is scared to admit is there.

With Melanie, I remember at the table read when I heard her speak for the first time–her voice is a higher pitch than mine–I thought ‘I’m getting fired.’ I was already shocked when I got the part because I don’t look like her at all, and then we didn’t even sound alike. But ultimately, we sat down for a couple of coffees and discussed the character and made sure we had the same idea of her. There were moments on set where I would start writing in her journal–and I’m a lefty–then be like, ‘Wait, how did Melanie write?’ and shoot her a text. It’s those tiny details right down to how she would tie her shoelaces that were important.

This first season includes political and social commentary on topics like sexual identity and abortion. The scene where Shauna decides to attempt to abort her baby is a real standout as it feels so relevant in this particular time. What was that like to film?

We all got chills when we read it because of the rawness of the scene. We wanted to treat it with the most respect possible because it’s an important subject. I think even more than the abortion itself, she’s putting her own life at risk and it’s the most vulnerable she’s ever been so far in the show.

It also says so much about Shauna that at the end of the day, she’s willing to sacrifice her own life in order to spare Jackie’s feelings. It was beautiful to get to do it with Jasmin [Savoy Brown, who plays teen Taissa], who was just an incredible partner in all of this. Even after the scene was done, we would just stare at each other like, ‘We did this.’ We had people on set helping us through the process and create what it would be like. It’s a hard scene to watch, but I’m glad I got to do it.

As of right now, Shauna and Jackie’s friendship has really been put through the wringer, and I have a feeling the finale is going to culminate in some kind of confrontation. Is there anything else you can share about the finale episode? Where is this friendship heading?

Some tears will definitely be shed, and it will reach its climax. I think there will be no turning back. So far, Shauna has always kind of been put in a box where she’s been told what to do, who to be, how to act, and after episode 9 she gets very annoyed of always having to feel guilty and the pressure that comes with that. There’s a breaking point when Shauna will finally get it off her chest.

Fan theories are all over the internet about lingering questions–from how the survivors are eventually rescued to who gets eaten first. Given all the foreshadowing, can we assume the Antler Queen is Lottie? And what do you think will become of Shauna’s baby?

Yeah, Lottie’s slowly starting to lead people in a certain way so I definitely think she’ll step into the role of some sort of leader. Then again, the girl running with the long black hair in the pilot looks a lot like Lottie, so I don’t know. I am hoping Lottie will be the Antler Queen because I love Courtney [Eaton, who plays Lottie] so much and I don’t want her to die.

And as for my baby, I think it wouldn’t survive because realistically, we’re deprived of sleep and nutrition so it just doesn’t make sense. I feel like it would die before she’d be able to give birth, but maybe she will and it won’t survive then? Maybe they’ll eat the newborn? I don’t know what they’re going to put in the second season, so it’s a possibility…but that would be the most disgusting thing I think I’d ever witness on TV.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Audra Heinrichs Audra Heinrichs is a writer and progressive organizer based in New York City.

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Why This Yellowjackets Finale Death Is “Eating” the Cast Alive

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Watch : 2021 TV Guilty Pleasures: “Ted Lasso,” “Click Bate” & More!

Thank the gods of the sky and the earth because Showtime’s Yellowjackets just delivered a shocking season finale.

On Sunday, Jan. 16, audiences finally got some answers about what really happened out there in the wilderness.

No, Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) did not deliver her baby, but we did discover the ice cold way Jackie (Ella Purnell) perishes and we learned the true identity of the Antler Queen. Oh, and did you really think that Shauna (Melanie Lynskey), Misty (Christina Ricci), Taissa (Tawny Cypress) and Natalie (Juliette Lewis) were the only survivors?

Bear with us (we’ve got all the puns) as we keep track of what parts of the multiple mysteries were seemingly solved, and what new twists we encountered.

Spoilers: Jackie is officially dead, along with our theories that she was the Antler Queen. Sure, team captain-slash-homecoming queen Jackie had “influence,” according to her now-also-dead soccer coach, but as Lottie (Courtney Eaton) pointed out, Jackie doesn’t belong.

Yellowjackets Showrunners Break Down That Haunting Season Finale

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Yellowjackets showrunners Ashley Lyle, Bart Nickerson, and Jonathan Lisco have a confession: They never meant to make you believe Jackie got out of the woods, even before we watched her die in the show’s first season finale.

“To our minds, in that scene, we’ve made very clear that Jackie died,” Lyle says, referring to the awkward episode six brunch that launched a million fan theories—thanks to a journal that implied Jackie had somehow seen films released long after the Yellowjackets’ plane crashed in the spring of 1996. “I don’t think any of us predicted that people would not take us at face value as much as they haven’t.”

But that’s the joy of Yellowjackets. Some TV series are driven by compelling mysteries; some have fascinating characters; some are worthy showcases for actors who’ve long been underserved by typical Hollywood productions, particularly women in their 40s. It’s rare, though, for a show to do all three at once, or as stylishly as Showtime’s freshman drama. No wonder Yellowjackets gradually caught fire this winter, building buzz until it seemed like all anyone on Twitter was talking about.

Which the showrunners love. “The idea that our audience is so obsessed with looking at each frame, I find that very validating,” says Lisco. Still, Lyle admits, “We never anticipated that people would be paying this much attention in this particular way. And as somebody who has trolled some of the theories that you can find on the internet, it is both delightful and terrifying”—particularly when tiny details are blown way out of proportion, like Jackie’s journal.

Below, the trio chat about the finale’s biggest revelations, as well as their favorite fan theories—Shauna’s going to do what with her breast milk?!—and a few hints about season two. Oh, and just to set the record straight: Jackie is not a time-traveler. Shauna is the one who wrote those questionable diary entries, the showrunners say. Here’s how Lyle explains it: “Shauna has been participating in this guilt-laden ritual with Jackie’s parents for almost 25 years. And so to our minds, it made sense that especially in the first few years after she’s been rescued, and she’s feeling so complicit and responsible for Jackie’s death, that she might role play and try to keep her spirit alive by means of this journal.”

Vanity Fair: We learn in the finale that Lottie has become some sort of cult leader in the present day storyline. Are there more Yellowjackets who survived, who we just haven’t met yet?

Lyle: I would say we reserve the right to let the story evolve as we dig back into season two. But yes, the intention is that there are more survivors out there.

That’s very exciting. Have you thought about who is going to play Lottie in the future?

Lisco: We have. We have a very difficult time going into actual casting candidates, but “yes” is the answer. We have thought about it.

The way Lottie approaches and kills the bear in the finale feels like the show overtly embracing the supernatural. Is there a rational explanation for what happens between Lottie and the bear?

Lyle: I think that it is a tricky balance, and it’s a balance that will become even more difficult moving forward. Some of the horror movies that I’ve loved the most are the ones that do leave at least a little bit open for interpretation, so we want to always make sure that there’s a little bit of a rational parachute for everything. With this scene, we did a certain amount of research about animal behavior. When a person approaches a wild animal with an absolute lack of fear, it can really throw an animal off.

Yellowjackets Finale: 7 Biggest Questions After Episode 10

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“Yellowjackets,” we hardly knew ye.

While the much-talked-about Showtime series began back in November, it came to an end (for now) this week with the season one finale “Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.” Directed by Eduardo Sánchez who, appropriately enough, is one of the creators of “The Blair Witch Project,” this season finale saw some big surprises, shocking deaths, and, of course, a fair amount of middle-aged lady sass, set to a radio-friendly pop hit. (They really got a lot of mileage out of that “Kiss from a Rose” license, huh?) Basically, everything you already love about “Yellowjackets” was amped up in new and uncomfortable ways. But, as always, it left us with some questions (especially after most of our quandaries going into the finale are still damnably left unanswered).

Still, without further ado, our biggest questions after the “Yellowjackets” finale. And yes, the show has already been renewed by Showtime for a second season.

How powerful is Lottie?

Not only can Lottie see the future, but he can also apparently tame animals. In one of the more unnerving segments set in the immediate aftermath of the crash, Lottie (Courtney Eaton), who had already seen that they were not going to starve, walks up to a rampaging bear. Instead of the bear mauling and eating her, which is something most bears would do, the bear instead acquiesces to her, almost kneeling down before her so she can deliver a knife to the skull. It’s a super intense moment for sure and subtly sews the seeds of what’s to come – namely that Lottie might be much more powerful than initially suspected.

So who was killed at the beginning of episode 1?

Let’s just talk about this now: Jackie (Ella Purnell) dies tragically, frozen to death after being exiled from the house. We knew that the soccer team leader with the big puppy eyes was going to perish but we didn’t know how. As it turns out, the answer is much sadder than anyone could have guessed. This is obviously huge and will have ramifications from season two forward (particularly for Shauna), and while it answers how (and when) Jackie died, it opens up another huge question (such is the way with “Yellowjackets”) – who was the girl who was killed in the opening moments of this season? Most thought that it would be Jackie but, as it turns out, it is not (since Jackie is already dead by the time that chase takes place). The hooded girl that was killed (and consumed?) had a necklace closely associated with Jackie. But who was it?

Who is that guy in Jackie’s vision?

One quick, errant question: who is the creepy man in Jackie’s vision, seemingly welcoming her to the great beyond? (Also: how scary was that whole sequence? Gave me the heebie-jeebies!) He’s actually been glimpsed before, in the grainy, VHS-style opening credits sequence. Is he the pilot of the plane? Or some unseen force living in the woods? Good lord he’s creepy. Even if we never see him again, he’ll undoubtedly haunt many viewers’ for a good long while.

Will Shauna’s kid narc her out?

A more mundane, but still quite pressing question. After Shauna and the gang clean up Adam’s body, things seem to be pretty much settled. (Especially after Mindy sneakily gets rid of his head and hands at the mortuary.) But it’s not totally squared away. Adam (Peter Gadiot) is still missing, and we see towards the end of the episode a news report detailing his disappearance. While Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) and her husband Jack (Warren Kole) both know what’s going on, and in one of the sweeter moments of the finale actually seem happy, their daughter Callie (Sarah Desjardins) also sees the news report and looks at her parents with suspicious eyes. (Callie met Adam at that crazy Halloween rave a few episodes back.) Could Callie prove to be the survivors’ undoing? If this is a show about bitchy high school girls who did terrible things, it makes a certain kind of sense that a bitchy high school girl should bring them all down.

Is Tai a witch?

Okay, this one is a real head scratcher and one of the biggest WTF-moments of the entire episode. As it turns out Taissa (Tawny Cypress) did win her senatorial bid. (She claimed that she was writing her concession speech earlier in the episode, and most of the polls showed her down considerably.) So the question of “how” she won becomes apparent. And now we might know. Tai’s estranged wife Simone (Rukiya Bernard) is stopping by their house to get some clothes and toys for their son, who is staying with Simone. While in the kitchen she notices a trail of blood, leading underneath the house. She follows it through a crawl space into an opening, where she sees the decapitated head of their dog, along with a bloody heart and, scrawled on the wall, that horrifying symbol that has been popping up throughout the season (it was on a tree in the woods, on the threatening postcard they were all sent, etc.) Simone, rightfully, shrieks in terror. And this makes us wonder: is she some kind of witch? Was the creature with no eyes that both she and her son have seen around their house some kind of demon that she’s been dealing with? The clever misdirect of all of the supernatural elements seem to be fully cast aside by the end of this episode. Yes, Lottie was schizophrenic, Tai might have just been sleepwalking, and there could be something other than cosmic forces bringing everyone back together. But with the introduction of the witch hole and some other stuff (see below), “Yellowjackets” has firmly planted itself in the realm of “supernatural thriller.” And we’re okay with that.

Is Lottie now a cult leader?

At the end of the episode, we see Natalie (Juliette Lewis) in a pretty bleak place. Travis is dead, and his death firmly ruled a suicide; Javi wants nothing to do with her, and she is still a washed-up old addict. In her mind, this is the end of the road. (Even if that road is polka-dotted with crazy symbols and occult mysticism.) She takes a gun, loads it, and puts it under her chin. Just as she ready to pull the trigger, thugs barge into her crummy motel room. At the same time Suzie is leaving a voice message. As we see these goons grab Natalie, we’re given information (via Suzie’s voice memo) – apparently Travis’ bank account was drained by Lottie Matthews. The goons are wearing medallions emblazoned with the scary symbol from the woods, Tai’s witch cave, the postcards, etc. They throw Natalie in the back of a van and drive away. Suzie thinks she’s being followed. In the final moments of the episode, we flash back to immediately following Jackie’s death. We see Lottie approaching a pagan alter, the bloody bear heart in her hands. She is flanked by young Mindy and Van (Liv Hewson). In the last episode (“Doomcoming”), it was confirmed that Lottie was the horned queen from the first episode. This week, we find out who her first two disciples are. Does that mean Mindy has been involved in this whole thing? (Side question: did Mindy kill Jessica with the poisoned cigarettes or just incapacitate her?) One of the assumptions going into the finale was that one or more of the other survivors from the plane crash would pop back up, but the fact that Lottie has seemingly reemerged as the series’ big bad is a twist more delicious than warm bear heart. Yum!

What 90s-era star will play adult Lottie?

Perhaps the biggest question: what 90s-era star will play adult Lottie? The show has already set a fun precedent. In the same way that “Riverdale” is populated by 80s stars, “Yellowjackets” is anchored by performers who made their big splash in the 90s – Juliette Lewis (“Natural Born Killers,” “Cape Fear”), Christina Ricci (who spent the entire decade turning in iconic performances from “The Addams Family” to “The Ice Storm”), and Melanie Lynskey (“Heavenly Creatures” opened in 1994). So who will come in and essay Lottie? Is Uma Thurman busy? What about Meg Ryan or Andie MacDowall? Geena Davis? Who would you like to see in the role?