8 ‘Yellowjackets’ Mysteries We Need Answered Before the Show Ends

From its very first moments, Yellowjackets has been a show centered around its own mysteries. It’s a survival tale first, but it’s a “mystery box” as an extremely close second. As would be the case with any show layered so extravagantly atop its own fictional mythos, the final season demands answers — perhaps as urgently as the “wilderness” seems to demand sacrifices of the survivors.

What happened at the end of Season 3?

As you might recall, Season 3 ended with a duo of massive deaths in the adult timeline. Adult Lottie (Simone Kessell) died after being pushed down the stairs during a confrontation with Adult Shauna’s (Melanie Lynskey) daughter, Callie (Sarah Desjardins). The adult Yellowjackets tracked down another grown-up survivor of the crash, Melissa (Hilary Swank), who killed Adult Van (Lauren Ambrose) after a fight with Adult Shauna. Shauna decided to embrace her dark side, while Misty (Christina Ricci) and Taissa (Tawny Cypress) agreed that Shauna’s gotta go.

In the wilderness, Pit Girl was revealed to be none other than Mari (Alexa Barajas) after Shauna manipulated the card draw to result in Mari’s death. After some trickery involving new adult survivor Hannah (Ashley Sutton) and Natalie (Sophie Thatcher), Natalie was able to climb to higher ground and send out a call for help. The call was received — and the wilderness crew will return home in Season 4.

As we head into Yellowjackets‘ ending episodes, here are the remaining mysteries we hope the show might address.

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Why did the plane crash?

This might be as simple as “because they flying going through a storm,” or there might be more to it. If you remember, all the way back in Season 1, Lottie Matthews’ (Courtney Eaton) father had chartered the plane meant to take the girls to nationals. Obviously, the plane never made it to where it was meant to go — but why? Was it as simple as a mechanical malfunction? We might never know, but if the show intends to loop back to how it all began or address whether there was a supernatural factor at play in the wilderness, revisiting the plane crash would be an interesting way to do that.

Was there ever someone in the caves?

The show might’ve addressed this in Season 3, but we’re still not quite clear on what actually happened here. During the earlier seasons, both Travis’ (Kevin Alves) brother and Coach Ben (Steven Krueger) appeared to have seen or spoken to someone in the caves. We’ve seen or heard nothing from that person since. This observation comes with a caveat, though; the girls did enter the caves in Season 3, and the gas within them caused the girls to hallucinate. It’s possible the “friend” Coach Ben and Javi saw was just a hallucination.

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Who was the original owner of the cabin?

We wonder if the writers’ strike might’ve affected something related to the answer for this question. At one point, Yellowjackets had filmed, and intended to air, a standalone episode centered around the original owner of the cabin that the girls lived in for the first two seasons of the show. (He’d even been cast — Jason Ritter, Melanie Lynskey’s husband.) The episode was filmed and meant to air between Season 2 and Season 3, but, potentially because of the writers’ strike, it was shelved. Will we ever see that episode? If not, will we learn what was meant to happen in it?

Who burned down the cabin?

Going hand in hand with the cabin’s-original-owner question is the “who destroyed the Yellowjackets’ safe haven?” question. At the end of Season 2, the cabin where the team had been spending their days in the wilderness went up in flames. No one ever ‘fessed up; the show alluded to the possibility that it could’ve been Coach Ben, but that was never confirmed (and frankly, it didn’t seem to fit with his character). If Ben didn’t do it, who did? Was it an accident? Now that the cabin’s gone, it’s possible the narrative has moved on. We just can’t help but wonder.

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What happens to Hannah?

Hannah’s fate is one of the biggest current question marks on the show. We know she doesn’t survive to be rescued, because we’ve seen her obituary. We know she’s still alive at the end of the third season and that she switched places with Natalie in order for Nat to go send out a call for help. Ultimately, when, and how, does Hannah die? What impact does it have on the other survivors, and potentially on the trajectory of the rest of the show?

Will we ever learn what happened to Crystal’s body?

We’re 50-50 on whether this will ever come up again. When Misty (Samantha Hanratty) kills Crystal (Nuha Jes Izman) in Season 2, she revisits the scene after the blizzard ends… and Crystal’s body is gone. Now, Crystal looked pretty darn dead after she fell over the cliff. Misty even tried to give her CPR, and there was blood — and no life from Crystal. With that said, this is a show where some strange things have happened. We doubt Crystal’s still alive, but if she isn’t, where did her body go? If the show never addresses it again, we’ll assume she was dragged away by wolves.

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Who is Walter, really?

This, we think, the show should address. From Season 2 onward, Adult Misty’s story has been intertwined with that of Walter Tattersall (Elijah Wood), who’s played a consistent role in the narrative despite viewers knowing next to nothing of substance about him. We know he’s rich. We know he’s taken a special interest in the Yellowjackets, and particularly in Misty, whom he seems to feel very strongly for. We know he wasn’t thrilled when Misty and Tai connected at the end of Season 3. With all of that in mind… what’s driving Walter’s obsession with the crash, and with the survivors? Is it as simple as that he’s obsessively fixated on Misty Quigley? Is there a more sinister element to it? We’re not sure, but we think the final season should provide an answer.

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What does the symbol mean?

We’re sincerely hoping to get an answer to this, at least, in the upcoming season. While the symbol has become synonymous with the mystery of the wilderness and the show itself, we don’t know much about it. The symbol was carved into the floor and the trees when the survivors arrived at the cabin, but who did that? Was it meant to ward something off, or prevent some awful fate from befalling the cabin’s owner? With the standalone cabin episode scrapped, it’s possible we’ll never know.