‘Yellowjackets’: 9 Burning Questions for Season 2
The good news is we should be getting new episodes of Yellowjackets this year. The bad news is whatever the wait is, it’s much too long after where the Showtime drama left off both in 1996, following the plane crash, and present day.
The 1996 timeline saw Jackie’s (Ella Purnell) death, a moment we knew was coming (and just had to wait to see when it would happen). Then, Teen Lottie (Courtney Eaton) sacrificed a bear’s heart, with Misty (Samantha Hanratty) and Van (Liv Hewson) at her side. Jump forward to the present, and it seems that Lottie’s (surprise!) still around and running a cult? That ever-present symbol for the Yellowjackets played a role in two cliffhangers: people wearing it kidnapped Natalie (Juliette Lewis), and it was at the altar that Taissa (Tawny Cypress) — or at least some part of her — used to sacrifice the family dog and win the election.
As we wait for Season 2, scroll down to see the nine burning questions we need to see answered.
Yellowjackets, Season 2, TBA, Showtime
What does Lottie's cult want with Natalie?
In the final moments of the Season 1 finale, Natalie had her shotgun under her chin, only for a group of people, presumably part of Lottie’s cult, given the symbol they were wearing, to burst into her motel room and kidnap her. What do they want with her? Did they take her because she was digging into Travis’ death (her friend, whom she’d enlisted for her investigation, was being followed and mentioned Lottie’s name) or for another reason? Could they have killed Travis and made it look like he died by suicide?
“Somebody knew that Natalie was in distress and essentially wanted to save her from herself, but there may be darker roots to it as well in terms of how they intend to use Natalie on a pragmatic level,” co-showrunner Jonathan Lisco teased.
Will killing Adam come back to bite Shauna?
Thinking that he had been the one blackmailing the Yellowjackets, Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) confronted, then killed Adam (Peter Gadiot), with whom she’d been having an affair. When she confessed to her husband, Jeff (Warren Kole), he in turn admitted he’d been the blackmailer. Then, as the finale ended, they could only watch a news report about the missing Adam. Should they worry about a police investigation? Based on what Lisco has said — “we could see a world in which that’s not a core part of Season 2, because what we don’t want to do is tip the show into a detective story” — chances are, probably not.
Is Taissa part of Lottie's cult?
What we do know is that Taissa sacrificed the family dog on an altar, and that symbol was on the wall, suggesting that she (or at least her dark alter ego) either is part of the cult in the present or is using something she picked up in the wilderness after the plane crash to her benefit. “Whether or not it cross-pollinates with the storyline with Natalie being taken and abducted is something which I’d hate to sort of reveal at this point, but yes, there’s a lot going on there,” Lisco previewed.
Will both Shauna and Jeff and Taissa and Simone's marriages survive?
One half of both marriages has committed murder, and the other half knows about it. But for Shauna and Jeff, it may be more about him getting past her affair and her knowing that he knows all her secrets (from reading her journals). And for Taissa and Simone (Rukiya Bernard), while you might think that finding out your wife killed and sacrificed your dog would mean the end of the marriage, don’t be so sure. “They’re going to need some serious therapy. And I would like to think that if Simone realized that she did it unconsciously, if Simone realized that the trauma from the woods was compelling her to do these things, she might not so easily give up on Taissa,” Lisco said. “I wouldn’t say that the marriage is over, but it’s in need of some serious repair.”
Who else is alive in the present?
We saw Natalie, Shauna, Taissa, and Misty (Christina Ricci) in the present, and we know that Travis is dead. After the finale, it’s safe to say it’s just a matter of time before we meet adult Lottie. We know that Jackie is dead. We know that the series opened with the girls in the wilderness eating another. “We could see another major survivor playing a pivotal role in Season 2,” the co-showrunner teased.
When and how will the truth about what happened in the wilderness come out?
When the girls were rescued, they lied about what happened after the crash. But the truth is bound to come out eventually, so when will the world find out about the cannibalism and everything else that happened? And when will the others find out that Teen Misty destroyed the plane’s emergency transmitter? Once she realized that the others needed her and were talking about her positively behind her back as a result, a major turn from life for her before the crash, she was pretty much the only one not leaping at the chance of a rescue.
Will the girls eat Jackie?
A theory throughout the first season was that the other girls would eat Jackie. In the finale, she froze to death, after leaving the cabin following a fight with Teen Shauna (Sophie Nélisse). According to Lisco, it’s “fairly safe to say” that Season 2 won’t open with the others eating her, “but I wouldn’t commit to it. … It feels too fast in a way [for them to resort to cannibalism]. Have these women descended to that point yet?”
Who was the girl they were eating in the premiere?
Perhaps the question should instead be, how much does her identity matter? Was it simply to show that the girls would reach that point (and she clearly wouldn’t be the first to be eaten)? Or could what led to that moment and who she is be part of a significant point in the series for the 1996 timeline?
How are they saved and what will happen in the immediate aftermath?
We know that once the girls are saved, they keep secret what happened out in the wilderness. We also know that Teen Misty sabotaged one of their means of rescue and the plane they found blew up (with Jane Widdop’s Laura Lee piloting it), so chances are they’ll run into (many) more problems in that year and a half as they try to find other ways out of their situation. But what will happen when they are saved and return home?
