This article contains mention of suicide.
Yellowjacketsseason 2 features many game-changing developments that set the stage for season 3. The series is split into a past and present-day timeline. The past timeline follows a high school girls soccer team after their plane crashes in the wilderness, while the present-day shows the lives of the survivors 25 years later. Shauna, Taissa, Natalie, and Misty are the onlyYellowjacketscharacterswho are shown to be alive in both timelines during season 1.
Yellowjacketsseason 1’s endingreveals that another member of the team, Lottie, is also alive in the present-day. As teased in the opening of the first episode,the Yellowjackets eventually descend into cannibalismwhile fighting to survive in the wilderness. Some of them die before reaching this point, though, including Jackie being left out in the cold and freezing to death overnight after her argument with Shauna. More problems are created by Shauna in the present-day as well, with her murder of Adam Martin continuing to be an issue all the way up toYellowjacketsseason 2’s ending.
Her Cremation Did Not Go As Planned
After winter sets in, Jackie’s corpse is initially kept inside the shed by the cabin. As she struggles to process her grief and the guilt she feels for Jackie’s death, Shauna has long conversations with her dead friend and even applies makeup to her face. When the other Yellowjackets learn about this, a decision is made to cremate Jackie’s body. As Jackie’s corpse burns, a substantial amount of snow falls on her, which douses the fire, and leads to the smell of cooked meat.
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Since the Yellowjackets are starving and hunting has not yielded any results for a while, they give into their hunger, and begin devouring what is left of Jackie.This is the first instance of the Yellowjackets being cannibalsand resorting to eating one another. It is a point of no return that forever changes the girls and that makes Coach Ben Scott terrified by what they have become.
10Natalie Was Taken To Lottie’s “Retreat” & The Other Survivors Found Her
It Was A Full-On Yellowjackets Reunion
In the present-day timeline, Natalie is kidnapped by Lottie’s followers and taken to her “retreat.” This kidnapping prevents Natalie from taking her own life at the end of season 1. Natalie is initially reluctant to stay at the retreat and is exasperated by the cult-like community that surrounded Lottie. After growing closer with one of Lottie’s followers, Lisa, Natalie’s attitude changes somewhat, although she continues to loathe herself for her past mistakes.
The other Yellowjacket survivors all eventually find their way to the retreat as well.Misty is the first to find it while investigating Natalie’s disappearanceand discovers her location with help from a fellow citizen detective, Walter. It is not long before Taissa, Van, and Shauna arrive, making it a full-on Yellowjackets reunion, which inevitably leads to tragedy rooted in their unresolved trauma from their time in the wilderness.
9Shauna’s Baby Was Stillborn
A Complicated Pregnancy Ends In Tragedy
Before the plane crash, season 1 reveals that Shauna is sleeping with Jackie’s boyfriend, Jeff. This leads to Shauna being pregnant and having to give birth in the wilderness inYellowjacketsseason 2, episode 6. What follows is one of the most intense and heartbreaking episodes in the series, as Shauna’s baby is stillborn, but she only discovers after hallucinating that her baby was born, and after vividly experiencing spending time with her child.
What Shauna goes through stays with her in the decades that follow and even subconsciously informs the relationship she has with her daughter, Callie.
While all the Yellowjackets endure trauma in the wilderness,Shauna losing her baby is a particularly devastating trauma, and something that the other girls can never fully understand. What Shauna goes through stays with her in the decades that follow and even subconsciously informs the relationship she has with her daughter, Callie. The loss will undoubtedly still weigh heavily on Shauna during the past timeline inYellowjacketsseason 3.
8Javi Returned & Accidentally Died During The Yellowjackets' First Queen Of Hearts Sacrifice Ritual
He Becomes The Second Character To Be Eaten By The Yellowjackets
After going missing toward the end of season 1, Javi is revealed to still be alive inYellowjacketsseason 2, episode 4. His return to the group ends tragically, though, as he accidentally dies during the first Queen of Hearts ritual. When the Yellowjackets are starving later in the season, they participate in a ritual where they take turns drawing cards from a deck. Whoever pulls the only Queen from the deck will be sacrificed, so the rest of the group does not starve.
Natalie has the misfortune of pulling the Queen, and while she is hunted, Javi tells her that he knows a safe place where she can hide. As he and Natalie run across a frozen lake to get there,Javi falls through the ice and drowns. Natalie’s life is spared, with the girls believing that the wilderness chose to kill Javi instead. Javi’s body becomes the next source of food that helps keep the Yellowjackets alive during the brutal winter.
7Lottie Told Natalie The Truth About Travis' Death
Lottie Was Present The Night Travis Died
Who killed Travisin the present-day timeline was one of the major mysteries inYellowjacketsseason 1, as Natalie believed he did not take his own life, and that he was murdered. Lottie shares with Natalie that she was with Travis the night he died.Travis did not intend to kill himself, but he wanted to temporarily hang himself from a crane so he would become unconscious and be able to confront the darkness with himself.
Travis is the eldest son of the Yellowjackets team’s head coach, who died during the plane crash.
Lottie was supposed to lower Travis from the crane the moment he went unconscious, but the button on the control was jammed, leading to Travis accidentally dying. Natalie was right that Travis did not want to take his own life, but she was wrong about him being murdered. The truth makes Natalie’s grief even more complicated, with Travis' death being an accident instead of being the result of a nefarious plot.
6Callie Discovered The Truth About Adam Martin’s Murder & Misty’s Boyfriend, Walter, Helped Cover It Up
The Truth Has A Surprising Effect On Callie
After Shauna killed Adam Martin, the man she was having an affair with in season 1, she covered up the murder with help from Misty, Taissa, and Van. This storyline does not end there, though, as Callie is suspicious about what happened to Adam and police officers Kevyn Tan and Matt Saracusa investigate his disappearance. Instead of continuing to lie to Callie, Shauna tells her everything that happened with Adam and about how Jeff was blackmailing the Yellowjackets.
Learning thesedifficult truths actually brings Callie closer to her parents. This does not fix the lingering issue of Adam’s death, but Misty’s boyfriend, Walter, takes care of that. He lethally poisons Kevyn, frames him as the person responsible for Adam’s demise, and blackmails Matt into complying. The Adam Martin case is now closed, but it has forever changed Callie’s relationship with her parents, and it demonstrates the lengths Walter is willing to go to help Misty.
5Teen Natalie Was Crowned The Antler Queen
She Goes From Being Hunted To Becoming The Group’s Leader
Ever since the first glimpse ofYellowjackets' Antler Queenwas shown in the pilot episode, there was a question about who this person would be. Despite not believing in the wilderness' spiritual power like most of the other girls do, Natale is crowned the Antler Queen in the season 2 finale. This relates back to the Queen of the Hearts sacrifice ritual and Javi’s death, asthe girls are convinced that the wilderness spared Natalie because of her connection with it and because the wilderness chose her.
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After this turn of events, Lottie is no longer the most powerful figure among the girls. They now look to Natalie as their leader, and she holds the most power and overall sway moving forward. This is not a position that Natalie has craved, but it is one that is thrust upon her, and she plans to use it to help the group to survive as their isolation in the wilderness continues.
4Adult Misty Accidentally Killed Natalie During The Queen Of Hearts Ritual
A Prominent Character Will Now Be Absent From The Present-Day Timeline
The Queen of Hearts ritual is not just part of the Yellowjackets' past, with Lottie insisting that they must do it in the present. Shauna draws the Queen of Hearts card and is the way who is initially hunted, but everything changes and becomes even more chaotic when an armed Callie and Lisa arrive on the scene. The tension and chaosleads to Misty trying to stab Lisa with a lethal injection, only for Natalie to step in and be injected instead.
Natalie saves Lisa at the cost of losing her own life. However, it is devastating for Misty, who must live with the fact that she killed the woman she considered to be her best friend. Adult Misty is shown reeling from what happened as Walter tries to comfort her. Guilt and self-loathing related to Natalie’s murder will likely continue to affect Misty in season 3, which will see one of season 1 and 2’s major characters removed from the present-day timeline.
3Lottie Was Institutionalized After Natalie’s Death
It Is Not The First Time This Has Happened To Her
Yellowjacketscontinues to cast uncertainty over whether certain elements are supernatural or if they are extreme responses to lingering trauma. This fine line is particularly present with Lottie as a teenager and as an adult, due to her visions and her spiritual belief in the power of the wilderness. Even if there is genuine supernatural power to the wilderness,season 2 makes it clear that adult Lottie is mentally unwell.
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She has multiple sessions with a therapist who does not exist and who is a hallucination. She sees visions, such as all the bees at her retreat having died, when they are alive and well. Her solution to addressing these problems is to engage in the Queen of Hearts sacrifice ritual. Given the state she is in, she unsurprisingly ends the season institutionalized. This is not the first time Lottie has been institutionalized, with season 2 making reference to her previously having spent time at a facility in Switzerland.
2Adult Taissa & Van Reunited, But Van Has Terminal Cancer
Their Reunion Is Complicated
In the past timeline, Taissa and Van are romantically involved and incredibly close with each other. After spending years apart, they reunite in the present and gradually begin to rekindle their relationship.Van helped Taissa during her sleepwalking episodes years ago, and with her sleepwalking self becoming more controlling and dangerous, Taissa feels as though Van is the only person she can turn to for help. It is bittersweet for the two of them to be together again given their history.
With Taissa’s marriage beyond repair, she and Van can be together, but their relationship comes with many challenges they will need to navigate.
Their reunion becomes even more complicated when Taissa learns that Van has terminal cancer. The two of them have only just found their way back to one another, but now their time is limited due to Van’s diagnosis. The issue of Taissa’s sleepwalking self also remains unresolved. With Taissa’s marriage beyond repair, she and Van can be together, but their relationship comes with many challenges they will need to navigate.
