Warning: This submit comprises spoilers for the Yellowjackets season 2 finale.
Because the second season of Yellowjackets careens towards a wild end, a easy declaration from an on-the-mend teen Lottie (Charlotte Eaton) charts a path ahead for the teammates still stranded in the Canadian Rockies within the present’s previous timeline: “The wilderness selected who fed us. It’s already chosen who ought to lead us.”
Whereas viewers have lengthy theorized that Lottie is the group chief for the 19 months the crew is caught within the wilderness, it’s revealed she is definitely referring to Natalie (Sophie Thatcher). Within the earlier episode, Natalie is spared from being hunted down and changed into the crew’s most up-to-date meal because of Javi (Luciano Leroux), who presents to assist her discover security earlier than falling by the ice of the frozen lake and drowning. The tragic flip of occasions is both a horrible coincidence or the results of some kind of supernatural intervention—and the Yellowjackets, excluding Coach Ben (Steven Krueger), actually see it because the latter. Based on them, the wilderness needs Natalie to dwell and lead.
However teen Natalie’s pseudo-coronation because the group’s new queen wasn’t the one shock that the finale had up its sleeve. Titled “Storytelling,” the ninth episode of Yellowjackets season 2 additionally featured a too-tidy wrap-up of some free ends, a surprising demise, and a cliffhanger ending.
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Closing the Adam Martin case
Warren Kole as Jeff Sadecki in Yellowjackets season 2, episode 9
Kailey Schwerman—SHOWTIME
The finale brings all the foremost gamers in Yellowjackets‘ present-day timeline to Lottie’s (Simone Kessell) compound as Detective Kevyn Tan (Alex Wyndham) and his accomplice Matt (John Paul Reynolds) shut in on Shauna (Melanie Lynskey), Misty (Christina Ricci), Taissa (Tawny Cypress), and Natalie (Juliette Lewis), decided to catch them for the homicide of Shauna’s former lover Adam (Peter Gadiot) and subsequent cover-up of the crime.
Fortunately for the group, Walter (Elijah Wooden) additionally reveals up—simply in time to assist Misty and her mates get out of dodge. Posing as a member of Lottie’s cult, Walter slips Kevyn phenobarbital in a cup of sizzling cocoa, poisoning him. A darkly hilarious scene follows, as Kevyn drops lifeless simply as Shauna’s husband Jeff (Warren Kole) delivers a false confession to Adam’s homicide, in yet one more try to save lots of his spouse. (Is Jeff the present’s true MVP?)
The ever-helpful (and suspiciously expert in issues of homicide) Walter lures Matt again to Kevyn’s automotive, the place he has hidden Kevyn’s physique within the trunk, alongside along with his cellphone. As Matt unlocks the trunk to seek out the physique, Walter runs up behind him, grabs his gun, and fires a number of instances into the trunk, earlier than presenting Matt with a selection. He can associate with a brand new narrative, spun up by Walter, that he shot Kevyn after uncovering his involvement in not solely Adam’s homicide, but additionally that of personal detective Jessica Roberts (Rekha Sharma), who Misty memorably killed in season 1. Or, Walter can organize the financial institution and cellphone information he has set as much as body Kevyn to level to Matt because the perpetrator. Matt—glory-hungry and decidedly not a great man—goes with the primary possibility.
Identical to that, Walter takes care of the Yellowjackets’ involvement in two unsolved murders.
Natalie’s demise
As Walter handles the police, the grownup Yellowjackets are in a unique a part of Lottie’s compound, busy recreating their previous, lethal rituals. Lottie will not be doing properly—as earlier episodes revealed she is having visions once more, and even hallucinated her psychiatrist because the Antler Queen in disguise. She has turn into satisfied that they should return to the Russian Roulette-esque methods of the wilderness, after they would draw from a deck of playing cards to find out who can be hunted and eaten, believing as soon as once more that they should sacrifice one in every of their very own to a supposed supernatural entity.
The others within the group individually agree that Lottie wants medical assist, and fake to associate with her concept whereas they plan a psychiatric intervention on the identical time. However as they draw playing cards, similar to they used to, issues develop muddled. And when Shauna attracts the dreaded queen of hearts, the sport turns into all too actual.
Lottie, Misty, Taissa, Natalie, and Van (Lauren Ambrose) don masks, seize weapons, and begin to chase Shauna by the woods. However Shauna’s daughter, Callie (Sarah Desjardins), snaps them again to the current when she steps out from behind a tree and shoots Lottie within the arm. Taissa and Van reveal they’ve known as off the psychiatric crew, blaming the group as an entire for Lottie’s psychological instability. Lottie, in the meantime, nonetheless insists the supernatural entity is with them. After which, one other lady with a gun seems: Lisa (Nicole Maines), who lives on the compound and has bonded with Natalie, arrives to save lots of Lottie.
As Natalie makes an attempt to calm Lisa down, Misty takes the state of affairs into her personal fingers. She expenses at Lisa with a syringe of phenobarbital. Natalie shoves Lisa out of the best way simply as Misty is about to stab her, and Misty kills Natalie as a substitute.
Natalie, who turns into the group’s chief within the Nineteen Nineties timeline, meets her finish within the current. As she dies, she has an out-of-body expertise in an empty aircraft as visions of Javi, her youthful self, and younger Lottie seem. “It’s not evil. Simply hungry, like us,” younger Lottie says, indicating that Natalie believes she is lastly being sacrificed to the wilderness. “Simply let it in.”
Natalie’s story could also be completed within the current timeline (Juliette Lewis might be missed!), however we nonetheless have a lot to study how she spent her time on high within the wilderness. May it really be Natalie who was the Antler Queen all alongside?
Going up in flames
Steven Krueger as Ben Scott in Yellowjackets season 2, episode 9
Kailey Schwerman—SHOWTIME
A significant character’s demise could also be a large enough be aware on which to finish a finale, however again within the wilderness, there’s one other important twist. After discovering Javi’s secret hideout within the earlier episode, Coach Ben returns to camp to seek out the women butchering Javi’s physique to eat. Horrified by witnessing them eat one other particular person, he contemplates a field of matches sitting on a pile of wooden outdoors the cabin.
Within the episode’s ultimate scene, teen Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) is writing in her journal as smoke out of the blue filters into the cabin. An enormous hearth is blazing outdoors. Because of some fast pondering by Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown), the women escape with their lives—and a few of their possessions—however lose the cabin to flames.
With out shelter from the chilly or components, the stakes for survival can solely develop extra dire for the crew by the point season 3 begins.
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