Editor's Note: The following contains full spoilers for Yellowjackets Season 1. Showtime's Yellowjackets has officially given us a release date for Season 2 on March 24. If you haven't seen Yellowjackets before, stop what you're doing and give this 7 Primetime Emmy nominated show a watch. Created by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, Yellowjackets has been described as Lord Of The Flies with extra sting. The series follows a 90s high school girl's soccer team who are traveling by plane to Seattle for a tournament. On the way there, the plane crashes in the Canadian wilderness and the only survivors are the team, minus one, and the assistant team coach. The show chronicles how the team attempts to survive, thrive, and eventually dive head first into savagery as a "do what it takes to survive" display. In addition to that storyline, we also get to see the survivors in present day and how they are trying to put the pieces back together after what they experienced together in the woods. Yellowjackets has so many bizarre elements such as the hints of cannibalism, the supernatural, and the struggles of friendships and relationships through trauma and grief.
Season 1 ended with so many unanswered questions from the viewers. Who gets eaten? Who's the Antler Queen? What happened to Travis? Who's the one blackmailing the Yellowjackets as adults? Everyone is on the edge of their seats for these questions to be answered in Season 2. For now, let's go over the most outrageous and WTF moments that happened in Season 1 as a refresher.
Who Is Running in the Opening Scene of Yellowjackets?
The first 90 seconds of Episode 1 shows a girl sprinting, barefoot and in her nightgown, through the wilderness. She is obviously being chased, and we keep seeing tree carvings and Blair Witch-esque stick figures hanging from the trees. As the girl keeps running, she eventually falls to her death into a trap where she is impaled by stakes sticking out of the ground. Who's chasing her, and who even is she?
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How Does Misty Know How to Cauterize a Wound?
During Episode 2, One of the adult survivors of the crash is the assistant coach to the team, Ben Scott (Steven Krueger). Unfortunately for Ben, during the crash his leg becomes significantly mangled and is barely hanging on and is being crushed under part of the plane. He is bleeding out and the only way to get the bleeding to stop. (Un)luckily for him, teammate Misty (Christina Ricci) knows that she has to amputate the leg and cauterize the wound. How a high school girl knows how to do this is beyond me, but she cuts off his leg and later cauterizes it when the team builds a fire. Hooray?
Misty and the Black Box
Episode 2 is a doozy. Towards the end of the episode, after Ben's leg gets cut off, Misty finds the plane's black box in a clearing in the woods. Misty's desire to be needed by others is heavily shown already in the show. Since she just saved Ben and received praise from her other teammates, that desire overcomes her at that moment. Instead of using the flight recorder to rescue the team, she smashes it to pieces. This causes the viewers to ask more questions about Misty. How does she have the sets of skills she does? What is her motivation to not get rescued? How far will she go to be admired?
Misty Keeps Natalie from Relapsing
In the present-day storyline during Episode 8, Misty is yet again doing something weird and over the top. Natalie (Juliette Lewis) has been struggling with her sobriety and ends up scoring some coke. Just as Natalie is about to snort the coke, Misty comes barging into her motel room and does the cocaine herself to stop Natalie from relapsing. Great friend, right? Sure, except maybe Misty only knew that because she hid a camera in Natalie's room to keep an eye on her. As genuine as Misty's care for her friends is, her behavior makes her seem totally unhinged and viewers are constantly asking "what will she do next?"
When Natalie's Dad Died
Up until Episode 4, Natalie's troubled childhood is always referenced, but we never really see why. During this episode, we get to see how terrible of a human Natalie's father (Derek Hamilton) is. He's abusive, violent, and intimidating to Natalie any chance he can get. During one scene, he is berating Natalie for bringing a boy into her room and subsequently is beating Natalie's mom. In an act of defense for her mother, Natalie pulls a gun on him, forgetting that she left the safety on. He snatches the gun from her hands, makes fun of her, and then trips and falls and shoots himself. Talk about instant karma.
The Creepy Séance in the Cabin in the Woods
In Episode 5, the Yellowjackets find a dead body in the cabin in the woods (why is it always a creepy cabin in the woods?) and decide that it's a great idea to try and make contact with whoever the dead body is. What starts as an innocent "yes" or "no" question game turns dark when they light some candles and start asking questions about death. Lottie (Courtney Eaton) becomes suddenly possessed and speaking in fluent French, which is being roughly translated by Jackie (Ella Purnell) to words about being hungry and needing blood. Then Lottie bashes her head against the window, repeatedly. A girl's night to remember!
That Time Van Nearly Got Burned Alive
During Episode 7, the cabin the team is staying at is attacked by wolves and one teen, Van (Liv Hewson), gets the worst of it. Van is dragged through the woods by the wolves, but Tai (Jasmine Savoy Brown) eventually catches up, fires a flare gun, and beats the wolf. Unfortunately for Van, she has a chunk missing out of her cheek and appears dead. Episode 7 ends without any other Van updates, but during Episode 8, the team puts Van on a pyre to get rid of her body. Just as her legs are about to catch fire, Van wakes up and her teammates pull her off.
What Is Going On in Taissa's Basement?
In the season finale, Taissa's wife is in their basement and discovers a secret lair behind a wall. Inside the lair, she finds a gruesome shrine. On the makeshift altar, her son's doll, their family dog, and what we can presume as a human heart lay covered in fresh blood. Not to mention, the creepy symbol drawn on the wall that was seen from Episode 1 and throughout the series. This moment invokes so many questions! Whose heart is it? What is Taissa (Tawny Cypress) up to? What the hell is going on?
Doomcoming and the Shrooms Incident
The aptly named Episode 9, "Doomcoming", shows the team deciding to throw themselves a party to let loose and have fun since they will have missed their own homecoming dances. During the doomcoming, shrooms have been added to their refreshments, and everyone minus Jackie starts to go crazy. After finding Jackie and Travis (Kevin Alves) hooking up in the woods, the rest of the team starts to behave like wild animals. They all attack Travis, peeling off his clothes, kissing him, and eventually biting him. In their drug-induced state, they think Travis is a deer and catch him to kill him for food. Just as Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) is about to slice Travis' throat, Natalie yells at her to stop. It seems now that all the girls realize what's going on and come to, but Lottie is still maniacally laughing and acting crazed.
When Lottie Killed an Entire Bear
During the season finale, Lottie somehow manages to kill an entire bear. While the rest of the team has been drugged by Misty, a bear approaches the cabin. Without fear, Lottie approaches the bear, the bear drops to her side, and she proceeds to stab it and kill it. At the end of the episode, we see Lottie kneeling before a tree trunk and offering the bear heart and requesting to "let darkness run free". Behind her stands Van and Misty, leading us to believe that the cult has started. Is Lottie the Antler Queen?
Fans have been waiting for all of their questions to be answered and for the rest of the unclear storylines to be revealed. We will all be buzzing for answers until March 24!