Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for Season 2 of Yellowjackets.Yellowjackets is an all-around winner. From day one, it promised us cannibalism — or at least, it seemed so. The pilot episode included scenes depicting a social order in the woods we still haven't seen come to fruition: girls chasing another until she falls into a pit to her death (with fans of the show naming her "Pit Girl") and a group later eating what only can be presumed as Pit Girl's flesh. Yum.
But we didn't quite get there in Season 1, despite receiving a lot more tidbits about the wilderness and the power it holds over the girls, especially Lottie (Courtney Eaton). Before Season 2 even had the chance to air, Yellowjackets received an early Season 3 renewal, reinforcing the idea that the cannibal show may have a slow burn for the actual cannibalism.
Goodbye, Jackie
The Season 2 premiere packs a punch, taking big swings after a two-month time jump, even ending the episode with a hungry and pregnant Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) popping Jackie's ear in her mouth for a mid-afternoon snack. "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" is a highly successful episode, answering several questions left open from the Season 1 finale, mostly from the 2021 timeline: Natalie (Juliette Lewis) confronts Lottie (Simone Kessell), her kidnapper, at her cult, Taissa (Tawny Cypress) faces the consequences of and finds her altar (including her family's pet dog that she sacrificed), and Callie (Sarah Desjardins) truly discovers what her mother did to Adam Martin (Peter Gadiot). Concurrently, the audience finds out about the fallout following Jackie's death: Javi (Luciano Leroux) is still missing, the group is running out of food in the middle of a harsh winter, and Shauna is having conversations with Jackie's (Ella Purnell) frozen corpse.
This episode sets the stage for an intriguing season without frustrating the audience too much by leaving too many questions still unanswered. Once Jackie's corpse is established as still edible, not only do we know that cannibalism is coming, but the clock is ticking down, and the end is coming soon. With Jackie selected as the appetizer, we also get an important conflict that plays a role in Shauna's story as she tries to cope with the grief of not just losing her best friend at such a young age, but being trapped in a situation that causes such a huge mental break in Shauna's psyche. This also puts Shauna at odds with the other girls, further causing a rift within the group that could become important later on when things truly go to shit.
Roasting Jackie Taylor
Aptly titled "Edible Complex," the next episode doesn't deny us cannibalism any longer. At this point, we were definitely expecting it to happen soon, but the wilderness had a part to play in getting the girls, and Travis (Kevin Alves), to the point of no return, further solidifying that the actions the teens take to survive weren't completely of their own volition; they were driven to it. In a weird fever dream scene with Travis and Natalie, the former sees Lottie in a vision as the supernatural force in the woods pushes down the snow on top of Jackie's burning body (after the group decides to intervene in Shauna's startling behaviors), roasting Jackie instead of cremating her. Had this not happened, would the girls have gone down the route of eating each other at all?
Only Coach Ben (Steven Krueger) isn't tempted by the delicious-smelling roasted human. He can probably put two and two together — he is physically the weakest of the bunch. Thankfully, the scene doesn't go with too gruesome visuals, opting to splice in a scene of the team eating an Ancient Greek feast to show how filling and delicious their friend's flesh tasted to them. The tactful direction this takes also gives us a taste of the amount of disassociation necessary to get through the traumatic events that more than took away the ensemble's childhood.
Are We Cannibals Now?
If all the moving parts of this highly-awaited scene weren't enough, the direct fallout of their feast follows with the next episode, "Digestif." The group doesn't get in a circle and talk about their newfound human-eating tendencies, but it's evident that it's on all their minds. Apart from Taissa completely forgetting about eating Jackie, presumably due to her sleepwalking, the focus stays mostly on Shauna and Ben. Shauna feels guilt, but Lottie tells her that "she wanted" them to eat her. This is particularly interesting due to Lottie's connection with the wilderness, which we saw Jackie become a part of in the Season 1 finale.
Ben also seems to be on a downward spiral, flashing back to glimpses of his past life and the boyfriend he left behind to stay with the girls. One can only assume that Ben has taken Jackie's place being the person least prepared to cope with surviving in the wilderness. With Ben checked out mentally, there's a new type of psychological horror element incorporated into an already haunting narrative, and the fact that Ben hasn't popped up in the 2021 timeline doesn't make it any better. This episode isn't very vocal about the team's cannibalism, which shows how deeply this will infest the minds of the survivors. This introduces another source of horror and fear into Yellowjackets. The struggles that these characters faced after being rescued from the woods already showed us how their murder and diet molded who they would become as people, but this tells us also how much they would struggle even before they decisively started eating their fallen.
Season 2 of Yellowjackets has managed to strike a great balance, at least so far, three episodes in. Answering lingering questions while still asking new engaging ones isn't an easy task, so giving the audience a taste of what's promised while using it to create new conflicts and change up dynamics was the perfect narrative move. Now that we've been given both the beginning and the end, Yellowjackets can now focus on filling up that juicy middle. Teasing the audience out with this aspect of the show while still being able to deal with the repercussions of their hunger and the wilderness's effect is the best of both worlds when it comes to the pacing of the 1996 timeline. The viewers asking if Yellowjackets may have introduced the cannibal thread too soon are raising a valid concern since the girls still have another winter to survive. But with the way the Jackie meal went down, this placement actually adds more than it takes away when it comes to the overarching plot of this twisted, coming-of-age horror/thriller.
New episodes of Yellowjackets Season 2 premiere every Friday on the Showtime streaming app and every Sunday on-air.