After an emotional and intense episode last week, Yellowjackets Season 2 gives us a surprisingly lowkey one, with some genuinely sweet and fun moments among our present-day Yellowjackets. However, this is still Yellowjackets we’re talking about, so it’s not completely devoid of stakes, and it’s certainly not just smooth sailing.

With all of our known-living Yellowjackets now having arrived at Lottie’s (Simone Kessell) cult — ahem, “intentional community,” we finally get to see how everyone interacts with her in the present day. Obviously, emotions are running high back in the '90s timeline, with opinions being split and back and forth about Lottie (Courtney Eaton). Most interesting though is Van’s (Lauren Ambrose) reaction since, as a teenager, Van (Liv Hewson) was one of Lottie’s followers/believers. In the present day, however, Van’s quite short with her and doesn’t seem willing to put up with her potential power anymore — though we may finally be starting to see the start of why that is beginning to unfold. A lot of this week's episode focuses on the teen group grieving and trying to carry on after the loss of Shauna’s (Sophie Nélisse) baby, and also the disappearance of Crystal (Nuha Jes Izman), which isn’t exactly a disappearance so much as it is a tragic death. But as we’ve come to learn, things aren’t quite so black and white on this show.

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Group Healing

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Image via Showtime

The adult cast of characters has arrived at Camp Green Pine, where they now have to face Lottie for the first time in years — decades, even. We begin with Misty (Christina Ricci) collecting everyone’s belongings, from phones to pens, even Shauna’s (Melanie Lynskey) entire purse. Hilariously, Misty has taken on quite the leadership role at the camp despite being there for maybe 24 hours, if that. Lottie then tells them that they all get to choose a treatment, whatever speaks to them. Naturally, they’re all quite skeptical, with Van even flat-out saying she’s not interested, but Natalie (Juliette Lewis) encourages them to give it a try. Shauna picks self-care, Tai (Tawny Cypress) picks renewal, Van opts for forage, and Misty is left with guidance, which Lottie claims is her personal favorite.

Guidance requires Misty to enter a sensory deprivation tank, which she is extremely apprehensive of at first, so much so that she sneaks off until she’s found by one of the other members who brings her back. She finally does enter the tank, and thus we are given one of the greatest (albeit bizarre) sequences of the episode. While inside the lights go out, and she begins seeing visions/hallucinations of sorts. These consist of a human-sized Caligula (played by a delightful John Cameron Mitchell) dancing and singing to her, as well as Walter (Elijah Wood) joining in on the number. Misty talks with the human version of Caligula and asks if people only see her as someone desperate for love — or as a murderer, like Walter and Shauna have both now accused her of.

It’s during this sequence that Misty finally realizes she has feelings for Walter, something we viewers have known for a while, and when she exits the tank sneaks away (again) to call him. She gets his answering machine, but still leaves him a chaotic message in which she tells him that he was right about “the thing,” and says that it’s hard for her to take the leap and trust people, but that she misses him and his grandma seems really cool. She then plays a little round of “you hang up — no, you hang up” with herself in true Misty fashion. After the blowup between the two and Walter catching onto her mysterious tendencies and involvement with the Adam Martin (Peter Gadiot) case, it’ll be interesting to see what happens when these two reunite.

Shauna’s self-care requires her to take care of a baby goat for the day. She expected a nice massage for self-care and is worried that she’ll get all attached to the goat, and then they’ll make her slit its throat (always an optimist, our Shauna). When Misty sneaks off to avoid the tank, she bumps into Shauna, who has tied up the goat to a tree in order to relax. However, the goat has chewed through the rope and now she has to try and find it. Shauna tells Misty that she’s just going to have to kill the goat so why should she get attached, to which Misty makes a joke and tells her to pretend the goat is Adam — because she had no problem killing him. Shauna naturally takes offense to that and reminds Misty that Adam attacked her (which we know isn’t true), and then goes on to say that, unlike Misty, she doesn’t think of killing as a joke.

After Walter basically accusing her of being a serial killer in a previous episode, this makes Misty pause before telling Shauna that she’s not so innocent either. Shauna finds the goat and tries to foist it off on another member of the community, who says it's her responsibility — regardless of whether it may have eaten some rope or not. She then finds Lottie, who informs her she won’t have to kill the goat, but Shauna begins to cry in an echo of a similar scene from a few episodes ago between her and Lottie as teenagers. She says that she’s always kept Callie (Sarah Desjardins) at arm's length in case she died or was never even real to begin with (both were the case with wilderness baby). Shauna has consistently struggled with motherhood and hasn’t always been the greatest mother, but the more we learn about her, the more it all makes sense. Maybe she’ll come out of this place feeling enlightened — or, at the very least, more equipped to be a better mother to Callie.

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Meanwhile, Tai’s treatment of renewal has her painting a building with a paintbrush, and she pulls Lottie aside to call her on it, because it is quite ridiculous. She tells Lottie that she’s been sleepwalking again and that she’s not worried about her own safety, but instead worried about what the sleepwalking part of her might do to her family. Lottie says that the other part of her may not want to hurt her family; she just doesn’t want to be suppressed. Later, Tai sets her wedding ring down and is called over by Van, whose treatment was forage. Her interpretation of that is to forage through her truck and acquire a bottle of tequila, which she offers to Tai. They talk a bit, and then the inevitable happens: they finally kiss. For all of us who love teenage Tai and Van, ever since adult Van has stepped onto the scene it’s been a question whether she and Tai would rekindle a romance. After all, Tai’s marriage is on the fritz and Van is single, why wouldn’t they reignite that young love spark? Taissa eventually breaks the kiss and tells her she can’t, and that it will be a long road before she can, to which Van says she can’t wait for her. Taissa tells her she doesn’t expect her to, but Van reiterates and says she really can’t wait for her because she doesn’t have time. She then reveals she has cancer and has only months to live, which is devastating to both Taissa and us viewers. It just feels so brutal after all she’s been through in life. Van tells Tai that she didn’t want to tell her because she didn’t want her pity and she didn’t want to see that solemn look on her face when she found out. Van’s seemingly accepted her fate, but Taissa still mentions that she knows a specialist at Johns Hopkins, which Van scoffs at.

Lottie's been around and checking in with everyone, but we see her later on alone in a therapy session. She tells her therapist that “it” wants them all together, and that she feels wonderful, yet terrified that everyone is there. Her therapist suggests that she feels this way because when she was with them in the past, she felt free, so why can’t she embrace that now? Lottie says that they hurt each other and that people died, and this triggers her therapist to turn into the titular Antler Queen, saying: “Does a hunt that has no violence feed anyone?” It’s revealed that the entire session has just been a hallucination of Lottie’s and that she’s been imagining the entire thing — meaning her visions are getting worse and worse, and proving to be dire.

Toward the end of the episode, Natalie gathers everyone and says that she’s hoped they learned something from their treatments. Shauna is the first to call her out on it, because Nat really doesn’t seem like herself — or at least not the Nat we’ve come to know and love. Lottie walks in and says they should all just go home, but they invite her to sit down instead, with Natalie telling her to stop resisting. She agrees and pulls out a case of what must be homemade alcohol of sorts. The women take shots, dance, and laugh with one another in a montage, and it’s nice to see them have a genuinely good moment together. As they dance in the snow outside, they’re interrupted by an urgent phone call for Shauna. It's from Jeff (Warren Kole) — who tells her, in the most “this phone might be bugged” way, that Adam’s remains have been found. It was only a matter of time before the Adam situation caught up with them, but how will it all play out?

Grieving Methods

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Back in the '90s timeline, the blizzard has finally stopped and Travis (Kevin Alves) manages to get the door open, letting in a lot of snow with it. Tai (Jasmin Savoy-Brown) tries her best to get Shauna to at least drink some water, but Shauna refuses and simply rolls away. We later follow her as she walks around outside, cradling her baby close. She sets him down on the ground and creates a burial for him, with rocks on all sides to protect him from the elements and animals. It’s heartbreaking to watch, but maybe now the eating wilderness baby theories can be finally put to rest.

However, one of the most interesting parts of the episode is Van’s dwindling faith. She’s been a pretty big believer in Lottie, but as we saw in the present day, that isn't the case any longer; here, the cracks are beginning to show. While talking to Tai, Van says that even if the baby had survived it doesn’t change the fact that Shauna and the rest of them are starving and that they need to wake up and face that fact. She says that after all she’s survived, she thought she had a bigger purpose, but she just isn’t seeing it. Tai tries her best to calm her, telling her that she would be dead without her, but it doesn’t seem to shake Van's resolve.

On the flip side, Misty (Sammi Hanratty) overhears Mari (Alexa Barajas) say that she thinks Misty did something to Crystal because even though the snow has stopped now, she isn’t searching for her. In an attempt to steer those allegations away from herself, Misty gathers everyone and says they need to look for Crystal. One of the team members, Melissa (Jenna Burgess), says that maybe the wilderness took Crystal and the baby, to which Gen (Mya Lowe) says that maybe it will give them something back. Lottie then says the wilderness doesn’t trade or haggle and that it already gave them what they wanted because Shauna lived. They all gather to say a prayer to the wilderness before heading out to find Crystal. Gen says it might not be the worst thing if Crystal is dead, suggesting without saying it that they could eat her.

Out in the woods, Lottie tells Tai that a part of her knew where Javi (Luciano Leroux) was and asks if she can find Crystal as well, but Tai says that since she’s started coming to Lottie’s meetings she hasn’t been sleepwalking, and that the part of her that knew where Javi was is gone. Lottie informs her it’s not gone, though, and that’s a good thing. Meanwhile, Misty is tracking behind Mari and Akilah (Nia Sondaya) and begins to cry, saying she’s scared they’ll find Crystal all blue and frozen like how they found Jackie (Ella Purnell). Mari and Akilah tell her to just go back to the cabin because she shouldn’t have to see her friend like that in case she is dead. But that was Misty’s plan from the start, as she wants to hide Crystal’s body before the team can find it since she refuses to let them eat her. Only when she gets to the place where Crystal fell from the cliff, her body is nowhere to be found. Misty digs through the snow, covering every inch, but comes up empty-handed. Did the wilderness really take her?

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Image via Showtime

By the time Misty makes it back up the mountain, she finds Coach Ben (Steven Krueger) standing by the edge. She tells him he’s too close, and he simply asks her to push him off, which Misty of course refuses to do. She then attempts to keep him from stepping off, saying that they'll eat him if he does. He says he doesn’t care. In perfectly Misty fashion, she then says that she’ll make sure she eats his butt and savors it, but that doesn't mark an impact either. In a last-ditch attempt to keep him from jumping, Misty declares that once they're rescued, she’ll tell everyone that Ben impregnated Shauna and tried to do the same to everyone else, that she’ll tell the world that they were in love, and, finally, that she’ll tell everyone he’s gay. This makes him pause for a moment, but he doesn't relent. It looks grim for Coach, but then Misty begins to cry, saying that she tried so hard to keep the baby alive and she can’t have another death on her hands, and finally (much to our relief), Ben takes a step back, safely away from the edge of the cliff.

Having come up empty-handed in finding Crystal, everyone reconvenes at the cabin. Misty begins to hum to herself, which ticks off Shauna — who begins screaming at her since it was the same song being hummed in her nightmare last episode when she found everyone eating her baby. Misty says she heard Crystal humming it, but Shauna screams that she killed her baby, and when Van tries to hold her back she bites her, and then turns around and slaps Lottie too. Lottie, who orders Travis to bring Javi into the other room, then tells Shauna to let out all of her anger on her, putting her hands behind her back and staying still. And Shauna does just that, brutally beating on Lottie until she’s unconscious and so bloody and swollen she’s unrecognizable. She finally lets up, and at first, Lottie seems unresponsive, which seems to startle Shauna at first, but she eventually shows signs of life. Shauna simply walks outside and buries her bloodied knuckles in the snow as the team springs to Lottie’s aid, looking back at the cabin with an ominous stare.