Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for ‘Yellowjackets’ Season 2, Episode 7.
One of the main appeals of Yellowjackets comes from how the series plays with our perception and challenges the audience to ask what’s real. However, while the battle between faith and reason seemed contained to the past timeline, Season 2 brought these questions to the present with the introduction of adult Lottie (Simone Kessell). While she was in the wilderness, teenager Lottie (Courtney Eaton) was convinced she had a special connection with a supernatural force hiding between the trees. However, 25 years later, Lottie accepts that the supposed supernatural phenomena she witnessed were only the fruit of her unstable mental health, which is why she created a community dedicated to giving support to those that need it the most. Lottie also has regular sessions with a therapist who helps her keep a firm grip on reality. Or, at least, that’s what we were led to believe until Episode 7, when Yellowjackets subverts everything we thought we knew about Lottie’s mental health.
What Do Lottie's Therapist Sessions Mean?
Since the first season of Yellowjackets, we are led to believe Lottie suffers from an unnamed mental disease. The teenager has to take pills to keep herself from embracing her delusions, and without her medication, she begins to communicate with the wilderness spirit after the plane crash. Of course, the series never addresses Lottie’s mental health directly, so there is a chance her family was only trying to suppress the girl’s supernatural abilities. Still, every clue we got so far was ambiguous enough for us to believe in a scientific explanation. For instance, after being rescued, Lottie was admitted to a mental health institution in Switzerland, where she spent more than a decade.
After Lottie left the Switzerland hospital, she used her family’s fortune to open Camp Green Pine, a “wellness retreat” that looks suspiciously like a cult. Still, as much as we might be suspicious about Lottie’s intentions with Camp Green Pine, until Episode 7, it did seem like the Yellowjackets' survivor had everyone’s best interests in mind. Lottie even took time to take care of herself, talking with a therapist about her doubts regarding the supposed supernatural experiences she had in the wilderness. Unfortunately, this all changes in Episode 7, and things might get a lot worse for Lottie and her friends in the upcoming episodes.
Is Lottie Really Influenced By Evil Forces?
In Episode 7, we see Lottie as she tells her therapist she can no longer deny the influence of the dark force from the wilderness. As much as Lottie tried to fight it, and convince herself the things she saw in the woods weren’t real, the fact all the survivors came to Camp Green Pine is a sign there's a mysterious energy binding their fates together. Lottie also confesses she feels better now that she accepts the supernatural events of the wilderness as the truth, a feeling that nevertheless scares her. To our surprise, Lottie’s therapist doesn't try to bring her back to reality. In fact, the therapist asks Lottie if it wouldn’t be better to accept this supernatural force and welcome its powers. It’s not what we would expect a mental health professional to say, but that’s not the worst of it. When Lottie asks her therapist what she truly means by her words, the image changes, and the woman transforms into the Antler Queen. The Antler Queen then asks Lottie if a hunt without violence can feed anyone before vanishing completely.
The revelation that Lottie was talking to herself — or to a supernatural force — changes everything we know about the survivor. It’s clear in Episode 7 that no therapist is talking to Lottie in that particular scene. Yet, Yellowjackets doesn’t clarify if every therapy session we've witnessed so far was also fake. There is a chance Lottie does have a mental health professional following her and only the latest section was a hallucination. But we cannot discard the terrifying idea that Lottie has been talking to herself this entire time. And if that’s the case, we have to ask how long it has been since Lottie had proper mental health care.
Lottie’s friends were surprised she got out of the Switzerland facility where she spent so many years, which means no one expected her to build a somewhat ordinary life for herself. In addition, Yellowjackets never explain exactly how or when Lottie was dismissed and came back to the United States. So, maybe Lottie never got better and just built a different set of fantasies to convince herself she was getting treatment. Or maybe she has been haunted by the wilderness spirit all these years. Like everything in Yellowjackets, we still don’t have a clear answer. But the revelation Lottie’s therapist isn’t a real person is a good reminder we should be questioning everything we see.
New episodes of Yellowjackets Season 2 premiere every Friday on the Showtime streaming app and every Sunday on-air.