What On Earth Just Happened?

At this point, I’m willing to declare Yellowjackets a new, unfortunately less-watched version of Lost, only limited by its availability on Showtime, a tough sell to subscribe to in this age of streaming services. But honestly, it’s worth a free trial month to binge all of season 1, which you can now do, given that the finale just aired yesterday.

And what a finale it was. Spoilers follow.

All season long, fans have been waiting for some answers from Yellowjackets, and while we got some, a whole bunch of new questions were raised. Let’s go through all the major events, most of which were packed into the last ten minutes or so.

We finally found out how Jackie died, and it was in a way no one expected. Theories had her either being the hunted, killed and eaten Pit Girl in the first episode, or secretly surviving the entire thing. Instead, rejected by her classmates, she froze to death during the first unexpected snow of the winter (after failing to thank nature for helping them, incidentally).

Of note, in Jackie’s dream, we see a guy we’ve never seen before. He appears to be wearing a camo jacket, and it seems like he’s probably the skeleton in the attic who is the owner of the cabin. He also looked young, or at least young enough where he didn’t die of old age up there. I expect we might see him in season 2, and learn more about the circumstances of his death. Remember, the “cult” symbols were in the woods before the team crashed there.

The biggest reveal of the episode of the fact that Lottie survived, though she’s never been shown in the present day, and appears to be leading a cult using the symbol from the woods. They kidnap Natalie and appear to be the ones who killed Travis, given that they emptied his bank account. Now, who knew that Lottie survived? Did everyone, and they just lost touch with her, or was she supposed to be dead? And why is Lottie now hunting everyone now, after all this time?

Another huge reveal is the horrific sacrifice altar that Taissa made with a doll and the head of her dog in her house, which her wife discovers. Is the idea that there’s a secret, dark part of her doing this, an alter ego, or is she just…pure evil? That smile when she wins is something to consider, and the idea is that she made that sacrifice in order to win the election. It’s possible she may be a part of Lottie’s cult to begin with. Also, that bite on her hand? From the dog, not her. That makes sense now.

Misty is…insane, obviously, but is she a member of the cult or not? We know she has little problem killing people. She kills her prisoner with a poisoned cigarette, which was not wholly unexpected. But more importantly, we saw her kneeling alongside Lottie in the woods as a subscriber of her new “worship the forest” mentality alongside Van. And now that we know Lottie is alive, it seems like anyone we haven’t seen die yet, including Van, could be alive in present day. That rules out Jackie (cold death) and Laura Lee (plane death) but everyone else is fair game.

Where is Javi? Who is Pit Girl, if not Jackie or Lottie? Lottie is definitely the Antler Queen now, right?

I’d say that Yellowjackets certainly stuck the landing here in season 1, and this show is not based on a book, so there’s no reading ahead to figure out what’s going on here. I told you, it’s the new Lost.

Season 2 is effectively a sure thing, so we’ll see when it might return. Hopefully in no less than a year, barring delays, but I sure will miss this on Sundays going forward.

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.