'Yellowjackets' burning questions we have going into Season 2
Buzz buzz! It's Season 2 and our lost football team of Yellowjackets are still smack bang in the middle of the Canadian wilderness in the '90s past, and trying valiantly to keep their heads above water in the prevailing mysteries of the present.
For Season 1's riveting finale, we heaped our plates with theories, many of which we asked showrunner and executive producer Jonathan Lisco about. But there are many questions we still have. Did Lottie survive, and is she a cult leader? Who wrote the unauthorized Yellowjackets book? Will Shauna and Misty get away with murder(s)?
We've put together an epic rundown of everything you need to remember from Season 1, so once you're up to speed, here are the big questions we have for Season 2.
Is Lottie a cult leader now?
It took until the Season 1 finale, but we finally got a vital clue confirming Lottie (Courtney Eaton) survived the wilderness and may be up to something. Thanks to Natalie's childhood best friend and now detective Kevyn Tan (Alex Wyndham) and her sponsor Suzie (Colleen Wheeler), she finds out adult Lottie (Simone Kessell in Season 2) was the person who emptied Travis' (Andres Soto) bank account after he died. Did Lottie have anything to do with Travis' death? What's her plan with all that money? Well, in the Season 2 trailer, we get another clue, as Lotti appears to be running some form of luxe cult in a lakeside spot in the woods.
This future for Lottie makes sense; her increasingly prominent "visions" and potential as a spiritual leader crescendoed in Season 1, seeing her finally don the Antler Queen crown amid the shrooms of the "Doomcoming" episode. Over the series, Lottie's connection with spirituality seems initially distant at best, but it quickly intensifies. She's the first of the Yellowjackets to find one of the apotropaic symbols in the woods, and she naturally moves into the role of divine sage after a few prophetic experiences. In the season finale, Lottie makes a ritual offering of a bear's heart to the woods, announcing, "Shed blood, my beautiful friends, and let the darkness set us free." Lottie's path to making ritualistic practice dominant seems set — but did it follow her back to the present?
Who wrote the unauthorised Yellowjackets book?
Someone wrote a book about the Yellowjackets' time in the wilderness, and it doesn't seem to have been Taissa (Tawny Cypress), Shauna (Melanie Lynskey), Misty (Christina Ricci), or Natalie. StarLedger journalist-in-disguise Jessica Roberts (Rekha Sharma) approached all four in Season 1 for a seven-figure deal. However, under interrogation by Misty, Jessica admits Taissa hired her to investigate every returning Yellowjacket and tempt them with a book deal to see their reaction.
But despite this book being a ruse, there's a real, though unofficial Yellowjackets book out there — Shauna finds a copy of Skin in the Game: The Unauthorized Story of Flight 2525 in her lover Adam Martin's (Peter Gadiot's) studio, hidden in a drawer. Sadly, Shauna stabs him before we get a better look inside that book. So, who wrote it? We don't really know what's detailed in the pages, but it can't be hugely close to the truth as the main Yellowjackets in the series are still trying to protect that — Shauna keeps her journal under lock and key, but maybe someone else wrote it all down?
Will Shauna get away with murder?
Adam's past wasn't adding up when Shauna did some digging, and that unfortunate copy of Skin in the Game led her to the wrong conclusion that Adam was the blackmailer — when it was actually her husband Jeff (Warren Kole) all along. But will she get away with his murder? Shauna has a slew of accomplices now; Taissa, Natalie, and Misty helped her clean up her crime after Jeff suggested Shauna tell her teammates Adam was the blackmailer, seemingly clearing them both of wrongdoing.
In the trailer for Season 2, we spy a group of cops led by Kevyn standing at the front door to Shauna and Jeff's house, which might mean they're not exactly out of the woods (too soon?). In the season finale, Adam's disappearance hits the headlines as Jeff and Shauna are watching TV with their daughter Callie (Sarah Desjardins), who instantly recognises Adam from the art school party Shauna hauled her home from. In the trailer, it seems Shauna confesses the murder to Callie, so we're keen to see what Callie does with this particularly unsettling information.
Will murder also come back to haunt Misty?
During her work for Taissa, private investigator Jessica Roberts meets a sticky end in Season 1 after Misty holds her hostage in her basement with the intention of securing a confession to the postcard blackmail and Travis' murder. Thanks to Shauna's lie, Misty thinks Adam is the blackmailer and the situation sorted. But she murders Jessica anyway, releasing her but lethally lacing her cigarettes with Fentanyl. Jessica’s death might appear to be a drug overdose to the cops, but will Misty outrun investigation?
What actually happened to Travis?
The mystery surrounding Travis' (Andres Soto's) death in Season 1 didn't get fully resolved, so we expect more investigation into this in Season 2. With the help of online "citizen detective" Misty, his former lover and best friend Natalie tragically finds a missing Travis in episode 3, seemingly having died by suicide as the police later deduce. But Natalie instantly suspects murder, and Natalie and Misty spend most of Season 1 trying to figure it out, finding a note reading "Tell Nat she was right" in his house and determining there were candles arranged (then subsequently removed) in the shape of that ominous symbol from the wilderness.
Under interrogation by Misty, Jessica reveals she visited Travis at his house before he was killed (working as a private investigator for Taissa) but he refused to talk to her. After hearing of his death, Jessica investigated — figuring out his bank account was emptied and closed after his death. "Whoever has that money probably killed Travis," she says. As part of her own investigation, Natalie basically blackmails her sponsor to look into Travis' drained bank accounts, and in the finale, she calls, reporting, "I think someone's following me. Who the fuck is Lottie Matthews?" suggesting it was Lottie who emptied it. So what the hell has Lottie got to do with Travis' death?
Who kidnapped Natalie?
In the Season 1 finale, Natalie's own death is interrupted when she's kidnapped by people wearing purple and smuggled into a van painted with that strange symbol we've seen all season. Natalie's sponsor calls her right before the moment of abduction and mentions Lottie Matthews. Has Lottie kidnapped Natalie using her purple-clad followers? And if so, why? This seems like a case for a certain citizen detective...
Where’s Javi?
Javi (Luciano Leroux) has been missing since the "Doomcoming", and it's unclear whether he's still alive. Having been shroom-drugged by Misty, the team got weird, danced around a bit, and tried to assault Travis. During a terrifying hunt through the woods, Shauna came upon Javi, who she told to “run”. Since then, we have no idea where he is, if he's alright, or whether he's found help, but Travis is determined to find him — and Natalie is determined to help him.
Will anyone ever figure out what Misty did after the crash?
In case you've forgotten, Misty doomed the Yellowjackets to their long stint in the wilderness from the start. In episode 2, immediately after the crash, Misty springs into action while others are processing their shock, delivering medical aid in particular to Coach Ben Scott (Steven Krueger) who suffers a horrific leg amputation. Taking a leak, Misty finds the plane's flight recorder, aka the black box. But alas, she also overhears her teammates saying, "We would be so completely fucked if she wasn't here." Misty decides she's never had more power or felt so valued in her life, so destroys any possibility of losing it. Will anyone ever return to the plane site and find the recorder's pulverised remains? What will happen after it's revealed?
Will Shauna have her baby this season?
Teen Shauna's pregnancy (Sophie Nélisse) is both a looming challenge and source of deep guilt for her in Season 1, and it's likely she'll be pretty much ready to give birth in Season 2. Yes, it's Jeff's baby (Jack DePew), her best friend Jackie's (Ella Purnell's) boyfriend who she was sleeping with before they crashed. The team is stranded in the wilderness for 19 months, and Shauna realises she's pregnant mere weeks into their time in the cabin. So if you do the math, Shauna's going to have this baby halfway through their time in the woods. Does that mean Season 2?
Will Taissa gain control of her alter ego?
Taissa's sleeping awakeness hasn't been resolved yet, and only seemed to get worse during Season 1, with her son Sammy (Aidan Stoxx) referring to her subconscious self as "the bad one" or "the lady in the tree." We still haven’t quite figured out who the man with no eyes is, the presence seemingly inherited from her dying grandmother. There's been some creepy basement altars built and Biscuit sacrifices discovered (justice for Biscuit), so Taissa's wife Simone (Rukiya Bernard) leaves with Sammy in the season finale. But will Taissa find a way to control her sleeping self? And…does she actually not know what’s happening when she’s asleep?
"When we began the story, she wasn't even aware that she was the lady in the tree, right?" showrunner and executive producer Jonathan Lisco told Mashable last year. "She wasn't aware that she was who Sammy was seeing out his window or that this sleepwalking-channeled trauma was still plaguing her in 2021. Now, the question is: Did she really not know it?"
"Once we go through the arc of her season and reach that beautiful shot, where Taissa has that look of reckoning and understanding on her face as she is realizing that she has this altar in her house just as Simone discovers it, I think what we're asking is, 'Should we be really worried about her now?' Because now Taissa is seeing the advantages of having this dark alter ego, whereas before she was thinking it was merely a bad thing. But now moving into Season 2, is it something that she could selectively tap into to achieve certain things in her life?”
How will the team deal with Jackie's death?
Jackie's death in the season finale is one of the most significant moments in the series — the Yellowjackets' captain hath fallen. It's a series of unfortunate events leading up to Jackie's tragic freezing to death outside the cabin, but the fact that not one team member goes outside to check she's OK in the cold, and Jackie's own stubbornness, mean she's left to the elements. Exactly how the team, particularly Shauna, will deal with her death will likely begin the series, and fuel their choices from there.
Will Van get her pretzel in New York?
In episode 7, when Van (Liv Hewson) is insisting on joining Taissa on her quest to go south and find help, Van opens up a little and tells Tai what she wants to do when she gets the hell out of the woods. "I want to go to New York with you, and I want to buy you a fucking soft pretzel, and I want to take you on a f**king horse and carriage ride through Central Park." Season 2 will let us meet grown up Van (played by Lauren Ambrose) but it’s unclear what she’s been up to and how her relationship with Taissa ended.
Who is Elijah Wood playing?
Elijah Wood is a highly welcome addition to the cast for Yellowjackets in Season 2, and it appears he's teaming up with Misty. The show's official social media accounts posted an image of Wood and Ricci, welcoming Wood's character Walter "to the Bureau of Citizen Detectives." So, it looks like Misty might have a sleuth pal.
What exactly is the darkness in the woods?
It's still unclear what dark forces lurk in the woods, but they're sure to continue to build power in Season 2 as the team's hunger grows. Yellowjackets' core mystery hinges around the dance between supernatural forces and the power of fear, whether the darkness is in someone's mind or moves externally — and the role trauma plays in its power.
The "something lurking in the woods" mystery will continue in Season 2, as the creepy symbols continue showing up in the present. But what exactly is this power? Lottie constantly talks about the darkness in the wilderness "being in all of you." During the seance scene, she repeats the words, "It wants…It wants…It wants…hungry," before speaking French about something wanting blood and declaring "You must spill blood or else." Considering the final moment of Season 1, and Lottie's declaration ("Shed blood, my beautiful friends, and let the darkness set us free.") we're in for a whole lot more sacrificing if we're gonna get to the Pit Girl ritualistic cannibalism scene from Season 1, episode 1.
How will the big rescue happen (and how do we get, uh, here...)?
Thanks to Misty's malicious meddling, we know the Yellowjackets spend exactly 19 months in the wilderness without being rescued. We know they do get rescued of course, but exactly how this happens remains to be seen — and we still don't know how we get to that first ever scene from Season 1 before the rescue. Are we sure that's Lottie running the show? What about the pink Converse? How the hell will anyone actually find them while they're running around enjoying their woodland peril? It's going to be one massive moment when they finally get out of there — whether it happens this season though remains to be seen.
Yellowjackets Season 2 begins streaming March 24 on Showtime, with new episodes streaming weekly on Fridays. Episodes also air every Sunday on Showtime at 9 p.m. ET, starting March 26.