I have to admit, this was a much better episode of Yellowjackets than I’ve come to expect from the show. The downward turn it took in Season 2 soured me to most of the characters and left a huge cloud of doubt hanging over everything. I’m not saying we’re back, but ‘Them’s The Breaks’ definitely had me intrigued once again, both because it pushes the supernatural storyline (which I prefer to a mundane explanation) and because it leaves a wrinkle in that theory. Spoilers ahead.
Poison Gas Cave
We’ll get right to the weirdest part of the episode first, but we’ll take a moment to get there. Last week, in the two-part season premiere, Coach Ben captured a Yellowjacket. Mari fell into the pit he discovered with all the supplies, and after instructing her how to fix her dislocated knee, he helped her out and tied her up, bringing her back to his cave.
This week, she tries to escape by grabbing his canister of mace and spraying him in the eyes. He sprays her back and they both writhe on the ground in agony. “I can’t believe you maced me!” she shrieks. “You did this you #)$*!%& idiot!” he hollers back. It’s a pretty funny moment.
Eventually, though, he does free her. But first, they actually talk. She gives up her flirtatious attempt to get him to trust her and the two actually bond a little. After Ben goes on a little tangent questioning how any of this can be real, she tells him about her cousin who died from brain cancer at the age of four. “Why did you tell me that?” he asks. She tells him that she thinks that there might be two realities: The normal one and a bad one that lurks in the shadows. It’s a pretty creepy notion made creepier by the sudden shrieking they hear. We heard it in the premiere as well both when Travis is tripping on mushrooms and later, when they all gather around the graves. I’m getting black smoke monster vibes.
Then again, it (or It) could all be explained by something natural, like the poison gas filling one chamber of the cave. After Coach Ben frees Mari, she returns to the others and I think she fully intended to lie about what happened to her, but she’s a terrible liar. She admits that she was captured by Coach Ben and Shauna immediately demands to know where he is. She leads a torch-carrying hunting party through the night back to the cave (all they really need is pitchforks to really pull off the village mob vibe) where they find one of the tunnels blocked off with rocks.
The group splits up and Shauna, Van and Akilah head through the open passageway, which grows smaller and smaller as they venture deeper in until they come into a larger cavern. This is when things get weird. Van is the only one holding a light at this point, and when she turns both Shauna and Akilah are gone. She looks around and sees a wooden door in the cavern wall. When she goes through, she finds herself back in the cabin, a crackling fire blazing in the fireplace.
Each of the girls finds themselves in a different dream sequence, which we later learn are hallucinations caused by some kind of poison gas in the cave. Akilah is in a patch of blackberries which she wolfs down until she hears the sound of . . . baby goats. That makes two currently airing shows that have mysterious baby goats, since Apple’s Severance is also currently airing. A man’s voice suddenly says “Careful, they bite.” This is actually the voice of Vincent Pastore, aka Pussy from The Sopranos. In Yellowjackets, it belongs to a llama.
Akilah turns and the llama is standing next to her. “Sheep don’t bite,” she says. “Everything with teeth bites. Everything will defend itself,” the llama says. Then, “They’re calling you,” as shrieking fills the sky.
We cut to Shauna swimming languidly in the lake. Haunting, dreamlike music plays over the idyllic scene. She turns when a little boy at the edge of the water calls out “Mommy, mommy!” He’s waving and she tries to swim to him, but no matter how hard she swims, she never gets closer.
In the cabin, an ember from the fire spits out onto the floor and flames begin to surround Van. She’s in an airplane seat, buckled in, and can’t free herself. Arms grab at her as the fire laps at her feet. She manages to escape and run to the door, but it won’t open. The conflagration surrounds her.
In the woods, Akilah is still talking with the llama. “It can be easy or it can be hard, but either way, It’s gonna get what It wants,” the beast tells her. Vines wrap around her feet and she’s pulled underground. In the lake, Shauna is pulled underwater.
They each find themselves in a classroom. “Are you in my dream, or am I in one of yours?” Akilah asks Shauna and Van. “There’s only one dream,” the teacher says. It’s Lottie. Next to them, also wearing a Yellowjackets jersey, is Jackie (in yet another Ella Purnell cameo). She’s slapping a slap bracelet over her wrist. “You wanna try?” she asks Akilah, who takes it and does the same. Van tries next, but when she slaps it around her wrist she cries out in pain. A long gash is left where the bracelet struck. “It’s just a cut, you don’t have to be such a baby,” Jackie scolds her, then slaps the bracelet around Shauna’s neck.
Shauna begins choking, blood seeping out from her neck. Van looks on with eager eyes. “You have to help her,” Lottie says calmly. Akilah grabs at Shauna’s bloody neck. “I can’t!” she says. “You have to or she’ll die,” Lottie replies coldly. “We’ll all die.”
Shauna wakes up gasping for air, back in the cave. Akilah is next to her. Van is nowhere to be seen. Suddenly we hear Coach Ben calling for help. He drags Van to where the other two are laying. “It’s poison, it’s poison in there, some kind of gas,” he gasps. Then the others show up. Nat stands above him with a rifle, Tai next to her. “Don’t move,” she says. “Sorry coach, you’re coming with us.” The Cure plays over the scene, as Coach Ben stares back grimly. I suspect his saving three of the girls from the poison gas cave will change some hearts and minds next week, but most of the girls still blame him for burning down the cabin. I think a lot of us thought he did, as it was heavily implied this was the case in Season 2, but that’s much less clear now, and yet another mystery to be solved.
The poison gas cave also makes me wonder if all of the supernatural things taking place could just be explained by hallucinogenic fumes seeping out from an underground cave system. Is that why they hear this strange shrieking sound? But the shrieking Ben and Mari hear is more than just screams. The whole cave shakes. There’s something deeper and more guttural. And besides, psychedelics don’t affect everyone the same. You don’t all hear the same thing or see the same thing at the same time.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Meanwhile, In The Present Timeline
There’s not much more to the past timeline this episode. Last week, Shauna and Melissa shared a very, uh, bizarre kiss with Shauna’s knife pressed up against the other girl’s throat. It’s clear Melissa likes Shauna whereas Shauna seems as annoyed as she is intrigued by this potentially “boring” partner. Last week, it was strongly implied that Melissa is also an adult survivor and one that is likely paying Shauna a visit in the present timeline. Did she leave the note on her door addressed to Shauna Shipman, Shaunas’ maiden name? Did she leave the phone in the bathroom and turn off the lights?
And did she sabotage Shauna’s car this week, cutting her brakes so that she and Misty very nearly crash and die? I’m guessing the answer to all of these is “Yes” and I suspect that the adult version of this character will be played by Hilary Swank. What her motives are remains a mystery, but if she really is stalking Shauna with increasingly terrifying results, at least she won’t be “boring.”
I enjoyed Misty, as usual, this episode. Christina Ricci is so good in this role. She’s so absurd and ridiculous and full of it, you can’t help but like her. She tags along with Shauna, offering to sit in the waiting room of her obviously fake podiatrist appointment and help with her errands. It all goes bad when they very nearly crash into a picnic and Shauna blames Misty for the brakes. She lists off all the crazy nonsense Misty has done over the years, but Misty makes one very salient point: Why would she sabotage a car she was going to be riding in? She could have died, too. Shauna doesn’t listen, exiling her from the vehicle.
I’m less fond of adult Lottie. She looks a lot like teen Lottie, but she doesn’t feel like the same character the way most of the other adult cast feels like their teenage version. I think it’s all the smiling. Teen Lottie almost never smiles. She’s very serious. She’s obsessed with The Wilderness, the It that inhabits wherever they are and makes mysterious, miraculous and dreadful things happen. Adult Lottie is too charming, too socially adjusted, always smiling and elegant. She helps Callie steal an expensive dress. She makes dinner to thank Shauna for her spare room.
And she gives Callie Jackie’s necklace for some baffling reason. Shauna is furious when she sees it hanging around Callie’s neck, and not just because it was Shauna’s. This is also the necklace that the “pit girl” was wearing in the very beginning of the show. There is more than just sentimental value or symbolic meaning attached to this piece of jewelry. Why Lottie would give it to Callie is beyond me, though it’s certainly foreboding. But what I can’t get past is how Lottie acts through all of this. Why couldn’t she act more like the Lottie we know from the teen storyline? A bit spaced out, a bit ruthless, a bit cold, but with little flickers of kindness.
Finally, we come to Tai and Van in the modern day. Van learns her cancer has stopped metastasizing and then Tai tells her about the waiter dying. When Tai learns about Van’s prognosis, she’s no longer upset about the waiter. She fully embraces the idea that this was a sacrifice to It, and that this is a good thing. She lights a candle and begins saying the prayer to the Wilderness. This isn’t even Other Tai as far as we can tell, but just her normal self beginning to truly embrace the darkness.
Later, they watch old VHS tapes and a commercial comes on for Ozzie’s Homemade Ice Cream Parlor. As they watch, they see the Man With No Eyes in the commercial, eating an ice cream cone. (We also see him in the dream sequence walking past the classroom).
And in the dream sequence:
So this is a strange turn of events. Does it mean that Tai simply saw this insanely frightening commercial for an ice cream parlor as a kid and then incorporated that into her psyche somehow? Or is there more to this than meets the, uh, eye? I mean, honestly, what kind of local ice cream shop uses this freaky image in its commercial? Tai is also curious, and drags Van to the building’s location. It’s no longer operating, and seems to have sunk into disrepair over the years, but she breaks in and they explore the premises until a coyote appears carrying a dead rabbit in its mouth. It stares at them balefully.
“What do you want?” Tai asks.
“I know what It wants,” Van says. “It wants more.”
I’m not sure what to think of this season so far. I was pretty irritated by the first two episodes, though some of that could possibly be my overall feeling of irritation and disappointment with the second season. I loved the first season of Yellowjackets, watching it multiple times and telling everyone and sundry to please do the same. When you get really excited about something and get all your friends and family to watch it (not to mention plenty of readers) it stings that much more when you’re let down. Season 2 was a bitter pill to swallow and I even considered not watching Season 3.
But I’m certainly intrigued by this episode. The hallucination sequences were really gripping. The appearance of the Man With No Eyes now three times already makes me hopeful that we’ll get some answers there. The shrieking forest, the rumbling cave, the noxious gas, the appearance of yet another adult Yellowjacket, possibly trying to terrorize or kill Shauna, all of that is great.
On the other hand, I had this thought as I watched last night: Adding more adult survivors was one of the things that made this show less compelling. It was great when we had four adult survivors and knew that Travis had died recently and that was all we knew, because in the teen storyline, that meant that only Shauna, Nat, Misty, Tai and Travis were safe. Everyone else could die. I thought adding Lottie at the end of Season 1 was a stroke of genius, but then they squandered that by having a super dull, goofy Lottie storyline in Season 2.
Worse, they also added Van to the present timeline and just…fridged Tai’s wife and child…winnowing away at the number of teens who could die in the past timeline. That robbed the story of a lot of tension. Adding in new girls to that storyline also chopped away at the tension, because now the rules of the story are broken and we can just have any newcomer be the pit girl or some other victim at any point, while adding more and more adults to the present timeline. It feels very sloppy.
This smacks of a problem with planning ahead. Pretty soon, all the main teens from the past timeline will all be in the present timeline, leaving only newcomers and extras to die in the past. If they add adult Mari, I give up. It’s becoming more and more obvious that Mari is the pit girl, unless they decide to have one of the new Season 3 girls like Robin or Britt fill that role. How deflating would that be? Then it would be obvious they had no idea what was going on when the first season dropped.
So I am tempering my expectations even after a strong episode because they’ve made some big, structural errors with the narrative that I’m just not sure can be entirely overcome even if Season 3 is better than the last. I want to believe, as Mulder always says, but my guard is up. Season 2 was heartbreaking for all the wrong reasons. But I’m willing to keep an open mind for Season 3.
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