I’m watching the new Yellowjackets episodes and giving you my thoughts as they happen, like I would if I were watching this with my wife. But, this is too horror and gory for her, so I don’t have anyone else to dork out with.
These will be a week or so after the episode airs so you have time to watch it and avoid Spoilers…
We’re starting in the past. Van is following Mirror Tai to sigil trees, and Van’s mapping them out.
In the present, Tai is getting glimpses into what Mirror Tai is up to. So it was Mirror Tai that took the car, and went to the private investigator’s house? Office? She driving somewhere with the Yellowjackets files, but doesn’t roll up the windows on the car she’s abandoning?
I’m digging the Alanis Morrisette version of “No Return.” It seems like this version is shorter than the regular one, and I’m wondering if they did this new one so they could tighten up the beginning credits to have more meat in the episode?
Jeff saying he overheard the cops talking at the gym reminds me of the Action Boyz Podcast bit where they hear all their movie trivia from people talking at the gym.
Lottie takes another dig at Lisa saying she needs practice driving.
Misty jump to the conclusion that everyone is kidnapped, becase then she would have no choice but to come to their rescue? No, she’s just probably pissed they’re ignoring her again like they did before.
They’re all lucky to have you. It’s pretty rare to have a friend who’s relentlessly got your back.
Something’s gotta be up with Walter. Telling Misty everything she wants to hear. Showing up right when she’s been abandoned by the rest of the Yellowjackets. Is he a figment of her imagination, too? Misty with the Starlight Express shade.
Transition to the past over “Rainbow Tour” from Evita, and that’s some sad-ass soup. Van has been following Mirror Tai, so I don’t think she’s stealing the bear meat. Coach Ben is really calling them out? Fuck, that’s how you end up their next meal, my man. And now Mari is calling out Nat, and it looks like we’ve got a contest on our hands.
Present. Nat is trying out her “You might be in a cult” standup material on Lisa.
Is the last time Lottie saw visions, back at the cabin, or something more recent?
Past. Misty is giving Lottie and Nat the rules for the hunt. Mari throws Lottie under the bus again by hyping her up. They both sort of seem like they don’t want to do this, like two kids on the playground whose friends have convinced them that they have to fight.
Lottie doesn’t know what she’s doing, or where she’s going. Just touching the sigil isn’t going to cut it, girl. Nat’s found rabbit tracks. Kinda Alice In Wonderland, if you ask me.
Present. Callie’s busted! Condoms — double busted! Adam’s driver license — nuclear busted! Callie’s texting the cop, and is walking home from school? She’s not in college!? So do bars in New Jersey just not ID people? I mean, it is Jersey, so… Melanie Lynsky has such the perfect “I’m hiding my rage, but showing you I’m hiding it, so you can see that I’m hiding it” face.
Misty is enraged at Walter’s weird food concoction. Does him being rich explain his “deal,”or is it the head trauma? I’m thinking Walter is too good to be true in that “Oh, I have a boyfriend, but you don’t know who he is, because he goes to a different school” way.
Tai is just walking down the road? Is she heading to a gas station, or what’s her plan? The truck driver voted for her? So he’s from New Jersey too, because isn’t she a State Senator? Or he’s a truck driver from Jersey who just so happens to be heading into the midwest too? Was Tai flipping the pen, her flipping back into Mirror Mode?
Past. There’s Mari with the dripping, again.I full-on expected Akilah to snap that mouse in two and chow down on it.
So, these altars are in several places then? Or did Lottie circle back around to the one she put the bear heart in, because that one’s by the cabin, right? So she thinks to offer blood here, but not the sigil on the tree? And I can’t tell — there’s something frozen in the lake? Is Nat going to fall in?
Present. Lisa wants to visit her goldfish Gilly, 14th of her name. That reminds me of comedian Laurie Kilmartin, and how her dad always named their dogs “Pepsi.” Yeah. Total cult. So does that make Lottie the baddie, or she’s trying to do the right thing for people, but just doing it in a bad way?
*Content Warning: Depression, suicide* OH FUCK NO! Yeah, new age woo-woo cult shit ain’t going to cure anyone’s depression. All it’s going to do it keep you under control, because if you’re feeling bad, you’re not “believing hard enough,” or “not doing it right”… Maybe Lottie is keeping depressed people around, so that they’ll eventually kill themselves, and it’ll fuel or keep the evil at bay, or whatever. I mean, sure she tries to help people, but you can’t save everyone, and if they’re just going to kill themselves, then why let that death go to waste? This kind of supports Lottie’s side of the story of what happened to Travis if this is, like, her M.O. *End C.W.*
If it works for her, what does it matter?
So now you’re okay with the cult, Nat? Or is this just her residual Parent Issues showing?
Another mother/daughter scene. Shawna wouldn’t bring Callie out to the middle of nowhere to kill her, would she?! Is that the same road they used to shoot the scenes of Tai walking/hitchhiking? With how much Callie defends and sticks-up for her dad, she is probably going to take after him and screw-up everything, isn’t she? She’s gonna go right to Mustachioed Jason Segel and spill the beans, huh?
Past. Van is mapping out the sigils in the forest. And, of course, they make one big sigil. So, is it focusing energy in that location, or trying to contain it within? Now Van and Tai are going out to look for something.
Coach Ben is reading The Magus, and I don’t know anything about that book in particular, but I do know that in Aleister Crowley’s Thoth tarot deck, The Magus replaces the traditional Magician as Major Arcana card I. Both of the images showing representation of a figure with the right arm raised, and left lowered, in what could represent the concept of “As above, so below.” The heavens, or spirit world, is mirrored on the earthly plane. One effects the other. Even the line cutting the sigil in half goes in the same direction! In the Tree Of Life, The Magician represents the Hebrew letter “Beth,” which means “house,” and they are in a freaking cabin!
Ben is flashing back, or is this another fantasy of him now living Paul? So, on one side they have the tacky cinderblock and wood board shelves, and on the other, there’s real shelving? Is this sort of Ben and his closeted bachelor aesthetic versus Jeff and his Out And Proud fabulousness? Ben ultimately fantasizing why their relationship, and if he chose that path, wouldn’t work?
Present. Lisa’s mom is named Sybil. Is that a reference? Leaving one manipulative environment for another, because that’s all she knows… So why would Nat take the fish out in her mouth, instead of just taking the whole bowl?
A Bed And Breakfast, eh, Walter?
Past. Nat is gathering reinforcements to get a moose out of the lake. I thought that was exactly what the rules were, Mari — they kill it, and then come back and everyone brings it back.
Wait, so Lottie is just letting herself bleed everywhere? Not wrapping up her hand and keeping it above her heart? How deep did she cut herself? There’s another fucking plane! Laura Lee’s bear? What the fuck?! There’s a hatch! As above, so below… Is this another Lost thing and dudes are under the cabin experimenting on people and fucking with their minds?!
Okay. This is all just a “vision” or hallucination from blood loss, or something. A creepy version of “No Return” playing at the mall. Laura Lee doesn’t want her to stay in the realm of the dead?
It’s that white moose from before. Oh shit, are they all going to fall through the ice? Was there anything they could have done to get that moose? Nobody has died, so I don’t think Lottie’s cut hand would have let Nat find it. Maybe just find — actually getting it would have required more.
Present. Is that the same bar that Callie was at? Or it’s supposed to be a different one, but they just used the same set? Is Lisa Nat’s Gilly, now?
Montage time to “Angst In My Pants” by Sparks. Are Misty and Walter the same person? Both being the same kind of paranoid — looking for filth and listening devices — but is it in her head? They start off in their beds on opposite sides, but then shift to the middle. Hmmm…
Shawna and Jeff have a moment, and so then she tells him that she told Callie everything. Oops! Jeff is dropping hints so we don’t forget about Shawna being pregnant back in the past. And so was honesty all that their family needed? Is Callie not going to meet up with Mustachioed Jason Segel anymore? He’s going to wonder what’s going on. Shawna, you of all people should have taught your daughter some goddamn knife skills, c’mon!
Pan transition to the past. As above, so below… Misty’s playing with the candle flame. And so Mari and Akilah went out looking for Lottie while everyone else was going to get the moose? Now everyone’s starting to come together, again. Power struggle postponed.
Present. In tarot, the Queen Of Hearts is analogous to the Queen Of Cups. With playing cards, there is no inversion — no right-side-up as there is in tarot — just a flipped image. Above and below. That’s a serious knife Lottie’s sporting. She’s made another little shrine, and wants just blood — not death — to be enough. Enough for whatever was in the woods, or for what’s in her head?
Past. Okay, I get it now. The weird tree Nat and Travis found had moss on it, and the snow was melted. There’s moss along the windows in the cabin, too. Is that Javi?!
Present. Was Nat just doing all that nice stuff for Lisa to manipulate her, and now she’s going to shatter that trust by snooping in Lottie’s stuff?
Past. Is that Javi, or maybe just his body? Mirror Javi? Nat peaces-out. There goes her bond with Travis. The power struggle between Nat and Lottie may be quashed, but now Tai versus Lottie just got kicked up a notch.
Present. Van runs a video store. Ugh, I hate cassette nostalgia. Tapes sucked. They were all we had, so we didn’t have a choice. And cassettes weren’t meant to last forever, either, so all those have to be in the worst fucking condition. You’d have to have an old TV, too, because you can’t hook-up VCRs to modern TVs — they don’t have the inputs. How the hell many people can be customers there? I mean, all the horror and supernatural stuff — okay, I can suspend disbelief. But this bullshit is just too much for me…
Final Thoughts
What if Lottie isn’t the Antler Queen? I know she’s kind of been setup for us to think that, but this episode, she seems very reluctant to be in charge. Or maybe she’s just not comfortable or not accepting of her “powers.”
Is the setup that Javi stole the bear meat, and is possibly the mystery pooper — lending credence to Misty’s “Is it a girl poo or buy poo” question?
The style of this episode was a lot more ambitious than previous ones. Moodier. Pacing and cutting between scenes was very solid. There was a lot that was setup in this episode and foreshadowed, but it wasn’t heavy-handed. When things that falling into place, you’ll be watching and go: “Oh yeah! I remember! Holy shit!”
I’m doing good not getting spoiled, so far. I’ll try to catch up this week, because there’s a lot of chatter online, and some shit is starting to hit fans… Let me know your favorite parts and theories in the comments. I’ll have watched the next episode before this posts, so I won’t be spoiled by anything. See ya next week!
-bcp