Summary
It’s still a bit messy, but the Season 2 premiere of Yellowjackets really leans into everything that was left unresolved and underexplored after the first season.
This recap of Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 1, “Friends, Romans, Countrymen”, contains spoilers.
Many have described the success of Showtime’s Yellowjackets as surprising, but how surprising is it, really? It has all the right elements in spades – it’s a high-school survivalist drama grafted onto a thriller with cannibalism and suggestions of occult horror growing off it in all directions. There are stars all over the place, and that Showtime seal of quality. What’s not to like?
It’s uneven, obviously. It’s about a high-school girls’ soccer team crash-landing in the Canadian wilderness and being forced to survive both each other and the inhospitable conditions, but it’s also about how the survivors, 25 years later, are being extorted for the truth of what really happened in the forest. Flitting between two timelines and an entirely different cast while continuing to deliberately obfuscate elements of both parallel stories isn’t an easy thing to do, and Yellowjackets doesn’t always do it very well, which you can see a little bit in the Season 2 premiere, “Friends, Romans, Countrymen”.
Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 1 Recap
What is Lottie doing in the present day?
But it does a lot more right than wrong, that’s for sure. Even the opening here is draped in weirdness, with Natalie and Travis heading out to hunt for food and Javi, with the blood-ritual blessing of Lottie, whose Wiccan wonders probably don’t work but represent a glimmer of possible protection in a harsh and unforgiving landscape. But drinking blood isn’t all that hopeful, is it? And Lottie drawing that all too familiar symbol on the window as they leave isn’t all that cheery either.
There’s a fair amount of Lottie focus in this opening hour. We see her shortly after being rescued, unable to speak or reassimilate into civilized society. We see her being given electroshock therapy. We see the manifestation of what seems to be supernatural “gifts”, with her laying a hand on someone’s chest and bringing them to a state of calm, almost magically, multiple times in multiple time periods.
In the present day, she has grown into what is quite unmistakably a cult leader.
Adult Lottie is a public figure and has enough influence to command a bunch of followers and operate on a pretty sprawling compound, where she leads rituals involving naked men, shallow graves, and animal masks, and to which she has Natalie delivered as a captive. There are many questions to be answered about how she has achieved this position, what she really wants, and whether or not her gifts truly are otherworldly, but she starts by throwing Natalie for a loop by saying she has a message for her from Travis.
Travis is dead, obviously, but in flashbacks we see him hyper-fixating on the survival of his little brother, Javi, and we also see how Lottie supported that position, despite how unlikely it was, driving a wedge between her and Natalie.
How do Shauna and Jeff dispose of the evidence?
Elsewhere, Shauna has a sudden realization when she finds a picture of herself in the wallet of murdered artist Adam – his private studio may well contain a fair amount of incriminating evidence that might connect her to him. And she’s right – Adam’s art studio is full of giant paintings of her that they have to butcher with turpentine.
The weird thing about all this is that Shauna takes Jeff with her. Of course, he’s not totally okay with the idea of his wife being the muse of another man, but he also falls for Shauna putting a sexy fantasy spin on the whole thing. Just weird all around, honestly, but Yellowjackets is very good at that; blending the darkly humorous with the horrifying; the weird with the normal.
You can kind of see it in the flashbacks, too, where Shauna is unable to process Jackie’s death and keeps having drawn-out conversations with her frozen corpse. At one point the body topples over and its frigid ear snaps off. There’s amusingly slapstick-y quality to all this until you remember the circumstances.
Anyway, in the present day, Shauna and Jeff have a little barbecue – breaking out the sausages as cover for using the grill in the fall – where they torch the remaining vestiges of Adam’s existence, including his wallet and ID. What they don’t realize, though, is that their daughter Callie isn’t just going through a phase of woke rebelliousness, but is actually suspicious enough of them to comb through the ashes of the barbecue and scoop out Adam’s conveniently unburnt photo ID. Uh-oh.
Is Taissa’s new puppy going to be okay?
Things aren’t going especially well for Taissa in “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” either, and the fate of her new puppy dog is in question, especially given what happened to the old one. This matter is a cause of some concern for Simone, who has discovered the secret ritual chamber in the basement containing a heart, the missing doll of their son, Sammy, and the severed head of their dog. A horrified Taissa, exploring this disturbing scene after having its existence exposed to her by Simone, promises the new pooch that she’ll be better.
Let’s hope so!
Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 1 Ending Explained
The Season 2 premiere of Yellowjackets ends in flashback, with Shauna remembering she has been carrying Jackie’s severed ear around with her for the entire episode. Upon discovering the now-defrosted little lobe, she does what any starving person would do, and pops it into her mouth. Yum!
You can stream Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 1, “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” exclusively on Showtime.
