Yellowjackets: Season Three, Part Three

"You deserve everything that's coming to you."

(This review covers episodes 8 though 10 of Yellowjackets season 3, and contains spoilers.)

As the title of the Yellowjackets season three finale suggests, an effort is made here to bring many of the series’ biggest storylines “full circle.” What happens in these three episodes is both messy and cathartic, as we get answers to questions that have been hanging over viewers since the pilot.

The journey to get to the answers the finale provides is a tumultuous one, as the series attempts to ramp up the tension in the adult timeline, to very mixed results. Shauna learns of Melissa’s surprise survival in the present day, something that she didn’t expect since Melissa had killed herself years prior. It’s a turn of events that's not altogether surprising given teen Melissa’s sudden increase in screen time this year, but with her adult counterpart played by Hilary Swank, it is out of the ordinary that someone so... background is about to become an important piece of the adult storyline. More surprising again is that Melissa would choose to marry Hannah’s daughter. Melissa goes by Jennifer now too, so Hannah’s daughter doesn’t even know the truth about Melissa’s potential role in her mother’s death, which is insane in its own right. That and adult Melissa is still wearing that goddamn backwards baseball cap. That might be one of the craziest things that’s been sold to us so far.

Melissa wastes no time in upending the lives of the adult survivors, not only throwing Shauna through a loop with her innocent intentions in sending Hannah’s tape, but also making Shauna realise that she wasn’t really being harassed this whole time. Worse still, Shauna is stuck in that boring miserable life she was so desperate to avoid years ago. Faced with the reality that she’s in a misery of her own making, Shauna lashes out at Melissa, forcing her to eat her own flesh. Gross. The most shocking repercussion of their reunion comes later, though.

As the remaining adult survivors arrive in time to catch Melissa making a break for it, things get even crazier. Van’s struggle with her prognosis comes to a head of sorts, as a dream of her younger self forces her to make the journey to stop Shauna. Unfortunately for her, that journey winds up being her final one. I had a lot of theories as to how Van’s time on the show would come to an end, but I didn’t expect it to be at the hands of backwards baseball cap wearing Melissa, whose motivations for plunging a knife into her old teammate remain a mystery. Van goes out making a choice to not give into “It” and accepts her fate, making her untimely death all the more tragic. It’s hard to believe this was the end goal for Van when they made the decision to have her survive the events of the wilderness. Even writing this out now, I don’t understand the reasons for it. Maybe that will reveal itself as we see Hilary Swank take up a more prominent role down the line.

How Tai immediately deals with Van’s death takes a minute to understand. Moving Van’s body out of Melissa’s home, she finds somewhere to stop so she can cut Van’s heart out and eat it, just as the group did to “honor” their kills in the past. Apparently a big speech was cut here, a bit of a smack in the face for Tai (and Tawny Cypress, whom I’m sure did a stellar job). The relationship she had with Van deserved a better send off. Another scene apparently extended the dreamlike confrontation Tai had with her darker self, though one could argue that was more deserving of the cutting room floor. I'd be happy to see that entire subplot buried next season. It just never fully clicked, even back in season one.

As we learn about everything Shauna was a part of in the wilderness, we see adult Tai and Misty join forces to take her down for everything they feel she’s responsible for, which is a hell of a lot (more of that later). I’m not sure I buy that it took this long for the adult Yellowjackets to turn on Shauna. She’s done crazy things since the first season, why wait until now to pull the brakes? The group risked a hell of a lot when Shauna killed Adam, and have done nothing but continue to ruin their lives because of her since then.

Maybe Shauna’s indirect role in Lottie’s murder is a major factor in the decision to turn on her. Callie is revealed in the finale as the person responsible for pushing Lottie down those stairs to her death, all because of how strongly she believed Callie was a product of the wilderness. I guess the seeds of this kind of knee-jerk reaction from Callie were sown here and there, but it feels like a sad way out for Lottie. Like Van, I wonder if this was always the end goal for her character. She was built up so much last season, to see her be killed like this is a bit of a gutpunch. She lacked purpose without the cult, so I can see why she’s been taken off the playing board, but did it need to happen this way? I’m not sure. I’ll miss Simone Kessell, too. Another immaculate casting of a teen character.

Shauna’s role in the series is crystal clear now – she’s the villain. As the teens finally find a way out of the wilderness with Hannah and her guide Kodiak in captivity, Shauna, along with Lottie and Tai, decide they don’t want their time in the wilderness to end. Lottie and Tai have their own reasons for staying (Lottie’s... Lottie, and Tai is torn between two different sides of herself) but Shauna’s reasons are purely selfish, which play into her violent reaction to adult Melissa’s survival in the present.

All season long we’ve seen how angry Shauna has gotten, and how much she’s relished violence – that huge grin she had after poor Edwin bit the dust was probably one of maybe two times she’s smiled since season two. There have been other times we’ve seen that darkness in her, as well. We saw how easily she made Nat be the one to cut up coach Ben; she was essentially the driving force of Ben’s own demise, convincing a huge portion of the group of his supposed guilt; and in these final episodes she uses her role as the leader to position herself as someone that fans have long speculated about: The Antler Queen in the centre of that cannibalistic feast in the pilot episode.

Shauna being behind the Antler Queen mask all along makes a lot of sense, though I feel like her transition into full villain has been ham fisted at times. She essentially started this season an angry mess. There haven’t been many... levels to that anger, and Sophie Nelisse hasn’t exactly had the chance to do anything other than yell and snarl her nostrils a lot. The finale goes a long way to sell her meanness, as we learn of how much of a role she played in yet another death of one of their own. Shauna jumps at the prospect of another hunt, one that Lottie suggests for different reasons. Shauna might say it’s to give the wilderness what it wants, but that’s all a smoke screen. All she wants is to hunt, kill and get bloody revenge on someone she feels wronged her. Sadly for Mari, her time as a Yellowjacket comes to an end, but not as cleanly as you might expect.

It was a three season long question: who is “Pit Girl”? The pilot's opening remains a stellar one, giving us a glimpse into how dark the teens’ time in the wilderness was going to get. Mari being the one to fall to her death is an obvious reveal, but also the only one that makes sense. She was teased for a long time as Pit Girl, the most overt tease being the opening scene of this season. Playing decoy back then was a huge hint as to the circumstances of her role here, as she conspires with other teammates to distract Shauna so the now maniacal leader can be taken out (along with Lottie). She only ends up being that distraction herself because of Shauna, but she doesn’t go down without a fight. I had to laugh at her final line as Lottie stands by and makes barely any attempt to warn her of her impending death: “Oh my God fuck off!!”

Mari’s death would have been in vain, were it not for even more conspiring going on during the hunt Shauna called for. Melissa balks at the chance to kill her former girlfriend, a decision I can only assume plays into her actually killing another Yellowjacket in the present, and the result of Akilah’s confrontation with Lottie is never seen, so we know both intended targets live. What Shauna’s teammates do succeed in is getting Nat out of Dodge, so she can be the one to take the now repaired phone that Hannah had, and make the fateful call that gets them all rescued.

I have to admit, I found myself needing to replay the whole Pit Girl sequence a couple of times to really understand what was happening, and who was aligned with whom. It was a bit muddled at times, and the masks and shaky camera angles didn’t help. The decision to reframe the scene as something a little less sinister overall, with only Shauna really gunning for Mari’s death, made sense for where this story has gone. I can’t imagine the writers knew exactly how this mystery girl would end up being hunted, but it was woven into this season well enough. The editing of Misty smiling was very different, though. I do think she was always meant to be enjoying her role in the feast. Instead she’s smiling because she helped Nat get away.

It had to be Nat that was responsible for their rescue. She’s become the de facto hero of the story. I’m still bummed that her adult counterpart is gone. In hindsight, shouldn’t her role have been recast? Now we know how much she helped the group in the past, it would only be right to see Nat be the one to save the others from Shauna in the present. I don’t see how that part of the series can recover without that catharsis. Will another adult survivor be revealed to fill that void? All of this does help inform one thing; why Misty worships Nat in the present. As the only one to learn about what Misty did to the black box, Nat did her a huge favour in hiding it from the group. Not to mention that she’s the reason Misty is alive at all. I’d follow her around like a puppy dog, too.

We Hear the Wilderness

We learn about Van’s ability to rig the cards, a trick she tried (and failed) to use to get Hannah to pick the queen. Obviously Shauna knew about this and took the opportunity to get Mari killed. I wonder if that’s why Shauna was crying out for a recount when the adults played the game in season two?

Hannah nearly snuck out of captivity with Kodiak before the Pit Girl hunt, but Shauna has developed super senses for some reason. To get out a messy death at Shauna’s hand, Hannah shoves a knife in Kodiak’s head. I don’t think she’ll be going down without a fight next season.

Akilah confronts Lottie in the caves as part of the group's plan to take her and Shauna out, but the result of that confrontation is never seen. I really hope Akilah didn't die off screen. She'd actually make for a wonderful adult survivor since Nat isn't around. The group needs another moral centre.

And it Hears Us

Shauna: "...We recognise, deep down, that we were having so much fun. That's the terrible truth we left out there, buried. Along with the people we called our friends."

Tai: "If we keep letting this slide, she's gonna end up being the last one standing. And I don't want that. Do you?"
Misty: "No. I definitively do not."

I really wanted to finish this season loving Yellowjackets again and singing its praises. That first season remains an absolute blast, from start to finish. The second was a slow burn, and one that didn’t end with as much payoff as it should have. This one has been a lot of fun, but the series still bears the weight of a lack of planning and foresight, something that showed painfully onscreen as this season came to a close. It’s transformed from a genuinely great series, to one that’s only occasionally great. I can only hope that a renewal is around the corner for a fourth and final season. At this point I can’t see it stretching beyond that.

6.5 out of 10 Pit Girls.

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