Yellowjackets S2.03 — The smoking strawberry lube

Spoilers below for Yellowjackets S2.03 — Digestif

Another solid episode! Not as good as last week, but they can’t all culminate in a cannibal feast. Let’s dive in by timeline.

The plane crash timeline

For the most part, the girls stay together in this episode. At the beginning, they all feel a bit hungover from their feast last night. Tai goes as far as blacking the whole thing out — whether she did that on purpose or she was actually sleepwalking, we won’t know.

Teen Tai and Van

Sleepwalker Tai (ST) lets Van follow her through the woods and asks her questions. She finds out that ST is following the eyeless man (who Tai saw at her grandma’s house when her grandma was dying) only when Tai lets her. Van asks who ST is and she doesn’t respond. Tai eventually wakes up at the same spot with the symbol carved into the tree. Spooky.

Teen Nat

Nat refuses the safety blessing from Lottie and takes what is left of Jackie’s corpse back to the plane and has her own little heart-to-heart with her. She thanks her for potentially saving their lives with her body and says she actually feels a little jealous that Jackie is already dead. Then, a giant, mystical white moose appears. Nat tries to shoot him and does a terrible job. The moose charges the plane and then runs off.

Coach Ben

Oh man, Coach Ben is really going through it. He famously did not eat any of Jackie and now the girls have skipped breakfast because they are all still full (of Jackie and of shame). He keeps slipping in and out of consciousness and remembering his last conversations with his (ex) boyfriend, Paul. Paul lived in the city and wanted Ben to move in with him and finally come out. Ben was scared and said he owed it to the girls to at least finish the season. Paul ends the relationship, but in his last memory/dream, Ben comes over to Paul’s instead of going to the airport and as they embrace, the news reports the plane crash. Wishful thinking, but don’t worry Ben, I think your nightmare will soon be over.

Everyone else

The girls decide to throw Shauna a baby shower so she can start getting ready for the baby to arrive (Lottie says “him” and she’s magical, so I believe her). They make decorations, a little flower crown for Shauna to wear, and prepare gifts. Van gives Shauna a changing teepee so she doesn’t get peed on if it’s a boy and Misty does an extremely unhinged monologue from Steel Magnolias. Lastly, Lottie gives her a baby blanket with the symbol stitched onto it.

Nat doesn’t like that and freaks out. The girls start arguing. Lottie says the symbol was for protection and Nat points out that they found it next to a guy who was already dead. Most girls side with Lottie, which I am sure will continue for the rest of their time in the woods. Before they can fight for too much longer, Shauna’s nose starts to bleed. She gets blood right onto the new baby blanket. Then, they hear something falling on the roof. A lot of somethings.

They step outside and see a whole host of dead birds. The girls don’t know what to do — did the birds suicide on the roof or are they diseased? Lottie says they should collect the blessings and some of the girls do, kneeling in front of her to bring the birds. Everyone else heads inside.

The present timeline

Things are still progressing in the present, too.

Tai

After the car crash, Tai is generally fine but Simone is “not out of the woods yet” (yes, I’m sure pun intended). Tai takes herself to the bathroom and looks in the mirror. ST is staring back at her. Literally, Tai turns around and her mirror self does not. She turns back and ST is trying to tell her something. It looks like she is saying “Go to her” and then she covers her face with her hands in an interesting fashion.

Tai immediately walks out and sees her second hand woman. The woman is just doing her job, trying to get Tai off for the accident. Instead of listening, Tai asks for the woman’s keys and, reluctantly, she gives them to her. Tai walks off calling someone named Jessica on her phone. I thought Jessica was the name of the reporter from season 1 but I could be wrong.

Misty

Misty and the man from her Reddit thread meet at the dock to interrogate the witness. Unfortunately, the witness is Randy, Jeff’s friend who has been living at the motel, who also went to high school with everyone. Therefore, Misty can’t be seen by him. Instead, she Walter (Elijah Wood) calls her and says what she tells him to say in his earpiece.

The interrogation goes on for a long time and they don’t really learn much. Randy almost spills the beans about how he and Jeff were blackmailing Tai and Nat, but Misty brings the conversation back to Nat. Eventually, Randy tells them that there was a group of people wearing purple who drank all the Fanta in the vending machine.

After they let Randy go, Misty realizes they can trace the credit card that they used for the vending machine. Walter says he can do it with his “special skills” (hacking). He tells her that it came from a little town in upstate New York. Walter also says that he was actually just looking for her at the nursing home (that’s not his mom, he’s just helping out an old lady). When he asks why she keeps downvoting his theories, she tells him that she’s friends with Adam’s mom and she wouldn’t like his theories getting around. This semi-professional hacker/citizen detective obviously doesn’t believe her.

I’m not sure if Walter just likes Misty or if he is in this for another nefarious reason. We shall see!

Nat and Lottie

Well, now we know that Lottie’s cult center is in upstate New York, not the PNW. That makes a lot more sense! Even though Nat said she wanted to leave ASAP, she keeps hanging around. Lotte shows her their bees and explains how when a new queen is born, she stings the other queen to death. Lovely.

Lottie even has Nat participating in the sessions. She calls Nat up and has the woman Nat stabbed face her. She gives the woman a fork and tells her if her anger requires it, she can get violent with Nat. Before anything happens, the woman cries, drops the fork, and hugs Nat. She says they saved her life (to be fair, Nat was contemplating suicide when she was kidnapped) but she understands and forgives her for the forking.

Later, Lottie is walking around the grounds and sees the bees are dead and on top of the hive boxes. When she opens the box, the hives are covered in blood. She’s freaking out when a woman comes up to her and says something I think in French. Lottie is confused but then the woman speaks again and she’s just asking if Lottie is coming to lunch. The bees, it turns out, are fine, too. So, it seems like Lottie had a vision and not one she felt like she could control. Probably not a good sign when the leader of a cult is having wild visions.

Shauna (and Jeff)

Shauna and Jeff are the epitome of the Barbie movie meme: “She’s everything and he’s just Ken”. To start, Jeff is telling her that he understands that she cheated because he was boring. And he knows the moment he decided to become boring was when he said that “strawberry lube is for bisexuals and goths.” As a way to make their lives more exciting, Jeff says they are going to spontaneously drive to Colonial Williamsburg. WOOF that sentence just makes me sad! Instead, they get car jacked and even though Shauna wrestles the gun from the thief, Jeff lets him get away.

Obviously, Queen Shauna is keeping that gun. Then, she takes it a step further. She was able to track the car and went out to the garage where it was being kept. Gun drawn, she finds the man in charge and explains just how much she wants to kill him. Trust me, she is not playing around. Melanie Lynskey is an incredible actor and everything she does on this show is pure gold. When he is fully afraid, he tells her to just take the keys and go. And she does! She gives a little “thank you” as if she was picking up groceries and heads home.

Final thoughts/comments (all timelines)

• Eating the birds can sustain them a little longer, but the girls are definitely going to need to eat a human again soon. My money is on Coach Ben and then later on these new girls that they are introducing for cannibal fodder (Crystal, the gleek from episode one and the girl Tai was working with to make the cradle).
• Who is this Jessica person that Tai called? What is her plan here? I’m pretty sure she is fully Sleepwalking Tai at this point, so her motivations are more rooted with Lottie than anything else I think.
• Jeff made a mistake telling Kevin at the gym that his questions about Adam upset Shauna. How are they going to get out of this mess when Jeff is being so dumb all of the time?
• When are we going to see Adult Van?? I’m pretty sure she was promised, I’m ready to see her!

Originally published at http://lizziekreitman.wordpress.com on April 8, 2023.