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Yellowjackets s2 ep 5.png

'Yellowjackets' Mid-Season Check-In: Lottie's The Problem, It's Her

By Tori Preston | TV | April 24, 2023 |

By Tori Preston | TV | April 24, 2023 |


Yellowjackets s2 ep 5.png

When I wrote about the season two premiere of Yellowjackets, I casually — perhaps even hastily — asserted that Lottie was involved in Travis’s “ritualistic murder.” The evidence was suspicious albeit circumstantial: His hanging body was discovered surrounded by candles in the same telltale pattern we know is linked to the mystery of the woods, and Lottie was the person who emptied his bank account. Of course, Lottie eventually revealed to Natalie that she absolutely was involved in his death, though it was an accident — she was there to make sure he didn’t die with his madcap scheme, only the button stopped working. And then she, you know, cleaned up the death site and took all his money.

That still didn’t feel like the whole story to me, and I’ve struggled all season to pin down why I absolutely do not trust Adult Lottie even though I’m sympathetic to Lottie in the past. Is Natalie’s distrust rubbing off on me? Do I just hate self-styled gurus? So I’ve sat back and waited for the pieces to come together, and maybe this is another case of me jumping to conclusions again but … I’m pretty sure they just did. I think Lottie is the vessel for the Darkness in the woods.

The big reveal of season two, episode five (“Two Truths And A Lie”) involves Lottie in the present helping Natalie uncover the memory of whatever she said to Travis that made him leave behind the note saying that Natalie was right. It makes sense in Lottie’s more therapeutic guise, that she’s helping Natalie refocus her misdirected obsession with Lottie’s secrets inward to uncover the only truth that really matters, but it also becomes clear that whatever Natalie told Travis is also Lottie’s obsession. She saw Travis die chasing the source of his own haunting, and she’s started having visions again herself. She’s looking for answers, and Natalie just may hold the key (which means Lottie kidnapped Natalie not just to save her life to but to get these answers — not especially altruistic, after all). Lottie hypnotizes Natalie into remembering the last time she saw Travis, which turns out to be a drug-fueled night in a hotel room during which Natalie overdosed. Natalie had her own vision at that time, of the crash site with no survivors and of the mysterious antler-headed figure.

“We weren’t alone out there,” Natalie says, recounting that vision to Lottie. Upon resuscitation, Natalie told Travis that “We brought it back with us,” but she’s able to explain it more clearly to Lottie. “The whole time, there was something … some darkness … out there with us. Or in us. It still is. That’s what I was right about.” Remembering it brings relief to Natalie, who lays her head on Lottie’s lap — we see it as her teenage self, a sign of trust — but Lottie looks more disturbed than ever. She glances to the side with panicked eyes, and the camera cuts to a shadow on the floor. The shadow of the antler-headed figure also turning its head. Because it’s Lottie!

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So: Did all of the survivors bring some form of this Darkness back with them, or is Lottie the only one? And if she has been harboring this figure inside her, is that what made the button suddenly stop working when Travis died? Did Lottie kinda, sorta, inadvertently… murder Travis after all?

And if Natalie’s vision saw everyone dead in that plane crash, are we doing some kinda Final Destination thing where death catches up to everyone one by one? Is Devon Sawa gonna guest star next?!

And speaking of guest stars…Elijah Wood isn’t, like, gone gone right? He drove away after Misty told him to beat it, because she couldn’t handle that he was helping her despite the fact that he thought she was Adam’s killer this whole time. He was wrong, but that wasn’t the problem really. The issue is that she’s harboring guilt over her own kinda-sorta murder, when she accidentally flushed her BFF Crystal off that toilet-cliff. You see, Crystal and Misty were trading secrets, like how Crystal isn’t her real name and how Misty totally destroyed the plane’s black box. You know, just some totally normal, average teenage secrets, only for some reason Crystal gets upset when she finds out Misty is the reason the team was never rescued. Misty tries to threaten her into staying silent about it, only the threat works a little too well. She backs Crystal right up to the edge of the cliff and the girl falls over. Right where they dump the poo bucket. It’s not a pleasant end, but it is nice to know Yellowjackets hadn’t completely forgotten about that horrible thing Misty did last season that was never mentioned again.

Unlike Elijah Wood, the cops are a little closer to finding Adam’s killer, until Shauna’s daughter tries to throw them off the scent by telling her undercover pig boyfriend that her mom’s been cheating with … Randy. Shauna, apparently completely fine with using her daughter as an accomplice, seizes the opportunity to make it look like she’s hooking up with her husband’s best friend by heading over to Randy’s hotel room and telling him to masturbate into a condom to make it look convincing. It woulda worked, too, if it wasn’t for undercover pig boyfriend being so dedicated he decided to … sniff the used condom. Which was filled with strawberry-scented hand lotion. Once again, a major plot point revolving around a guy not being able to maintain an erection, but hey — at least it wasn’t Travis this time!

Oh, and Tai makes it to Van’s video rental store, and we get our first episode with Lauren Ambrose as Adult Van. She’s perfect. Van immediately figures out that Tai has started sleepwalking again and needs help, then gets to witness it herself when Sleepy-Tai kisses her and ominously says, “This isn’t where we’re supposed to be.” Gee, why does that sound familiar…

Finally, one more note about Lottie. This episode didn’t just confirm that something ain’t right with our girl in the present, but it also showed something’s more off than expected with her in the past as well. Shauna wakes up to find Lottie whispering to her pregnant belly, saying “You’re gonna change everything” to the baby, and is understandably weirded out. Of course, the episode ends with Shauna going into labor, so we may finally find out more about what makes that baby so special next week. Assuming they don’t eat it.