'Yellowjackets': What Do We Know About Lottie?

As sad as it was to see Juliette Lewis exit the show last season, I can’t help but think that Yellowjackets turned a corner when it finally started killing off the adult versions of the characters. For two seasons, the present-day storyline seemed to serve no function other than to confirm which Yellowjackets had made it out of the woods, but now that we know the “survivors” aren’t safe either, the dramatic heft of the series feels more evenly split across the two timelines.

That trend continued with the somewhat baffling death of Lottie last week, which is shaping up to be the central mystery of the season. Here’s what we know:

Lottie Definitely Was Murdered… Probably
Sure, her death was ruled an accident because it looked like she just fell down some stairs, but this is Yellowjackets. Even if it was an accident, we’ll find out that somehow the Wilderness engineered it as a sacrifice or something. Misty certainly thinks Lottie was murdered, so she’s investigating it, and Walter — who is trying to get Misty’s attention by competing with her, apparently — teamed up with Shauna to launch his own investigation.

The Evidence So Far
Lottie died at the bottom of a service stairwell in the building where her father had lived for decades. The doorman tells Misty that Lottie had been staying there with her father for weeks, which means that when Lottie arrived on Shauna’s doorstep asking for a place to stay because she had no place else to go, it was a lie.

Misty finds scratch marks at the murder site that match debris she took from Lottie’s fingernails — likely Lottie reached out for support as she fell. No one has remarked on it yet, but the candles on the stairs remind me of the scene of Travis’ death in season one (which we all thought was the work of Lottie, even though it was an accident).

We know Lottie was on her way to see someone before she died, because we saw her practicing an apology in the mirror in the previous episode. Who could she have owed an apology to, and who might have wanted her dead?

The Likeliest Suspects
Shauna thinks Misty is the killer, even though Misty is the one who broke the sad news to her former teammates. Is this just some more typical Shauna BS, blaming Misty for everything under the sun, or does she have a point? Lottie was somewhat responsible for everything that happened with Natalie last season, leading to Misty accidentally killing her best friend, so yeah — Misty could hold a grudge. But I don’t think she does. Why go through the trouble of investigating an accidental death if you know you did it?

Van asks Tai where she was during the hour they were apart in New York, which lines up with Lottie’s death. Tai claims she was finding the perfect carriage and pretzel vendor for their date, but it shouldn’t have taken that long. Now, I wouldn’t have pegged Tai for this, except this week’s episode also established that in the past, Tai managed to manifest her violent sleepwalking persona to help her execute Coach Ben (he’s saved at the last minute). I’m not sure you could say she manifested her other half at will necessarily, but it happened when Tai was awake and needed to do something violent and difficult. This was the same persona that beheaded Tai’s family dog and built a shrine to it, so “violent” and “difficult” are very much in its wheelhouse. It’s also the persona that is connected to the no-eyed man, which Tai has been learning more about this season, including tracing it to an ice cream shop commercial. I’m not sure what Lottie would have needed to apologize to Tai about, but after three seasons of dragging Tai’s sleepwalking storyline out, I could see Yellowjackets resolving it in a big murdery way like this.

Of course, there’s still the matter of whoever Shauna’s maybe-stalker is. Do we need a stalker AND a murderer in the same season? Seems like an easy two birds/ one stone situation! I’m also pretty sure that we’re going to meet Melissa and/or Akilah in the present soon, given how much screentime the characters are getting in the past, so if we’re looking for new Yellowjackets to be the culprit, my money is on those two.

Walter broke the news of Lottie’s death to Misty. How did he find out so fast? Is he willing to do anything for her attention? I love when Elijah Wood gets a chance to go nutso in a role, so I wouldn’t hate it if he’s the killer even if it doesn’t serve the story in any real way.