Each week Terry and Joe discuss the most recent episode of Showtime’s serialized thriller, Yellowjackets.

Spoilers follow for episode 8, “Flight of the Bumblebee”

Plot: While in triage after a vicious attack, the Yellowjackets are left to suss out the best of their worst ideas. Shauna dabbles in some light cyberstalking.

JOE

Well Terry, it appears that Yellowjackets got us again: not only is Van (Liv Hewson) not dead, but Laura Lee (Jane Widdop) becomes the first main character to die in 1996.

In our defense, by all accounts Van actually did die…or her wounds were convincing enough that Tai (Jasmin Savoy Brown), Misty (Samantha Hanratty), Mari (Alexa Barajas), and Akilah (Keeya King) nearly burn her body on a makeshift pyre. “Really? Fire?” she murmurs after she’s saved, which is amusing considering her near fate in episode two. It’s also the show doing a cheeky job of foreshadowing Laura Lee (and her bear Leonard)’s eventual fate in the closing moments.

Never let anyone tell you that Yellowjackets doesn’t have a sense of humour.

In truth, I haven’t been wild about the series’ LOST-like approach to offering a quick flashback primer on a character, especially recently. With Lottie (Courtney Eaton), it felt brief, but far more significant because of her baptism/vision quest. With Laura Lee, it’s different because we know that her flight is doomed from the get-go.

As a result the flashback scene - she cracks her head open in the Mary Magdalene Summer Camp pool and has a religious epiphany - has a different vibe than other flashbacks. It makes her storyline here feel jokey; it verges on cruel. Normally this wouldn’t bother me when religious hypocrisy is involved, but there’s something calculated about showing a teengirl find meaning in religion before killing her in a selfless act she undertakes solely to help her friends.

I’m sure you were more focused on the return of the supernatural elements, though, Terry: how did Leonard the bear suddenly catch fire in the plane’s cockpit? I actually think this was another act of subterfuge. Though I can’t say who, I feel like Leonard could have easily been doused in accelerant or something before Laura Lee took off, perhaps by Misty or maybe Coach Scott (Steven Krueger)?

After all, “The Flight of the Bumblebee” more or less confirms that everyone - even sane, rational people - are capable of completely batshit responses when pressed. Consider Misty (Christina Ricchi)’s willingness to snort $300 of Nat (Juliette Lewis)’s coke. Consider Nat blackmailing a former Narcotics Anonymous sponsor in order to gain access to Travis’ bank records. Or what about Jessica Roberts (Rekha Sharma)’ threatening Caligula the parrot in Misty’s basement prison? Hell, even Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) storming over to Adam (Peter Gadiot)’s loft to demand answers after discovering glitter in the closet feels dangerous considering she has no idea what the Glitter Bandit is capable of!

If we’re being honest, all of this whack-a-doodle behaviour in the present kept my attention far more than the scenes in 1996. While I have a hunch that viewers are responding most strongly to the post-crash scenes, watching the contemporary iteration of the survivors make increasingly irrational decisions (Misty, Nat) or come closer together (Shauna, Tawny Cypress’ Tai) feels more emotionally hefty. I particularly liked the complementary nature of the latter pair’s scenes, especially the symmetry of Shauna comforting Tai in 96 after she confesses that her sleepwalking got Van injured, a visual that repeats in the present as both women admit their faults during the sleepover.

The specific way that exposition is innocuously folded into this discussion really worked for me. We hear about all of Shauna’s plans that never came to pass (Brown, a relationship with French mime Francois) and compare those to Tai’s plans (Howard and Colombia for law, interning at major firms) - all of which actually did come true. This, partnered with Tai’s admission that her sleepwalking problem is the result of stress & trauma and terrifies her, offers some of the richest character work for Taissa so far. Shout-out to Cypress in this episode: she really shines in these moments of vulnerability.

But Terry, there’s still so much to talk about. Do you have thoughts on Jackie (Ella Purnell)? Between her admission about Nat (Sophie Thatcher)’s dalliance with Billy “the Flex” to Travis (Kevin Alves) and loudly telling the camp about Shauna (Sophie Nélisse)’s pregnancy, she’s really fucking up peoples’ lives, no? Are you surprised that Coach Scott is a big old ’mo? Did you appreciate Adult Shauna addressing her daughter Callie (Sarah Desjardins)’ judgement? And can we talk about how fucking rough that scene where Van gets stitched up is?

TERRY

The first thing I want to talk about, Joe, is the Glitter Bandit. You opened this recap with a discussion that Yellowjackets got us again and subverted expectations. Well, here’s the thing…what if Adam is a red herring?

The glitter in the closet where Adam hid obviously points to him. But we have also been rather suspicious of Jeff (Warren Kole) and his alleged affair. I have to point out that Jeff was out and about the entire night, as well, presumably to do inventory at his store. Shauna believes he’s sleeping around with the blonde woman she saw at the hotel and that would be the logical story.

But in the very beginning of the season, it was suggested that Shauna and Jeff might have money woes. Jessica Roberts (by the way, I keep wanting to write Jessica Rabbit…) even dangled money in front of her face. I know last week I suggested that Shauna and Adam might be in on the blackmail, but this episode seemingly confirms that’s not the case because after she finds the glitter in her closet, Shauna immediately checks the safe.

Maybe it is playing out as anticipated: Adam is actually an adult Javi and is also blackmailing the group for money. Or maybe he is only Javi and has no knowledge of the blackmail attempts because, dun dun DUN, Jeff is blackmailing for a nest egg…maybe an extramarital nest egg.

Absolutely wild conjectures, I know. But, hey…Yellowjackets brings it out in me.

Onto more concrete things. I’m 100% with you that the plane’s explosion wasn’t the forest keeping them from leaving, but something more in the natural realm. I immediately thought of Misty simply because she was, lest we forget, the person who destroyed their other concrete way of being saved. I can’t imagine anyone else doing it. Misty seems like the only person really at home in the wilderness, though Coach was acting kind of shady the entire time.

Backing it up a couple scenes, one of the moments that actually gave me goosebumps was the scene where Laura Lee announces she’s going to take the prop plane and go find help. Coach Scott understandably tries to intervene and be the adult in the situation, but the way the girls cut him down is actually quite a thing to watch. “What are you going to do to stop me, Coach?” the typically timid and meek Laura Lee demands. The look on Jackie’s face…the glint in her eyes while she looks between the two of them and the way the group falls ominously silent seems like a subtle turning point. It’s suggested the group splits into factions and violence ensues…and this moment feels like a tipping point: away from the authoritarianism of adults and into more fractious infighting.

We’re one step closer towards the cold open that started the show.

It’s also another moment that highlights the dangerous way Jackie either consciously or unconsciously manipulates people. The entire episode brought back Adam’s proclamation in “No Compass” when he tells Shauna, “Every single cell in your body wants to blow things up and see what happens.” He might as well have been talking about Jackie, since she seems to toss revelations around like grenades.

As the popular girl at school, Jackie had to know that Billy is the one who started “The Flex” rumor and she lobs that grenade at the one openly romantic couple. Then you see it right before the Laura Lee/Coach showdown where she oh-so-innocently tells the entire group that Shauna is pregnant. Finally, that’s followed up with that glint in her eye as the foundation of the group is fractured between the one adult and the teens. Whether she truly is or not, “Flight of the Bumblebee” paints a devilish portrait of Jackie.

The most painful part of this episode, Joe, is as you mentioned: Van’s surgery. Akilah, a character who has mostly been kept in the background, stitches up Van’s face while Tai holds her. And the sounds Van makes are excruciating, almost animalistic. The pain she had to feel, without sedatives and with her body already wracked with wounds, must have been fucking intense. Her survival, though, makes me wonder if she’s alive in 2021…I always thought that it was her death that separated Taissa and now I’m really curious to see how their relationship plays out.

I did like the reveal that Coach Scott is gay. The 90s were a fraught time for gay people and his desire to keep it quiet makes perfect sense. Matthew Shepard would be murdered around the time they were found in the wilderness and that decade was particularly horrible for queer people. I thought Nat’s interaction with him was quite cute: the riot girl asking him about his boyfriend and Coach explaining how his boyfriend Paul wanted him to move to the city and “really be with him.” It also allows Nat to realize that Travis wasn’t gay, a direction I actually thought the show was heading in, giving his inability to get hard when they tried to have sex.

But you’re right, for me, the most interesting and juicy part of the narrative is what is happening in 2021. Tai and Shauna’s sleepover was fantastic and dovetailed nicely with the narrative in 1996, but it was actually a small bit of information that Shauna lets slip that has me intrigued.

I know they haven’t exactly been buddy-buddy in 2021, but it surprised me to learn that Shauna hasn’t told Jeff that she and Tai reconnected. When Taissa shows up at their home, Shauna awkwardly says it’s been 20 years since they saw each other. We know that’s not true and their clandestine meetings in the beginning of the season made me believe that while they don’t actively hang out, they do see each other.

I’m also very curious about Misty, Joe, and I want to know what you think about her 2021 character. She has a very weird way of showing it, but it actually does seem like she cares about these women? What do you make of Tai asking Simone (Rukiya Bernard) to take Sammy (Aiden Stoxx) and go to her mother’s house because Tai’s afraid she’s going to hurt them? Is that foreshadowing for some 1996 event (guilt over Van), do you think? Finally, I gave my wild conjectures about Adam and Jeff, but at this point do you think Adam really is Javi and the bandit?

JOE

I’ll confess that I hadn’t given much thought to Jeff possibly being the culprit, but it could make sense. My default assumption with most media is the same approach to crime-solving in mysteries: the simplest solution is often correct. For that reason, as soon as Shauna sees the glitter in the closet, I immediately thought of Adam and then closed the book on suspects. I still think Jeff would be more of a long-shot, but the truth is that his infidelity is a long-percolating mystery that clearly is more complicated than Shauna suspects, so I wouldn’t put it past Yellowjackets to do another bait and switch.

As I mentioned in my first section, this is a really strong episode for Cypress and that includes that moment where she tells her wife to take their son and leave. Taissa is clearly a strong woman: she knows what she believes in, she does what she needs to do to get the job done and she’s not driven by vulnerability or fear. So to see that firm exterior crack and show Simone that she doesn’t trust herself is unsettling; Taissa wouldn’t say this unless she means it when she fears that they could get hurt. The simplest explanation is simply that she doesn’t know what’s happening with her, and as a result she isn’t taking chances with their safety, but considering the format of the show, it’s impossible not to connect everything in 2021 back to 96 (and vice versa).

All this to say that I’m absolutely on watch to see how/if Taissa deals with her sleepwalking in 1996. Is it just what we’ve already seen and she never forgave herself for Van getting attacked? Or is the worst still to come?

As for Misty, aka the character I am sure most people are loving the most, I absolutely think that she loves the others. What’s absolutely working about Ricci’s performance is not just that it is comedically brilliant, but that it’s also layered. It’s clear that adult Misty believes, even if it’s just in her mind, that all of this effort is worth it to protect her friends. And that’s a far cry from her selfish “strand in you the woods because this is where I thrive” younger version of the character. Hell, Misty will even do $300 worth of blow to help out a friend!

So Terry, two episodes are left. Do you think we have a Javi reveal on the horizon or is that a finale-level event? Any excitement for the reunion that Jeff bought Shauna the yellow dress for? How sordid are the details in Shauna’s journal that was stolen from the safe? And considering Caligula was threatened and Biscuit is missing, does Yellowjackets have a thing against pets?

TERRY

Oh my gosh, Joe. In all the excitement, I completely forgot there’s a reunion on the way! Part of me, I suppose, kicked it to the side because of Shauna’s decision to go to the cabin in the woods…which, now that I think about it. Cabin. Woods. 1996. That’s a connection that spells trouble. But you’re absolutely right! The reunion could potentially tell us who’s alive and who’s dead in the group! Or, at least some of them - since the team is presumably made up of different years, so not everyone who survived would show up at this particular reunion.

But the thought of finding out who, aside from this quartet, survived is incredibly exciting.

Side note: That dress? Not feeling it.

As for the Javi reveal…I’m not sure that Shauna will take more BS from Adam at this point. She’s done the research, thanks to Callie. She’s seen the glitter. She’s turned from being the woman in love to the woman with a mission…I don’t think she’s going to just let him lie to her again. The 2021 storyline ends with her emphatically stating, “who the fuck are you?” This is quite different from her confronting him about being the Glitter Bandit…it’s her asking him to not lie to her anymore. She knows Adam probably doesn’t exist.

Side note part two: If Adam isn’t who he says he is, he sure has gone through a helluva lot of trouble to be secretive, creating what we can assume is a fake ID and a whole new identity.

All this to say that Yellowjackets has to either have Adam lie again and reveal his identity to us in the finale or he has to reveal himself to Shauna now. I’m struck by a thought, though, typing that last part out. Earlier this season, Travis makes a HUGE ado about digging up his father’s grave, cutting off his father’s finger and taking his ring. A ring that belonged to their great grandfather. A ring he needed to give to Javi. If the show wants to reveal Javi’s existence, I can’t think of a better way than having that ring show back up to disclose his identity.

Joe, I think you did this on purpose, knowing my proclivity to wildly speculate.

Final thoughts. Yellowjackets does seem to have a thing against animals, from Caligula to Biscuit to the rabbits Shauna is constantly killing. I guess it’s only fair since it also seems to put its characters in danger constantly. And speaking of Shauna, I think the journal has a lot. Even in 1996, Shauna hid it because she wrote in detail about her pregnancy. I can’t imagine that trend stopped. And since so much of this season has been about money (the $50,000 blackmail, the money stolen from Travis’s bank account, Jessica Roberts offering money to test their loyalty, etc.), I have to assume someone would pay a ton of money to get their hands on a first hand account of the salacious details of those 19 months…

All I know is that, with two episodes left, I am legit hooked and I can’t wait to see how all of this plays out. Hopefully get some some answers when we go back to QueerHorrorMovies for episode nine, “Doomcoming."