The end of Yellowjackets Season 2 was a big deal that made a talk. The psychological survivalist movie takes place in more than one time period: The first one is about the Yellowjackets, a high school girls’ soccer team whose plane crashes in the woods in 1996. They get lost in the woods and have to struggle to stay alive for 18 months. The second timeline starts in 2021 and shows which Yellowjackets made it out alive and how the accident still affects them today.
In the last episode of Yellowjacket’s season 2, the high schoolers had a fight, which started a routine hunting to see who would be killed and eaten to stay alive during the 1990s winter. Now, years later, the women, who are now adults, are still in shock from what happened. They admit that the thrill of the chase devoured them in different ways.
Author Ashley Lyle, who helped make the show, told Behind the Buzz, “It felt really natural to us that we were going to bring all of our characters together.” “We knew we wanted the ending in the present day to be like the first hunt.”
How did the Yellowjacket season 2 end? Before you start season 3, here’s everything you need to know about the fiery and deadly end.
How does the modern-day plot in Yellowjackets Season 2 end?
Today, things aren’t going so well for the grown women. Van (Lauren Ambrose) has been diagnosed with cancer, and Tai’s (Tawny Cypress) family is breaking up. At the same time, Natalie (Juliette Lewis) and Lottie (Simone Kessell) are losing their minds, and Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) and Misty (Christina Ricci) could be charged with murder.
Lottie is sure that the forest wants them to make another sacrifice, so she tries to get the others to play their dangerous card game where they have to choose who will be hunted. The group gives in to Lottie’s wish after back and forth about what to do.
That’s when the Yellowjackets decide that Shauna is their target. They tell her to either run away or be killed. Callie, Shauna’s teenage daughter played by Sarah Desjardins, comes up and shoots Lottie in the shoulder to wake them up.
After that, when everyone is back on track, Natalie’s new friend Lisa (Nicole Maines), who Natalie had told to leave the property and thanked for trying to teach her about forgiveness, shows up with a gun to keep them from hurting each other.
Fearful Misty runs toward Lisa with a poison to try to save Natalie’s life, but Natalie gives up her own life to save Lisa, and Misty kills her best friend by accident.
“Everyone has been through a lot, but Natalie doesn’t know how to deal with it. Her story is so sad.” Thatcher told Entertainment Weekly, “And her death came as a surprise.” “What she’s doing is actually very good.” She tried to save Lisa because she saw herself in her and saw a better future for her.
Natalie sits on a plane and talks with Javi, her younger self, and Lottie as she dies. Lottie tells her not to be afraid of death.
It’s something I tell her on the plane: ‘We’ve been here for years.’ I think that just means you got lost in the Wilderness. She said, “There’s no going back.” “She feels so much weight and guilt inside.” Lisa was getting her life.
How Did the 1990s Storyline Wrap Up in Yellowjackets Season 2?
In the second-to-last episode of Yellowjackets season 2, Sophie Thatcher plays Natalie as a child and gets the queen card when the Yellowjackets play a deadly game to see who will be killed and eaten.
Javi (Luciano Leroux), who is helping her, runs for her life. But Natalie makes the terrible choice to “accept the wilderness’ choice” when he falls into the river and watches him drown.
When Natalie makes it through the hunt, Lottie (Courtney Eaton) tells her that the woods kept her safe, and she names Natalie the Antler Queen to lead the group. She writes in her notebook that she should have been made leader, which doesn’t make all of the girls happy.
Karyn Kusama, the director of Yellowjackets season 2, did hint that Misty (Samantha Hanratty) was also envious of Natalie’s crown and title. She even used a Shakespearean quote to show how Misty sometimes lies to boost her own status, and she talked about how the rest of the group might also be jealous.
Kusama said in Behind the Buzz, “When we talk about Misty, we often talk about Iago to Othello.” Misty is a leader who is frustrated with Natalie’s victory. This is an interesting move because all of these girls could get a chance to be queen.
Who Was Behind the Girls’ Cabin Fire?
When the wake up in the last scene of Yellowjackets season 2, the cabin they’ve been living in starts to burn down. Coach Ben, played by Steven Krueger, is nowhere to be found while the girls watch their house burn down.
Earlier in the season, he felt terrible when he saw the teens eat Jackie (Ella Purnell), who had already died. Ben finds Javi dead when he gets back to the house and thinks he’ll be the next one to die.
Natasha is different from the other girls, so he tells her to come to his home with them so they can stay alive. Natalie tells Ben that he’s a good person who would be better off without them. She also says that she doesn’t deserve to go because she let Javi die instead of her and is about to enjoy his body while Ben leaves.
“Coach Ben starts to realize that he has to let go of any feelings of responsibility for taking care of these girls if he wants to make it through this.” Krueger told Men’s Health, “Those girls will quickly turn on him if he stays with those feelings.”
“It’s interesting to look into the part where Coach starts to care more about himself than anyone else,” she said. He might end up going up against some of these girls because of that. What will happen could be disastrous.
Fans saw Ben take a box of matches from the house before leaving on his own, but there aren’t any early signs of who started the fire, and no one has been charged—yet.
What Can We Expect from Yellowjackets Season 3?
In the present, Lottie tells the Yellowjackets that the forest is glad they let Natalie go and that their lives will get better. She looks at Van, which makes it seem like her cancer will be gone.
While she was saying this, Shauna was cleared of being a major suspect in Adam’s death, and Misty’s friendship with Walter seems to be getting better.
However, Lyle and Bart Nickerson, who created the show, hinted that the group isn’t out of the woods yet because their terrible trauma is still affecting them, especially since Natalie dying.
Lyle told The Hollywood Reporter, “It’s always sad to lose a character as important to the story as Natalie, but the stakes are life and death.” “The ritual itself brings out in them something that had been sleeping for a very long time.”
Nickerson also said of the terrible results, “What we’re trying to do with the present-day story is show that that force doesn’t end when they get saved.”
In the 1990s, the girls may have chosen Natalie to be Antler Queen, but there is a lot of competition and moving parts, so the crown will probably go to someone else. Lyle also told The Wrap that the snow will melt as spring flowers bloom, which means that things will feel more like they did in season 1 instead of season 2’s cold winter.
“However, we do think of Season 3 as having a vibe a bit like Season 1. “I’ll just say that the girls have been out there for a while and are doing great,” Lyle said.
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