"I think it'll be good to... reconnect with some old friends."
"All I know is that what happened was a tragedy, a terrible tragedy. I probably shouldn't say this, but some of these kids? No real big loss if we're honest. But those girls were special. They were...they were champions."
Yellowjackets is a Showtime original thriller drama series created by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson. The series premiered on November 14, 2021, though the premiere was released in advance freely on YouTube
on November 5 of that year. It has aired three seasons and is currently renewed for a fourth and final season.
The show tells the tale of the Wiskayok High School Yellowjackets, a team of talented teenage female soccer players. In 1996, the team is headed to Seattle for nationals as champions of their home state, New Jersey. Though they appear to be a cohesive unit on the surface, tensions are bubbling, just waiting for the right spark to boil to the surface.
The team ends up getting that spark and a lot more when the private plane taking them to nationals crashes in the dangerous wilderness of Canada. Though they first wait for a rescue which fails to materialize, they are eventually forced to scavenge and scheme, with those who survive ultimately spending a total of 19 months in the woods before help comes.
In 2021, 25 years since the crash, the survivors do their best to carry on, weighed down by their experience in the woods. But the past will not stay buried, as it quickly becomes clear at least one is out for revenge and several members of the team begin receiving threatening notes.
"Buzz, buzz, buzz!"
Yellowjackets provides examples of:
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A-D
- Abhorrent Admirer: Coach Scott is extremely put out by Misty's crush on him, not just because she's underage and his student, but also because she's extremely creepy and aggressive, and also because he's gay.
- Aborted Arc: Everything to do with Taissa's political career. Having been a major part of Taissa's first season plot, she drops it in Season 2, and then Season 3 reveals that she was thrown out due to her absence and the controversy of Nat's death.
- Academic Athlete:
- Best friends Shauna and Jackie are both elite soccer players who received excellent grades and were accepted to prestigious universities.
- After surviving both the plane crash and the time in the woods, Taissa went to Howard pre-law with a double major in history and philosophy. She made first string on their soccer team, graduating first in her class. She then went to Columbia Law and landed an internship in one of the biggest firms in the city.
- Akilah is seen studying for the SATs while in the wilderness, the only one of the survivors who seems to be studying anything at all while there. She also seems to have the most practical knowledge of anyone there when it comes to wilderness survival, having been a Girl Scout.
- Accidental Murder:
- Misty tells Crystal about sabotaging the black box, and when she is horrified at this, Misty threatens to kill her if she tells anyone, but while only intending to threaten her, she accidentally backs her off the cliff they are standing on.
- Shauna doesn't mean to kill Adam, but he rushes her while she's holding a knife, and causes her to have a flashback to gutting animals (and people) during her time in the wilderness. She stabs and kills him on instinct.
- Affectionate Nickname:
- Taissa was called "Tai" sometimes by her friends and her girlfriend.
- Her dad Jeff usually calls Callie "Cal".
- Age-Gap Romance: Melissa is married to a woman who's about twenty years younger than her during the present day, it's revealed in Season 3.
- All Men Are Perverts: Jackie lampshades the trope when suggesting that Travis is living every boy's dream to be stranded "with a bunch of babes".
- All There in the Manual: How the girls (including Travis and Javi) decide on who's going to be killed for food, with drawing cards and the hunt (including all details), is extracted from Season 2.
Ashley Lyle confirmed that there was an explanation of the process of drawing cards, but that it was deleted from the series. - All Women Hate Each Other: Played for Horror throughout the series but especially during the wilderness flashbacks in which the girls slowly grow to resent, ruin and backstab each other for the sake of power, survival and respect in the Wilderness. This post on Tumblr sums up how the wilderness becomes the backdrop for the girls' already fragile rivalry getting even worse:personally I find that Yellowjackets succeeds where other plane-crash-stranded media falls short. and it's because if you peel back the layers of other shows in this genre, the story is basically the same: people will do what they have to in order to survive, roles will reverse. Yellowjackets does this too, but Yellowjackets isn't about a plane crash and it isn't about survival. it's about the singular, violent, inescapable wilderness of girlhood, not nature. the wilderness is a backdrop and though the girls use it to tell their story (literally Van beginning an origin story in the season 2 trailer), it isn't... really that important. before they crash they were already icing their teammates out, betraying one another, surviving brutally through youth. being a girl is just like that. yeah, the setting and the strange magic helps reveal that story to the audience in a shocking and palatable and larger-than-life way, it brings to view what that complex inner world of girlhood really felt like. but it has something to say other than "people will do horrible things to survive". if you were ever a teenage girl, you already know that.
- Alternate History: The series features a fictional town: Wiskayok, New Jersey, and the scenes with the main cast as adults are set in 2021, with no sign of any pandemic; however, it otherwise features things that are present in real-life. For example, Taissa, who is running for state senator, is called the "queer Kamala" by a photographer, and the Andes flight disaster is mentioned, a true-life story on which the series is based. It's clear that many people who know about that believe that the Yellowjackets resorted to cannibalism, even if the surviving Yellowjackets themselves won't admit it.
- Animal Motifs:
- Misty: Cats. In the past, she is seen wearing a sweatshirt with an adorable kitten in the front. In the present, she wears scrubs with a top in a cat print and cat-themed accessories (kitty ears and tail) for Halloween, and she loves Cats.
- Taissa: Wolves. She makes shadow puppets for Sammy but one of them turns into a realistic wolf silhouette. Then at the party where she hopes to meet donors, she sees a wolf wandering around the mansion. Later, she sees one outside her own home and when she goes to investigate, she finds the word "SPILL" in red paint on her doors. Savage Wolves make their appearance later, when they attack Van.
- Shauna: Rabbits. We see her collection of rabbit figurines around her kitchen and she also wears pajamas with a rabbit design on them. But we also see what she does to the rabbits menacing her garden. It's worth noting that rabbits are representative of Jackie, and we all know what Shauna did to her.
- Lottie has deer. She has visions of deer, is framed by antlers in the cabin, and becomes the medium of the cult wearing a pair of antlers and a veil.
- Anyone Can Die: Being a major character, even starring cast, will not save you. Obviously, being a show with a plane crash and cannibalism, there is expected to be a body count. But this was solidified at the end of the first season, with the death of Jackie Taylor from the elements in the wilderness. The second season ended with the death of the adult Natalie Scatorccio and the third season has seen the deaths of no less than three adult characters from the starring cast: Coach Ben Scott, as well as the adult versions of Lottie Matthews and Van Palmer.
- An Arm and a Leg: Coach Scott gets his leg cut off by Misty after it's injured during the crash, to save his life.
- Arc Symbol: Resembles an impaled female figure, with a hook coming out the bottom. In 1996, it appears carved in a tree and on the attic floor of the cabin. In 2021, it appears on the postcards that are mailed out to the survivors. In "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi, the symbol also appears scrawled in blood on a wall by Taissa's altar and on a medallion worn by Natalie's abductors.
- Arc Words:
- "Spill, spill, spill" for Taissa's arc.
- "You and me against the world." It first shows up in Shauna's dream as part of her promise to get herself and her baby out of the wilderness. After it's revealed the baby actually died, the phrase reoccurs when Shauna first covers her son's remains with stones and later gives him a proper burial in the spring. Since her child's death causes her to lose any hope of (and gradually any desire to) leave the wilderness, the phrase instead represents her taking out her grief and anger on the other survivors.
- Artistic License: The second episode ends with Misty finding the plane's flight recorder and sabotaging it to prevent them from being found immediately, and when she reveals this to Crystal, the latter is horrified and declares that everything is Misty's fault. Except a flight recorder is used to determine why a plane crashed, and it doesn't transmit a location signal at all. Of course, the characters could mistakenly believe this in-universe too; had this been the recorder's function, a search team would have likely found them by now since a fair amount of time passed between the crash and Misty finding it. Even Misty's sabotage would have made little difference, since the signal's last known broadcasting location could have still been noted.
- Artistic License – Biology: In season three, the DNA of Lottie's killer is matched to Shauna. Misty later realizes that mothers share mitochondrial DNA with their children, which means Callie could also be the killer. This is true, but it's also why mitochondrial DNA is not used in forensic identity testing, so the DNA would never have been linked to Shauna in the first place.
- Bad People Abuse Animals:
- Misty calmly watching a rat drown before the plane even took off is shown to be an early indicator of her low empathy and willingness to resort to violence.
- In the present, Shauna smashes a rabbit to death with a spade and dispassionately dresses it, hearkening back to the first scene where some Yellowjackets kill, cook and eat one of their own. Possibly averted as Shauna isn't killing rabbits for no reason. The rabbits Shauna kills are destroying her garden and then she then uses them as food.
- Biscuit, the Abara-Turner family dog, goes missing and his head turns up on Taissa's altar on the Season 1 finale.
- Subverted with Natalie in season 2. When she is placed in charge of a small goldfish by someone she's taken on as a mentor, she holds it in her hand, toying with the idea of crushing it but ultimately places it back in the bowl, showing that she's turning a new, more selfless leaf.
- Played with by the multiple animal deaths at the camp. They're brutal and violent, but it's clearly shown that the girls have no other option but to eat animals.
- Bail Equals Freedom: Misty and Nat get bailed out of jail for trespassing in New Hampshire and never mention needing to deal with the consequences again.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- Towards the beginning of "Saints," Shauna is seen approaching a shady motel when she get discovered by Randy from high school. We're clearly supposed to think she's heading to the motel for more hanky-panky with her lover Adam. Instead, she's there to meet Natalie and Taissa to discuss the blackmail.
- Natalie is shown with a long gun in 2021. In 1996 she handles a rifle well and flashes back to holding her abusive father at bay with a shotgun. She has a dream about her father with half of his head blown off, implying that she shot him. It's ultimately revealed that she did try to shoot her father, but the safety was on. He accidentally shot himself after disarming her.
- In 2021, Natalie is introduced meditating beside an ocean view in a manicured garden and receives a message from an attendant, implying that she's filthy rich. In reality, she's just attending a high-priced rehab facility that Taissa is paying for.
- When it's revealed that Callie killed Lottie, the killer insists that she didn't mean to, and we flash back to the incident. The killer keeps trying to leave by walking up the steps, but the victim keeps grabbing her hand to pull her back, implying that the killer will eventually pull away too violently and accidentally knock the victim down, but in the end, Callie very intentionally shoves Lottie backwards in a fit of rage.
- Bears Are Bad News: A bear shows up when the girls and the Coach are all outside the cabin. Ultimately subverted. Lottie approaches the bear calmly while it acts oddly docile and ultimately submits to her, allowing her to kill it.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished:
- The Yellowjackets don't look particularly disheveled after months of living in the wilderness with very limited food. Besides messy hair and armpit hair, they all look like they've simply been camping for a few days.
- In addition to some Hollywood Healing, Van benefits from this trope after suffering a grievous injury that leaves her with little more than a few red lines on her face.
- Lisa, one of the cult members, ends up with three tiny scabs near her eye after Natalie attacks her with a fork while trying to escape her captivity that do not detract from her good looks.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Natalie and Travis squabble mightily for a few episodes before becoming lovers.
- Betty and Veronica:
- Natalie has two main love interests: Kevyn Tan, who was alternative in his youth but is now a straight-edged cop, and Travis, who was an addict with whom she had a toxic relationship, though his death ends any possibility that they might "get together" long-term.
- Taissa is stuck between her wife, Simone, who is clearly wealthy, intelligent, and refined (the Veronica), and her first girlfriend, Van. Van is more butch, fiery, and was in the wilderness with Taissa, where she was a member of Lottie's cult.
- Shauna is torn between the mysterious artist Adam and her boring but reliable husband Jeff.
- Betty and Veronica Switch: Shauna appears to be stuck between her husband Jeff (the Betty, a nice but dim possible cheater) and Adam, a mysterious, hot-blooded younger artist (the Veronica). However, after Shauna embarks on an affair with Adam, she realizes that Jeff is the blackmailer, while Adam is, at worst, using her for her fame, and at best, a mysterious but ultimately pretty normal guy who was interested in Shauna's life. Though she kills Adam, she becomes much more interested in Jeff after finding out that he's a blackmailer.
- Big Beautiful Woman: Downplayed. In the 2021 portions, Shauna is now plus sized, but is still considered attractive to Adam for him to pursue an affair with her. Jeff likewise sincerely loves her, and was not cheating on her. Melanie Lynskey even refused the network's suggestion of losing weight, to show that a bigger woman could still be considered desirable.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
- Misty Quigley. In 1996 she is shown watching a drowning rat in a pool just before the teams' flight takes off. And as she says to Jessica Roberts, the reporter actually a private detective hired by Taissa to ensure no undesirable information leaks who is nosing around the surviving Yellowjackets:I know you don't see someone that you should be afraid of, but you're wrong.
- Misty Quigley. In 1996 she is shown watching a drowning rat in a pool just before the teams' flight takes off. And as she says to Jessica Roberts, the reporter actually a private detective hired by Taissa to ensure no undesirable information leaks who is nosing around the surviving Yellowjackets:
- Black Dude Dies First: Discussed by Van, who jokingly tells Taissa she will be the first to die. Taissa guesses that it's because she's black, but Van counters that it's actually because she's a skeptic. The irony of Van actually being the first to die is teased but ultimately subverted, as she's believed to have been killed by wolves but is still actually alive. Ultimately, the first crash survivor to die is Laura Lee, a white girl.
- Blackmail Backfire: Callie wants her curfew removed and other privileges in exchange for not telling her father about seeing her mom with Adam. Shauna explains the likely outcome: having to use Callie's college fund to pay a divorce lawyer, spending weekends with a lonely dad, and watching him date girls her age. Callie is left with no choice but to back down.
- Bland-Name Product: Played straight with Lottie's prescription of Loxipene. Real-world Loxapine is often prescribed for schizophrenia.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: In flashbacks, Natalie and Misty are blonde. Taissa, Shauna, and Lottie have dark hair. Van has red hair.
- Bookends: The 1990s timeline in Season 3 opens with the girls playing It, and Mari being called as It and running through the woods. That part of the story ends Season 3 with Mari drawing the queen card and being chased through the woods before becoming Pit Girl.
- Burning the Ships: The titular soccer team takes a plane that crashes and leaves them stranded in the Ontario wilderness. Equipment manager Misty overhears two teammates talking about being surprised by the way she's taken control of the situation (giving first aid, among other things). She's so elated to be admired for the first time that she destroys the emergency sign transmitter/flight recorder to keep them stranded. It works so well that they are not rescued until 19 months later.
- Cast as a Mask: The showrunners have stated that the girls in the chase scene with the famous "pit girl" in the premiere episode were all played by stunt doubles, thus nothing can be inferred about the identity of the "pit girl" by looking at the actresses in this sequence.
- Casting Gag:
- Four of the survivors and main characters are played in their adult iteration by former breakout stars of The '90s (when the flashback sections are set, showing the girls as teenagers), especially those known for villainous roles:
- Melanie Lynskey, who plays adult Shauna who cheated with her best friend's boyfriend and got pregnant by him, before marrying him in later life, broke out in 1994 with Heavenly Creatures, where she played a Psycho Lesbian teenager.
- Christina Ricci, who plays adult Misty, the most obviously villainous yet eerily perky character, broke out in the 1990s with the young, deadpan Creepy Child Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values.
- Juliette Lewis, who plays the Goth-adjacent rebel former addict Natalie, is best known for her role as notorious murderer Mallory in Natural Born Killers, as well as a series of rebellious teenage girls, like her Cape Fear (1991) role.
- Lauren Ambrose plays adult Van, continuing the trend of casting 1990s scream queens as present Yellowjackets, as she led Psycho Beach Party (among others).
- Elijah Wood plays Misty's new "friend" and potential Love Interest, Walter. The two previously played kids in a precocious relationship in the 1990s movie, The Ice Storm.
- John Cameron Mitchell has a cameo as the human form of Misty's bird Caligula. He's best known for originating the titular role in Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
- Four of the survivors and main characters are played in their adult iteration by former breakout stars of The '90s (when the flashback sections are set, showing the girls as teenagers), especially those known for villainous roles:
- Cast of Expies: Lord of the Flies is one of the main influences for the show, and several of the main cast can be read as parallels to characters in that book:
- Jackie's name and high social status could give the impression she'll be Jack Merridew, but she fails to adapt, falls down the social pyramid and ultimately dies in the season 1 finale. By season 3, it's clear that the true counterpart to Jack is Shauna, who siezes control as a tyrant and is ultimately revealed as the Antler Queen.
- Misty is Piggy, the glasses-wearing outsider and the one mostly likely to be bullied by the others.
- Laura Lee and Lottie can both be taken as Simon, Laura Lee for being the innocent one and first to die, and Lottie for "conversing" with the Wilderness that may or may not exist, the same way that Simon did to the Lord of the Flies.
- It isn't immediately obvious, but by season 3 it has become apparent that Natalie is Ralph: the group's first elected leader who clings the hardest to civilization, and the one who retains enough moral clarity to be the most traumatized by what happens.
- Catfishing: Misty catfishes Kevyn by pretending to be Natalie. Nat is not pleased when she finds out.
- Characterization Marches On:
- Lottie has an incredibly mean Kick the Dog moment after the crash where she taunts Travis with his Embarrassing Nickname and has to be reminded that his father literally just died protecting her that can seem incredibly at odds with her softer spoken and shyer persona that comes out down the line, even if you try to hand wave it as her being stressed out from the crash. Perhaps an even bigger one is later in Season 1 when she (tripping, but still) leads the charge to rape and kill Travis on Doomcoming. After that, she's shown having a warm relationship with him, and he's even implied to be attracted to her. Season 3 brings this back, as it's shown that she did begin pushing both him and Akilah to trip in the hopes of communing with the wilderness.
- Shauna and Javi share a connection in Season 1, with the latter functioning as something of a Morality Pet to her as her friendship with Jackie dissolves. Come Season 2, Shauna is the first to let him drown so they can cannibalise him, and she even carves him up herself.
- Mari's first focus moment in the pilot is playfully teasing Akilah before getting along with her. Further episodes would show her as an out and out Jerkass, and something of a ditz.
- Cheated Death, Died Anyway:
- The case for every single person who died in the woods, because they survived the plane crash only to later succumb to something else. So far, that's confirmed to cover Laura Lee, Jackie, Crystal, Javi, Coach Scott, and Mari.
- Those who survive long enough to be rescued, only to die as adults in the present timeline, may qualify (Travis, Natalie, Lottie, and Van).
- Cheater Gets Cheated On: Shauna and Jeff cheated behind the back of Jeff's girlfriend and Shauna's best friend, Jackie, in the 1990s. In present day, Shauna and Jeff are married, but Shauna is apoplectic when she suspects Jeff is cheating on her. He isn't - but she's already started cheating on him, with Adam.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Lottie has minimal lines or screen time in early episodes, but the pilot establishes that she's on medication and some attention is given to her running out of the pills in the wilderness. She properly enters the plot when it's revealed she may be psychic, and becomes the cult leader in the Season 1 finale.
- Cliffhanger Copout: Younger Lottie ends Season 1 by wearing the Antler Queen headdress and summoning "the darkness to set them free" in French for Misty and Van. Come Season 2, she doesn't wear the veil, her pursuit of the "darkness" is no deeper than guided breathing in the woods, and Misty has minimal interest in the burgeoning cult. Ultimately, it's Van who falls deepest into the cult, and triggers the first cannibal hunt while Lottie is recovering from her injuries.
- Comically Missing the Point:
- After Jeff reveals that he was the one responsible for the blackmail, Shauna reveals to him in turn that she was cheating on him with Adam, mocking his belief in her repeated excuse about attending book club. His response:
Jeff: What? There's no book club?!- When the team is interrogating Hannah and Kodi about the outside world, several team members ask about things like how long they've been missing, if their parents are still looking for them, and whether or not the protagonists of The X-Files end up together.
- Continuity Nod: Lottie helps Callie shoplift an expensive dress in Season 3. Back in the second episode, she confessed to having frequently shoplifted and returned the clothes she stole in exchange for store credit.
- Contrived Coincidence: So common it's a driving question of the series. The Yellowjackets come to interpret bizarre cases of good and bad luck (such as the wind putting out Jackie's pyre out just enough to barbeque her corpse) as a sign that the Wilderness is pushing them toward cannibalistic Human Sacrifice. Or the traumatized survivors may just be reading into random events because they're desperate for a reason for their suffering and survival, an outlet for their anger, and justification for what they did to stay alive.
- Cope by Pretending: When the hungry teens decide to eat Jackie, they envision themselves as part of a bacchanal feast to deal with the trauma of what they're doing. In the present storyline, Shauna is of the opinion that the entire Wilderness cult was this, pretending to serve and appease a deity so they could blame something else for their descent in cannibalism.Shauna: There is no "it", okay?! It was just us!
- Copycat Cover: The poster has a near-identical composition to that of the first posters for Euphoria, both showing the left side of a distressed teenage girl's face and being heavily color-saturated, the former with blue and purple colors and the latter with yellow.
- Covers Always Lie: The cover shows the Antler Queen reflected in Jackie's eye, but Jackie dies long before Shauna ever starts wearing the veil. She also never has any interaction with actual yellowjacket insects.
- Cringe Comedy: The adult Allie at the reunion. It's not a reunion for her own graduating class, as she was a freshman in 1996. She talks on and on about the Yellowjackets' experience, healing and "their" trauma bond, even though she was a poor player and her injury prevented her from getting on the plane and the whole ordeal her teammates went through.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: At the end of Season Three, the "pit girl" killed in the pilot episode is revealed to be Mari (chosen by a draw that was rigged to pick someone else until a suspicious Shauna interferes); she dies brutally and slowly in a tiger pit, with one of the spikes even going through her face. The team next dehumanizes her body by stringing her up naked on a tree for butchering, with Shauna also taking her hair.
- Crowd Chant: The Yellowjackets have "Buzz, buzz, buzz!" in imitation of the buzzing of actual yellowjackets.
- Danger — Thin Ice: When Natalie and Javi are running from the others who are trying to kill Natalie, Javi falls through ice into the water below and drowns.
- Decoy Antagonist: When the series first began, Lottie was at first built up and hyped up to be the main antagonist of the series, with her being confirmed as the first iteration as the Antler Queen. However she turns out to be a Disc-One Final Boss after Callie accidentally kills her. Shauna is eventually revealed as the true Big Bad of the series.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Coach begs Nat in 1996 to not tell anyone he's gay, fearing the public backlash. As of 2025, homosexuality is much more socially acceptable in much of the world, including in New Jersey where Yellowjackets takes place — parents might actually be reassured that the man in charge of coaching a team of teenage girls is gay.
- Dictionary Opening: In-Universe. Not only does Ally make the prosaic decision to start her high school reunion speech with a definition of "reunion," but she cites it from "worddefinition.net".
- Diegetic Switch: The Offspring's "Come Out and Play" blares triumphantly on the soundtrack as the Yellowjackets make their Team Power Walk into the reunion. Toward the end, it transforms into tinny diegetic music playing over the party speakers.
- Disposable Pilot: Not a single member of the flight crew survives.
- Double Standard: Rape, Female on Male: Averted in both cases, as Misty tries to force herself on Ben and he's completely sick of her, and Travis goes through a twofer of a sober Jackie pressuring him while he was on shrooms, and the other girls molesting him. He cries to Natalie in the next episode that he didn't want it.
- Dramatic Irony: Young Shauna tells Jackie that she's peaked and will always become an embittered housewife, always looking back at her high school days with wistfulness. Jackie dies mere hours later. Meanwhile, Shauna appeared not to go to college, instead becoming a stay-at-home mom and fulfilling the prophecy she made about Jackie.
- Dudley Do-Right Stops to Help: While running from the other Yellowjackets who intend to kill her, Natalie is accompanied by Javi, who falls through the ice into the water below. Natalie stops to try to rescue Javi even though this allows the others to catch up to her. This ends up working in her favour, due to Javi being a decent replacement meal for the Yellowjackets.
E-H
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The Title Montage sequence doesn't start appearing until the third episode.
- Eat Dirt, Cheap: Taissa, as seen both in 1996 and 2021, does this while sleepwalking.
- Establishing Character Moment: Early scenes in the first episode establish a number of characters:
- Older Shauna is first shown masturbating to pictures of her teen daughter Callie's boyfriend, in Callie's bedroom, establishing how frustrated and stuck in the past she is.
- Young Shauna models outfits for Jackie but isn't fully receptive of her advice, establishing Shauna's role as the reluctantly passive member of their friendship.
- Jackie is told that she holds influence over the team and later uses the influence to stop a fight and get her teammates to resolve their issues, establishing her good nature and the leadership position she'll lose in the forest.
- Taissa suggests "freezing out" a lagging member of the team, establishing her ruthless streak.
- Natalie is introduced drinking and throwing bottles at cars, but is also the only one wholeheartedly against freezing out Allie and sticking up for her, establishing her as a rough-around-the-edges troublemaker who nonetheless has a good heart.
- When Allie is injured, Misty is first on the scene trying to apply first aid, establishing her desire to be helpful and her interest in medicine. Misty also hurts Allie in the process, demonstrating that she cares more about being the hero than the people she helps.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- When they have to break the news to Shauna that her baby didn't survive the birth, even the Jerkass Mari looks shaken.
- At the "intentional community" compound, Shauna is put in charge of a baby goat, so that she gains insight from the sacrifices involved in caring for it, according to the acolyte in charge. Later on, she is frustrated when he refuses to tell her if eating rope is bad for the goat: "Because it is one thing if I stab this goat later, but there's no fucking way it's dying while I'm supposed to be watching it." She has convinced herself that she is expected to kill the goat, but she is not.
- Eye Scream:
- The eyeless ghost seen by Taissa's dying grandmother's hallucination and grandmother's false eye at her funeral. She herself sees it at the press conference.
- Sammy's doll had its eyes removed as it's been destroyed, a recurring motif for his drawing
- A fully decayed corpse seen with Lottie when Taissa finds her in the attic.
- In order to save herself, Hannah lies to Shauna about the knife that Nat gave her, blaming it on Kodi. Before he has a chance to correct the misinformation, she stabs the knife straight through his eye. When she removes the knife, the wound splurts blood and vitreous fluid from a slit straight through the pupil.
- Facial Horror: Downplayed, with Van surviving the initial attack from some wolves but having been mauled so badly that her teeth are visible through the left side of her face.
- Fake Guest Star:
- Courtney Eaton is only a guest star in the first season, despite appearing in every episode, and Lottie playing a major role in the plot. By Season 2, she's billed as a regular.
- Elijah Wood is only referred as a guest star for his role as Walter. He appears in one way or the other in all but one of the episodes of Season 2.
- Fake Period Excuse: After weeks out in the wilderness, the girls' cycles synchronize. All of them get their periods at the exact same time, except a secretly pregnant Shauna. So that nobody finds out, she dips an improvised menstrual pad in deer blood.
- Fauxshadow:
- Across both seasons, there's a lot of evidence pointing to Lottie being the Antler Queen seen in the opening, including her association with deer, her being framed by antlers, and even donning the Antler Queen's headdress during "Doomcoming". In the second season finale, however, it's revealed that Natalie, not Lottie, was crowned the Antler Queen after Lottie convinced the others that she'd been chosen by the wilderness. Then the third season finale comes along and reveals that Shauna is the Antler Queen seen in the opening.
- One more obviously faux example is the result of the Orphaned Reference to the Aborted Arc that would've seen Adam being revealed as Javi. Shauna gives Javi pages to write/draw on - which would have mirrored her sleeping with the adult Adam, who is an artist. At Doomcoming, Javi is shown curled up by the log, looking like he's dead. This is also the same episode Adam dies and is left in a similar position, earlier drafts of the script having planned for Adam to be revealed as adult Javi.
- Fear of Parenthood: Justified. Shauna is impregnated the night before the plane crash, courtesy of her best friend Jackie's boyfriend, Jeff. As soon as she finds out she's pregnant, she is overcome by fear that Jackie will find out. This manifests in her faking her period and attempting to give herself a coat hanger abortion, and then to trying to get Taissa to give her one when she fails to do it herself. Taissa stops because it hurts Shauna so badly, and the overwhelming fear and increasing visibility of Shauna's pregnancy pushes many of the most extreme actions in Season 1. For instance, it's one of the reasons Laura Lee decides to fly the plane (which kills her) and it fractures Shauna and Jackie's relationship, which leads to Jackie's death. Even after Jackie's death, though, Shauna still feels terrified for what motherhood in the woods might mean, which results in her dreaming of the others cannibalizing her newborn baby even as she's giving birth and the baby is stillborn.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Shauna and Taissa become especially close in the wilderness, especially bonded by the fact that they share the secret of Shauna's pregnancy.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Before everyone speaks in unison and Laura Lee reveals herself, Shauna and Lottie's stilted dialogue, everyone's eerie smiles and Shauna dodging the question of how she got hot chocolate hints that Jackie didn't really get back in the house in her dream.
- Flashback B-Plot: The plot is divided into a present-day story and a flashback story about when the Yellowjackets crashed in the wilderness.
- Foreboding Carcass:
- When the team hikes through the woods early in their stranding, they see a dead animal. Taissa asks Coach Ben how it could've happened and he tells her that "wolves can kill anything if the pack's big enough." This serves as Foreshadowing for Van getting mauled by a wolf, maimed, and nearly killed shortly thereafter, the team easily overpowering, sexually assaulting, and nearly killing Travis while tripping at Doomcoming, and their later ritualistic hunts.
- Though it happens at the end of Season 1, the disappearance of Taissa's dog Biscuit, and Simone's discovery of his head on a makeshift altar in her home on the night of the election victory, sets up the Cliffhanger that Taissa is still involved in some sort of black magic that allowed her to succeed. In Season 2, Simone uses Biscuit's death and decapitation as a reason that Taissa shouldn't be around Sammy and tries to force her to get psychiatric help. Taissa (or the Bad One) responds by causing a car accident that places Simone in a coma throughout the rest of Season 2.
- Foregone Conclusion:
- Given that they all feature in the present-day storyline, the audience knows that Shauna, Taissa, Natalie, Misty, and Travis survive their ordeal in the woods. Lottie and Van can be added to this list as of the first season finale.
- Shauna is pregnant in 1996, but has a teenage daughter 25 years later and no apparent second child, so it's a given that something happened to her first. He's revealed to have been stillborn in the middle of Season 2.
- Foreshadowing: Now with its own page.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus:
- Taissa and Simone take Sammy out for trick-or-treating. He is wearing a sandwich costume. They bring along their dog Biscuit, who is in costume as well as a hot dog.
- Coach Martinez is impaled on a tree branch, and— after much debating on what the safest course of action was and whether he was even still alive— Travis decides to try to climb the tree and get to him. When he reaches the branch and starts to reach out toward his dad, the branch breaks and falls down, impaling him further. A brief shot shows Coach Martinez reaching out toward Travis shortly before the ranch snaps— showing that he was still alive before Travis accidentally broke the branch.
- Futureshadowing: The last two episodes of season 3 feature Natalie, in the 1996 timeline, discovering that Misty had destroyed the plane transponder back in season 1. She's furious that Misty kept them stranded, but she keeps her secret because she needs Misty's help to get everyone home. In the season finale, they successfully pull off a plan together to let Natalie sneak away and call for help. This turn of events completely explains their relationship in the 2021 timeline since the beginning of season 1. Natalie is annoyed by Misty and thinks she's crazy, but Misty is devoted to Natalie and thinks they're best friends.
- Genius Loci: Many of the girls come to believe that "the wilderness" is a kind of deity, which chooses certain people for death, whom they then eat.
- Genre Mashup: The series is promoted as being a mix of different genres. Among these are survival horror, psychological horror, teen sports drama, adult drama, thriller, mystery and even some dark comedy. As the series progresses, it incorporates increasing amounts of Folk Horror.
- Gift for an Outgrown Interest: An interesting example—Jackie's mother keeps giving Shauna rabbit tchotchkes in memory of her deceased daughter, Jackie, who she says just adored rabbits. In truth, while Jackie may have adored rabbits when she was a little girl, one of the scenes of the past with her in the wilderness talking about wanting to eat a rabbit and mocking them, commenting "I mean, what even is a rabbit? A squirrel with floppy ears and a pom-pom on its ass?" Meanwhile, Shauna herself is shown to kill rabbits that invade her garden and then cook them for chili.
- Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: The pairing of Perpetual Frowner Natalie and overly eager Misty when they take a road trip to find Travis.
- Glitter Litter: In the present, Shauna and her former teammates try to catch their blackmailer. In the process, the guy gets covered in glitter but escapes. The next morning, Shauna finds glitter in her closet. She assumes her lover left it there when she had him hide from her husband, who was the actual blackmailer.
- Good Adultery, Bad Adultery: Shauna begins an affair with Adam when she sees Jeff going into a hotel with another woman, and assumes he's cheating. She had turned down Adam's advances beforehand. It turns out Jeff wasn't cheating, and Shauna gets
Easily Forgiven within minutes of the revelation; Jeff even being willing to take the fall for her murder of Adam. - Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Subverted, as Shauna wants to have an abortion (because she's pregnant from her best friend's boyfriend, plus the wilderness is a terrible place to have a baby) and Taissa doesn't object to that, but rather a dangerous self-induced method that could kill her. She ends up helping Shauna, but stops when it's hurting her too much.
- Gratuitous Latin: The finale of the first season is titled "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi," which translates as "Thus passes worldly glory," or alternatively, "Thus Passes the Glory of the World." The phrase was once used in Papal coronation ceremonies and is intended to serve as a reminder of the transitory nature of life and earthly honors. As expected, this does not bode well for the Yellowjackets, specifically Jackie, who dies frozen in the woods, the worldly glories that she experienced as homecoming queen, well-liked in high school, etc., thrown in her face by Shauna. The title may be a pun, as the episode also features the death and funeral arrangements for a woman named Gloria.
- Hair-Contrast Duo:
- Bubbly, spoiled Jackie is blonde, while her best friend, the gloomy, intelligent, and secretive Shauna has dark hair.
- Adult Misty is enthusiastic and creepy with blond curly hair, while morose adult Natalie has long dark hair.
- Lottie is close friends with Laura Lee. Laura Lee has blonde hair to reflect her angelic purity, while Lottie has dark hair and is more introverted and unsure.
- Heal It With Fire: Misty, having already chopped off Coach Scott's mangled leg, comes back later and cauterizes his wound with a heated axe blade.
- Hollywood Healing:
- Van's teammates work together to stitch up the nasty wounds she got from a wolf attack. When Doomcoming celebration comes, though, she has visible scars but nowhere near what you might expect for someone whose molars were visible through the gash on her cheek.
- Coach Scott makes a quick and easy recovery after having his leg chopped off in the middle of the woods.
- Homage:
- In "No Compass", Lottie runs in her nightgown through a series of underground passageways lit by candlelight. The shots look nearly identical to Tina's opening dream of being chased by Freddy in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).
- In "Flight of the Bumblebee", Jessica grabs Misty's pet bird, Caligula, and threatens to wring its neck to persuade Misty to let her go in a homage to Catherine doing this to Buffalo Bill's pet dog in The Silence of the Lambs.
- In the Season 2 credits, older Misty is shown cackling with laughter like BOB in the Red Room in Twin Peaks. The scene is taken from "Burial", where Misty has a vision while on a sensory deprivation tank of a singing and dancing Caligula.
- Hope Spot: In "Flight of the Bumblebee" the situation for the survivors has become increasingly desperate, with Laura Lee electing to fly south on the decrepit (though virtually intact and fueled) plane the survivors discovered and get help. With no flight experience but having studied the plane's manuals for weeks, she and her teddy bear manage to get aloft over the lake to the delight of the other survivors... only for her bear to catch fire on the passenger seatnote and the plane exploding outright quickly thereafter.
- How We Got Here: The 1996 storyline is constructed this way. The first scene in the series is one of the Yellowjackets being hunted down, slaughtered and eaten by her classmates, who have descended into some sort of barbaric cult. We then flash back to before the plane crashed, and the plot carries us toward that shocking destination.
I-R
- I'm a Humanitarian:
- The first episode reveals that several Yellowjackets eventually degenerated into an outright Cannibal Clan. The survivors come under constant public pressure to reveal "what they had to do out there," with the assumption that they ate each other, but none of them will admit to it. Taissa's political opponent tactlessly alludes to the rumors in a political ad.
- By Season 2 the food situation for the survivors becomes increasingly bleak with the arrival of winter. Shauna is the first to engage in outright cannibalism, eating an ear accidently removed from Jackie's (frozen and well preserved) corpse. In "Edible Complex" Lottie discovers a noticeable bite taken out of Jackie's wrist, and a later attempt to finally cremate her goes awry leaving a now well-cooked corpse. After some initial hesitation, all the girls and Travis start hungrily digging in, with the freaked-out Coach Scott as the only holdout.
- By Season 3, the instances of cannibalism happen as part of a ritual and not so much starvation.
- Innocently Insensitive: Jackie's parents, obviously still mourning her loss, describe her as having been the best of all her classmates, and they sympathize with Shauna for how hard it must have been to live in Jackie's shadow. Shauna tolerates the unintended insults, but her husband ultimately comes to her defense.
- In "Burial", Coach Ben tries to end things by walking off a ledge. The Sociopath Misty, of all people, manages to talk that person out of their plans.
- Introvert–Extrovert Pairing: For a good part of the first season, the outgoing, bubbly Misty Quigley is paired with the moody, brooding Natalie Scatorccio to great comic effect.
- Ivy League for Everyone: Of the people whose college education we know, 2/3 were set for the Ivy League:
- Shauna got into Brown, but didn't end up going after her ordeal in the wilderness.
- Taissa went to Howard (a prestigious HBCU) for undergrad, then to Columbia to study law as a graduate.
- Jackie was supposed to be going to Rutgers, which is a prestigious school but not in the Ivy League.
- Lesbian Jock:
- Van and Taissa, two of the title Yellowjackets (a girls' high school soccer team), are both lesbians who have a relationship.
- Melissa, who always wears a backwards baseball cap as a teen or adult, is also revealed to be a lesbian in season 3 and is a fellow team member.
- Shauna is another member of the team, who after previously having only been seen with men starts dating Melissa.
- Lingerie Scene: When the girls reach the lake, many happily strip to go for a swim in their underwear. Later while they get intimate Natalie is shown in her underwear with Travis as well for a long scene.
- Lipstick Lesbian: Taissa and her wife Simone in the 2020s are both very femme, with long hair while wearing feminine clothing like nice dresses frequently.
- Loan Shark: Jeff is the blackmailer, and the reason he is doing it is because he is secretly deeply in debt to "bad people."
- Lottery of Doom:
- To avoid starving during the first winter, the teens decided to kill and eat whoever drew the queen from a deck of cards. Truth in Television, as this was common for groups surviving similar circumstances. Natalie "won," but Travis helped her escape with Javi. While the other girls hunted them, Javi fell through the frozen lake. The Yellowjackets let him drown and spared Natalie. This became a sacrificial ritual by the second winter, with the victim given the choice of accepting death or trying to flee (implicitly what caused the pit girl's death).
- In the present timeline, Lottie proposes one involving cups of tea, one of them with poison so they can give the Wilderness the sacrifice it wants. They end up going old-school, a deck of cards with a marked queen of hearts, masks, etc.
- To avoid starving during the first winter, the teens decided to kill and eat whoever drew the queen from a deck of cards. Truth in Television, as this was common for groups surviving similar circumstances.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places:
- Taissa and Van have sex in the woods together.
- Jeff and Shauna go to Adam's studio and find it full of portraits of her in various mediums and styles. They proceed to have sex with their clothes still on.
- Masculine–Feminine Gay Couple: Van is a butch lesbian who wears masculine clothing, while her girlfriend in the 1990s, Taissa, wears her hair long initially with a more feminine dress style.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: During their ordeal in the woods, the plane survivors experience a number of strange occurrences and weird phenomena. There are generally mundane explanations for most of it if not acknowledged as much In-Universe, particularly that the girls are increasingly descending into desperate paranoia. However, Lottie's hallucinations and predictions have a great deal of truth in them, and several of the others increasingly believe that she's some sort of seer. There's also a bear wandering up to the cabin and basically allowing Lottie to kill it and Laura Lee's bear mysteriously catching fire.
- Microcosm Foreshadowing:
- In the pilot, the Yellowjackets get in an argument about whether they should "freeze out" Allie, a weaker freshman player on the team during practice, as they are preparing for Nationals and believe she will only hold them back. They ultimately end up freezing her out, and Taissa breaks Allie's leg during a brutal challenge for the ball. This saves Allie from getting in the plane crash that strands all the other Yellowjackets in the Canadian wilderness for 18 months. How each character reacts also foreshadows everyone's else's reactions to a stressful wilderness experience.
- Taissa suggests the freeze out and is the person who breaks Allie's leg. When she sees Allie's injury, though, she's horrified. This foreshadows the emergence of Other Tai in the wilderness.
- Shauna timidly says that "Jackie won't like it" when the freeze out is suggested. However, she goes along with it. This reflects how Jackie dominates Shauna's life but she lacks her own identity and her willingness to do some of the worst stuff in the wilderness.
- Natalie is appalled and refuses to go along with it... but she doesn't actively do anything to stop it from happening either. This shows how Natalie is the Yellowjacket with the strongest moral compass and the least susceptible to peer pressure, but that she will still be party to some of the group's crimes in the Wilderness, most notably letting Javi drown to save herself in season 2.
- Misty rushes in after the fact and applies Worst Aid, which gets mirrored when she rushes to help Coach Ben after his leg gets mangled in the plane crash. That time, though, she chops off his leg.
- Jackie is left out of the decision, which enables her to come in and mend bridges among the other players. However, when Jackie shows that she's a fair-weather leader after struggling to come to terms with the crash and their stranding, she gradually loses her status in the group. This culminates in Shauna "freezing out" Jackie, sending her to sleep outside and inadvertently causing her to freeze to death when none of the other Yellowjackets stand up for her.
- After the plane crash, the Yellowjackets see a Foreboding Carcass of a deer. Ben tells Nat that "wolves can kill anything if the pack's big enough." The Yellowjackets end up hunting and killing multiple people while stranded, including Ben, who dies via a Mercy Kill at Nat's hands after the others torture him.
- In the pilot, the Yellowjackets get in an argument about whether they should "freeze out" Allie, a weaker freshman player on the team during practice, as they are preparing for Nationals and believe she will only hold them back. They ultimately end up freezing her out, and Taissa breaks Allie's leg during a brutal challenge for the ball. This saves Allie from getting in the plane crash that strands all the other Yellowjackets in the Canadian wilderness for 18 months. How each character reacts also foreshadows everyone's else's reactions to a stressful wilderness experience.
- Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: A twofer is caused by Jeff's blackmail scheme:
- The other survivors end up enacting a Crime After Crime response while trying to figure out who the blackmailer is and how safe the secret is, which results in multiple equally minor crimes… but also Shauna and Misty killing two people.
- Meanwhile, Natalie's Properly Paranoid investigation (with the unwanted assistance of Misty) uncovers the death of Travis, which is heavily implied to not be suicide… and either way seems to get the attention of a Cult that worships the same symbol haunting the survivors' memories, and that then kidnaps Natalie, heavily implied to be led by a still alive Lottie.
- Murder by Mistake: After Lisa discovers the Yellowjackets about to apparently kill Shauna, she threatens them and Misty lunges forward to stab her, but Natalie gets in the way and ends up killed. Misty is horrified by what she just did.
- Never My Fault: When the group realizes they ate shrooms, Misty admits she was going to give them to the Coach and accuses him of tricking her into falling in love with him.
- Never Suicide: Natalie and Misty start to believe this about Travis.
- New Installment, New Season: Downplayed. The 1990s storyline of Season 1 takes place throughout summer and fall 1996, concluding with the first snowfall that kills Jackie. Season 2 picks up straightaway and covers the winter, where the Yellowjackets turn to cannibalism, and ends with the burning of the cabin (still in winter). Season 3 then features a Time Skip to spring 1997 with only a Take Our Word for It about the rest of the winter. The majority of Season 3 then covers spring and summer 1997. Natalie kills Ben during the first snowfall of winter 1997, and the last couple of episodes take place in the second winter.
- No Clear Leader: The Yellowjackets have this problem from the minute they crash-land in the Canadian wilderness.
- Season 1: The lone surviving adult, Coach Ben, tries his best but he's missing a leg and whatever authority he had is stripped away by having to rely on Misty and falls into Sanity Slippage after Laura Lee overrules his authority in her escape mission and gets blown up. Jackie is used to being The Leader as the head of the cheerleading squad, but instantly crumbles under the trauma of the plane crash and being stranded. Upon finding out that Shauna is pregnant by Jackie's boyfriend, Jeff, Jackie attempts to pull her authority on Shauna but Shauna, who has gained authority, fights back. All of the Yellowjackets either turn on Jackie or abandon her, leaving her to be frozen to death in the first snowfall. Lottie becomes the de facto leader of a section of the team who comes to believe that she has mystical abilities. This puts her at odds with natural leader Taissa, especially since Taissa's girlfriend Van becomes one of Lottie's true believers.
- Season 2: Lottie is revealed to be deeply uncertain about her "powers" and pushed into them by the increasingly desperate group, unwilling to take on any more serious role as The Leader. Natalie, meanwhile, has turned against Lottie, annoyed that her role as hunter is not appreciated or grants her any authority, which alienates her more from the rest of the group. Due to starvation, Taissa is unable to take on any meaningful leadership role. Shauna craves more leadership and is deeply traumatized from her Tragic Stillbirth. These factors coincide in Shauna nearly killing Lottie, taking her out of commission. Lottie resigns herself to her death, seeming almost relieved...only for the rest of the group to decide that Lottie can't die. Instead, they decide to use a hunt to find a Human Sacrifice to take Lottie's place.
- After this, the Antler Queen is revealed to work like this. Lottie is the first, and has a leadership role because of it. After having her life narrowly saved by the hunt, she resigns her position and chooses Natalie instead on the basis that she survived the card draw and the hunt. Although this happens in the Season 2 finale, there are already strong hints that not all of the group appreciates Lottie stepping down from leadership. Shauna, for example, is shown ranting in her diary about how she should be queen.
- No Name Given: Akilah and Mari may be there as background characters, but at least they are given names unlike their Living Prop teammates, credited as Yellowjacket #1 and Yellowjacket #2. This ends in Season 2, when YJ #1 becomes Gen, and YJ #2 is recast and becomes two characters, Melissa and Crystal.
- No Party Given: Neither Taissa Turner nor her state senate opponent Phil Bathurst are mentioned as being members of a specific political party. However, Bathurst is described as a "wannabe Mitch McConnell," while Taissa is compared to Kamala Harris, making it clear that he's a Republican and she's a Democrat.
- No Party Like a Donner Party: While the main cast didn't initially intend to eat Jackie after her death, inadvertently cooking her during a failed cremation proves too tempting an opportunity for the starving team.
- No Periods, Period: Averted at first, since one episode involves the girls' synchronized menstrual cycles, though played straight later on. This is justified, however, since by the second season starvation has become an issue (malnutrition can stop menstruation).
- Nobody Poops: Jessica Roberts is chained to a bed and left unattended for upwards of 8 to 12 hours at a time while fully clothed and without access to a bedpan. There's no sign of mess.
- Once More, with Clarity: The pilot's opening scene of the Yellowjackets hunting down the "pit girl" gets revisited in the season three finale, which adds additional context. Whereas in the pilot scene, it seems like all the Yellowjackets are at the height of their zealotry for their cannibal cult, with Misty smiling as she eats human flesh, the revisit makes it clear that there is a coup attempt against the cult occurring during the hunt, and Misty's smile is in triumph for having helped Natalie call for rescue.
- Only Bad Guys Call Their Lawyers: Whenever the police question Shauna or Jeff about Adam's murder, they imply to the couple that they shouldn't need to consult a lawyer if they have nothing to hide. In spite of increasing signs that they're primary suspects, no one in the family asks for a lawyer until after repeated and exhaustive interrogations.
- Passionate Sports Girl: Possibly the whole WHS Yellowjackets team, but Jackie stands out for mocking a restaurant sign that praises the boys' baseball team despite the fact that they were under .500 all season, whereas the girls' soccer team is going to the nationals. As of the season 1 finale, Shauna is the only explicit exception, revealing that she never even liked soccer, and just went along with what Jackie wanted them to do.
- Pass the Popcorn: Misty is literally munching on popcorn as she spies on Natalie and Taissa via the camera hidden in the cheesy aroma diffuser she gifted Natalie. The fun stops when she overhears Natalie calling her a "conniving, poodle-haired, fucking freak!"
- P.O.V. Cam: Part of the '90s timeline's visual language is wide P.O.V. shots and tracking Shaky P.O.V. Cam shots, such as when the camera "crashes" through the window during the seance in "Blood Hive" or follows snow falling on Jackie's funeral pyre in "Edible Complex". This gives the impression that an unseen individual or force is watching the Yellowjackets from a distance, underlining the Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane feeling.
- Precision F-Strike:
- Diane, a guest at the party, offers to donate to Taissa's campaign in exchange for the truth as to what really happened after the plane crash. Taissa declines, and the woman tells her to watch her tone. Taissa's response?Taissa: I'll perfectly calibrate my tone... as I tell you to go fuck yourself.
- Laura Lee is a sweet, soft-spoken, deeply Christian girl. So when she drops one, everyone listens up.Laura Lee: If I don't do this, we're all... we're all gonna fucking starve.
- Diane, a guest at the party, offers to donate to Taissa's campaign in exchange for the truth as to what really happened after the plane crash. Taissa declines, and the woman tells her to watch her tone. Taissa's response?
- Pun-Based Title:
- "Edible Complex", where the team (minus Coach Ben) ends up eating Jackie's body after they try to burn it but it roasts to perfection, is a play on Oedipus Complex.note .
- "Them's the Brakes" is a punny wordplay on the phrase "them's the breaks" and the fact that the brakes on Shauna's vehicle malfunction.
- Recycled with a Gimmick: The whole premise is a Gender Flipped take on Lord of the Flies, i.e. children being stranded away from civilization after a plane crash and devolving into savagery. The fact that the survivors are an athletic team that resorts to cannibalism in the cold climate is clearly influenced by LaMia Flight 2933, made famous in the film Alive. The dual timeline structure, with the kid protagonists reconnecting as adults as we see them live out their trauma through flashbacks, also owes to Stephen King's It.
- Reflective Eyes: In the poster promo at the top of this page you can see Shauna, wearing her antlered veil, in Jackie's eye.
- Relationship-Salvaging Disaster: Shauna and Jeff's marriage is pure Dead Sparks initially. His blackmail scheme, while it's utterly disastrous and leads to Shauna committing manslaughter, brings them back together, allows them to be more honest with each other, and leads to the rekindling of their marriage.
- Remember the New Guy?:
- Crystal and Melissa are introduced in Season 2 as part of the team who had been there since the crash, but were never seen or mentioned before.
- Episode 3.01 "It Girl" features the first appearance of Britt and Robin, who presumably had also been there since the crash.
- Retcon:
- Season 1 ends with Lottie donning the Antler Queen veil and chanting "let the darkness set us free", accompanied by Misty and Van. Come Season 2, Lottie has no interest in being the Antler Queen and is only shown trying to help others in their despair in the wilderness, and Misty has been replaced by Mari as Lottie's main follower who isn't Van.
- Season 3 features the revelation that Melissa, a new guy to the team that has apparently been there since the beginning, has faked her own suicide and ended up married to Hannah's daughter. You would expect some mention of her, or at least her death, to have been made during the investigations into Travis or Adam's deaths, or the trio's hunt for the blackmailer.
- The Reveal:
- In "Blood Hive", Shauna is pretending to have her period to hide that she did indeed get pregnant from having sex with Jeff.
- "Saints": Taissa is the "lady in the tree" that Sammy has been seeing.
- "Doomcoming": Having fearfully murdered "Adam" believing him to be the blackmailer, Shauna discovers her husband Jeff was actually responsible. He was never cheating on her, instead consumed by financial troubles with his store and in desperation taking loans from very bad people that the blackmail was to pay back (the woman Shauna saw him with at the motel being involved with them).
- "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi": Travis's bank account was emptied by a seemingly alive Lottie.
- "Qui": What happened to Shauna's teen pregnancy? A sad Mundane Solution. The baby was stillborn in the wilderness.
- "It Chooses": The mouse that Akilah befriended and made a pet of was Dead All Along. It becomes more revelatory in hindsight when Season 3 indicates that she has a similar attunement to “the Wilderness” as Lottie.
- "Storytelling": After a lot of implications otherwise, it's revealed that Lottie wasn't the Antler Queen, or at least she wasn't the only one. After waking up, Lottie convinces the others that the Wilderness has chosen Natalie as their leader, and they all pledge their loyalty to her.
- Croak & A Normal, Boring Life: The audio tape that was mailed to Shauna and her family, was recorded by one of the frog scientists, Hannah, as a Dying Declaration of Love to her daughter whom she had during a teen pregnancy - similar to Shauna. With the daughter still alive, Shauna goes to investigate/interrogate and discovers that the daughter has married none other than a fully grown Melissa whom Shauna believed to have committed suicide; who also confesses that she was the one who mailed the audio tape.
- Full-Circle: Returning to the series' cold open but with full context, the episode reveals Mari was the chased girl who fell into the skewer pit, and Shauna is the Antler Queen at the feast.
- Rewatch Bonus:
- Before "the bad one" is revealed to be a sleepwalking Taissa, Simone remarks in one episode that she isn't good at being anyone except herself.
- Natalie's distrust of Misty, particularly her knowing on instinct Misty sabotaged her car in "F-Sharp," takes on a new dimension when season 3 reveals Natalie had learned back in 1997 that Misty had smashed the plane transponder.
- Roadside Surgery:
- Misty does a half-decent job of amputating Coach Ben's leg.
- Attempted unsuccessfully in Shauna's case. She tries to terminate her pregnancy by herself with the wire from a bra. Taissa takes over, but Shauna is in too much pain for them to finish.
- Akilah stitches up Van's horrible facial wounds after the group managed to get Van back to the cabin.
- Secret Relationship:
- Taissa and Van turn out to be a couple in 1996, which they keep from the others. They eventually come out in "Doomcoming."
- Travis and Natalie also started a relationship in 1996 that they kept a secret, though only briefly.
S-Z
- Shame If Something Happened: Misty is keeping Jessica Bound and Gagged in her basement. She casually mentions the name and address of Jessica's father who lives in Florida, and that she spoke to his nurse... while injecting fentanyl into chocolates. Which Jessica's father loves, by the way.
- Shipwreck Start: The 1990s plot starts with the survivors being marooned in the remote Canadian wilderness (though the crash itself happens in the second episode rather than the first) due to a plane crash. There's another plane there, but that also crashes after Laura Lee tries to fly it away.
- Shout-Out: The girls make a lot of references to media from The '90s.
- Two Yellowjackets discuss who their favorite Spice Girl is.
- Van describes the plot of While You Were Sleeping as a campfire story. In 2021, Misty watches the film. When Taissa goes to find Van, her vintage video store is called "While You Were Streaming."
- Shauna flips through Jackie's diary, which includes lists of her favorite movies and characters. Her favorite film is Fear (1996).
- When Van discusses Taissa's split personalities, she references the Family Matters Running Gag of Steve Urkel turning into his confident alter-ego Stefan Urquelle.
- When the team interacts with the first people from civilization they've seen in about a year, Van asks, "Do Mulder and Scully get together?"
- In the hospital, Van talks to a vision of her younger self, who references the search for the treasure in The Goonies.
- Sinister Deer Skull: In the pilot episode, a girl in a headdress made out of deer antlers and a veil leads others (all wearing identity concealing masks) in a cannibal ceremony. In a later episode, the maybe-psychic Lottie Matthews dons the headdress.
- Slut-Shaming: Natalie says she's been with a few guys after Travis asks as they get intimate, and gets angry when he doesn't like this. She points out that a guy at their school has been with many girls and no one cares. Travis claims it's different as she's a girl.
- Snow Means Death: The first snow in the wilderness precedes (or really, causes) Jackie's death.
- Spoiler Opening: Even if viewers didn't know who Lauren Ambrose was or who she was playing, the Season 2 opening credits show her as a red-haired woman with a scarred face, clearly cluing them into the fact that she's playing adult Van, almost four full episodes (nearly halfway through the season) before she's reintroduced to the story. She appears in person in the Cliffhanger ending of episode 4.
- Sports Star to Scoundrel: Justified as the protagonists are from an elite high school soccer team that gets stranded in the Canadian wilderness on their way to Nationals. All of the stranded players are shown drawing on their soccer skills in order to survive, and becoming increasingly feral in their struggle to survive.
- This starts from the pilot, which flashes forward How We Got Here-style to show the characters hunting down one of their own, and eventually cannibalizing her, in a way that is reminiscent of how the Yellowjackets win the soccer game in the opening, which also happens during Doomcoming when the girls, high on shrooms, chase Travis and threaten him with a knife. And, when the Pit Girl death is shown for real at the end of Season 3, it's revealed that the other girls were not really hunting Mari aside from Shauna.
- Taissa hatches a plan to "freeze out" Ally in practice, which she suggests as a strategy at Nationals because Ally is a weak player. Taissa charges at Ally and breaks her leg in a tussle over the ball. Shauna goes along with it despite the fact that "Jackie won't like it." This foreshadows the first death in the wilderness, which occurs around six months later, at the end of Season 1. Shauna sends Jackie out of the cabin after an argument, after which Jackie freezes to death. Similarly, Taissa also ends Season 1 by killing her dog in an apparent blood sacrifice.
- As adults, the surviving Yellowjackets are being blackmailed for their actions in the wilderness. While on the drop for the blackmailer, Shauna, Taissa, and Natalie chase him down, and discuss "taking the wing" and "marking him like at States."
- Tagline:
- "There's no 'I' in team, but there is in 'survival'."
- "The truth may come crashing down."
- Taken During the Ending:
- Season 1 ends with Natalie, about to commit suicide, being kidnapped from her motel room. It turns out to be at Lottie's behest, and Natalie spends the whole of Season 2 at Lottie's (now called Charlotte's) compound.
- Season 2 ends with Lottie/Charlotte being forcefully recommitted after Natalie is sacrificed during the adults' hunt.
- Team Power Walk: Shauna, Taissa, Natalie and Misty walk this way as they enter their 25th year reunion.
- Their First Time:
- Jackie convinces Travis to have sex with her as she doesn't want to die a virgin.
- Apparently the case for Taissa and Van, who get it on out in the woods, although they might have earlier.
- There Are No Therapists: Due to the survivors' vow of silence, therapy is mostly off-limits, as Misty acknowledges. Some, like Taissa, oppose it altogether. Others try to get some degree of professional help. Natalie goes to rehab, Shauna and Jeff attend marriage counseling, and Lottie spends years in an asylum. However, they refuse to go into specifics about what happened, limiting how much work can be done for their issues.
- Those Two Guys: Each Season has its own pair.
- Akilah and Mari through Season 1. They get names and lines, but their adult counterparts don't appear in the present timeline.
- In Season 2, Akilah and Mari are more prominent, so they pass the baton to Gen and Melissa.
- By Season 3, Gen is given more responsibility and Melissa becomes a more important character. Their previous positions are then taken up by Britt and Robin.
- Through the Eyes of Madness:
- We see Lottie's hallucinations as she sees them.
- In 2021, certain things we see later turn out to be hallucinations, such as Shauna's empty safe and Sammy at Taissa's house.
- Time-Shifted Actor: A necessity, given the 25-year span between the 1996 crash and the 2021 plot.
- Title Montage: The opening title sequence, "No Return," is largely a montage of clips from the show itself. By the sixth episode, most of the clips have been seen on the series itself, though viewers are still left to puzzle over certain clips and the significance of certain ones.
- Token Religious Teammate:
- Laura Lee leads the team into prayer before practice. She's the only who seemed to really be religious, talking of her faith a lot.
- Van appears to take up this role after Laura Lee's death, particularly after her second near-death experience and the events of Doomcoming. She asks the group to say grace, turns to Lottie for guidance and prays before a shrine along with Misty as one of the first members of Lottie's new cult.
- Tragic Keepsake:
- The ring Coach Martinez was wearing when he was killed belonged to his grandfather. Travis and Natalie retrieve it to give it to Javi.
- Shauna bumps into her daughter at a dance club, wearing what she thinks is Shauna's old Yellowjackets uniform. It's Jackie's, a gift from her parents to Shauna on what would have been her 40th birthday.
- Twofer Token Minority: The cast is mostly white and straight, but with significant exceptions too.
- Taissa, the main Black girl on the team, it turns out is a lesbian. She's married to a woman in 2021, and they have a son as well. Her wife is a Black lesbian too.
- Lottie is a biracial girl, with a white father and East Asian mother as shown in her flashbacks. She also has precognitive abilities and implied schizophrenia, traits no other person has. Lottie is the only cast member of her heritage, while also the first to show any apparent psychic gift.
- Coach Scott's a gay man in a group of (mostly) teenage girls. He can even be considered as a "threefer" considering that he's the only surviving adult in a group of teens.
- Travis and Javi are Latino boys in a group of mostly white teen girls.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Natalie in the opening sequence. Coach Scott after drinking poisoned tea.
- Wall Bang Her: Taissa and Van have sex up against a tree in the forest.
- Wham Episode:
- Season 1 Episode 7: "No Compass": In the past, Taissa tries to hike out of the wilderness, which results in Van getting mauled by wolves. Shauna finally confides in Jackie about her pregnancy, but lies about the father, but then Jackie catches her in a lie. The episode ends with Jackie reading Shauna's diary and learning that Jeff is the father of her baby.
- Season 1 Episode 10 "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi": In the past, Jackie confronts the group on their recent craziness and argues viciously with Shauna, the majority of whom in turn mostly express Never My Fault and she sleeps outside, ultimately found frozen to death. Javi has worryingly disappeared, and Lottie becomes a cult leader with Van and Misty as her first full converts. In the present: Taissa wins the senate race while Simone finds the head and heart of their dog Biscuit along with the strange symbol painted in blood in their basement; Misty releases Jessica but the latter succumbs to fentanyl-laced cigarettes; Lottie is revealed to be the one who emptied Travis's bank account; and the mysterious group who kidnap Natalie are all but stated to be her current cult followers.
- Season 2 Episode 2 "Edible Complex": In the past, Jackie's body is given a proper funeral by fire. While the group sleeps, a large amount of snow falls on top of it, leaving the body cooked. The smell eventually wakes up the starving Yellowjackets, and they (with the exception of Coach Scott) start to devour it.
- Season 2 Episode 6 "Qui": In the present, Shauna admits to the police that she slept with Adam but not that she killed him; the adult survivors (that we know of) are reunited at the cult compound. In the past, Shauna finally has her baby. After a vivid dream of breast feeding her child and seeing her fellow survivors eating him, she wakes up to learn it was a Tragic Stillbirth.
- Season 2 Episode 8 "It Chooses": The Yellowjackets decide that they have to draw cards to see who will die in order to spare Lottie, which sets up the rules for all the sacrifices/murders later in the wilderness. Natalie draws the queen card, but Javi tries to help her and falls into the frozen lake. The Yellowjackets (including Natalie) all let Javi drown, and bring his body back to eat.
- Season 2 Episode 9 "Storytelling": In the past, the Yellowjackets eat Javi. Lottie defers her leadership position to Natalie. Coach Ben deserts the group to live alone in the cave that Javi found, but not before he burns down the cabin with everyone inside. In the present, Walter murders Kevyn and frames him for the deaths of Adam and Jessica. Misty accidentally kills Natalie after Lisa threatens her, and Lottie is taken away in ambulance, likely about to be committed to a mental hospital.
- Season 3 Episode 6 "Thanksgiving (Canada)": Natalie gives a mercy kill to Ben, leading to Shauna becoming the new leader. Her first act? Declaring that they will "honor" Ben by eating him that night. Followed by their feast being interrupted by two hikers.
- How the Story Ends: Hannah stabs Kodiak, wanting to join the survivors out of pure fascination. Melissa stabs Van in the present day, killing her; and the latter’s “spirit” arrives in the same Afterlife Express as Natalie in the Season 2 finale (the airplane).
- Wham Line:
- "Hello, Misty, you crazy fucking bitch."
- From Season 1 Ep 10, "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi": "Look, I did what you asked. I dug into Travis's bank account and found out who emptied it. I think someone's following me. Who the fuck is Lottie Matthews?"
- From Season 2 Ep 7Van: "I have cancer."
- From Season 2 Ep 9, when Shauna tells Lottie that there is no entity stalking them, but rather the darkness came from them.Lottie: Is there a difference?
- Wham Shot:
- Laura Lee revealing herself in Jackie's dream, revealing she joined her in death.
- "12 Angry Girls and 1 Drunk Travis": The final shot—a deceased Lottie at the bottom of a staircase lined with candles.
- At the end of "Thanksgiving (Canada)", a man and woman suddenly approach the Yellowjackets camp, the man understandably jumping when he sees Ben's severed head on a tree.
- In "Croak", young Lottie responds to being interrupted by the hikers by brutally bludgeoning Edwin, the male hiker, to death.
- How the Story Ends: Teen Lottie walking over the pit trap set by Travis who looks on in disbelief.
- You Can't Go Home Again: A concern shared by some crash survivors. These worries will be proven true, as none of those who make it out will live fully healthy lives, and out of those, at least three die in the present timeline.
- Shauna first voiced this opinion in her diary at the start of Season 3 in "It Girl".
- Later that same season in "A Normal, Boring Life", Taissa and Lottie share similar concerns, due to a combination of not wanting to lose the freedoms they have in the wilderness, having to live with the guilt of what they did, fearing that their secrets will be exposed, and generally not believing they can readjust to normal society.
- As Lottie puts it in "Full Circle": "This place is in us now. Even if we go home... It will come with us."
- You Wouldn't Shoot Me: When Shauna tries to get back her minivan, she threatens to shoot the person in charge of the garage and he tries to call her bluff, to which Shauna responds by describing in detail what it's like to remove the skin from a dead body to show she's being serious.
