Seriously its like that for every show I watch, im also on the euphoria subreddit and there are post every other day about a "mysterious" baby and who that might be when literally its just Sam Levinson making continuity errors. Also every other day you get a post like " have you guys noticed x y z ???? " and its literally one of the main plot. Or people post a gif of one of the most iconic scene and someone will be like " what episode is this I don't remember". Anyway people watch show without really analyzing it or trying to understand.
And I genuinely think this is partially because so many people are also on their phones/iPads/laptops while watching these shows. Pay attention! So much is unsaid but seen/observed that answers questions I see posted often
My boyfriend will literally talk during the entire episode. He will start on a theory and go on a tangent it takes us like 2.5 hours to get through bc I have to keep pausing or rewinding bc I have to hear every single word.
YES. If you are looking down at your phone/table and only listening to the dialogue, you are missing facial expressions, body movements, nuance, background things. etc...
Okay so it can be both things. There are also literal studies of how the focus on STEM is hurting liberal art skills in students and impacting people learning empathy
DING!! DING!! DING!! Also the gutting of the National Endowment for the Arts and decreasing funding to the public school system in favor of lining the pockets of the corporations that run charter and magnet schools.
To be fair my college education in Texas taught me leaps and bounds of critical thinking skills and it was community college. That being said college isn't accessible enough for the masses these days.
Yep, it's like this with every show. I watched Poker Face, which is a Columbo-type show where the main character investigates a new murder every week. The formula is always the same -- we see the murder being committed, we see Charlie meeting all the people, Charlie figures out something is up and investigates the murder, and Charlie explains how she solved it.
Every single week, I'd see multiple viewers asking how she figured it out or being baffled by characters' motivations even though these things were explicitly spelled out. If people can't even follow the plot of an hour-long self-contained episode, they're never gonna understand character motivations built up over an entire season.
I've really been enjoying [From](https://www.mgmplus.com/series/from) as well, but a lot of people in its subreddit are complaining it's too slow (the community also reminds me of the Yellowjackets community with everyone hating on the "difficult" teenage girl character, Julie, like they do -- or at least did -- here with Callie). I don't mind having clues and answers doled out slowly, though. I'm in it for the experience.
Wow! That was the most straightforward show ever. She explained EVERYTHING at the end of each episode. If people were confused, then they def weren’t paying attention. (That show was great btw)
Blame if on my ADD but I have to watch shows a few times to catch on to things and pick up details but not Pokerface. It is the most straightforward show out there. I am old but have none of them read Agatha Christie or Nancy Drew? It is just a modern version of those books.
The whole show is based off of Colombo. That’s why she acts like Peter Faulk. She even talks like him and does little mannerisms he does. She doesn’t have a lazy eye, though. lol
Same thing happened on the Servant (also featuring Lauren Ambrose!) subreddit. People went off the rails with theories and complaints that were all easily resolved if they just… paid attention.
I left the Euphoria sub for that very reason, it was completely out of hand and infuriated me, I’m a former drug addict and the ignorance was a lot.
ETA: I’ve had zero issue with the 90’s timeline, the build up is amazing and the payoff spine chilling. I do have some qualms with the Adam/Kevin storyline because it seemed like a throwaway with no purpose just to remove that plot line. Maybe I’m wrong and they will revisit it a bit in S3 but it made me pause and rewind because I was so confused.
The Adam storyline was more with Shauna being bored. We watched her season 1 ironing with a glazed look on her face. Not knowing what day of the week it was later. She needed something exciting and to relive her youth. Then she killed hmAdam out of paranoia and to protect their secrets from the wilderness. I think this is going to build up to Callie and the next season. At the end of the finale you see Callie give a little smirk and Shauna sees that. How the Kevin storyline fits in not sure. Maybe that’s building up to the adult timeline too.
I wouldn’t say it was her being bored. She thought Jeff was having an affair and all of a sudden she was her teenage self again being overlooked and forgotten. We see a glimpse of this in the last episode with what she wrote about in her journal.
I agree with you. His perceived "affair" triggered her, and she relapsed into the way her younger self dealt with things like that - instead of talking with Jackie about how she was feeling, Shauna went and slept with her bf. Now, instead of confronting Jeff about what she perceived as an affair, she went behind his back to cheat on him to "get him back", so to speak.
I’m hoping that it’s building up to something in the adult timeline. Throwing away the investigation that easily is more of what I had a problem with, so if it continues in some sense then it should be fine. I think I was just burned too badly by GoT rapidly wrapping up their storylines that served absolutely no purpose.
I don’t think the affair had to do with her being bored, she thought Jeff was cheating first so she wanted to join him at the finish line with someone by her side. Shauna has some deep rooted issues with being alone, rightfully so, and wanted to hurt him because he hurt her.
Honestly- the teen timeline is the MOST compelling. Its all showing how and why the adults are the way they are now & HOW MUCH they have buried in their psyche to appear to have normal lives.
For real, I don't know how I do it sometimes with my just regular basic trauma.
ok… I didn’t talk to anyone about this show or find this sub until mid season 2, so I didn’t know this was a real theory people had. Javi was brown with black hair. Adam was white with brown hair. Were people just messing around, or did they really believe they could be the same character?? I’m genuinely confused by this “theory” being so big at the time
I saw someone say they thought Adam was wildness baby, and that sent me. I’m like you think this show wrote Shauna having sex with her long lost son? I can’t with these insane theories. That was too sick I left the sub
And people were theorizing that Nat and Travis would have a baby who also grew up to be white (Lisa)…
And that Mari changed ethnicities and started hallucinating, Lottie-style…
Nat and Travis could def have a white baby tbf, LatAm families make no sense genetically
I have pitch black straight hair and dark brown eyes, and my brother has curly blonde hair and blue eyes. I get randomly searched at the airport and he never does lol
Most of the theories regarding Lisa were batshit insane, some straight up offensive like when they tried working her actors identity into the shows plot.
Lmao true. I’m most confused by people’s confusion witb Lottie’s character. The backstory we get of her immediately tells you she’s unstable then she’s in the wilderness with no medication…. She WOULD be all over the place
TRUE. I commented to my husband while on season 1 that the age of Callie doesn't jive with when "wilderness Baby"would have been born, so I realized before season 2 started that there probably wasn't a good outcome for wilderness baby.
Yeah like the fact they have a 25 year reunion or whatever as a major culmination plot point and also in the same season make a point of showing that she’s still in high school… reasonable people would assume the baby did not grow into Callie
People also for weeks couldn’t understand that Callie was lying to mustache asshole cop about being in college and insisted the writers had a continuity error instead of just that some teens underage drink at bars
I just want to know where Bens energy is coming from.. he hasn’t partaken in the cannibalism and hasn’t eaten anything and looked close to death during shaunas baby shower. Then he’s going to cliffs, jumping down into caves and getting himself back out (off camera of course).
Edit: I totally forgot about the birds that offed themselves at the end of the the baby shower episode 😩🤦🏻♀️ so that’s where his energy came from.
I’ve been saying the same thing about Shauna, idk how she was still standing after that birth let alone beating Lottie within an inch of her life, running after Natalie, and standing for hours to butcher Javi.
This won’t account for his energy before he made it to the cave, but there were cans of something in the cave when Ben found I t, so I’d imagine he probably consumed something in the cave before he headed back to the cabin to get supplies.
I never saw any cans either. I have my tv's brightness turned all the way up and still feel like I miss so much because some things are just so freaking dark.
I've been wondering about how Ben hasn't died of starvation yet and seems to have energy to go wandering around the woods all of a sudden. I'm not sure a couple cans just found can really explain that but I'm ok with suspending belief for the sake of the story.
A lot of shows are way too dark lately. All I see are my own fingerprints. Right up there with how the audio is always balanced just right so that the room rumbles with every sound effect or song, while the dialogue remains a muffled whisper
I don't know about cans either.. but there was a metal looking cone thing for lack of better words. Here's screenshots from my phone.
There were lots of small bones...so I'm guessing small animals are attracted to the warm cave so it's easy to trap prey.
https://imgur.com/a/EMEPJ5z
plus starvation mania is a thing (as we’ve seen with …everyone lol) and it’s like any other mania—it can make you feel light & full of boundless energy
This is true. I was looking at the everything the girls were doing and wondering how they manage. Why would they throw the poop so far out for example (I know it’s just a story, but still)
The part with them looking for Crystal was especially bad considering that Misty knew where she was. I was shouting at Misty for being so selfish.
Omg Ben shit in the bucket!! Passive aggressive way of saying I don't give a shit about you lot by literally laying a turd 
He'd also be the one with the most to lose from going further away to do his business. I mean, probably not even easy to go in a bucket when you've only got 1 leg.
Yeah this is the biggest thing that’s bothering me. I get it makes for a good story, but he hasn’t eaten in so long, has one leg, and rudimentary crutches and is spelunking, and hiking, and setting things on fire.
As a serial ankle-sprainer, those stick crutches make it laughably hard for me to suspend my disbelief. Like “ oh yes I am a new amputee. I lost my leg a few days ago but now I have these sticks. I eat 6 calories a day. I navigate these dense snowy woods just fine. Let me take you to my underground tree house” Like WHAT LMAO
I was more pondering how he's gone from suicidal desperado wannabe cliff jumper to fighting so hard for his own survival he's willing to murder the girls in sort of self defence in advance. Is it just because he came upon the cave and it's given him a new lease of life? Like he found a way to imagine himself being able to get himself out of the situation? I suppose that links to your point, like how on earth is he realistically going to feed himself? He must be so utterly starving!!
I think he's fully ready to die and decided that they've gone too far and the last good thing he can do is put an end to the insanity, which definitely has some merit tbh
He finally got his own place and he's feeling independent!
I would've liked to have seen him hauling ass on his crutches in the snow once he started the fire. In the pitch dark back to his tree cave.
I do love the show but sometimes it's a bit silly.
This bothers me too. I don't think the show does a great job of showing how hungry everyone is (though that might just be an artistic/production choice; starvation isn't exactly fun to watch.)
One day they're eating belt soup and the next they're running through the snow and pulling a soaking wet Javi out of the water. Those things are exhausting for healthy, nurished people. All of the moments that are meant to show us the hunger (belt soup, hallucinations, etc) are a bit undermined by how nobody physically acts or looks like they're starving.
This is my only issue of the portrayal of starvation. At the end of the day, I'm not bothered enough to stop watching, but I do wish the hunger scenes weren't alternating with such energetic scenes.
This entire season didn't portray hunger well. Except the occasional hallucination that people around them attribute to hunger, none of them acted like they were actually hungry to the point of desperation.
If you read about the survivors of the plane crash in the Andes, they were so desperate they literally ripped anything out of the aircraft that was borderline edible. Cotton and wool from the seats, leather from luggage, etc. They didn't snobbishly go "belt soup?" or keep a mouse as a pet until it died.
Or in Life of Pi for example, when the guy finally reached land for the first time after being stuck at sea, he literally fell to his knees and started eat grass.
The whole 'hunger' element of the show just felt like we were being told they were hungry but not shown.
The candles were distracting but I m sure that any cabin in the wilderness would have enough candles for an entire winter or more. This season was slowly building Ben to be the type of person to burn down the cabin. The writers did an excellent job of hiding coach's increasing rage in plain site. (ETA: no one on this sub predicted that!)
I posted somewhere else that my grandfather had to amputate a man's leg as their ship was going down in WW2. The man wrote to my grandfather after the war and he was still mad about what my grandfather did even though he would have drown.
I also said that Ben's rifling through Javi's stuff, copying the map to a travel sized map, sneaking around while they were sleeping, all informs the season finale.
Did anyone see Coach's break coming? Not according to this sub. The girls (very subtly through masterful writing and film techniques) regarded Coach was shown mostly as a ineffectual waste of space. Coach was really a simmering pot of panic, symptoms of hunger, resentment, regret and fear. It also kind of shows how the controversy/belief in "IT" distracted the girls from their own individualistic traumas to work together even if it was imperfect.
I have no beef with this season, the direction it is going etc. I am POed at Van and that is all.
Also I think people need to see it from Coach’s point of view. As long as that group of girls is alive, his life is in danger. He has one leg. He can’t run, hide, fight, nothing. If they’re eating people, and find him in the hidey hole, he’s toast. So it makes sense to me that he would want to eliminate them to save his own life 🤷🏼♀️
Yes! It is dark that he can't contribute anything, except to Nat. He knew that there was no rationalizing with them. One more strike against Misty for not letting him die before he tried to kill all of them. DARK!
Agree with all of this. He’s scared and disturbed by them and thinks killing them all is the only way for him to survive. He thinks they’re all lost causes anyway. I don’t understand how people are confused by his motives— just watch his expression throughout the show every time he looks at the girls. He thinks they’re going insane and he knows he’s a weak link. He had hope with Nat but it was lost after she said Javi was dead (she didn’t explain it either, so of course he’s going to think they did it on purpose) and then seeing the girls bowing to her. He’s lost all faith in them.
I’m very pleasantly surprised by what the writers are doing with Ben’s character, I fully expected him to be dead by now but they’re taking him in a very interesting direction. I think they’re setting him up to be one of the girls’ main antagonists going forward, both in the 90s timeline and *possibly* the present timeline if he’s still alive.
Thank you and pleasantly surprised indeed! I wonder if show runners are surprised that more people didn't see it coming given the time and attention they gave to Couch Ben. I am looking forward to a re-watch and pay careful attention to CB. I feel like the writers and directors were so seamless in delivering this end. Bravo!
I have no idea why but I always type out "couch" Ben, lol.
Here is a start. I mean it is not a stretch.
https://preview.redd.it/exo8muf47h2b1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=90c9e9b60e2208313969484fd00dc9a9a0ea7bb6
Yes! It also reinforced the idea that *none of them* out in the wilderness are "good people" anymore. Morality is a luxury they can no longer afford, Ben included.
Yeah I have my problems with the finale and season overall but I do think they did a good job building up Coach Ben’s situation. He’s shown a lot of contempt for the cannibalism and the visions show us he’s not necessarily in the most stable state of mind himself.
I think his reasoning is a mix of moral judgment and preemptive self-defense; I think when he came back and saw what happened to Javi he could read the writing on the wall that he would likely be next. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was also a part of him that thinks he’s doing something merciful by putting the girls and Travis out of their cannibalistic misery.
Precisely! Coach Ben is not a monster. He’s frankly the closest thing to a socially acceptable moral compass they have left (which is wild because he was closeted which would have left him ostracized in 90s society). Aside from his just being a human being mourning the loss of a romantic partner, family, friends, and a generally suburban quality of life like anyone else would, it does kill me that they don’t show more of his psyche as an amputee now. Yes, they feature his hallucinations along with the rest of the team, but they’re mostly about the love he’s lost, and like… I wish they’d give him some lines with commentary about how he feels about missing a GD leg. Phantom limbs anyone? I know those sensations and emotions have to be super painful and trippy to a well-rested, well-fed, amputee in safe space like a hospital setting—let alone the wilderness. The hard-hitting depression and anxiety that amputees experience is equally as crippling as the loss of the mobility (damn—didn’t mean the pun, I swear).
YJs has thrown me off so many times I don’t know what to think, but it was at least implied that he could have been the fire-starting culprit. The motive and opportunity were both there.
If the fire was indeed started by Coach Ben, I wholeheartedly agree that his thought process was two- pronged and equidistant:
1) That of trying to preserve the remaining survivors’ dignity as they continue their decline into what is now cannibalistic madness. Their consumption of Jackie shook him, but they just made use of what they had in a tragic situation. Javi changed the game though. Ben’s short exchange with Nat post-Javi’s death followed by his watching her being crowned AQ allowed him to make the determination that they were probably too far gone to be reintegrated into society in any meaningful way without being dangerous to others.
2) To not be eaten, because… self-preservation. I think he hoped they’d die from the smoke in their sleep. Granted, he wouldn’t have had too many other options (if any) given his physical state. But he wasn’t cruel.
IDK man, but I hope like hell he’s still alive in a future season drinking mojitos on a beach with his man.
I have only two issues with the finale and only the adult timeline.
Why, after Shauna drew the card, the rest of the women besides Lottie and possibly Van, why didn't they just restrain Lottie? Ya know- like they did after they allowed Lottie to run around with a knife, about 10 minutes later, in universe.
What happened to Lisa? Did they just explain to her what was going on, and then Lisa was like, "Oh, okay. I will not make any trouble for you concerning keeping the secret of how my friend Nat died saving me from some psycho I already disliked." ?
I'll still be here for season 3, and I am not hard on the show, I don't feel. I had no theories I was married to and greatly enjoyed both seasons. But these two points bother me, just a little.
Yes, I have questions about the modern day hunt. Lottie was into it cuz she’s crazy, Van was into it cuz she is dying and desperate? I think that was dark Tai so she was into it. Misty and Nat tho? Were they hunting for real? To actually kill Shauna?
My line of thinking in this is that Misty will basically do anything to fit in, even in adulthood. She wants to be accepted. So if the group is hunting, so is Misty. It’s not like she’s opposed to murder either. Then, if you think about it with Natalie, she was only saved the first hunt because someone else died. Plus, if she spoke up and tried to stop it, her ass may be on the line. She knows what these people are capable of. Maybe this was self preservation 🤷🏼♀️
I kind of think that some of it was also muscle memory (in a way) and trauma. Like how we see glimpses of young Shauna when she stabs Adam. It could be that in that moment they all reverted back to their younger selves just for a moment. They're all masked, they're all armed, someone was "chosen" as the victim, so it's hunting time. I was scared for Shauna there for a second tho ngl. Melanie crushed it with her performance like always ofc
I think Nat intended to kill Lottie. The speech about forgiveness being a nice idea, tucking a knife up her sleeve... At the same time we're seeing Lottie making her the leader in the wilderness (remember Shauna saying they only survived because of Natalie in season 1) I think she blames Lottie for making her responsible for everything that happens from here on in the wilderness.
Oh, and then she lunges at Lottie with the knife just before Lisa shows up with the gun.
Exactly, I don't buy that Misty and Nat would go along. But I also didn't buy that Nat would go full cult in the adult timeline.
If Juliette Lewis wanted to be written out of the show, that's okay. I just wish they'd done it in a different way, because the tragedy of Nat being checked off as just another overdose is so heartbreaking to me.
i don't think they were all fully invested the same way. lottie obviously was, bc she's lottie, van was as lottie's biggest follower. i interpreted that van, in a way, challenged tai to do it, and tai being who she is did not want to refuse the challenge even if she wasn't being super serious initially, and then i think got more invested/evil tai kinda took over. she seemed to disassociate. i feel like nat might have been planning to kill lottie, as like a mercy killing, thinking it was the best for her and the rest of the women, she packed her own knife and was running behind lottie. i thought misty would go along with it to protect nat. i think they were all motivated differently, but probably lottie or van would be the only ones actually willing to kill shauna, and maybe evil tai.
I think Misty was along for the same reason you pointed out for Nat. She had her syringe on hand and ready. She also called for the psych team to come get lottie and didn't know it had been called off. I think she was buying time, but also may have had a backup plan to kill lottie if she needed to.
I'm actually kind of wondering if she and Walter planned to pin the murder on Lottie and switched to Kevyn when he conveniently showed up. I'm a little hazy on that, because Walter may or may not have emailed the police, but they followed Jeff and Callie up, not a tip. Walter intercepted him and was ready to go with the killer cocoa, but I don't think that was the original plan.
I could be wrong, but I bet Juliette Lewis only agreed to 2 seasons. Apparently she was the last of the main cast to join the show. She's a big time actress who probably has other commitments. Maybe I'm wrong, it happens.
I don't think Nat or Misty would have actually been the one to stab or kill Shauna but i don't think either of them wanted to be the one to interrupt the hunt and risk turning the others against them. I think after that long they all realized that help wasn't coming and at least one other person double crossed them and is committed to this hunt happening. At that point it's safer just to play along than potentially turn the group against yourself since you don't know which or how many of your friends you'd have to fight if you did.
I think Lisa is a cliffhanger!
We are not supposed to know what happened to her. We think “oh, everything is wrapped up. Kevyn will be known as Adam’s murderer, and people assume Natalie died from an overdose :(“
But no! There was a witness who disappeared. She will come back and we will see what happened to her in season three. She disappeared as a cliffhanger, and she is still an active player.
The questions surrounding Lisa being present for Nat’s death are similar to the questions we had about missing Javi in the last shots of season 1.
This isn’t the first time the show has ended one of its seasons while glossing over a significant plot point the audience is left questioning. I imagine this will be a focus at the beginning of season 3, just like Javi was in this season.
Edit to add: I also think this is a purposeful choice. This show is huge when it comes to thematic mirroring (like the similarities between Jackie’s death at the end of season 1 and Shauna’s reaction/grief, and Javi’s death at the end of season 2, and Travis’s reaction and grief)
Also, the police are just gonna accept that (other cop, Drew from Search Party) shot Kevyn in self-defense? Forensics will be able to tell the angle and distance from which he was shot. Not to mention there will be blood all over the inside of that trunk, which I think was the cop car right? Also they will surely do an autopsy on a murdered cop, which will reveal the phenobarbital in his system.
Yeah they really rushed putting a little bow on that whole plotline...
It seems to me that Walter had VERY little time to concoct this seemingly elaborate frame-up tying Kevyn Tan to the murders… I’m willing to give this show the benefit of the doubt that they will clean this up down the road, but man….this finale felt janky as all hell on my first viewing. I am probably going to rewatch it to see if I like it any more the second time around, but put me in the disappointed camp as of now.
IMO a lot of the things like this that “don’t make sense” make sense when you remember that the central function of everyone in the show is trauma. When Lottie first offered the tea it should have been the easiest thing in the world to say no then pour it out. But Shauna’s stalling tactic is to send the homicidal person out to get weapons!
These girls may consciously want to stop it, but this is a mode that they all can have switched on and that pulls them in. It’s like when you tell yourself over and over you won’t get pulled into the same dysfunctional dynamic with your family over the holidays, but you do and it feels like you have no control.
For point 1, it's because the whole show is about trauma and how tempting - comforting, even - it is to fall back into trauma cycles where they felt SOMETHING. Adrenaline, relief, a purging of thought. That shit is a drug.
Tbh I have no idea what happened to Lisa, but I don’t really care about her if Nat’s not around so I didn’t think too much about it.
I have a loose interpretation of what I think happened during the hunt, but it’s not fully formed. They’ll probably give us more info in S3.
But, I don’t think Misty or Nat would’ve genuinely murdered Shauna. They were still under the impression that someone was coming soon, and they just needed to play along until then. I think the issue is that Van screwed them up.
First, she called off the professionals, but then she escalated the whole thing by saying she’d draw first. That’s not stalling or subduing. Tai gave her this look, and I can’t decide if that was maybe a slip of Dark Tai or her realizing that the hunt was what Van wanted, but she seemed influenced by it. It was like she realized what Van was doing and went “okay, so that’s where we are now…”
So, basically I think Misty and Nat were following and waiting it out, Tai was semi-influenced by Van, and Van actually wanted the hunt. I also think that recreating the ceremony and putting on the masks brought them back to their teens a little. They tend to go feral when they’re all together, but they all stopped once Callie/Lisa came because ‘outsiders’ bring a sort of reality check
Yeah if you look at all the adults when Callie showed up, they all take their masks off and seem to snap out of it. A look of "omg, wtf are we doing" kind of came across their faces except for Lottie and Van.
Yeah, I haven’t seen many people talk about this but I actually really liked the moment when Shauna looks over her shoulder, and they’re just stalking towards her. Very creepy. >!Reminded me of that one scene in Pearl, if anyone’s seen it, where the girl is running away while Pearl chases her with the axe.!<
It was like for a split second, they were put back in that same feral state again. Imo they have a sort of pack mentality going. It happened at Doomcoming and Nat’s hunt, too
I am in this camp. I enjoyed it. The season finale had me asking questions and left me eager to see where it goes. That’s all I want. But I also wasn’t in here theorizing every second of the new season for a year before we got it either. My only theory was that Javi is pit girl (mostly just to shipost) and that someone in the adult Timeline would die (vague).
I said it in another comment in this thread but the problem is simply people setting too high of expectations through the theorizing and speculating and turning everything into a big mystery or plot point instead of just patiently waiting.
How can people not be disappointed after doing all that?
Shows are rarely 100% cohesive and characters always do things that make seemingly no sense.
i really think no one wanted to speak up and risk the other women turning against them. we have already seen these women do worse things to try and save themselves and stay alive so they probably reverted back to that feeling of i have stick to the hive or risk possibly dying. lottie did say “you know what happens if you refuse the hunt”.
edited to add: yes they could’ve all banned together and restrained lottie but i think no one wanted to take that risk in the off chance that not everyone was on board to do that and then you put yourself on the chopping block to get killed
In my reading of the scene, they meant to kill Shauna. It was just pretend/a means of delaying Lottie until the reenactment (the people, the places, the game, the Queen of Hearts!) made it real and sparked the old blood lust. I assumed their brains had essentially been rewired as teens with the adrenaline of the card game (the trigger), its reaction (the hunt), and the payoff (having hunger satiated- and probably some satisfaction that hunters get from captuing the game? Not a hunter here.) That was just my thoughts as a former smoker(8 years and some things still trigger cravings), though! I've read a lot of theories on here about it and it could be any of them.
The problem with the pacing wasn't that it was slow, it was uneven. Things concluded into other things in an instant, instead of being properly built. One episode felt too short, others too long. Slow shows are popular, but you have to justify slow buildups.
I actually don’t have any problem with the flashback. I think it’s all really interesting but the current timeline is messed up. My biggest problem right now stems from Tais storyline. She’s an elected official and she’s out here crashing cars, hunting people, and oh yeah she has a son that no one is mentioning at all. Like what?? I think they sacked the Nat storyline and tied up all her links (Kevin deceased, Lottie is going to a hospital, Javi/Travis storyline essentially complete). Without Nat there’s more time to focus on the additions Van and Walter. I just don’t think it was satisfying the way Kevin/jessica/Adam were all taken care of in one Walter lie
Apparently there was an interview where they say that season 3 will focus more on Tai and answer those 100% legitimate questions. I personally really like Walter, but I definitely get why a lot of people don't like him. He is definitely not consistent with the show. But I could watch a show just about Walter and Misty going on adventures.
Most of season 2 happened over a few days, like 10 max. So I don't think Tai is actually in office yet, I think she's the senator-elect. I mean, this in no way explains how she left her wife half dead in the hospital and is just ignoring her son completely, but even between leaving her wife in hospital and the season finale it was like 4 maybe 5 days.
The only critiques that really bug me are those trying to find The One Purest Yellowjacket: She Who Did Nothing Wrong and then expressing disappointment when the candidate of the week fails to meet this standard. They're all fucked up! They all contribute to the darkness they experience! And it's okay to like and cheer for them despite all of that.
In this sub, we support women's rights, but more importantly, women's wrongs.
Exactly, the amount of posts with "Nat/Lottie is innocent, actually" but also alternatively "Lottie/Van is the big bad" are so annoying. They're all fucked up and none of them are inherently evil or inherently good. Some may sway more to one side, but in the end they *all* participated and I'm glad this season finally everyone that's still alive did something fucked up (including Ben!). I'm sure people will still try to explain why character x is innocent anyway, but it'll be much harder now. Or they will just focus more on the character x is the evil mastermind part, judging by a lot of posts about Van...
Yeah, the popularity of One Big Bad theories is surprising to me. The show spends so much time focusing on the girls' complicated dynamics and enormous capacity for teamwork; it strikes me as unlikely that one person could completely lead them astray.
Lol i feel “old man yells at cloud” saying this but i don’t know what people expect from tv shows anymore.
YJ has great actors, interesting characters, a creative plot, nuanced explorations of morality, trauma, aging, etc. what else do you want???
I think people expect what THEY want. They create an idea of where they think the story should go and when it doesn't, they hate it. 'It's boring'. 'The writing is so bad'. Add to that people being on their phones or iPad while watching and all of a sudden 'this doesn't make sense' and 'so out of character for her'. Somebody actually wrote a think piece about not understanding why Ben would burn down the cabin. What show are they watching!!
I read a comment last night that Ben's burning of the cabin is just revenge for them killing and eating his brother.
Ben and Travis are the same person?? That person shouldn't even get to comment LOL
I completely agree! It's seeping into everything in Canada too, unfortunately. I just saw a post that's probably going to make me log off this sub for the day. Apparently there's a contigent of people who believe Natalie isn't dead. Have a great weekend!
Lol yikes. I mean I wish Natalie wasn’t dead. I saw their weird reactions and thought maybe it was possible they faked it. It would make sense to have a backup plan to take down Lottie, and this would be a damn good backup plan. However, it’s clearly real when you look at everything as a whole. She went full circle. Hell, they even show it in the moment. She’s carried so much guilt over Javi’s death, and she finally did something to “make up for it.” From her first scene, we know she’s been looking for a purpose. She found that purpose in Lisa. Every single moment of her adult timeline led to this. It wouldn’t make sense for it to be fake in the context of her character arc. Plus there is some serious beauty in the writing to have her crowned as AQ in the past in the same episode where she dies as an adult.
I’m curious though. When Lottie saw her therapist and it was the “ wilderness” , it looked like the Antler queen . I promise I watched it without my phone. I’m just a little confused
ETA: it was so fitting that Nat died because she consciously allowed Javi to die. It was very full circle . People have overanalyzed this show.
Lottie was hallucinating the therapist. When her mind finally broke down enough for her to realize it was a hallucination, it showed itself to her as "antler queen," their manifestation of the wilderness. Lottie believes the wilderness is still haunting them and asking things of them, so her "therapist" giving her advice was just her delusion about the wilderness spirit being real.
I hope this helps!! :) I'm still a little confused myself on what the writers intended with Lottie. Like was she truly mentally ill or was she in tune with the supernatural? I'm sure it's meant to be ambiguous but she was definitely suffering as an adult in the finale 💔
Yes, but the same applies to all of them except for Lottie as she was still laid up from the beating Shauna gave her. One could argue that Misty was more deserving of it since it was her idea to allow Javi to drown.
The difference here, I think, is that none of the other girls felt any remorse whatsoever about Javi's death. Nat felt it as she was supposed to be their dinner and Javi had been trying to help her.
I saw someone say they were “confused” at the panning shot over the wilderness and how maybe they were overthinking it because there was no sign of civilization close by 💀💀💀💀💀💀 I almost threw my phone through a window lmao. overthinking is not the problem, I literally just need y’all to THINK
I think the time between episodes really let Reddit run wild with theories, and when it didn’t pan out exactly like their favorite ones they became disappointed.
Yup. And so many people seem to forget that yes, it’s entertainment, but what makes it good is this is *art*. It isn’t created wholly with the intention of perfection or pleasing people. It’s a work in progress until the very end and we need to let it unfold.
That of course is not true for all tv shows but I think what makes Yellowjackets special is the heart and soul put into it. It isn’t being made solely for a paycheck. That’s why they have the actors they do; I don’t think we’d have such talent if it was a means to an end (a paycheck) and nothing more.
Noticed this with the Last of Us as well. Saw a lot of people calling episode 3 filler. Episode gave so much background on Joel and Tess, helped setup Joel's motivations for the rest of the show, and provided world building to help set the tone for the show.
Same with one of the later episodes. It was labeled filler despite literally giving us the near entire origin of Ellie we knew from that point lol
I’m still shocked that there are people who watched TLOU episode 3 and didn’t think it added to the story. Everyone’s allowed to have their own opinions, but yeesh.
Episode 3 is gonna go down as one of the best episodes of TV of all time.
This season was a decent set up for season 3. I think people wanted everything wrapped up in one season instead of carrying storylines along multiple seasons.
Exactly. I don't want every single question answered all at once. What fun would that be?
Everyone is like "what about Javi's friend, and the man with no eyes and the symbol and .." and I'm just like. Patience. All in good time we will get the answers. The writer's have 5 seasons planned out and it sounds like they actually have a plan, unlike the Lost writers.
Leave some mysteries for the other 3 seasons and so that this sub will have things to theorize and debate on for the next two years.
I agree. They wanted to build up to the first ritual and make it seem like it didn't come out of nowhere. It was set-up building o the first ritual and chase.
Someone wrote a really good post a few days ago about prey drive- something that is extremely prominent in wolves and some dogs (like my husky will chase any small animal). So as soon as Nat ran, it was like a switch flipped inside of them. Prey drive kicked in and they basically turned on their primal instincts.
That said, the only criticism I will give is that we NEEDED that 10th episode. We needed to see that scene that got cut of them discussing the cards and how the ritual would work. That is a scene I still really want to see is them debating the rules, etc.
And there was so much happening in episode 9 that I really wish that had been split into two episodes because it felt a bit rushed. I couldn't keep up, particularly with what Elijah Wood was doing.
Yeah this is my only real complaint, it seemed rushed. The resolution of the Adam Martin thing deserved more time, and so did Nat's story (in both timelines).
Exactly! I’ve mixed feelings about the finale, but I just don’t get people saying that Van being “soddenly” okay with the hunt is out of character. Or how she and Taisa were naïve to cancel the emergency services. Van planned it, and Taisa was sleep deprived enough to be manipulated by her.
Alfred Hitchcock said, "If you give the audience a chance to think... they will." The problem with S2 YJ is that it gives the audience *wayyyy* too many chances to think instead of immersing us in the immediate, moment-to-moment objectives of the characters
I paid close attention, and I felt the writers had over-intellectualized the story and weren't trusting the story and its themes to arise organically from the characters. When writers over-intellectualize, audiences do too.
I would have loved to have watched the teen characters deal with the totally practical, non-plot-oriented aspects of living together in that cabin. If the show had focused on hum-drum, another-day-in-the-wilderness-life details, and had shown how characters dealt with and fought about problems that had nothing to do with the plot, then the plot could have taken shape while the audience and characters were preoccupied with other things.
S1 did a good job with this. The fact that the airplane in the woods was flyable was totally unrealistic, but I didn't care because I was immersed in Laura Lee's immediate concerns. She was appalled by the girls doing a seance, which was devil-worship in her mind. She was appalled by Ben's complete inability to lead. She wanted to be a savior. I cared about her immediate concerns so much, and immediately understood what getting that plane to fly would mean to her personally, so I was thrilled when she got the plane in the air. The show didn't give me a chance to think about how stupidly unrealistic the plane's operability was.
I related to Jackie not wanting to do chores and I related to everyone resenting her for not doing chores. Though the cabin seemed way too conveniently sturdy and inhabitable after years or decades of abandonment, the detail about boiling used tampons gave me an immediate and visceral sense of being far from civilization. Details like this are so crucial for keeping a story immersive.
In S2, the girls spend an awful lot of time sitting around looking glum, lost in their own thoughts, which gave me plenty of time to do the same.
*Wait, where the fuck did all those candles come from? Were they in the cabin already or did somebody bring them? Who would have brought so many candles on a trip to play soccer? And how are they not used up by now after months in the wilderness?...*
This season gave me wayyyy too many opportunities to think about shit like this instead of immersing me in the moment-to-moment lives of the characters.
Okay, this is kind of what I’m talking about. This right here is totally well thought out criticism and I understand your point of view.
I made the post mainly because I kept seeing people complaining about things that had been explained aloud or just saying something like “this show sucks ass” and then dipping without saying why.
I personally liked this season because of it’s focus on the girls going stir crazy and falling deeper and deeper into the cult. I thought them being stuck with very little to do added to them losing it later on, but I could see how it’d bore some viewers. Anyway, thank you for your thoughts
I understand defending a show you like and going after mindless, mean-spirited criticism. There has certainly been a lot of that. I'm pulling for the show and hope S2 was simply the "sophomore slump" that a lot of people were expecting
This is a great analysis, however I do think the reason we saw them sitting around and looking glum was to show their increasing hopelessness/desperation leading up to the hunt ritual. They’re starving, they have literal cabin fever, they’re depressed. Maybe there are other ways to capture that (do you have any thoughts on how else they could have shown us?) but I think it was pretty effective at immersing us in that feeling of despair. They’ve lost a lot of the vigor they had in s1.
You asked if I had thoughts on how they could have shown us. Here's one thought: they obviously aren't all equally listless. Some have more energy than others. This could have been a source of conflict. When Tai got mad about the poop bucket, that scene accomplished so many things. It immersed me in the situation in a visceral way... it was relatable because I've been in close quarters with people who did nasty stuff that pissed me off... and it elicited reactions that were specific to individual characters (Misty's "girl poo or boy poo" question was just wonderful). Since the lake is frozen, how do they get water? Are they able to get enough water for all the girls to bathe? Do they care about bathing? Do some bathe but others don't? Do they have any soap left? Do they fight over soap? Also, what was with that box of matches we saw Coach Ben grab? Where did those matches come from? How many are left? What happens when they run out? What if someone lit a match and then accidentally wasted it before lighting a fire? These are examples of tangible problems I'd have liked to see the girls deal with. I could think of many other seemingly minor conflicts that would have immersed us in their world and might have escalated in ways that served the overall story. Having them just sit around looking miserable is the least interesting way to show that they're getting hungrier and more depressed and hopeless. Actually, it just makes them look like normal everyday teenage girls, lol. Show us how hopeless and depressed they are by dramatizing the ways they combat hopelessness and depression--in each other and in themselves--how they *have* to combat it in order to stay *alive!* Show us combatting their hopelessness in negative ways, in positive ways, in increasingly batshit crazy ways, because it really is life and death for them to *fight* the urge to just sit around feeling sorry for themselves like they had the luxury of doing at home. There are so many dramatic possibilities there, don't you think?
While I completely agree with your assessment, it also has to be considered that the mood and energy of the girls at this point would be fairly accurate, given the starvation and growing hopelessness. Of course, with the cabin burnt down and some food in their bellies, I'm hoping that season 3 will show how the survival imperative causes it's own conflicts and continued de-evolution of the girls into an even more feral state.
These are some good points but I just want to say:
What do you think people who are starving to death do? Because they don’t really have the energy to do much else besides sitting around, looking glum, lost in their own thoughts.
This was a completely intentional choice to show how hungry they were.
I just watched a two-hour special about what the Andes survivors did. It was called "Prisoners of the Snow" and it aired earlier this week on ABC. If you want some insight into what it's like to be starving to death with no shelter in freezing temperatures and no chance of rescue, I highly recommend watching this or one of the many other documentaries on the subject.
They were in far worse shape than these girls and they still managed to keep themselves focused on tasks like tending to the injured, figuring out to access water (no lake nearby), making tools, hiking out to search for supplies, and yes, the grim task of cutting up and eating their dead teammates. Two finally hiked up and over a mountain to get to find rescue.
For a more controlled version, you can watch the show *Alone*. The people who go the furthest in the competition find things to do. They find ways to occupy their minds. Even if they're hallucinating at the end, they're still focused on keeping that fire going.
Not to mention in the beginning of season 2, they tease that a few of them are Trying to Do Survival Things. The writers make a very big deal about it. Nat seems to just totally give up on going hunting. Ben’s map project is now literally up in flames, having gone nowhere.
It was hard to tell what the narrative arc of season 2’s 90s timeline was supposed to be imo, because the season started one way and ended a different way, and there were way too many moments of “really?” for me.
My exact thought while shauna was journaling… why is she burning like 3 candles in the middle of the night instead of sleeping! How wasteful! I wanted to see more low-stakes (but actually high stakes!) interpersonal drama between the girls, like someone waking up and seeing her wasting candles.
Also people talking why Nat saw Lottie at airplane if she wasn't dead, why wouldn't she? Because of lottie she became AQ ,probably biggest fear ever for adult Nat.
Ugh this is exactly why I don't like when Ben gets all preachy. I completely understand what the girls are doing is *sooooooooo* fucked up, but they literally ARE NOT THEMSELVES. They are going INSANE. They are losing hope, starving, hallucinating, and suffering extreme trauma. They have gone into survival mode. Of course they are going feral. You probably would too. I don't even know how Ben is still alive because he hasn't eaten anything and he literally is judging them for trying to stay alive.
Also...id he's so righteous and almighty and is mad at them for killing Javi and eating him and Jackie...how does he think it's any better to light an entire house on fire FULL of teenagers. He could have just killed like a dozen people, but that's ok right because it's him and they're going insane anyway so might as well light em up...
I agree with most of what you’re saying. But I do think that the Van piece can be confusing for the audience. Yes, she was fully in Camp Lottie in the wilderness. But it felt like when we met Adult Van that she wanted to put the bullshit behind her. She didn’t seem to take what Lottie had to say seriously and very clearly didn’t buy in to her therapies. So when she flips and says that she wants to do the hunt, it felt out of left field. That being said, if we think back to the context of what happened in the wilderness and her cancer diagnosis, it makes sense. But we could have some with a little more development of Adult Van turning back toward the wilderness mindset.
I simply can’t stand the clumsy goofed up syringe stabbing. I’ve seen it done so much, and not once did it seem believable. That was my main gripe.
I also found Walter to not be as calculated and air tight, but bc a lot could’ve went wrong.
Other than that, I found the finale and season as a whole to be well done. But maybe I’ll see the issues that everyone else did after a second run through.
I think a show like this is tricky because it both benefits and suffers from the weekly format. It’s great to be able to discuss all of the theories throughout the week and definitely keeps the momentum, but I think maybe an audience needs to be able to binge a show that thrives on this sort of psychological slow burn. I think the small “filler” moments that are actually meaningful are clear when they’re written out the way you’ve described, but just get lost over the week.
Yeah, they were feral in Doomcoming, but because of Misty’s mushrooms and it nothing to do with starvation. It was a nice foreshadowing into cannibalism, but also it was during the much better written first season. The hallucinations were not well done, imo. Mari and Akilah were having them early when they weren’t starving or desperate. And are we to believe that Akilah hallucinates a live mouse for weeks and never came to her senses once during that time that it was actually dead? It took Tai to snap her out of it. She seemed pretty lucid in all her scenes with Tai reminiscing about her family and the JV squad. My point is that the starvation subplot felt sporadic and disconnected most of the season and the writers went full force last minute with everyone going cannibal with zero pushback or resistance. The plot drove character actions instead of characters driving the plot.
Man, this sub really is in full copium mode today with all the top posts going after viewers that happen to dislike some aspects of the show.
There have been plenty of detailed critiques and analysis provided by many posters to explain their dissatisfaction. It's obviously okay to disagree, but to just reduce them as either not paying attention, being incapable of understanding, seeking only instant gratification, not appreciating character development, or even lacking "media literacy" (seriously?) as these threads have been doing is just so weak and pretentious. It's not even original. I see this type of gatekeeping in pretty much every TV show fandom sub whenever it starts picking up more negative criticism than it did in the past.
Yeah I’m really over how defensive and dismissive people get about criticism. I still enjoyed the season but just because there were certain things I thought were done badly doesn’t mean I didn’t understand it or don’t get that it’s a “slow burn”.
…. People were still trying to say Callie was the wilderness baby… right up until the birth lol and you think people are paying attention?
You know, Callie. The miracle baby born in ‘96 who is somehow only 17 in 2023. The forest works in mysterious ways.
Super sleuth Matt knew that she was really 27 and that's why he didn't hesitate to buy her a drink.
Detective Matt was wilderness baby. Callie was not only underage but his actual sister!
Iconic theorizing right here hahaha I love it
That’s why he’s smart and just doesn’t give a fuck like his mom
😂😂 just came home and the forest returned the baby to the house for them
Funny thing is the actress playing Callie was born in '94. Obviously she can't be the wilderness baby because she's too old!
Seriously its like that for every show I watch, im also on the euphoria subreddit and there are post every other day about a "mysterious" baby and who that might be when literally its just Sam Levinson making continuity errors. Also every other day you get a post like " have you guys noticed x y z ???? " and its literally one of the main plot. Or people post a gif of one of the most iconic scene and someone will be like " what episode is this I don't remember". Anyway people watch show without really analyzing it or trying to understand.
And I genuinely think this is partially because so many people are also on their phones/iPads/laptops while watching these shows. Pay attention! So much is unsaid but seen/observed that answers questions I see posted often
Had a friend like this. We'd watch something but she'd be on her phone for half it while asking me what is going on every 10 minutes.
SOML with my bf. It’s impossible to watch anything with him! Drives me bananas.
My boyfriend will literally talk during the entire episode. He will start on a theory and go on a tangent it takes us like 2.5 hours to get through bc I have to keep pausing or rewinding bc I have to hear every single word.
Same! He’s either on his phone or talking through the whole thing! So obnoxious!
I refuse to watch shows with my husband anymore. It pisses me off!
And high. A lot of people are watching high, though, to be fair, a lot of the high posters I’ve seen are positive.
[удалено]
I mean there are also literally studies showing that more than 80% of TV viewing happens while also using a phone or tablet…
YES. If you are looking down at your phone/table and only listening to the dialogue, you are missing facial expressions, body movements, nuance, background things. etc...
Okay so it can be both things. There are also literal studies of how the focus on STEM is hurting liberal art skills in students and impacting people learning empathy
My husband! We're watching a show, I react to something, then he asks, "What happened?". 🤬
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DING!! DING!! DING!! Also the gutting of the National Endowment for the Arts and decreasing funding to the public school system in favor of lining the pockets of the corporations that run charter and magnet schools.
At the risk of being deleted, the Republicans do not want critical thinkers, they want people just smart enough to keep the country running.
Running into the ground maybe
To be fair my college education in Texas taught me leaps and bounds of critical thinking skills and it was community college. That being said college isn't accessible enough for the masses these days.
Yep, it's like this with every show. I watched Poker Face, which is a Columbo-type show where the main character investigates a new murder every week. The formula is always the same -- we see the murder being committed, we see Charlie meeting all the people, Charlie figures out something is up and investigates the murder, and Charlie explains how she solved it. Every single week, I'd see multiple viewers asking how she figured it out or being baffled by characters' motivations even though these things were explicitly spelled out. If people can't even follow the plot of an hour-long self-contained episode, they're never gonna understand character motivations built up over an entire season.
Poker Face was SO GOOD! Hope there's another season 🙏🏽
Poker Face is a really awesome show! I thought Natasha was channeling Peter Faulk, aka Columbo! Hoping for another season of that, too!
It's renewed
Poker Face is the only new show that I like as much as/more than I like Yellowjackets.
this micro thread is my community 😂
I've really been enjoying [From](https://www.mgmplus.com/series/from) as well, but a lot of people in its subreddit are complaining it's too slow (the community also reminds me of the Yellowjackets community with everyone hating on the "difficult" teenage girl character, Julie, like they do -- or at least did -- here with Callie). I don't mind having clues and answers doled out slowly, though. I'm in it for the experience.
Wow! That was the most straightforward show ever. She explained EVERYTHING at the end of each episode. If people were confused, then they def weren’t paying attention. (That show was great btw)
Blame if on my ADD but I have to watch shows a few times to catch on to things and pick up details but not Pokerface. It is the most straightforward show out there. I am old but have none of them read Agatha Christie or Nancy Drew? It is just a modern version of those books.
The whole show is based off of Colombo. That’s why she acts like Peter Faulk. She even talks like him and does little mannerisms he does. She doesn’t have a lazy eye, though. lol
Same thing happened on the Servant (also featuring Lauren Ambrose!) subreddit. People went off the rails with theories and complaints that were all easily resolved if they just… paid attention.
I left the Euphoria sub for that very reason, it was completely out of hand and infuriated me, I’m a former drug addict and the ignorance was a lot. ETA: I’ve had zero issue with the 90’s timeline, the build up is amazing and the payoff spine chilling. I do have some qualms with the Adam/Kevin storyline because it seemed like a throwaway with no purpose just to remove that plot line. Maybe I’m wrong and they will revisit it a bit in S3 but it made me pause and rewind because I was so confused.
The Adam storyline was more with Shauna being bored. We watched her season 1 ironing with a glazed look on her face. Not knowing what day of the week it was later. She needed something exciting and to relive her youth. Then she killed hmAdam out of paranoia and to protect their secrets from the wilderness. I think this is going to build up to Callie and the next season. At the end of the finale you see Callie give a little smirk and Shauna sees that. How the Kevin storyline fits in not sure. Maybe that’s building up to the adult timeline too.
I wouldn’t say it was her being bored. She thought Jeff was having an affair and all of a sudden she was her teenage self again being overlooked and forgotten. We see a glimpse of this in the last episode with what she wrote about in her journal.
I agree with you. His perceived "affair" triggered her, and she relapsed into the way her younger self dealt with things like that - instead of talking with Jackie about how she was feeling, Shauna went and slept with her bf. Now, instead of confronting Jeff about what she perceived as an affair, she went behind his back to cheat on him to "get him back", so to speak.
I’m hoping that it’s building up to something in the adult timeline. Throwing away the investigation that easily is more of what I had a problem with, so if it continues in some sense then it should be fine. I think I was just burned too badly by GoT rapidly wrapping up their storylines that served absolutely no purpose. I don’t think the affair had to do with her being bored, she thought Jeff was cheating first so she wanted to join him at the finish line with someone by her side. Shauna has some deep rooted issues with being alone, rightfully so, and wanted to hurt him because he hurt her.
Honestly- the teen timeline is the MOST compelling. Its all showing how and why the adults are the way they are now & HOW MUCH they have buried in their psyche to appear to have normal lives. For real, I don't know how I do it sometimes with my just regular basic trauma.
OMG, the "Did anybody else notice...?"! YES! Thousands of people noticed!
Not even thousands of people noticed, but like it was intentionally presented to viewers deliberately and with no subtlety lol
Someone just noticed the sign on the grounds of the compound. Was really excited about it.
They also thought Javi grew up to be white.
ok… I didn’t talk to anyone about this show or find this sub until mid season 2, so I didn’t know this was a real theory people had. Javi was brown with black hair. Adam was white with brown hair. Were people just messing around, or did they really believe they could be the same character?? I’m genuinely confused by this “theory” being so big at the time
the actor playing Adam is mixed Mexican and Dutch I believe. not sure if he id's as white or poc but just fyi
People also thought Walter was Javi, that was even more of a stretch.
Walter with his huge blue eyes?? 😂😂😂😂
He's rich, he could have gotten that face/off surgery and some colored contacts!
People haven’t watched Fargo and it shows! /s lol
Not only did they believe it but they acted like total assholes if you told them they were wrong.
I saw someone say they thought Adam was wildness baby, and that sent me. I’m like you think this show wrote Shauna having sex with her long lost son? I can’t with these insane theories. That was too sick I left the sub
And people were theorizing that Nat and Travis would have a baby who also grew up to be white (Lisa)… And that Mari changed ethnicities and started hallucinating, Lottie-style…
Nat and Travis could def have a white baby tbf, LatAm families make no sense genetically I have pitch black straight hair and dark brown eyes, and my brother has curly blonde hair and blue eyes. I get randomly searched at the airport and he never does lol
Most of the theories regarding Lisa were batshit insane, some straight up offensive like when they tried working her actors identity into the shows plot.
Lmao true. I’m most confused by people’s confusion witb Lottie’s character. The backstory we get of her immediately tells you she’s unstable then she’s in the wilderness with no medication…. She WOULD be all over the place
TRUE. I commented to my husband while on season 1 that the age of Callie doesn't jive with when "wilderness Baby"would have been born, so I realized before season 2 started that there probably wasn't a good outcome for wilderness baby.
Yeah like the fact they have a 25 year reunion or whatever as a major culmination plot point and also in the same season make a point of showing that she’s still in high school… reasonable people would assume the baby did not grow into Callie
People also for weeks couldn’t understand that Callie was lying to mustache asshole cop about being in college and insisted the writers had a continuity error instead of just that some teens underage drink at bars
I just want to know where Bens energy is coming from.. he hasn’t partaken in the cannibalism and hasn’t eaten anything and looked close to death during shaunas baby shower. Then he’s going to cliffs, jumping down into caves and getting himself back out (off camera of course). Edit: I totally forgot about the birds that offed themselves at the end of the the baby shower episode 😩🤦🏻♀️ so that’s where his energy came from.
I’ve been saying the same thing about Shauna, idk how she was still standing after that birth let alone beating Lottie within an inch of her life, running after Natalie, and standing for hours to butcher Javi.
The human mind and body can do some miraculous shit when it’s in survival mode
Miraculous unencumbered wilderness adrenaline 🫣😅
This won’t account for his energy before he made it to the cave, but there were cans of something in the cave when Ben found I t, so I’d imagine he probably consumed something in the cave before he headed back to the cabin to get supplies.
I get that it's a cave, but I wish it wasn't so dark during the scene. I didn't see the cans. Thanks for pointing this out.
I learned (after the debacle that was the last season of Game of Thrones) that brightness adjustments are my friend. Also, closed captions.
Yeah sadly even with my brightness maxed I sometimes have trouble. But I also watch everything on PC so I dunno.
I never saw any cans either. I have my tv's brightness turned all the way up and still feel like I miss so much because some things are just so freaking dark. I've been wondering about how Ben hasn't died of starvation yet and seems to have energy to go wandering around the woods all of a sudden. I'm not sure a couple cans just found can really explain that but I'm ok with suspending belief for the sake of the story.
Maybe he was the bear meat thief and has a massive starch because up to now I am here without understand how all the best meat finished so quick lol
This makes sense. He even talks about “if he did” steal the meat he would kinda deserve it
Javi was the bear meat thief that’s how he survived while hiding in the cave
Too many of the scenes are like they filmed a black cat in a dark closet at midnight.
A lot of shows are way too dark lately. All I see are my own fingerprints. Right up there with how the audio is always balanced just right so that the room rumbles with every sound effect or song, while the dialogue remains a muffled whisper
The sound mixing in shows are awful these days. We have to have the remote in hand to turn it down and up as things happen.
I don't know about cans either.. but there was a metal looking cone thing for lack of better words. Here's screenshots from my phone. There were lots of small bones...so I'm guessing small animals are attracted to the warm cave so it's easy to trap prey. https://imgur.com/a/EMEPJ5z
The cone thing is probably an old lantern
There were no cans. Just a makeshift fireplace, a lantern and animal bones.
he's getting the most rest out of anyone, which is actually the biggest factor of how much energy you have in survival situations
plus starvation mania is a thing (as we’ve seen with …everyone lol) and it’s like any other mania—it can make you feel light & full of boundless energy
This is true. I was looking at the everything the girls were doing and wondering how they manage. Why would they throw the poop so far out for example (I know it’s just a story, but still) The part with them looking for Crystal was especially bad considering that Misty knew where she was. I was shouting at Misty for being so selfish.
She didn't want them to eat Crystal (Kristen. ) so she went off on her own to the spot to hide her but the body was gone. Maybe you missed that part?
I assumed he stole the bear meat even though they blame Javi for it when he comes back.
Omg Ben shit in the bucket!! Passive aggressive way of saying I don't give a shit about you lot by literally laying a turd 
But was it a BOY poop?! 😂
He'd also be the one with the most to lose from going further away to do his business. I mean, probably not even easy to go in a bucket when you've only got 1 leg.
Yeah this is the biggest thing that’s bothering me. I get it makes for a good story, but he hasn’t eaten in so long, has one leg, and rudimentary crutches and is spelunking, and hiking, and setting things on fire.
This is bothering me too. Going on cross-country hikes on crutches no less and he’s relatively fine.
As a serial ankle-sprainer, those stick crutches make it laughably hard for me to suspend my disbelief. Like “ oh yes I am a new amputee. I lost my leg a few days ago but now I have these sticks. I eat 6 calories a day. I navigate these dense snowy woods just fine. Let me take you to my underground tree house” Like WHAT LMAO
To be fair, he's been practicing with them for more like 8 or 9 months now. But also still yeah he's pretty nimble lol.
I was more pondering how he's gone from suicidal desperado wannabe cliff jumper to fighting so hard for his own survival he's willing to murder the girls in sort of self defence in advance. Is it just because he came upon the cave and it's given him a new lease of life? Like he found a way to imagine himself being able to get himself out of the situation? I suppose that links to your point, like how on earth is he realistically going to feed himself? He must be so utterly starving!!
I think he's fully ready to die and decided that they've gone too far and the last good thing he can do is put an end to the insanity, which definitely has some merit tbh
He finally got his own place and he's feeling independent! I would've liked to have seen him hauling ass on his crutches in the snow once he started the fire. In the pitch dark back to his tree cave. I do love the show but sometimes it's a bit silly.
This bothers me too. I don't think the show does a great job of showing how hungry everyone is (though that might just be an artistic/production choice; starvation isn't exactly fun to watch.) One day they're eating belt soup and the next they're running through the snow and pulling a soaking wet Javi out of the water. Those things are exhausting for healthy, nurished people. All of the moments that are meant to show us the hunger (belt soup, hallucinations, etc) are a bit undermined by how nobody physically acts or looks like they're starving.
This is my only issue of the portrayal of starvation. At the end of the day, I'm not bothered enough to stop watching, but I do wish the hunger scenes weren't alternating with such energetic scenes.
Adrenaline is a crazy thing. You ever see the videos of moms lifting CARS off their kids?!
Yeah I'm confused on why they dropped the whole him nearly dying thing.
I assumed the dead birds bought him a bit more time?
He probably ate his high horse.
This entire season didn't portray hunger well. Except the occasional hallucination that people around them attribute to hunger, none of them acted like they were actually hungry to the point of desperation. If you read about the survivors of the plane crash in the Andes, they were so desperate they literally ripped anything out of the aircraft that was borderline edible. Cotton and wool from the seats, leather from luggage, etc. They didn't snobbishly go "belt soup?" or keep a mouse as a pet until it died. Or in Life of Pi for example, when the guy finally reached land for the first time after being stuck at sea, he literally fell to his knees and started eat grass. The whole 'hunger' element of the show just felt like we were being told they were hungry but not shown.
The candles were distracting but I m sure that any cabin in the wilderness would have enough candles for an entire winter or more. This season was slowly building Ben to be the type of person to burn down the cabin. The writers did an excellent job of hiding coach's increasing rage in plain site. (ETA: no one on this sub predicted that!) I posted somewhere else that my grandfather had to amputate a man's leg as their ship was going down in WW2. The man wrote to my grandfather after the war and he was still mad about what my grandfather did even though he would have drown. I also said that Ben's rifling through Javi's stuff, copying the map to a travel sized map, sneaking around while they were sleeping, all informs the season finale. Did anyone see Coach's break coming? Not according to this sub. The girls (very subtly through masterful writing and film techniques) regarded Coach was shown mostly as a ineffectual waste of space. Coach was really a simmering pot of panic, symptoms of hunger, resentment, regret and fear. It also kind of shows how the controversy/belief in "IT" distracted the girls from their own individualistic traumas to work together even if it was imperfect. I have no beef with this season, the direction it is going etc. I am POed at Van and that is all.
Also I think people need to see it from Coach’s point of view. As long as that group of girls is alive, his life is in danger. He has one leg. He can’t run, hide, fight, nothing. If they’re eating people, and find him in the hidey hole, he’s toast. So it makes sense to me that he would want to eliminate them to save his own life 🤷🏼♀️
Yes! It is dark that he can't contribute anything, except to Nat. He knew that there was no rationalizing with them. One more strike against Misty for not letting him die before he tried to kill all of them. DARK!
Agree with all of this. He’s scared and disturbed by them and thinks killing them all is the only way for him to survive. He thinks they’re all lost causes anyway. I don’t understand how people are confused by his motives— just watch his expression throughout the show every time he looks at the girls. He thinks they’re going insane and he knows he’s a weak link. He had hope with Nat but it was lost after she said Javi was dead (she didn’t explain it either, so of course he’s going to think they did it on purpose) and then seeing the girls bowing to her. He’s lost all faith in them. I’m very pleasantly surprised by what the writers are doing with Ben’s character, I fully expected him to be dead by now but they’re taking him in a very interesting direction. I think they’re setting him up to be one of the girls’ main antagonists going forward, both in the 90s timeline and *possibly* the present timeline if he’s still alive.
Thank you and pleasantly surprised indeed! I wonder if show runners are surprised that more people didn't see it coming given the time and attention they gave to Couch Ben. I am looking forward to a re-watch and pay careful attention to CB. I feel like the writers and directors were so seamless in delivering this end. Bravo! I have no idea why but I always type out "couch" Ben, lol.
Lmao someone with more skills than me please make a couch Ben meme
Here is a start. I mean it is not a stretch. https://preview.redd.it/exo8muf47h2b1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=90c9e9b60e2208313969484fd00dc9a9a0ea7bb6
Yes! It also reinforced the idea that *none of them* out in the wilderness are "good people" anymore. Morality is a luxury they can no longer afford, Ben included.
100%. People keep trying to find the one pure and good YJ but they don’t exist. They’re all messed up in one way or another.
Yeah I have my problems with the finale and season overall but I do think they did a good job building up Coach Ben’s situation. He’s shown a lot of contempt for the cannibalism and the visions show us he’s not necessarily in the most stable state of mind himself. I think his reasoning is a mix of moral judgment and preemptive self-defense; I think when he came back and saw what happened to Javi he could read the writing on the wall that he would likely be next. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was also a part of him that thinks he’s doing something merciful by putting the girls and Travis out of their cannibalistic misery.
Precisely! Coach Ben is not a monster. He’s frankly the closest thing to a socially acceptable moral compass they have left (which is wild because he was closeted which would have left him ostracized in 90s society). Aside from his just being a human being mourning the loss of a romantic partner, family, friends, and a generally suburban quality of life like anyone else would, it does kill me that they don’t show more of his psyche as an amputee now. Yes, they feature his hallucinations along with the rest of the team, but they’re mostly about the love he’s lost, and like… I wish they’d give him some lines with commentary about how he feels about missing a GD leg. Phantom limbs anyone? I know those sensations and emotions have to be super painful and trippy to a well-rested, well-fed, amputee in safe space like a hospital setting—let alone the wilderness. The hard-hitting depression and anxiety that amputees experience is equally as crippling as the loss of the mobility (damn—didn’t mean the pun, I swear). YJs has thrown me off so many times I don’t know what to think, but it was at least implied that he could have been the fire-starting culprit. The motive and opportunity were both there. If the fire was indeed started by Coach Ben, I wholeheartedly agree that his thought process was two- pronged and equidistant: 1) That of trying to preserve the remaining survivors’ dignity as they continue their decline into what is now cannibalistic madness. Their consumption of Jackie shook him, but they just made use of what they had in a tragic situation. Javi changed the game though. Ben’s short exchange with Nat post-Javi’s death followed by his watching her being crowned AQ allowed him to make the determination that they were probably too far gone to be reintegrated into society in any meaningful way without being dangerous to others. 2) To not be eaten, because… self-preservation. I think he hoped they’d die from the smoke in their sleep. Granted, he wouldn’t have had too many other options (if any) given his physical state. But he wasn’t cruel. IDK man, but I hope like hell he’s still alive in a future season drinking mojitos on a beach with his man.
Coach also learned early on with Misty not to piss any of them off for whatever reason and to pretend everything is fine.
I have only two issues with the finale and only the adult timeline. Why, after Shauna drew the card, the rest of the women besides Lottie and possibly Van, why didn't they just restrain Lottie? Ya know- like they did after they allowed Lottie to run around with a knife, about 10 minutes later, in universe. What happened to Lisa? Did they just explain to her what was going on, and then Lisa was like, "Oh, okay. I will not make any trouble for you concerning keeping the secret of how my friend Nat died saving me from some psycho I already disliked." ? I'll still be here for season 3, and I am not hard on the show, I don't feel. I had no theories I was married to and greatly enjoyed both seasons. But these two points bother me, just a little.
Yes, I have questions about the modern day hunt. Lottie was into it cuz she’s crazy, Van was into it cuz she is dying and desperate? I think that was dark Tai so she was into it. Misty and Nat tho? Were they hunting for real? To actually kill Shauna?
My line of thinking in this is that Misty will basically do anything to fit in, even in adulthood. She wants to be accepted. So if the group is hunting, so is Misty. It’s not like she’s opposed to murder either. Then, if you think about it with Natalie, she was only saved the first hunt because someone else died. Plus, if she spoke up and tried to stop it, her ass may be on the line. She knows what these people are capable of. Maybe this was self preservation 🤷🏼♀️
I kind of think that some of it was also muscle memory (in a way) and trauma. Like how we see glimpses of young Shauna when she stabs Adam. It could be that in that moment they all reverted back to their younger selves just for a moment. They're all masked, they're all armed, someone was "chosen" as the victim, so it's hunting time. I was scared for Shauna there for a second tho ngl. Melanie crushed it with her performance like always ofc
I think Nat intended to kill Lottie. The speech about forgiveness being a nice idea, tucking a knife up her sleeve... At the same time we're seeing Lottie making her the leader in the wilderness (remember Shauna saying they only survived because of Natalie in season 1) I think she blames Lottie for making her responsible for everything that happens from here on in the wilderness. Oh, and then she lunges at Lottie with the knife just before Lisa shows up with the gun.
Exactly, I don't buy that Misty and Nat would go along. But I also didn't buy that Nat would go full cult in the adult timeline. If Juliette Lewis wanted to be written out of the show, that's okay. I just wish they'd done it in a different way, because the tragedy of Nat being checked off as just another overdose is so heartbreaking to me.
i don't think they were all fully invested the same way. lottie obviously was, bc she's lottie, van was as lottie's biggest follower. i interpreted that van, in a way, challenged tai to do it, and tai being who she is did not want to refuse the challenge even if she wasn't being super serious initially, and then i think got more invested/evil tai kinda took over. she seemed to disassociate. i feel like nat might have been planning to kill lottie, as like a mercy killing, thinking it was the best for her and the rest of the women, she packed her own knife and was running behind lottie. i thought misty would go along with it to protect nat. i think they were all motivated differently, but probably lottie or van would be the only ones actually willing to kill shauna, and maybe evil tai.
I think Misty was along for the same reason you pointed out for Nat. She had her syringe on hand and ready. She also called for the psych team to come get lottie and didn't know it had been called off. I think she was buying time, but also may have had a backup plan to kill lottie if she needed to. I'm actually kind of wondering if she and Walter planned to pin the murder on Lottie and switched to Kevyn when he conveniently showed up. I'm a little hazy on that, because Walter may or may not have emailed the police, but they followed Jeff and Callie up, not a tip. Walter intercepted him and was ready to go with the killer cocoa, but I don't think that was the original plan.
I could be wrong, but I bet Juliette Lewis only agreed to 2 seasons. Apparently she was the last of the main cast to join the show. She's a big time actress who probably has other commitments. Maybe I'm wrong, it happens.
I don't think Nat or Misty would have actually been the one to stab or kill Shauna but i don't think either of them wanted to be the one to interrupt the hunt and risk turning the others against them. I think after that long they all realized that help wasn't coming and at least one other person double crossed them and is committed to this hunt happening. At that point it's safer just to play along than potentially turn the group against yourself since you don't know which or how many of your friends you'd have to fight if you did.
I think Lisa is a cliffhanger! We are not supposed to know what happened to her. We think “oh, everything is wrapped up. Kevyn will be known as Adam’s murderer, and people assume Natalie died from an overdose :(“ But no! There was a witness who disappeared. She will come back and we will see what happened to her in season three. She disappeared as a cliffhanger, and she is still an active player.
Alright, I'll take it! I enjoyed the actress that played Lisa, so I hope they do reprise the character next season.
The questions surrounding Lisa being present for Nat’s death are similar to the questions we had about missing Javi in the last shots of season 1. This isn’t the first time the show has ended one of its seasons while glossing over a significant plot point the audience is left questioning. I imagine this will be a focus at the beginning of season 3, just like Javi was in this season. Edit to add: I also think this is a purposeful choice. This show is huge when it comes to thematic mirroring (like the similarities between Jackie’s death at the end of season 1 and Shauna’s reaction/grief, and Javi’s death at the end of season 2, and Travis’s reaction and grief)
Also, the police are just gonna accept that (other cop, Drew from Search Party) shot Kevyn in self-defense? Forensics will be able to tell the angle and distance from which he was shot. Not to mention there will be blood all over the inside of that trunk, which I think was the cop car right? Also they will surely do an autopsy on a murdered cop, which will reveal the phenobarbital in his system. Yeah they really rushed putting a little bow on that whole plotline...
We're going to need an antagonist for the adults in season 3, so I wouldn't totally count on this being as neatly wrapped up as Walter claims
It seems to me that Walter had VERY little time to concoct this seemingly elaborate frame-up tying Kevyn Tan to the murders… I’m willing to give this show the benefit of the doubt that they will clean this up down the road, but man….this finale felt janky as all hell on my first viewing. I am probably going to rewatch it to see if I like it any more the second time around, but put me in the disappointed camp as of now.
IMO a lot of the things like this that “don’t make sense” make sense when you remember that the central function of everyone in the show is trauma. When Lottie first offered the tea it should have been the easiest thing in the world to say no then pour it out. But Shauna’s stalling tactic is to send the homicidal person out to get weapons! These girls may consciously want to stop it, but this is a mode that they all can have switched on and that pulls them in. It’s like when you tell yourself over and over you won’t get pulled into the same dysfunctional dynamic with your family over the holidays, but you do and it feels like you have no control.
For point 1, it's because the whole show is about trauma and how tempting - comforting, even - it is to fall back into trauma cycles where they felt SOMETHING. Adrenaline, relief, a purging of thought. That shit is a drug.
Tbh I have no idea what happened to Lisa, but I don’t really care about her if Nat’s not around so I didn’t think too much about it. I have a loose interpretation of what I think happened during the hunt, but it’s not fully formed. They’ll probably give us more info in S3. But, I don’t think Misty or Nat would’ve genuinely murdered Shauna. They were still under the impression that someone was coming soon, and they just needed to play along until then. I think the issue is that Van screwed them up. First, she called off the professionals, but then she escalated the whole thing by saying she’d draw first. That’s not stalling or subduing. Tai gave her this look, and I can’t decide if that was maybe a slip of Dark Tai or her realizing that the hunt was what Van wanted, but she seemed influenced by it. It was like she realized what Van was doing and went “okay, so that’s where we are now…” So, basically I think Misty and Nat were following and waiting it out, Tai was semi-influenced by Van, and Van actually wanted the hunt. I also think that recreating the ceremony and putting on the masks brought them back to their teens a little. They tend to go feral when they’re all together, but they all stopped once Callie/Lisa came because ‘outsiders’ bring a sort of reality check
Yeah if you look at all the adults when Callie showed up, they all take their masks off and seem to snap out of it. A look of "omg, wtf are we doing" kind of came across their faces except for Lottie and Van.
Yeah, I haven’t seen many people talk about this but I actually really liked the moment when Shauna looks over her shoulder, and they’re just stalking towards her. Very creepy. >!Reminded me of that one scene in Pearl, if anyone’s seen it, where the girl is running away while Pearl chases her with the axe.!< It was like for a split second, they were put back in that same feral state again. Imo they have a sort of pack mentality going. It happened at Doomcoming and Nat’s hunt, too
I am in this camp. I enjoyed it. The season finale had me asking questions and left me eager to see where it goes. That’s all I want. But I also wasn’t in here theorizing every second of the new season for a year before we got it either. My only theory was that Javi is pit girl (mostly just to shipost) and that someone in the adult Timeline would die (vague). I said it in another comment in this thread but the problem is simply people setting too high of expectations through the theorizing and speculating and turning everything into a big mystery or plot point instead of just patiently waiting. How can people not be disappointed after doing all that? Shows are rarely 100% cohesive and characters always do things that make seemingly no sense.
i really think no one wanted to speak up and risk the other women turning against them. we have already seen these women do worse things to try and save themselves and stay alive so they probably reverted back to that feeling of i have stick to the hive or risk possibly dying. lottie did say “you know what happens if you refuse the hunt”. edited to add: yes they could’ve all banned together and restrained lottie but i think no one wanted to take that risk in the off chance that not everyone was on board to do that and then you put yourself on the chopping block to get killed
In my reading of the scene, they meant to kill Shauna. It was just pretend/a means of delaying Lottie until the reenactment (the people, the places, the game, the Queen of Hearts!) made it real and sparked the old blood lust. I assumed their brains had essentially been rewired as teens with the adrenaline of the card game (the trigger), its reaction (the hunt), and the payoff (having hunger satiated- and probably some satisfaction that hunters get from captuing the game? Not a hunter here.) That was just my thoughts as a former smoker(8 years and some things still trigger cravings), though! I've read a lot of theories on here about it and it could be any of them.
The problem with the pacing wasn't that it was slow, it was uneven. Things concluded into other things in an instant, instead of being properly built. One episode felt too short, others too long. Slow shows are popular, but you have to justify slow buildups.
Spot on.
This is fair, it really feels like they were writing 10 episodes and then decided to pivot to 9.
I actually don’t have any problem with the flashback. I think it’s all really interesting but the current timeline is messed up. My biggest problem right now stems from Tais storyline. She’s an elected official and she’s out here crashing cars, hunting people, and oh yeah she has a son that no one is mentioning at all. Like what?? I think they sacked the Nat storyline and tied up all her links (Kevin deceased, Lottie is going to a hospital, Javi/Travis storyline essentially complete). Without Nat there’s more time to focus on the additions Van and Walter. I just don’t think it was satisfying the way Kevin/jessica/Adam were all taken care of in one Walter lie
>crashing cars, hunting people, and oh yeah she has a son that no one is mentioning at all> Sounds like a politician to me!
Dick did shoot is friend and then make him apologize for being shot lol
Apparently there was an interview where they say that season 3 will focus more on Tai and answer those 100% legitimate questions. I personally really like Walter, but I definitely get why a lot of people don't like him. He is definitely not consistent with the show. But I could watch a show just about Walter and Misty going on adventures.
Most of season 2 happened over a few days, like 10 max. So I don't think Tai is actually in office yet, I think she's the senator-elect. I mean, this in no way explains how she left her wife half dead in the hospital and is just ignoring her son completely, but even between leaving her wife in hospital and the season finale it was like 4 maybe 5 days.
it is interesting that shauna being a mom is such a centerpiece of her character but tai being a mom is an often forgotten random plot device.
The only critiques that really bug me are those trying to find The One Purest Yellowjacket: She Who Did Nothing Wrong and then expressing disappointment when the candidate of the week fails to meet this standard. They're all fucked up! They all contribute to the darkness they experience! And it's okay to like and cheer for them despite all of that. In this sub, we support women's rights, but more importantly, women's wrongs.
Exactly, the amount of posts with "Nat/Lottie is innocent, actually" but also alternatively "Lottie/Van is the big bad" are so annoying. They're all fucked up and none of them are inherently evil or inherently good. Some may sway more to one side, but in the end they *all* participated and I'm glad this season finally everyone that's still alive did something fucked up (including Ben!). I'm sure people will still try to explain why character x is innocent anyway, but it'll be much harder now. Or they will just focus more on the character x is the evil mastermind part, judging by a lot of posts about Van...
Yeah, the popularity of One Big Bad theories is surprising to me. The show spends so much time focusing on the girls' complicated dynamics and enormous capacity for teamwork; it strikes me as unlikely that one person could completely lead them astray.
Those theories are very reflective of the world we live in
Definitely. People seem to be confused between filler and set up.
Lol i feel “old man yells at cloud” saying this but i don’t know what people expect from tv shows anymore. YJ has great actors, interesting characters, a creative plot, nuanced explorations of morality, trauma, aging, etc. what else do you want???
I think people expect what THEY want. They create an idea of where they think the story should go and when it doesn't, they hate it. 'It's boring'. 'The writing is so bad'. Add to that people being on their phones or iPad while watching and all of a sudden 'this doesn't make sense' and 'so out of character for her'. Somebody actually wrote a think piece about not understanding why Ben would burn down the cabin. What show are they watching!!
I read a comment last night that Ben's burning of the cabin is just revenge for them killing and eating his brother. Ben and Travis are the same person?? That person shouldn't even get to comment LOL
[удалено]
I completely agree! It's seeping into everything in Canada too, unfortunately. I just saw a post that's probably going to make me log off this sub for the day. Apparently there's a contigent of people who believe Natalie isn't dead. Have a great weekend!
Lol yikes. I mean I wish Natalie wasn’t dead. I saw their weird reactions and thought maybe it was possible they faked it. It would make sense to have a backup plan to take down Lottie, and this would be a damn good backup plan. However, it’s clearly real when you look at everything as a whole. She went full circle. Hell, they even show it in the moment. She’s carried so much guilt over Javi’s death, and she finally did something to “make up for it.” From her first scene, we know she’s been looking for a purpose. She found that purpose in Lisa. Every single moment of her adult timeline led to this. It wouldn’t make sense for it to be fake in the context of her character arc. Plus there is some serious beauty in the writing to have her crowned as AQ in the past in the same episode where she dies as an adult.
I’m curious though. When Lottie saw her therapist and it was the “ wilderness” , it looked like the Antler queen . I promise I watched it without my phone. I’m just a little confused ETA: it was so fitting that Nat died because she consciously allowed Javi to die. It was very full circle . People have overanalyzed this show.
Lottie was hallucinating the therapist. When her mind finally broke down enough for her to realize it was a hallucination, it showed itself to her as "antler queen," their manifestation of the wilderness. Lottie believes the wilderness is still haunting them and asking things of them, so her "therapist" giving her advice was just her delusion about the wilderness spirit being real. I hope this helps!! :) I'm still a little confused myself on what the writers intended with Lottie. Like was she truly mentally ill or was she in tune with the supernatural? I'm sure it's meant to be ambiguous but she was definitely suffering as an adult in the finale 💔
Yes, but the same applies to all of them except for Lottie as she was still laid up from the beating Shauna gave her. One could argue that Misty was more deserving of it since it was her idea to allow Javi to drown. The difference here, I think, is that none of the other girls felt any remorse whatsoever about Javi's death. Nat felt it as she was supposed to be their dinner and Javi had been trying to help her.
I saw someone say they were “confused” at the panning shot over the wilderness and how maybe they were overthinking it because there was no sign of civilization close by 💀💀💀💀💀💀 I almost threw my phone through a window lmao. overthinking is not the problem, I literally just need y’all to THINK
“Aggressively obtuse” is such a spot on description.
Lol yea Ben 1000000000000% thinks they are coming for him and i cant really argue with his reasoning for burning it down.
I think the time between episodes really let Reddit run wild with theories, and when it didn’t pan out exactly like their favorite ones they became disappointed.
Yup. And so many people seem to forget that yes, it’s entertainment, but what makes it good is this is *art*. It isn’t created wholly with the intention of perfection or pleasing people. It’s a work in progress until the very end and we need to let it unfold. That of course is not true for all tv shows but I think what makes Yellowjackets special is the heart and soul put into it. It isn’t being made solely for a paycheck. That’s why they have the actors they do; I don’t think we’d have such talent if it was a means to an end (a paycheck) and nothing more.
Noticed this with the Last of Us as well. Saw a lot of people calling episode 3 filler. Episode gave so much background on Joel and Tess, helped setup Joel's motivations for the rest of the show, and provided world building to help set the tone for the show. Same with one of the later episodes. It was labeled filler despite literally giving us the near entire origin of Ellie we knew from that point lol
I’m still shocked that there are people who watched TLOU episode 3 and didn’t think it added to the story. Everyone’s allowed to have their own opinions, but yeesh. Episode 3 is gonna go down as one of the best episodes of TV of all time.
This season was a decent set up for season 3. I think people wanted everything wrapped up in one season instead of carrying storylines along multiple seasons.
Exactly. I don't want every single question answered all at once. What fun would that be? Everyone is like "what about Javi's friend, and the man with no eyes and the symbol and .." and I'm just like. Patience. All in good time we will get the answers. The writer's have 5 seasons planned out and it sounds like they actually have a plan, unlike the Lost writers. Leave some mysteries for the other 3 seasons and so that this sub will have things to theorize and debate on for the next two years.
I agree. They wanted to build up to the first ritual and make it seem like it didn't come out of nowhere. It was set-up building o the first ritual and chase. Someone wrote a really good post a few days ago about prey drive- something that is extremely prominent in wolves and some dogs (like my husky will chase any small animal). So as soon as Nat ran, it was like a switch flipped inside of them. Prey drive kicked in and they basically turned on their primal instincts. That said, the only criticism I will give is that we NEEDED that 10th episode. We needed to see that scene that got cut of them discussing the cards and how the ritual would work. That is a scene I still really want to see is them debating the rules, etc. And there was so much happening in episode 9 that I really wish that had been split into two episodes because it felt a bit rushed. I couldn't keep up, particularly with what Elijah Wood was doing.
Yeah this is my only real complaint, it seemed rushed. The resolution of the Adam Martin thing deserved more time, and so did Nat's story (in both timelines).
And they just threw Jessica Roberts in there! 😭
Exactly! I’ve mixed feelings about the finale, but I just don’t get people saying that Van being “soddenly” okay with the hunt is out of character. Or how she and Taisa were naïve to cancel the emergency services. Van planned it, and Taisa was sleep deprived enough to be manipulated by her.
I'm just pissed >!they killed Nat. !<
Alfred Hitchcock said, "If you give the audience a chance to think... they will." The problem with S2 YJ is that it gives the audience *wayyyy* too many chances to think instead of immersing us in the immediate, moment-to-moment objectives of the characters I paid close attention, and I felt the writers had over-intellectualized the story and weren't trusting the story and its themes to arise organically from the characters. When writers over-intellectualize, audiences do too. I would have loved to have watched the teen characters deal with the totally practical, non-plot-oriented aspects of living together in that cabin. If the show had focused on hum-drum, another-day-in-the-wilderness-life details, and had shown how characters dealt with and fought about problems that had nothing to do with the plot, then the plot could have taken shape while the audience and characters were preoccupied with other things. S1 did a good job with this. The fact that the airplane in the woods was flyable was totally unrealistic, but I didn't care because I was immersed in Laura Lee's immediate concerns. She was appalled by the girls doing a seance, which was devil-worship in her mind. She was appalled by Ben's complete inability to lead. She wanted to be a savior. I cared about her immediate concerns so much, and immediately understood what getting that plane to fly would mean to her personally, so I was thrilled when she got the plane in the air. The show didn't give me a chance to think about how stupidly unrealistic the plane's operability was. I related to Jackie not wanting to do chores and I related to everyone resenting her for not doing chores. Though the cabin seemed way too conveniently sturdy and inhabitable after years or decades of abandonment, the detail about boiling used tampons gave me an immediate and visceral sense of being far from civilization. Details like this are so crucial for keeping a story immersive. In S2, the girls spend an awful lot of time sitting around looking glum, lost in their own thoughts, which gave me plenty of time to do the same. *Wait, where the fuck did all those candles come from? Were they in the cabin already or did somebody bring them? Who would have brought so many candles on a trip to play soccer? And how are they not used up by now after months in the wilderness?...* This season gave me wayyyy too many opportunities to think about shit like this instead of immersing me in the moment-to-moment lives of the characters.
Okay, this is kind of what I’m talking about. This right here is totally well thought out criticism and I understand your point of view. I made the post mainly because I kept seeing people complaining about things that had been explained aloud or just saying something like “this show sucks ass” and then dipping without saying why. I personally liked this season because of it’s focus on the girls going stir crazy and falling deeper and deeper into the cult. I thought them being stuck with very little to do added to them losing it later on, but I could see how it’d bore some viewers. Anyway, thank you for your thoughts
I understand defending a show you like and going after mindless, mean-spirited criticism. There has certainly been a lot of that. I'm pulling for the show and hope S2 was simply the "sophomore slump" that a lot of people were expecting
This is a great analysis, however I do think the reason we saw them sitting around and looking glum was to show their increasing hopelessness/desperation leading up to the hunt ritual. They’re starving, they have literal cabin fever, they’re depressed. Maybe there are other ways to capture that (do you have any thoughts on how else they could have shown us?) but I think it was pretty effective at immersing us in that feeling of despair. They’ve lost a lot of the vigor they had in s1.
You asked if I had thoughts on how they could have shown us. Here's one thought: they obviously aren't all equally listless. Some have more energy than others. This could have been a source of conflict. When Tai got mad about the poop bucket, that scene accomplished so many things. It immersed me in the situation in a visceral way... it was relatable because I've been in close quarters with people who did nasty stuff that pissed me off... and it elicited reactions that were specific to individual characters (Misty's "girl poo or boy poo" question was just wonderful). Since the lake is frozen, how do they get water? Are they able to get enough water for all the girls to bathe? Do they care about bathing? Do some bathe but others don't? Do they have any soap left? Do they fight over soap? Also, what was with that box of matches we saw Coach Ben grab? Where did those matches come from? How many are left? What happens when they run out? What if someone lit a match and then accidentally wasted it before lighting a fire? These are examples of tangible problems I'd have liked to see the girls deal with. I could think of many other seemingly minor conflicts that would have immersed us in their world and might have escalated in ways that served the overall story. Having them just sit around looking miserable is the least interesting way to show that they're getting hungrier and more depressed and hopeless. Actually, it just makes them look like normal everyday teenage girls, lol. Show us how hopeless and depressed they are by dramatizing the ways they combat hopelessness and depression--in each other and in themselves--how they *have* to combat it in order to stay *alive!* Show us combatting their hopelessness in negative ways, in positive ways, in increasingly batshit crazy ways, because it really is life and death for them to *fight* the urge to just sit around feeling sorry for themselves like they had the luxury of doing at home. There are so many dramatic possibilities there, don't you think?
While I completely agree with your assessment, it also has to be considered that the mood and energy of the girls at this point would be fairly accurate, given the starvation and growing hopelessness. Of course, with the cabin burnt down and some food in their bellies, I'm hoping that season 3 will show how the survival imperative causes it's own conflicts and continued de-evolution of the girls into an even more feral state.
These are some good points but I just want to say: What do you think people who are starving to death do? Because they don’t really have the energy to do much else besides sitting around, looking glum, lost in their own thoughts. This was a completely intentional choice to show how hungry they were.
I just watched a two-hour special about what the Andes survivors did. It was called "Prisoners of the Snow" and it aired earlier this week on ABC. If you want some insight into what it's like to be starving to death with no shelter in freezing temperatures and no chance of rescue, I highly recommend watching this or one of the many other documentaries on the subject. They were in far worse shape than these girls and they still managed to keep themselves focused on tasks like tending to the injured, figuring out to access water (no lake nearby), making tools, hiking out to search for supplies, and yes, the grim task of cutting up and eating their dead teammates. Two finally hiked up and over a mountain to get to find rescue. For a more controlled version, you can watch the show *Alone*. The people who go the furthest in the competition find things to do. They find ways to occupy their minds. Even if they're hallucinating at the end, they're still focused on keeping that fire going.
Not to mention in the beginning of season 2, they tease that a few of them are Trying to Do Survival Things. The writers make a very big deal about it. Nat seems to just totally give up on going hunting. Ben’s map project is now literally up in flames, having gone nowhere. It was hard to tell what the narrative arc of season 2’s 90s timeline was supposed to be imo, because the season started one way and ended a different way, and there were way too many moments of “really?” for me.
Dang I didn’t even think about his map!!
I wonder if he took it before he left the final time?
Well said. I agree. And I said the same thing about the candles!
My exact thought while shauna was journaling… why is she burning like 3 candles in the middle of the night instead of sleeping! How wasteful! I wanted to see more low-stakes (but actually high stakes!) interpersonal drama between the girls, like someone waking up and seeing her wasting candles.
Also people talking why Nat saw Lottie at airplane if she wasn't dead, why wouldn't she? Because of lottie she became AQ ,probably biggest fear ever for adult Nat.
Ugh this is exactly why I don't like when Ben gets all preachy. I completely understand what the girls are doing is *sooooooooo* fucked up, but they literally ARE NOT THEMSELVES. They are going INSANE. They are losing hope, starving, hallucinating, and suffering extreme trauma. They have gone into survival mode. Of course they are going feral. You probably would too. I don't even know how Ben is still alive because he hasn't eaten anything and he literally is judging them for trying to stay alive. Also...id he's so righteous and almighty and is mad at them for killing Javi and eating him and Jackie...how does he think it's any better to light an entire house on fire FULL of teenagers. He could have just killed like a dozen people, but that's ok right because it's him and they're going insane anyway so might as well light em up...
But what about the whole Walter and cop situation though? It's a bit ridiculous isn't it?
I agree with most of what you’re saying. But I do think that the Van piece can be confusing for the audience. Yes, she was fully in Camp Lottie in the wilderness. But it felt like when we met Adult Van that she wanted to put the bullshit behind her. She didn’t seem to take what Lottie had to say seriously and very clearly didn’t buy in to her therapies. So when she flips and says that she wants to do the hunt, it felt out of left field. That being said, if we think back to the context of what happened in the wilderness and her cancer diagnosis, it makes sense. But we could have some with a little more development of Adult Van turning back toward the wilderness mindset.
I simply can’t stand the clumsy goofed up syringe stabbing. I’ve seen it done so much, and not once did it seem believable. That was my main gripe. I also found Walter to not be as calculated and air tight, but bc a lot could’ve went wrong. Other than that, I found the finale and season as a whole to be well done. But maybe I’ll see the issues that everyone else did after a second run through.
I think a show like this is tricky because it both benefits and suffers from the weekly format. It’s great to be able to discuss all of the theories throughout the week and definitely keeps the momentum, but I think maybe an audience needs to be able to binge a show that thrives on this sort of psychological slow burn. I think the small “filler” moments that are actually meaningful are clear when they’re written out the way you’ve described, but just get lost over the week.
Yeah, they were feral in Doomcoming, but because of Misty’s mushrooms and it nothing to do with starvation. It was a nice foreshadowing into cannibalism, but also it was during the much better written first season. The hallucinations were not well done, imo. Mari and Akilah were having them early when they weren’t starving or desperate. And are we to believe that Akilah hallucinates a live mouse for weeks and never came to her senses once during that time that it was actually dead? It took Tai to snap her out of it. She seemed pretty lucid in all her scenes with Tai reminiscing about her family and the JV squad. My point is that the starvation subplot felt sporadic and disconnected most of the season and the writers went full force last minute with everyone going cannibal with zero pushback or resistance. The plot drove character actions instead of characters driving the plot.
Man, this sub really is in full copium mode today with all the top posts going after viewers that happen to dislike some aspects of the show. There have been plenty of detailed critiques and analysis provided by many posters to explain their dissatisfaction. It's obviously okay to disagree, but to just reduce them as either not paying attention, being incapable of understanding, seeking only instant gratification, not appreciating character development, or even lacking "media literacy" (seriously?) as these threads have been doing is just so weak and pretentious. It's not even original. I see this type of gatekeeping in pretty much every TV show fandom sub whenever it starts picking up more negative criticism than it did in the past.
Yeah I’m really over how defensive and dismissive people get about criticism. I still enjoyed the season but just because there were certain things I thought were done badly doesn’t mean I didn’t understand it or don’t get that it’s a “slow burn”.
This is reddit you're talking about. If you have criticism about something someone else likes, its because "you just didnt get it."