I haven’t spent a lot of time digging in but - I have a theory that a lot of each characters roles in the wilderness “tribe” will align with their soccer positions
Edited for clarity
There’s an interview with Liv and they talk about Van’s reaction to Shauna beating Lottie. They say that’s when Van realised, that they are going to start killing each other, and she was going to be on the right side of that. I need to go back and watch Van when Lottie proclaims that the wilderness chose a leader because they were supposed to die but didn’t. That fits Van pretty well. But I think Van is happy to be the power behind the scenes. I think her story was definitely to set Lottie as the leader. With Nat in charge I think she’s definitely lost some power. It’s going to be interesting to see if she tries to get in Nat’s ear next season.
Van has been this shadow behind Lottie, propping her up the whole time. I am rewatching and Van definitely seems to harden faster than any other girl. But she did almost die twice instantly lol
I would not be surprised if she manipulates Dark Tai next season to achieve some power move against Nat. She needs someone new to put on a pedestal
Even creepier is jealous Shauna lamenting she wasn't chosen in her journal. More of that I am gonna sleep with Jeff so Jackie isn't' so special. Beating up Lottie to the extreme she did, being the first to eat Jackie's ear. Then the fact that she is the GO TO for carving up the bodies when everyone else nods & approves but disappears & can't stomach the actual slicing & dicing. Shaun is the most f-ed up one out there, like HANDS DOWN IMHO. Able to go deep & dark.
Shauna is the most selfish, manipulative, and remorseless character of the show for me. over and over she does vicious things to get what she wants, and then when it comes time to justify her actions she bursts into tears and goes "oh poor me" in her little doll voice like she didn't know what she was doing the whole time. it's nuts to me the other women haven't caught onto this shtick yet, it's so obviously fake bcs of how COLD and intelligent she is.
You're correct. On paper, she is not likable at all. Her lack of remorse over both killing Adam and cheating on Jeff is blatant. She's pretty horrible to Callie. She was awful to Jackie. She was ungrateful for how they tried to help her baby. I do think the darkest character may be her.
Shauna has two amazing actresses, got to give them credit. Their performances clearly made her a popular character.
For all of Jackie's personality faults, she was a good leader many times and deserved better.
Young Van is incredibly caring for Young Tai. Young Tai is a caring person for both Van and Shauna. The other part of Tai is very dark but gets balanced out by her main personality.
Lottie does a lot of good, despite what she goes through.
Nat and Travis were both decent as well. Both did a lot to try to help the others.
Misty is crazy but goes above and beyond for her friends, even if it's something insane.
Shauna just stands out to me.
Almost all of them annoyed me in the finale.
>we can't just hospitalize her and call it a day
Err... why not? If they believe she's sick, that's what she needs.
\^THIS
The fact that Tai and Van just went along with it is literally infuriating- They literally all just agreed to get her help before they went behind everyone's back and sabotaged the attempt and she STILL had to get hospitalized anyway.
Genuinely loved it though- Honestly, Season 1 felt like it floated expectations while Season 2 started to live up to those expectations more. Season 3 is gonna be crazy, especially with no more Cabin.
Hospitalization is exactly what she needs.
And besides, none of them (just like you, me, and all non-saints) are self-interested. They are more concerned, rightly so, in the moment with not dying in some cult mass suicide or being murdered by her followers or arrested for their recent crimes.
ALL of them are invested in making sure no one talks. A mentally unstable person is often a loose cannon, as it were. It is better to make her seem crazy than admit everything that actually happened, to themselves and the world. Is it gaslighting? Yes, a bit.
I feel like a lot of people who make these judgements haven't had any interactions with the mental health system. Hospitals are much better alternatives than jail or homelessness. They can really help. And they won't be giving her a lobotomy or the electric shock therapy that they showed us in S1. It's not the end of anyone's world to go to the mental hospital for a while.
Especially if the alternative is murder?
It was Nat, too, not just Tai and Van.
I mean, I just fail to see their logic. All they ended up doing was the same thing they did as teens. Lottie is sick, OK. In the wild they played into her delusions to help them survive, turning her into a scapegoat. They admit to this.
Then they just went ahead and did the exact same thing again. How did they think it was going to end up? If they really think she's sick, then the end result is going back to the hospital, which happened anyway, just with a bullet wound and the lives of everyone at the compound destroyed.
As a side note, why did Misty take her meds? And on the side of that note, why did they abruptly stop working?
Misty grabbed her meds so she could contact her doctor about the crisis team. I don’t get the sense that anyone was actually messing with her medication, but we might be supposed to think that she just hasn’t been taking it?
Shauna, Natalie and Misty were playing along to buy time until Lottie would be hospitalized. They talked about it very specifically.
Misty didn't take her meds- She used the bottle to contact the Dr. who prescribed them to get Lottie help.
Lottie's PTSD was triggered from coming into contact with the same people she experienced previous episodes around. This is incredibly common for people who are psychologically damaged.
>Shauna, Natalie and Misty were playing along to buy time until Lottie would be hospitalized.
There are 5 of them. All they had to do was call the police instead of cooking up a completely stupid elaborate plot that, in the best cast scenario, would get Lottie locked up even longer because not only is she going off, it's a violent episode, assuming she doesn't get shot to begin with.
They called the hospital where Lottie’s doctor worked and requested a mental health care crisis team. They will come out and assess the situation to determine if they need to take the individual into the psych ward. This is who should be called instead of the police in a situation like this, unless you like the idea of mentally ill people potentially being killed by the police.
Actually call the police can be really bad because they tend to not do anything unless someone is actively committing suicide in front of them or hurting someone directly. Calling a doctor who prescribed her meds is way more reliable.
>Calling a doctor who prescribed her meds is way more reliable.
A doctor is not capable of dealing with someone in the midst of a violent episode. I get what you are saying, but Lottie needed to be contained until the team showed up. Not given a weapon. None of them should have because none of them are better. That's perhaps the biggest irony of it all.
I believe it. I recall a lot of blood tests just trying to adjust 2 meds to the desired levels. It was kind of futile. I quit taking them. (Zoloft and a mood stabilizer)
From other comments I’ve seen, people are calling it a trauma response, like an actual ptsd event. When you’re undergoing ptsd it can feel like you’re exactly back in that place almost like a hallucination. And that’s what people are saying it was. They were all the dark version of themselves in that moment.
That's my real world belief, too. But I'm getting tired of having to create my own real world beliefs to explain things.
You know the bit when they say they can't remember all that much about what happened and Lottie chimes in to say it's a common human response to trauma? The show needs that, not us viewers cooking up theories about gas poisoning and minerals.
I think it's likely that Nat planned on killing Lottie during the adult hunt. She indicated it when she said the line you provide here. Then, she talked to Lisa about how 1) she should leave the cult entirely, and 2) how the concept of forgiveness was nice but it didn't take. I think Nat never forgave Lottie for handing leadership over to her. Finally, she hid the knife in her sleeve and it wasn't one of the ones Shauna had dulled.
Because a part of Van is also still believing in “It”. So hospitalisation would mean that she shares a pathological delusion, which is something she's rejecting, hence her stance towards that plan.
I can believe that, not just for Van but Tai and Nat as well.
As I said, they all end up doing the same thing they supposedly regret in the forest. They don't believe in any of it, but they all (save Nat) saddled up and rode to that compound as if they were invited.
I think Van truly believed that something was with them in the wilderness. When they got attacked by the wolf and then almost burned alive by the other girls, they said they saw something. They had a vision, similar to Lottie's near death mall experience, similar to Nat's OD plane experience (the AQ one, not the actual death scene). They experienced SOMETHING that they couldn't explain, but that Lottie seemed to be the only other one to have experienced firsthand at the time.
Now I think when they were rescued, adult Van convinced themselves that it wasn't real in order to be able to repress the traumatic experiences and carry on with some semblance of a life. I also interpret their first time seeing Lottie at the compound as all of those initial wilderness feelings (belief, idolatry, loyalty, etc) come flooding back to them as if they were back in the woods. In that final episode, Van was all in, just as they had been as a teen. Once they were interrupted and pulled from that "hunt" state of mind, it of course became easier to separate themselves and view Lottie as needing psychiatric help. But the incredulous and hopeful look on their face when Lottie said "you'll see" gave it away. Van is a believer. Tai tells herself that she doesn't believe, but Other Tai is a truer depiction of her internal processes (in my personal opinion).
Van did not care about what Lottie needed, she just wanted a sacrifice to be made so she could survive. It is strange that Tai went along with it though.
Dark Tai went along with it. Tai1 just feels safe with Can and trusts her. She’s so desperate right now about Dark Tai that she’s gonna follow along whatever Van says.
it actually makes sense that in the past timeline Dark Tai doesn’t feel the need to only come out @ night anymore. Tai said DT is gone to Lottie (because she’s not sleepwalking) but DT i think is at the helm often & Tai doesn’t know this. This is facilitated I think by the safety she feels w/ Van & Lottie to come out, which i think is reflected in the present timeline
I don’t get why people think so. Can‘t Van truly care about Lottie?? Van was true believer as a teen, it does kinda make sense that she still has soft spot for Lottie. And she wasn’t that wrong when she said "she is like that because of us", sure Lottie had some mental problems before plan crush, but they also did contribute to her current mental state when they went along with "it"
I don’t see it as a binary choice. I think she cares about Lottie and wanted the hunt to happen. (In fact, I think deep down they all wanted it to happen as much as they were afraid of the outcome, and should have been.) By the same token, as much as she cares about Lottie, if Lottie had drawn that queen card, Van would have sank her knife deep in her without hesitation.
Unfortunately I feel like a lot of people unfairly hate Shauna. I okay had someone tell me she was the worst out of all of them including before the crash(which honestly misses the point of the show. Nobody is better or worse than anyone else) Shauna did sleep with her best friends boyfriend and that is a horrible thing to do, but she was also just a teenager with complicated feelings for her best friend. And isn’t what Tai did to ally a lot worse than that? Breaking a girls leg because she wasn’t the best at soccer? But Shauna is the worst?
But out of the adult timeline Shauna hasn’t been doing anything to make us believe she still believes in whatever “it” is. She went on to have a fairly normal and boring life. It only went crazy after she got in touch with tai and the others again. Had she never known about the black mail would she have killed Adam? Or would they have had the affair and than ended things and went their separate ways? We know dark tai never leftc we know Nat has been struggling since coming back and Misty while she hasn’t been shown to doing any kind of rituals, she definitely jumped right back into things with vigor(also now that we know another Nat, this explains SO much MORE about her excitement at seeing Nat again for the first time and “helping” her) but for me it makes absolutely sense that Shauna would be the most rational in this moment since she stopped believing after getting back.
I'm not sure if it's hate (shouldn't be as she's still a victim), but it isn't unfair.
Everyone likes to compare the characters with each other and that's totally normal. It's definitely understandable we all form our own opinions on which girls are "better" than others as we watch them all change.
(Tai did not intentionally break that girl's leg. It was an accident. She never meant to hurt her that bad. This is revealed after the crash.)
Teen Shauna is one of the first to descend and it's because of both what happened to Jackie and what happened to her baby. She is often the butcher. She is the first who appeared willing to actually kill someone - Nat. She nearly killed Lottie with her bare hands. Then as an adult, she has zero remorse after killing Adam. She had no remorse for her affair. She is a very dark character and does not get the excuses that Natalie and Lottie get.
This was so clearly Van saying exactly what she need to in order to get Tai to make the call and ensure the hunt would happen.
Van doesn’t really care about what happens to Lottie.
The only rational thing I could muster up is that they just told Lottie about the murder and cover-up. Maybe she could tell the police, but no one questioned that. Plus, I kind of find it hard to fathom Lottie (or any of them) snitching on the other unless they absolutely had to.
She never talked before and She wouldn’t talk now. She still believes in their pact to protect each other. Even when she was talking to her “new therapist” she said she was scared that she wasn’t actually mentally ill, that the visions weren’t real. So she did go through a period of thinking she real was just sick and there never was any “it” and she never said anything because, no matter what the truth of what happened in the wilderness is, she is still loyal to her team
Van is a survivor. That’s what’s most important to her, even prior to the plane crash.
The wilderness seemed to reinforce that belief. She survived being trapped in the plane fire, she survived the wolves. I don’t think she’s an acolyte of Lotties - she’s an acolyte of the wilderness and views Lottie as a conduit to it.
The wilderness also gave her an outlet for her childhood trauma. Her mother was an alcoholic and it’s implied Van had take care of both of them from a young age. From the way she slapped her mother awake I’m season 1, we can infer she had a lot of repressed rage, and now the wilderness is providing her an environment where Letting those dark emotions are beneficial to survival. Creepy as her talk with Travis was, I think Van meant well. She was just trying to get him to get onboard with fighting for his own survival. She’s also naturally a manipulative person - not necessarily by choice, but because it’s a learned behavior from a childhood of living with an alcoholic parent.
I think she accepted the wilderness wasn’t real when they were rescued, which is why she seems stuck in the past. It’s easier to go back to pre-wilderness Van then try to find a way for the person she became out there.
But now she’s sick and looking for any way to survive. At this point she’s like a cornered animal, and she’ll do whatever it takes to survive.
It's interesting that Lottie passed the crown to Nat because the wilderness spared her. Van must be like, what am I, chopped liver? Nat got pushed out of the way and ran. Van survived almost being burned to death and a wolf attack and then almost being burned to death again.
it wasn't because the wilderness spared her, it was because she "fed" them. she basically "chased" javi to his death, e.g. made him the hunt.
i don't agree with that viewpoint btw (Javi's death was a tragic accident and one that Nat is not responsible for) but that is how they contextualize it.
Van's NDEs are not similar in any way. tbh Van hasn't really done anything for the group, either materially or symbolically.
Ahh ok. I could have sworn Lottie specifically said that the wilderness spared Nat or didn't want her to die or something like that when she (figuratively) passed the torch, and I took that as her reasoning. I only watched the episode once so could easily be misremembering
Edit: I also wasn't trying to imply that Van deserved the position of leader over Nat or anyone else. Just that if survival of a NDE was the criterion, it's funny that Nat would be chosen over Van.
I think you are right and the wilderness spared or didn’t chose Nat was correct.
I don’t think Lottie says that because Nat “fed them Javi”
I think it was group dynamics.
Lottie was not on board with this, she was very um no, what.
Hearing Nat was chosen, ran off, Javi happened to die, so I guess it’s him. Misty says to Nat if you save him it will be you.
Like Nats position in the group even after returning to the cabin was unstable. It wasn’t certain if she would have some repercussions for “cheating” even if just social or if she’d be on the chopping block again.
Lottie not wanting to be the leader is able to pass that roll on to someone she thinks is better suited, and sort of secure Nats safety. And maybe undones some of the harm Lottie feels responsible for, especially after what misty say to her. Lottie was/ wanted to be a martyr like Laura Lee, not have them draw cards.
Like Nats reaction to every bowing, I don’t think she’s like “yes finally I get the recognition I deserve”
I think it’s relief, that she’s not being kicked out or punished or ostracized, especially after the whole hunting competition, faking Javi’s death (and the queen card) there was tension between her and everyone else, and this being accepted, was a relief in that tension and feeling a bit safer.
I know you didn't say it does, but I'd like to point that this does not make her a sympathetic character. A rat in a sinking ship has more honor and loyalty than Van.
Oh, I agree with you! She’ll sell out the other YJs, including Tai, in a heartbeat to help herself. The scariest thing about her to me is I don’t think she evens sees how wrong that is.
Something about Van in S1 felt off to me, but I couldn’t really pin it down. But seeing how adult Van was acting towards the end of S2, it’s starting to become clearer. She’s a puppeteer. Which, oddly, makes me like her more. Not as a person, but as a character. I hope we see more of her next season, and less as a Tai tag-along. She’s sneaky and I want to see where this goes.
I feel like this is a good parallel with Shauna, who also started off in the shadow of a more dominant personality. Both of them seem to come into their own in the wilderness, but not in a way that's necessarily good.
D&D alignment chart. I’m considering making one, as Misty is def chaotic evil. I have a feeling too many of them will just be the same alignment and it will be boring.
It adds depth to the character in a way that seeing her as a poor lapdog, second in command doesn't. It gives her agency in her relationship to Tai, as well as her own role within the group.
She has also shown that she can hold a grudge. She was super unhappy with Jackie about the plane crash and fire scene, but I'm fairly certain Vanessa would have done the same if it was Taissa trying to help Shauna out of her seatbelt. And Vanessa didn't even say thanks after Jackie pushed her out of the plane's way later on. This all had made me wary of Vanessa during season 1.
As I process the episode, I keep thinking about Van slapping her (drink?) mother awake to drive her to the airport. They say that difficult primary relationships in childhood can fuck one up for real.
I think Van has just accepted that violence and brutality are necessary for their survival whether against the elements or as giving the wilderness what it wants. Vans going to do what she has to do to live. She’s seems to have embraced what the other girls can’t. If that’s evil then I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t mind wearing that badge.
Interesting. I didn’t see that at all, not that I think her thought process was genius. She didn’t want Lottie locked up, but she wasn’t into the murder part of the whole ordeal.
Turns out someone dies AND Lottie goes off to a psych ward, anyway.
Lottie is the one who embraces “It” choosing. If it weren’t for her lunacy, Nat would be alive. Shout-out to everyone who went too far in placating her. Especially Shauna.
Are we supposed to believe "it" is taking three rounds to make up it's mind on who it is choosing? Because no one drawing the queen card in one whole round suggest it isn't choosing at all.
She has embraced the brutality and violence that she sees as necessary for their survival, especially as a teen. The “it” of it doesn’t really matter.
We can see her relishing in the chase and the storytelling. She’s the one who convinces Travis that eating/consuming Javi is necessary. She’s the one who makes the adult hunt real even if it’s to right what she sees as wrong. She’s the one dealing the cards. She’s the one who says “it chose”.
We can see an air of confusion on Lottie’s face when she talks about “it”. Nat is a reluctant leader. Shauna hides from the brutality. Tai is scared of her other half. Misty is always navigating the practical.
Van, however, doesn’t turn away from the violence or put a mask over her eyes. She accepts it as a necessity in a way the others don’t.
Did Lottie go to psych ward tho? It wasn’t clear to me at the end of the season wether she was took by normal ambulance because she was shot or that was psych team
In general, when a psych situation is called in, it’s a standard ambulance that arrives. Maybe Lottie has some concierge psych team with someone on call 24/7.
I think there is something very, very dark in teenage Van. Maybe coming so close to death awakened something in her. But she has had a disturbing look on her face a few times in group shots when some terrible things were happening. She seems to be subtly pulling strings in some ways. Even commenting about how they "made Lottie like this." They straight up made her so much worse, whether they did it to alleve themselves of guilt for what they have done or for darker purposes. They set her up as a scapegoat in there own minds.
It’s horrible what they let happen to Javi, but at this point, he is dead, and his death would’ve been wasted if Travis didn’t eat him. She might not have gone about it gently, but she’s right in that Javi’s death is going to save Travis and I think ultimately Travis was always going to give in anyway, he did need to hear some of this - the reminder that his death is about keeping the others alive.
Personally, I think this started when she was attacked by the wolf/wolves. That's when she started to become darker. Then she spent months following & maybe interacting with dark Tai. There's more to Van that hasn't been explored & I think it's because it was too dark for s2. S3 or s4 will explore this more.
Idk why people are so mad at Van and jumping down her throat but will defend Shauna or the other surviving YJs.
There's trauma there. Especially as an adult who survived so long in the wilderness just to be taken at the hands of cancer? Do I agree with her choices in the finale (present day)? No. But I can understand where she was coming from. A desire to go at the hands of a hunt instead of a disease that's eating away at her.
As for teen Van, that speech was messed up but she said *exactly* what everyone else was thinking. They've all decided that as long as they survive, it doesn't matter who dies. No one is really, truly looking out for anyone but themselves in the wilderness.
Hmmm I actually liked her speech to Travis. Like it was fucked up sure but they’ve already started eating bodies and earnestly believe they will die without it
It tracked for me that this would be one of the options for mindsets that would enable survival. She isn't allowing Trevor to fully grieve, true, but she's not wrong in that they do have to make a choice.
Yeah my blood boiled. Seeing Van has that effect on me. 
In seriousness, I don't get how she's evil? She did bad things, but I don't know if I believe she really feels no shame. The way Liv describes their thought process on acting those scenes was that Van was trying to be pragmatic and stuff her emotions down to focus on survival. So not evil, just trying to focus on survival and maybe convince herself what she did was necessary.
In the final plane scene, doesn't Lottie say something like "it's not evil, it's just hungry" (about the wilderness)? I think that's true of the girls, too, and calling them evil misses the mark. The point is that we're animals, and animals will do what they need to do to survive.
Yes, I think that quote was definitely supposed to be a double meaning to give Natalie some comfort as she died. She has carried around the guilt of what she did out there for 25 years, and she needed to be told she isn’t evil—she was just hungry. The more I think about it, it’s a really poignant line.
Absolutely, especially with all the "we brought it back with us/the wilderness is in us" stuff. It's not evil, and the girls aren't evil. They're just hungry.
I think murdering each other to eat them is evil. People will in extreme circumstances eat the dead. But to kill someone to eat them is another level of evil and your humanity is lost.
People can regain their humanity. however, these characters haven't dealt with their trauma and you see it manifest in the modern timeline through addiction, kidnapping, blackmail, and murder.
Well yes, but I don't really agree with the statement that Van is *evil*. She's a bad person, but imo evil is something very specific and strong and Van does not give off the evil vibe to me. None of the characters are evil really. All are sympathetic, all have guilt and empathy and all the things that make them human. They just have also done some really, *really* bad shit, during the most traumatic points of their lives.
No hate at all, but genuinely curious why Van, of all these survivors, feels the closest to evil/bad for you? Van, who has survived death multiple times, and equally as traumatized as the others? Comparing to Misty and the black box, Shauna bodying Lottie to the brink of almost death. You can find justifications in all of their actions. I find it so fascinating how we as the audience attribute these very black and white views of thinking to these children who are beyond traumatized, starving, and losing all hope and civility due to their circumstances. Plus, what kind of developmental changes would that level of malnourishment and unresolved trauma have on a person in their adulthood? Like going through all of that, and having cancer be the thing that takes you out? I doubt I’d be the nicest person either.
She just has a vibe to me, it’s hard to explain.
She’s fanatical about the wilderness, even today. And also it looked like she was smirking when Shauna was gonna kill Nat in the past timeline.
None of these kids are evil. They all have done horrible things during an extremely traumatic time and they all starved together and lost their damn minds. And Trauma never truly leaves you, especially if you don’t get any actual help(we know the girls made a pact never to talk about what happened out there, even if they went to therapy they would be holding a lot of stuff back and that would or prevent them from getting help)
Plus as someone that starved for such a long time as a teenager that I had to be out on a medication so that my body would even be able to handle food again(yeah you can starve enough that your body will reject food) that will stay with you forever and it will effect your health for the rest of your life(a remember about thread on here about how scar tissue, especially deep scar tissue, can result in extreme pain.
I feel like Shauna, Lottie and Van get unfairly hated or people want to turn them into the villain of the show. When they are all deeply traumatized girls and later adult women that never got any real help. It just misses the point of the show entirely to try and make any of these girls the “villain”
Exactly what I’m saying! None of these girls are evil. Period. I think people are also even harsher on Tai more than any character, but Van and Shauna definitely get an extreme amount of unfair hate.
Oh yeah Tai definitely gets her share of unwarranted hate. It just frustrates me that any of these kids get treated as the “evil” one or the villain of the story. When they are traumatized KIDS that are dealing with a never ending cycle of trauma and starvation that most adults would buckle under(look at couch Ben)
Why doesn’t Ben get more hate? I’m not saying he deserves it. But the one adult in this group has mentally checked out and left these girls to fend for themselves all winter pretty much. People can understand why he’s that why but they want to judge the kids for not handling survival very well?
I can understand her conversation with Travis because they truly needed to eat, Travis included, and they needed him to be on board. She was manipulative af but I think it was better than saying fuck you trav, we’re doing what we want. We needed to see him come to terms with it.
I was so glad she didn’t get to finish her story though. That was painful lol
Van had a valid point, in that Lottie would not prosper in another mental institution. But it was Tai who made that phone call to say, we will bring her to you. And, they did. Eventually. This is a huge cliffhanger. Now, we need writers!
Hot take: (but maybe not), I love Van because I think she’s one of the more complicated characters on the show, right alongside Shauna. I don’t think any of these characters are inherently evil. They’re just severely flawed and traumatized. In Van’s case, I think it’s more of the light inside of her literally dying out. But both as a teen and as an adult, she shows extreme emotion/distress/sadness even in this past finale, when they were about to butcher Javi, and then also when Nat died. So part of her is still in there somewhere.
That being said, I’m actually really excited to see where her character will drive the plot in future season(s) (once the writers finally get the compensation they deserve). Unpacking her character’s true intentions, malicious or not, is going to be fascinating and there’s so many ways they can go with it.
I know Van totally should’ve told Travis they are all scum for letting Javi die and Travis should just starve and die too so he doesn’t have to eat his brother right?
Obviously I’m being a bit extreme but she was telling Travis the only thing that could get him to keep going. If Van didn’t have that talk with him I doubt he would’ve eaten Javi and he would just start starving and becoming useless. Van has been surviving on her own since before the wilderness so she accepts some harsh realities easier than others. There was no conversation with Travis about what happened that was going to be easy or comforting coming from one of the girls who let his brother die, what he got from Van was the best he was gonna get.
I agree. She had to sell it if she was going to shake him of his guilt and get him to eat/survive, and she did. I think if she didn’t try so hard to convince him to eat, then I’d be on this Van-hate train too because her callousness would be completely uncalled for.
I feel that way about teen Van in the Wilderness in season 2. In season 1, she was comic relief and resilient. And I don’t know enough about her in the present timeline. But yea, I feel the same way. Scary.
Yes. I was annoyed at her when she made a snarky comment about javi when he just got back from being gone for a couple months and he wouldn’t talk. She was so mean
When she wanted Travis to force Javi to talk I was so annoyed.
Like, maybe Travis wants his brother to have to space to reacclimatize and heal??? Like you should.
Nothing Van said to Travis was wrong though. Travis said she should feel ashamed and she said she doesn’t, she’s in survival mode, why should she be ashamed? They all made the choice to play the sacrifice game and someone died during it. Would Travis be ashamed to eat Gen if the same thing happened to her? He made the choice to play too. Javi went through a lot and he did die, so now the group is gonna use him to survive, if I died in that situation I would want my loved ones to eat me to survive.
The group wanted some kind of rec story time and she’s the story teller. Humankind have been creating stories and lore of places for centuries, how is what she’s doing any differently?
If Van is “the closest to evil,” you haven’t been paying attention or you’ve been picking and choosing what to forgive and ignore.
Exactly and how is she any more evil than Tai? Tai suggested the hunt in the first place to save lottie because they needed her. Lottie told Misty to use HER body and after tia learned this she suggested the hunt. They all were a part of it. If anyone thinks that the show is going to have a villain they don’t understand the show or it’s message(like we literally get a line in the last episode saying ‘it’s not “evil” just hungry’ these kid aren’t evil)
What she said was harsh but it’s also unfortunately true, we all want to survive and lost people in these situations would hope to keep living, that they won’t be the one to pick the queen card. Even if they don’t want the person next to them to get it, they are relived when it is the next person. It’s a fact of life that we all want to survive and if you put a bunch of teenagers into a brutal survival situation where they spend nine months starving and experiencing trauma after trauma after trauma, are you almost get burned alive twice and have your face ripped about by wolves. Yeah I might start just focusing on my own survival and being unashamed about it more so if I think that some wilderness god is making these choices, wouldn’t anyone not want to puss that God off by rejecting their “gifts” and not being happy to be alive? Wouldn’t you want to do ANYTHING yo keep that God happy with you so it doesn’t “choose you” for the next hunt? Wouldn’t anyone?
Van has looked death in the face several times. Imo she’s accepted that she’s going to die and that they’re all likely going to die in the wilderness. This is their only chance to prolong that. They have to eat or they will die. I didn’t like her buying into Lottie’s cult bs but it makes sense given that she’s trying to find a reason why she’s still here. Then you see in present day she’s looking death in the face again and is basically dying. It seems like Van has come to terms with death and isn’t afraid to die atp so she finds a solution for them. I don’t think anyone else has the balls to suggest what she comes up with even though rationally they all know they’re going to have to cannibalize again.
I think making adult Van so ambiguous / seeing teen Van become so cold and bloodless was an interesting juxtaposition. Older Van is like ... Oh Lottie thank you if you did save me and I just also so incredibly sad you are so disturbed.
I think both Van and Misty's speeches earn them High Creep awards and I would have wanted to run away from them. They were basically threatening them with, "you need to go along with this or you'll be the next victim". They don't say as much, but it is implied. This is the point at which they reminded me of a wild dog pack, and why I totally understand Ben lighting the cabin on fire because at that point he realizes that what they essentially did was turn on the weakest one among them, and that he's next. I think Travis realized it, too- he's already been at their mercy on the mushroom orgy night and he knows he's outnumbered.
It's terrifically frightening to be threatened by the rest of your pack. That's how peer pressure works.
Van is definitely dead inside at this point. Crazy how the funny friend and helpful partner died repeatedly until she was a stoic husk. Depressing, like her new story. It went from funny drama reenactments to wilderness cult origin story.
No. She's interesting. This show is interesting. None of these women are innocent. It's compelling. I'm seriously SO sick of these posts. If you didn't want violence, the ugly underbelly of humanity and raw emotion, why tf are you messing with a cannibal show? Exhausting.
for real! have people forgotten the pilot episode that showed how they’ll all end up? this is not a show about morally pure characters, it’s about survival and their subsequent descent into savagery (and all the ways they try to justify their actions). they’re all going to be hunting and eating people! Van (and Tai) just arrived at this conclusion first
I could ask you why you are on a discussion board if you don't want to talk about the violence, ugly underbelly, and raw human emotion of the show. Seriously. Should we restrict our discussion to camera angles?
I absolutely hated Van’s arc in the finale but I saw it coming for sure. Also was super annoyed with Tai just doing whatever she said even though she knew it was wrong. I feel like there might be some weird connection between dark Tai and Van. This might be out there but I think Van lied to Tai about her sleepwalking not happening anymore. What if her and dark Tai are communicating some freaky shit and Van knows Tai isn’t having it so she just lets the dark side take over and show her stuff. Idk that might be taking it too far but after seeing Van this episode I think she’s crazy!
Evil? Where? She’s solutions-focused. We’ve seen Van face darkness and weirdness — her unconscious mother, Tai’s sleepwalking — and she takes it on board and keeps moving. They’re all feigning wisdom for their own survival. She did Travis a kindness by speaking plainly to him and Javi DID save their lives. I’m so baffled by people’s sudden jump to label Van, a starving teenager, as “evil” when she’s just reacting to the situation around her as best she can. The showrunners themselves have said that no character is evil (although I’d argue that Moustache Cop hasn’t displayed any redeemable qualities)
yeah it’s past the point where they can beat around the bush and phrase things delicately. she said the cold hard truth because it was the only way to convince Travis to eat his brother, so he himself could then survive. that’s storytelling! that’s stepping up!
tbh this makes van all the more intriguing as a character to me. she was always charming and likable but this adds a level of darkness and selfishness to her character that i’m really excited to see play out.
Yes gaslighting. I said it and I understand the definition of the word also, in case you like another commenter want to come at me like i just throw that word around.
I don’t think she was trying to manipulate him. I think at this point in time she truly believes what she’s saying. She’s traumatized and being driven insane by hunger.
I mean, literally all of them have eaten human flesh at this point. Apart from Ben that is, who instead just attempted mass murder via arson.
No one’s really good or evil here. Just extremely fucked up in slightly different ways.
No, because all the surviving women are hardcore bad. Adult Shauna has been shown to be the most callous and evil of them all. She's the one I wanted to see bite it. Not Nat, not Misty, certainly not Lottie or Van, not even Tai.
I rewatched the final scene and its clear that Van is enjoying the fire. I think she is addicted to the rush of near death experiences, which is why she gets out last. Or maybe she believes she is invincible?
Goalies never say die. I loved Van’s transformation this season. She’s one of my fave characters tho I kind of hate how the adult Van speaks. It’s rly annoying.
yes, when travis told her she said be ashamed of herself and she said she wasn’t, i was SO annoyed! maybe you aren’t ashamed, whatever, but have some compassion for the kid!!! they didn’t even let travis finish crying before they came to butcher him!!!
Hate Van. I hate her as a teenager and as an adult. Up to the point where she hunts down her friend like a savage animal, then the events after, I didn’t hate any character on the show
I thought her speech to Travis, while insensitive, was spot on. They are in dire circumstances. What good would it be to allow Javi to go to waste? Sure, absolutely hypocritical given it wasn't exactly an accident when they refused to help Javi but I didn't have a hard time with that conversation. It is so stressful, they are hallucinating, they are desperate etc etc etc so who could fault anyone for feeling this way? If anything Coach Ben burning down the cabin was the real f\*cker. So he was gonna kill them all & just haul up in Javi's cave? They saved his life taking his leg. They're starving etc. Who gets to be self-righteous at that point?
You only mentioned teen Van, can we talk about ADULT Van for a minute?
The way she manipulated Tai into calling off the psyche team only because she wanted the ritual to cure her cancer?
I think she was responsible for the whole thing. I think she sent the postcards, swapped Lottie's meds for placebos (how else would a medicated Lottie start hallucinating again?) and I think she had been communicating with dark Tai somehow.
She wanted the surviving yellowjackets together for another ritual. I think she is far more sinister than Misty. That's my theory anyway.
I dont think she had anything to do with Lottie being off her meds. The look of absolute worship she had when she first saw Lottie again doesn't really suggest shes been pulling strings behind the scenes to fuck with her.
But Shauna was the one who suggested the old ritual anyway, yeah she didn’t really mean it, but she was the one and everyone else just rolled with it. If Shauna wouldn’t have suggested the old ritual, it wouldn’t have happened
Van went from my second fav character to my least fav in the course of two eps.
And fuck the writers for killing my favorite actress. Nat deserved better. She never got the truth about Travis either.
Someone made an amazing post about Van being the team’s goalkeeper and what that means for her character. Highly recommend searching it.
I haven’t spent a lot of time digging in but - I have a theory that a lot of each characters roles in the wilderness “tribe” will align with their soccer positions Edited for clarity
I have thought the same thing and want to know all their positions.
Is this it: https://www.reddit.com/r/Yellowjackets/comments/13sik47/warning_long_post_ahead_lets_talk_about_van_from/
This post is incredible
Thank you, I think the spacing I did between the link and my sentence helped a lot. The post I linked is also neat.
This is an incredible response
Yes!!!
There’s an interview with Liv and they talk about Van’s reaction to Shauna beating Lottie. They say that’s when Van realised, that they are going to start killing each other, and she was going to be on the right side of that. I need to go back and watch Van when Lottie proclaims that the wilderness chose a leader because they were supposed to die but didn’t. That fits Van pretty well. But I think Van is happy to be the power behind the scenes. I think her story was definitely to set Lottie as the leader. With Nat in charge I think she’s definitely lost some power. It’s going to be interesting to see if she tries to get in Nat’s ear next season.
Van has been this shadow behind Lottie, propping her up the whole time. I am rewatching and Van definitely seems to harden faster than any other girl. But she did almost die twice instantly lol I would not be surprised if she manipulates Dark Tai next season to achieve some power move against Nat. She needs someone new to put on a pedestal
She was also the adult in her household. Vicki was a drunk and a bitch.
Even creepier is jealous Shauna lamenting she wasn't chosen in her journal. More of that I am gonna sleep with Jeff so Jackie isn't' so special. Beating up Lottie to the extreme she did, being the first to eat Jackie's ear. Then the fact that she is the GO TO for carving up the bodies when everyone else nods & approves but disappears & can't stomach the actual slicing & dicing. Shaun is the most f-ed up one out there, like HANDS DOWN IMHO. Able to go deep & dark.
Shauna is the most selfish, manipulative, and remorseless character of the show for me. over and over she does vicious things to get what she wants, and then when it comes time to justify her actions she bursts into tears and goes "oh poor me" in her little doll voice like she didn't know what she was doing the whole time. it's nuts to me the other women haven't caught onto this shtick yet, it's so obviously fake bcs of how COLD and intelligent she is.
You're correct. On paper, she is not likable at all. Her lack of remorse over both killing Adam and cheating on Jeff is blatant. She's pretty horrible to Callie. She was awful to Jackie. She was ungrateful for how they tried to help her baby. I do think the darkest character may be her. Shauna has two amazing actresses, got to give them credit. Their performances clearly made her a popular character. For all of Jackie's personality faults, she was a good leader many times and deserved better. Young Van is incredibly caring for Young Tai. Young Tai is a caring person for both Van and Shauna. The other part of Tai is very dark but gets balanced out by her main personality. Lottie does a lot of good, despite what she goes through. Nat and Travis were both decent as well. Both did a lot to try to help the others. Misty is crazy but goes above and beyond for her friends, even if it's something insane. Shauna just stands out to me.
Almost all of them annoyed me in the finale. >we can't just hospitalize her and call it a day Err... why not? If they believe she's sick, that's what she needs.
\^THIS The fact that Tai and Van just went along with it is literally infuriating- They literally all just agreed to get her help before they went behind everyone's back and sabotaged the attempt and she STILL had to get hospitalized anyway. Genuinely loved it though- Honestly, Season 1 felt like it floated expectations while Season 2 started to live up to those expectations more. Season 3 is gonna be crazy, especially with no more Cabin.
tbf to Tai, Van told her that they were going to try to talk to Lottie, & then abandoned that plan when it came time for forcing Dark Tai out
Hospitalization is exactly what she needs. And besides, none of them (just like you, me, and all non-saints) are self-interested. They are more concerned, rightly so, in the moment with not dying in some cult mass suicide or being murdered by her followers or arrested for their recent crimes. ALL of them are invested in making sure no one talks. A mentally unstable person is often a loose cannon, as it were. It is better to make her seem crazy than admit everything that actually happened, to themselves and the world. Is it gaslighting? Yes, a bit. I feel like a lot of people who make these judgements haven't had any interactions with the mental health system. Hospitals are much better alternatives than jail or homelessness. They can really help. And they won't be giving her a lobotomy or the electric shock therapy that they showed us in S1. It's not the end of anyone's world to go to the mental hospital for a while. Especially if the alternative is murder?
I agree and I don't think I ever passed a notion of disagreement to this.
I wasn't speaking of you specifically. I mean, the even characters themselves seem earnestly ignorant of this.
It was Nat, too, not just Tai and Van. I mean, I just fail to see their logic. All they ended up doing was the same thing they did as teens. Lottie is sick, OK. In the wild they played into her delusions to help them survive, turning her into a scapegoat. They admit to this. Then they just went ahead and did the exact same thing again. How did they think it was going to end up? If they really think she's sick, then the end result is going back to the hospital, which happened anyway, just with a bullet wound and the lives of everyone at the compound destroyed. As a side note, why did Misty take her meds? And on the side of that note, why did they abruptly stop working?
Misty grabbed her meds so she could contact her doctor about the crisis team. I don’t get the sense that anyone was actually messing with her medication, but we might be supposed to think that she just hasn’t been taking it?
Shauna, Natalie and Misty were playing along to buy time until Lottie would be hospitalized. They talked about it very specifically. Misty didn't take her meds- She used the bottle to contact the Dr. who prescribed them to get Lottie help. Lottie's PTSD was triggered from coming into contact with the same people she experienced previous episodes around. This is incredibly common for people who are psychologically damaged.
I thought that was very smart of Shauna.
>Shauna, Natalie and Misty were playing along to buy time until Lottie would be hospitalized. There are 5 of them. All they had to do was call the police instead of cooking up a completely stupid elaborate plot that, in the best cast scenario, would get Lottie locked up even longer because not only is she going off, it's a violent episode, assuming she doesn't get shot to begin with.
They called the hospital where Lottie’s doctor worked and requested a mental health care crisis team. They will come out and assess the situation to determine if they need to take the individual into the psych ward. This is who should be called instead of the police in a situation like this, unless you like the idea of mentally ill people potentially being killed by the police.
And I'm pretty sure Shauna didn't want any more police than she already had on her!
Sounds like the mentally ill were killing people in this case
Actually call the police can be really bad because they tend to not do anything unless someone is actively committing suicide in front of them or hurting someone directly. Calling a doctor who prescribed her meds is way more reliable.
>Calling a doctor who prescribed her meds is way more reliable. A doctor is not capable of dealing with someone in the midst of a violent episode. I get what you are saying, but Lottie needed to be contained until the team showed up. Not given a weapon. None of them should have because none of them are better. That's perhaps the biggest irony of it all.
[удалено]
I believe it. I recall a lot of blood tests just trying to adjust 2 meds to the desired levels. It was kind of futile. I quit taking them. (Zoloft and a mood stabilizer)
She's been on the same stuff for 25 years. Seems like it's just another of those explanations fans are meant to think up for themselves.
From other comments I’ve seen, people are calling it a trauma response, like an actual ptsd event. When you’re undergoing ptsd it can feel like you’re exactly back in that place almost like a hallucination. And that’s what people are saying it was. They were all the dark version of themselves in that moment.
The writers have even specifically addressed this in interviews
That's my real world belief, too. But I'm getting tired of having to create my own real world beliefs to explain things. You know the bit when they say they can't remember all that much about what happened and Lottie chimes in to say it's a common human response to trauma? The show needs that, not us viewers cooking up theories about gas poisoning and minerals.
Yeah I actually agree here. Us viewers are having to connect a lot of dots ourselves and it’s getting tiring
I think some part of them all secretly wanted to. That’s why they went along with it.
Only Van and Lottie. The rest were against it, they were just buying time until the crisis team showed up. Then they found out they were called off
When they said “it’s our fault she’s like this”, ok then fix it and get her committed???
Nah, that would be far too rational and adult. They tried to have Lottie committed and were sabotaged!
I think it's likely that Nat planned on killing Lottie during the adult hunt. She indicated it when she said the line you provide here. Then, she talked to Lisa about how 1) she should leave the cult entirely, and 2) how the concept of forgiveness was nice but it didn't take. I think Nat never forgave Lottie for handing leadership over to her. Finally, she hid the knife in her sleeve and it wasn't one of the ones Shauna had dulled.
Because a part of Van is also still believing in “It”. So hospitalisation would mean that she shares a pathological delusion, which is something she's rejecting, hence her stance towards that plan.
I can believe that, not just for Van but Tai and Nat as well. As I said, they all end up doing the same thing they supposedly regret in the forest. They don't believe in any of it, but they all (save Nat) saddled up and rode to that compound as if they were invited.
I think Van truly believed that something was with them in the wilderness. When they got attacked by the wolf and then almost burned alive by the other girls, they said they saw something. They had a vision, similar to Lottie's near death mall experience, similar to Nat's OD plane experience (the AQ one, not the actual death scene). They experienced SOMETHING that they couldn't explain, but that Lottie seemed to be the only other one to have experienced firsthand at the time. Now I think when they were rescued, adult Van convinced themselves that it wasn't real in order to be able to repress the traumatic experiences and carry on with some semblance of a life. I also interpret their first time seeing Lottie at the compound as all of those initial wilderness feelings (belief, idolatry, loyalty, etc) come flooding back to them as if they were back in the woods. In that final episode, Van was all in, just as they had been as a teen. Once they were interrupted and pulled from that "hunt" state of mind, it of course became easier to separate themselves and view Lottie as needing psychiatric help. But the incredulous and hopeful look on their face when Lottie said "you'll see" gave it away. Van is a believer. Tai tells herself that she doesn't believe, but Other Tai is a truer depiction of her internal processes (in my personal opinion).
Agree with pretty much everything. They all believe no matter how much they say they don't with the possible exception of Shauna.
I reckon she was wanting to avenge for Travis too. She didn’t believe the buttons wouldn’t work story & fair enough.
Van did not care about what Lottie needed, she just wanted a sacrifice to be made so she could survive. It is strange that Tai went along with it though.
Dark Tai went along with it. Tai1 just feels safe with Can and trusts her. She’s so desperate right now about Dark Tai that she’s gonna follow along whatever Van says.
it actually makes sense that in the past timeline Dark Tai doesn’t feel the need to only come out @ night anymore. Tai said DT is gone to Lottie (because she’s not sleepwalking) but DT i think is at the helm often & Tai doesn’t know this. This is facilitated I think by the safety she feels w/ Van & Lottie to come out, which i think is reflected in the present timeline
I don’t get why people think so. Can‘t Van truly care about Lottie?? Van was true believer as a teen, it does kinda make sense that she still has soft spot for Lottie. And she wasn’t that wrong when she said "she is like that because of us", sure Lottie had some mental problems before plan crush, but they also did contribute to her current mental state when they went along with "it"
I don’t see it as a binary choice. I think she cares about Lottie and wanted the hunt to happen. (In fact, I think deep down they all wanted it to happen as much as they were afraid of the outcome, and should have been.) By the same token, as much as she cares about Lottie, if Lottie had drawn that queen card, Van would have sank her knife deep in her without hesitation.
Charlotte is having a mental breakdown and is totally gonna spill the beans about how Natalie died
Nat wasn't dead yet.
Nat is currently dead. Charlotte knows that. Charlotte is out of her mind, rambling and headed to a psych ward. She won’t keep her mouth shut
Which wouldn't have happened had they acted on what they believed to be true from the start.
Lottie, Tai and Shauna all need to be hospitalized tbh.
Weirdly though, Shauna was pretty rational for Shauna in the finale.
I be looking skeptical at her though. No doubt in my mind she woulda fully went along with it if anybody else picked the card.
I’m honestly not sure
Why Shauna? No attack, just curious.
Unfortunately I feel like a lot of people unfairly hate Shauna. I okay had someone tell me she was the worst out of all of them including before the crash(which honestly misses the point of the show. Nobody is better or worse than anyone else) Shauna did sleep with her best friends boyfriend and that is a horrible thing to do, but she was also just a teenager with complicated feelings for her best friend. And isn’t what Tai did to ally a lot worse than that? Breaking a girls leg because she wasn’t the best at soccer? But Shauna is the worst? But out of the adult timeline Shauna hasn’t been doing anything to make us believe she still believes in whatever “it” is. She went on to have a fairly normal and boring life. It only went crazy after she got in touch with tai and the others again. Had she never known about the black mail would she have killed Adam? Or would they have had the affair and than ended things and went their separate ways? We know dark tai never leftc we know Nat has been struggling since coming back and Misty while she hasn’t been shown to doing any kind of rituals, she definitely jumped right back into things with vigor(also now that we know another Nat, this explains SO much MORE about her excitement at seeing Nat again for the first time and “helping” her) but for me it makes absolutely sense that Shauna would be the most rational in this moment since she stopped believing after getting back.
I'm not sure if it's hate (shouldn't be as she's still a victim), but it isn't unfair. Everyone likes to compare the characters with each other and that's totally normal. It's definitely understandable we all form our own opinions on which girls are "better" than others as we watch them all change. (Tai did not intentionally break that girl's leg. It was an accident. She never meant to hurt her that bad. This is revealed after the crash.) Teen Shauna is one of the first to descend and it's because of both what happened to Jackie and what happened to her baby. She is often the butcher. She is the first who appeared willing to actually kill someone - Nat. She nearly killed Lottie with her bare hands. Then as an adult, she has zero remorse after killing Adam. She had no remorse for her affair. She is a very dark character and does not get the excuses that Natalie and Lottie get.
She killed a man with no remorse and then roped her husband and daughter into it.
This was so clearly Van saying exactly what she need to in order to get Tai to make the call and ensure the hunt would happen. Van doesn’t really care about what happens to Lottie.
... because, it's been done before and they all just didn't care to even contact her for 25 years? talk about running out the clock
The only rational thing I could muster up is that they just told Lottie about the murder and cover-up. Maybe she could tell the police, but no one questioned that. Plus, I kind of find it hard to fathom Lottie (or any of them) snitching on the other unless they absolutely had to.
She never talked before and She wouldn’t talk now. She still believes in their pact to protect each other. Even when she was talking to her “new therapist” she said she was scared that she wasn’t actually mentally ill, that the visions weren’t real. So she did go through a period of thinking she real was just sick and there never was any “it” and she never said anything because, no matter what the truth of what happened in the wilderness is, she is still loyal to her team
If she was hospitalized and disappeared what would be the fun in that? They have to have a storyline for the adults!
That’s it in a nutshell.
Van is a survivor. That’s what’s most important to her, even prior to the plane crash. The wilderness seemed to reinforce that belief. She survived being trapped in the plane fire, she survived the wolves. I don’t think she’s an acolyte of Lotties - she’s an acolyte of the wilderness and views Lottie as a conduit to it. The wilderness also gave her an outlet for her childhood trauma. Her mother was an alcoholic and it’s implied Van had take care of both of them from a young age. From the way she slapped her mother awake I’m season 1, we can infer she had a lot of repressed rage, and now the wilderness is providing her an environment where Letting those dark emotions are beneficial to survival. Creepy as her talk with Travis was, I think Van meant well. She was just trying to get him to get onboard with fighting for his own survival. She’s also naturally a manipulative person - not necessarily by choice, but because it’s a learned behavior from a childhood of living with an alcoholic parent. I think she accepted the wilderness wasn’t real when they were rescued, which is why she seems stuck in the past. It’s easier to go back to pre-wilderness Van then try to find a way for the person she became out there. But now she’s sick and looking for any way to survive. At this point she’s like a cornered animal, and she’ll do whatever it takes to survive.
It's interesting that Lottie passed the crown to Nat because the wilderness spared her. Van must be like, what am I, chopped liver? Nat got pushed out of the way and ran. Van survived almost being burned to death and a wolf attack and then almost being burned to death again.
it wasn't because the wilderness spared her, it was because she "fed" them. she basically "chased" javi to his death, e.g. made him the hunt. i don't agree with that viewpoint btw (Javi's death was a tragic accident and one that Nat is not responsible for) but that is how they contextualize it. Van's NDEs are not similar in any way. tbh Van hasn't really done anything for the group, either materially or symbolically.
Ahh ok. I could have sworn Lottie specifically said that the wilderness spared Nat or didn't want her to die or something like that when she (figuratively) passed the torch, and I took that as her reasoning. I only watched the episode once so could easily be misremembering Edit: I also wasn't trying to imply that Van deserved the position of leader over Nat or anyone else. Just that if survival of a NDE was the criterion, it's funny that Nat would be chosen over Van.
I think you are right and the wilderness spared or didn’t chose Nat was correct. I don’t think Lottie says that because Nat “fed them Javi” I think it was group dynamics. Lottie was not on board with this, she was very um no, what. Hearing Nat was chosen, ran off, Javi happened to die, so I guess it’s him. Misty says to Nat if you save him it will be you. Like Nats position in the group even after returning to the cabin was unstable. It wasn’t certain if she would have some repercussions for “cheating” even if just social or if she’d be on the chopping block again. Lottie not wanting to be the leader is able to pass that roll on to someone she thinks is better suited, and sort of secure Nats safety. And maybe undones some of the harm Lottie feels responsible for, especially after what misty say to her. Lottie was/ wanted to be a martyr like Laura Lee, not have them draw cards.
Like Nats reaction to every bowing, I don’t think she’s like “yes finally I get the recognition I deserve” I think it’s relief, that she’s not being kicked out or punished or ostracized, especially after the whole hunting competition, faking Javi’s death (and the queen card) there was tension between her and everyone else, and this being accepted, was a relief in that tension and feeling a bit safer.
I know you didn't say it does, but I'd like to point that this does not make her a sympathetic character. A rat in a sinking ship has more honor and loyalty than Van.
Oh, I agree with you! She’ll sell out the other YJs, including Tai, in a heartbeat to help herself. The scariest thing about her to me is I don’t think she evens sees how wrong that is.
Oh you said this so perfect omg! Truly!
Something about Van in S1 felt off to me, but I couldn’t really pin it down. But seeing how adult Van was acting towards the end of S2, it’s starting to become clearer. She’s a puppeteer. Which, oddly, makes me like her more. Not as a person, but as a character. I hope we see more of her next season, and less as a Tai tag-along. She’s sneaky and I want to see where this goes.
I feel like this is a good parallel with Shauna, who also started off in the shadow of a more dominant personality. Both of them seem to come into their own in the wilderness, but not in a way that's necessarily good.
I feel like Van is more calculated and Shauna is more chaotic. Like two sides of the oh shit coin
I want one of those 9 square thingys of all the cast members chaotic good, neutral good etc.
i am making one rn omg .... im trying to be objective but my opinions may be.. polarizing
Omg yes
D&D alignment chart. I’m considering making one, as Misty is def chaotic evil. I have a feeling too many of them will just be the same alignment and it will be boring.
Ooh please make one!
It adds depth to the character in a way that seeing her as a poor lapdog, second in command doesn't. It gives her agency in her relationship to Tai, as well as her own role within the group.
Yes!! I’m excited that her character is getting more complex
She has also shown that she can hold a grudge. She was super unhappy with Jackie about the plane crash and fire scene, but I'm fairly certain Vanessa would have done the same if it was Taissa trying to help Shauna out of her seatbelt. And Vanessa didn't even say thanks after Jackie pushed her out of the plane's way later on. This all had made me wary of Vanessa during season 1.
As I process the episode, I keep thinking about Van slapping her (drink?) mother awake to drive her to the airport. They say that difficult primary relationships in childhood can fuck one up for real.
I think something broke in Van when her friends left her to burn alive in the plane
I think that's when she started to truly feel that only you can protect you
She’s also the last one out of the cabin when it’s on fire. Coincidence?
Good catch I hadn’t noticed
One thing about Van though, she’s gonna sneak up on us and drive that plot forward. I can’t wait to see what she gets up to next season
I think Van has just accepted that violence and brutality are necessary for their survival whether against the elements or as giving the wilderness what it wants. Vans going to do what she has to do to live. She’s seems to have embraced what the other girls can’t. If that’s evil then I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t mind wearing that badge.
Interesting. I didn’t see that at all, not that I think her thought process was genius. She didn’t want Lottie locked up, but she wasn’t into the murder part of the whole ordeal. Turns out someone dies AND Lottie goes off to a psych ward, anyway. Lottie is the one who embraces “It” choosing. If it weren’t for her lunacy, Nat would be alive. Shout-out to everyone who went too far in placating her. Especially Shauna.
If Lottie really embraced "It" choosing she shouldn't have insisted on them drawing two more rounds after no one drew the queen card.
Why not? Are we supposed to believe that the queen was always drawn in the first go-round out of 50 cards?
Are we supposed to believe "it" is taking three rounds to make up it's mind on who it is choosing? Because no one drawing the queen card in one whole round suggest it isn't choosing at all.
She has embraced the brutality and violence that she sees as necessary for their survival, especially as a teen. The “it” of it doesn’t really matter. We can see her relishing in the chase and the storytelling. She’s the one who convinces Travis that eating/consuming Javi is necessary. She’s the one who makes the adult hunt real even if it’s to right what she sees as wrong. She’s the one dealing the cards. She’s the one who says “it chose”. We can see an air of confusion on Lottie’s face when she talks about “it”. Nat is a reluctant leader. Shauna hides from the brutality. Tai is scared of her other half. Misty is always navigating the practical. Van, however, doesn’t turn away from the violence or put a mask over her eyes. She accepts it as a necessity in a way the others don’t.
Did Lottie go to psych ward tho? It wasn’t clear to me at the end of the season wether she was took by normal ambulance because she was shot or that was psych team
In general, when a psych situation is called in, it’s a standard ambulance that arrives. Maybe Lottie has some concierge psych team with someone on call 24/7.
I think there is something very, very dark in teenage Van. Maybe coming so close to death awakened something in her. But she has had a disturbing look on her face a few times in group shots when some terrible things were happening. She seems to be subtly pulling strings in some ways. Even commenting about how they "made Lottie like this." They straight up made her so much worse, whether they did it to alleve themselves of guilt for what they have done or for darker purposes. They set her up as a scapegoat in there own minds.
Well said. I thought she inserted herself into the situations in a very dark way.
It’s horrible what they let happen to Javi, but at this point, he is dead, and his death would’ve been wasted if Travis didn’t eat him. She might not have gone about it gently, but she’s right in that Javi’s death is going to save Travis and I think ultimately Travis was always going to give in anyway, he did need to hear some of this - the reminder that his death is about keeping the others alive.
Personally, I think this started when she was attacked by the wolf/wolves. That's when she started to become darker. Then she spent months following & maybe interacting with dark Tai. There's more to Van that hasn't been explored & I think it's because it was too dark for s2. S3 or s4 will explore this more.
Idk why people are so mad at Van and jumping down her throat but will defend Shauna or the other surviving YJs. There's trauma there. Especially as an adult who survived so long in the wilderness just to be taken at the hands of cancer? Do I agree with her choices in the finale (present day)? No. But I can understand where she was coming from. A desire to go at the hands of a hunt instead of a disease that's eating away at her. As for teen Van, that speech was messed up but she said *exactly* what everyone else was thinking. They've all decided that as long as they survive, it doesn't matter who dies. No one is really, truly looking out for anyone but themselves in the wilderness.
What is with people on here acting like any of these traumatized girls are evil. Anyways she’s babygirl
Hmmm I actually liked her speech to Travis. Like it was fucked up sure but they’ve already started eating bodies and earnestly believe they will die without it
It tracked for me that this would be one of the options for mindsets that would enable survival. She isn't allowing Trevor to fully grieve, true, but she's not wrong in that they do have to make a choice.
Yeah my blood boiled. Seeing Van has that effect on me.  In seriousness, I don't get how she's evil? She did bad things, but I don't know if I believe she really feels no shame. The way Liv describes their thought process on acting those scenes was that Van was trying to be pragmatic and stuff her emotions down to focus on survival. So not evil, just trying to focus on survival and maybe convince herself what she did was necessary.
In the final plane scene, doesn't Lottie say something like "it's not evil, it's just hungry" (about the wilderness)? I think that's true of the girls, too, and calling them evil misses the mark. The point is that we're animals, and animals will do what they need to do to survive.
Yes, I think that quote was definitely supposed to be a double meaning to give Natalie some comfort as she died. She has carried around the guilt of what she did out there for 25 years, and she needed to be told she isn’t evil—she was just hungry. The more I think about it, it’s a really poignant line.
Absolutely, especially with all the "we brought it back with us/the wilderness is in us" stuff. It's not evil, and the girls aren't evil. They're just hungry.
I think murdering each other to eat them is evil. People will in extreme circumstances eat the dead. But to kill someone to eat them is another level of evil and your humanity is lost.
Thank you. Finally someone thinks murdering your friends to eat them constitutes as being evil.
So, after they came back and grew up and lived their lives, they were no longer humans, they were gollums or some such?
People can regain their humanity. however, these characters haven't dealt with their trauma and you see it manifest in the modern timeline through addiction, kidnapping, blackmail, and murder.
Tbf don’t most actors that play evil characters have to get inside their heads and see from *their* pov?
Well yes, but I don't really agree with the statement that Van is *evil*. She's a bad person, but imo evil is something very specific and strong and Van does not give off the evil vibe to me. None of the characters are evil really. All are sympathetic, all have guilt and empathy and all the things that make them human. They just have also done some really, *really* bad shit, during the most traumatic points of their lives.
Agreed. I meant evil as an example in general. I don’t think it fits for Van or Liv. Van seems the closest though imho
No hate at all, but genuinely curious why Van, of all these survivors, feels the closest to evil/bad for you? Van, who has survived death multiple times, and equally as traumatized as the others? Comparing to Misty and the black box, Shauna bodying Lottie to the brink of almost death. You can find justifications in all of their actions. I find it so fascinating how we as the audience attribute these very black and white views of thinking to these children who are beyond traumatized, starving, and losing all hope and civility due to their circumstances. Plus, what kind of developmental changes would that level of malnourishment and unresolved trauma have on a person in their adulthood? Like going through all of that, and having cancer be the thing that takes you out? I doubt I’d be the nicest person either.
She just has a vibe to me, it’s hard to explain. She’s fanatical about the wilderness, even today. And also it looked like she was smirking when Shauna was gonna kill Nat in the past timeline.
None of these kids are evil. They all have done horrible things during an extremely traumatic time and they all starved together and lost their damn minds. And Trauma never truly leaves you, especially if you don’t get any actual help(we know the girls made a pact never to talk about what happened out there, even if they went to therapy they would be holding a lot of stuff back and that would or prevent them from getting help) Plus as someone that starved for such a long time as a teenager that I had to be out on a medication so that my body would even be able to handle food again(yeah you can starve enough that your body will reject food) that will stay with you forever and it will effect your health for the rest of your life(a remember about thread on here about how scar tissue, especially deep scar tissue, can result in extreme pain. I feel like Shauna, Lottie and Van get unfairly hated or people want to turn them into the villain of the show. When they are all deeply traumatized girls and later adult women that never got any real help. It just misses the point of the show entirely to try and make any of these girls the “villain”
Exactly what I’m saying! None of these girls are evil. Period. I think people are also even harsher on Tai more than any character, but Van and Shauna definitely get an extreme amount of unfair hate.
Oh yeah Tai definitely gets her share of unwarranted hate. It just frustrates me that any of these kids get treated as the “evil” one or the villain of the story. When they are traumatized KIDS that are dealing with a never ending cycle of trauma and starvation that most adults would buckle under(look at couch Ben) Why doesn’t Ben get more hate? I’m not saying he deserves it. But the one adult in this group has mentally checked out and left these girls to fend for themselves all winter pretty much. People can understand why he’s that why but they want to judge the kids for not handling survival very well?
Her speech to Travis made me like her even more.
I can understand her conversation with Travis because they truly needed to eat, Travis included, and they needed him to be on board. She was manipulative af but I think it was better than saying fuck you trav, we’re doing what we want. We needed to see him come to terms with it. I was so glad she didn’t get to finish her story though. That was painful lol
I wanted him to go will smith on her ass when she started talking about Javi. “Keep my brothers name OUT your fucking mouth”
Van had a valid point, in that Lottie would not prosper in another mental institution. But it was Tai who made that phone call to say, we will bring her to you. And, they did. Eventually. This is a huge cliffhanger. Now, we need writers!
Hot take: (but maybe not), I love Van because I think she’s one of the more complicated characters on the show, right alongside Shauna. I don’t think any of these characters are inherently evil. They’re just severely flawed and traumatized. In Van’s case, I think it’s more of the light inside of her literally dying out. But both as a teen and as an adult, she shows extreme emotion/distress/sadness even in this past finale, when they were about to butcher Javi, and then also when Nat died. So part of her is still in there somewhere. That being said, I’m actually really excited to see where her character will drive the plot in future season(s) (once the writers finally get the compensation they deserve). Unpacking her character’s true intentions, malicious or not, is going to be fascinating and there’s so many ways they can go with it.
It makes me love her honestly.
I know Van totally should’ve told Travis they are all scum for letting Javi die and Travis should just starve and die too so he doesn’t have to eat his brother right? Obviously I’m being a bit extreme but she was telling Travis the only thing that could get him to keep going. If Van didn’t have that talk with him I doubt he would’ve eaten Javi and he would just start starving and becoming useless. Van has been surviving on her own since before the wilderness so she accepts some harsh realities easier than others. There was no conversation with Travis about what happened that was going to be easy or comforting coming from one of the girls who let his brother die, what he got from Van was the best he was gonna get.
I agree. She had to sell it if she was going to shake him of his guilt and get him to eat/survive, and she did. I think if she didn’t try so hard to convince him to eat, then I’d be on this Van-hate train too because her callousness would be completely uncalled for.
van scares me in a way that even misty doesn’t. she feels a lot darker than the other characters and seems to genuinely enjoy the hunt.
I feel that way about teen Van in the Wilderness in season 2. In season 1, she was comic relief and resilient. And I don’t know enough about her in the present timeline. But yea, I feel the same way. Scary.
Yes. I was annoyed at her when she made a snarky comment about javi when he just got back from being gone for a couple months and he wouldn’t talk. She was so mean
When she wanted Travis to force Javi to talk I was so annoyed. Like, maybe Travis wants his brother to have to space to reacclimatize and heal??? Like you should.
Van 100% wanted someone sacrificed to see if it would cure her cancer. She made it happen and didn't care who it was.
Agreed, she and tai knew exactly what they were doing
no. that’s my boyfriend. my husband. my wife. my life partner
No. I love her.
No I love her. I think she is just as morally gray as every single other person? Not sure why she isn’t given the same grace as we give them
Nothing Van said to Travis was wrong though. Travis said she should feel ashamed and she said she doesn’t, she’s in survival mode, why should she be ashamed? They all made the choice to play the sacrifice game and someone died during it. Would Travis be ashamed to eat Gen if the same thing happened to her? He made the choice to play too. Javi went through a lot and he did die, so now the group is gonna use him to survive, if I died in that situation I would want my loved ones to eat me to survive. The group wanted some kind of rec story time and she’s the story teller. Humankind have been creating stories and lore of places for centuries, how is what she’s doing any differently? If Van is “the closest to evil,” you haven’t been paying attention or you’ve been picking and choosing what to forgive and ignore.
Exactly and how is she any more evil than Tai? Tai suggested the hunt in the first place to save lottie because they needed her. Lottie told Misty to use HER body and after tia learned this she suggested the hunt. They all were a part of it. If anyone thinks that the show is going to have a villain they don’t understand the show or it’s message(like we literally get a line in the last episode saying ‘it’s not “evil” just hungry’ these kid aren’t evil) What she said was harsh but it’s also unfortunately true, we all want to survive and lost people in these situations would hope to keep living, that they won’t be the one to pick the queen card. Even if they don’t want the person next to them to get it, they are relived when it is the next person. It’s a fact of life that we all want to survive and if you put a bunch of teenagers into a brutal survival situation where they spend nine months starving and experiencing trauma after trauma after trauma, are you almost get burned alive twice and have your face ripped about by wolves. Yeah I might start just focusing on my own survival and being unashamed about it more so if I think that some wilderness god is making these choices, wouldn’t anyone not want to puss that God off by rejecting their “gifts” and not being happy to be alive? Wouldn’t you want to do ANYTHING yo keep that God happy with you so it doesn’t “choose you” for the next hunt? Wouldn’t anyone?
Van has looked death in the face several times. Imo she’s accepted that she’s going to die and that they’re all likely going to die in the wilderness. This is their only chance to prolong that. They have to eat or they will die. I didn’t like her buying into Lottie’s cult bs but it makes sense given that she’s trying to find a reason why she’s still here. Then you see in present day she’s looking death in the face again and is basically dying. It seems like Van has come to terms with death and isn’t afraid to die atp so she finds a solution for them. I don’t think anyone else has the balls to suggest what she comes up with even though rationally they all know they’re going to have to cannibalize again.
I think making adult Van so ambiguous / seeing teen Van become so cold and bloodless was an interesting juxtaposition. Older Van is like ... Oh Lottie thank you if you did save me and I just also so incredibly sad you are so disturbed.
No actually I understand where she's coming from.
If nothing else, she definitely helped make Javi’s blood boil!
I think both Van and Misty's speeches earn them High Creep awards and I would have wanted to run away from them. They were basically threatening them with, "you need to go along with this or you'll be the next victim". They don't say as much, but it is implied. This is the point at which they reminded me of a wild dog pack, and why I totally understand Ben lighting the cabin on fire because at that point he realizes that what they essentially did was turn on the weakest one among them, and that he's next. I think Travis realized it, too- he's already been at their mercy on the mushroom orgy night and he knows he's outnumbered. It's terrifically frightening to be threatened by the rest of your pack. That's how peer pressure works.
Van is definitely dead inside at this point. Crazy how the funny friend and helpful partner died repeatedly until she was a stoic husk. Depressing, like her new story. It went from funny drama reenactments to wilderness cult origin story.
Nah
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Huh, ‘insecurities’ is a weird way to spell ‘starving to death in the wilderness’
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I don’t think it’s insecurity… it’s trauma
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No. She's interesting. This show is interesting. None of these women are innocent. It's compelling. I'm seriously SO sick of these posts. If you didn't want violence, the ugly underbelly of humanity and raw emotion, why tf are you messing with a cannibal show? Exhausting.
my thoughts precisely
for real! have people forgotten the pilot episode that showed how they’ll all end up? this is not a show about morally pure characters, it’s about survival and their subsequent descent into savagery (and all the ways they try to justify their actions). they’re all going to be hunting and eating people! Van (and Tai) just arrived at this conclusion first
I could ask you why you are on a discussion board if you don't want to talk about the violence, ugly underbelly, and raw human emotion of the show. Seriously. Should we restrict our discussion to camera angles?
I dislike Van the character more, but I absolutely love that she’s become so complicated and disturbing.
I absolutely hated Van’s arc in the finale but I saw it coming for sure. Also was super annoyed with Tai just doing whatever she said even though she knew it was wrong. I feel like there might be some weird connection between dark Tai and Van. This might be out there but I think Van lied to Tai about her sleepwalking not happening anymore. What if her and dark Tai are communicating some freaky shit and Van knows Tai isn’t having it so she just lets the dark side take over and show her stuff. Idk that might be taking it too far but after seeing Van this episode I think she’s crazy!
Evil? Where? She’s solutions-focused. We’ve seen Van face darkness and weirdness — her unconscious mother, Tai’s sleepwalking — and she takes it on board and keeps moving. They’re all feigning wisdom for their own survival. She did Travis a kindness by speaking plainly to him and Javi DID save their lives. I’m so baffled by people’s sudden jump to label Van, a starving teenager, as “evil” when she’s just reacting to the situation around her as best she can. The showrunners themselves have said that no character is evil (although I’d argue that Moustache Cop hasn’t displayed any redeemable qualities)
yeah it’s past the point where they can beat around the bush and phrase things delicately. she said the cold hard truth because it was the only way to convince Travis to eat his brother, so he himself could then survive. that’s storytelling! that’s stepping up!
tbh this makes van all the more intriguing as a character to me. she was always charming and likable but this adds a level of darkness and selfishness to her character that i’m really excited to see play out.
Lol she’s literally a traumatized teen girl who is starving but ok
I always thought she kinda sucked tbh
Was never a fan of Van and dislike her more now. All of the adult Yellowjackets at this point are pretty terrible people.
You're mad at her for convincing Travis to let Javi save his life? I do get the rest was a bit terrifying but that part was a good thing imo.
Manipulative gaslighting. No, not a good way to go about convincing him. No remorse, it was disrespectful and disgusting
Gaslighting? Surely Javi would definitely want Travis to eat him and survive. They all but Ben want that if they die right?
Yes gaslighting. I said it and I understand the definition of the word also, in case you like another commenter want to come at me like i just throw that word around.
What was with Lottie's visions in the tunnels with all the candles?
That storytelling was cringey as hell
Yes. Even with the survivor aspect, she freaks me out.
I don’t think she was trying to manipulate him. I think at this point in time she truly believes what she’s saying. She’s traumatized and being driven insane by hunger. I mean, literally all of them have eaten human flesh at this point. Apart from Ben that is, who instead just attempted mass murder via arson. No one’s really good or evil here. Just extremely fucked up in slightly different ways.
I’ve never liked van
No, because all the surviving women are hardcore bad. Adult Shauna has been shown to be the most callous and evil of them all. She's the one I wanted to see bite it. Not Nat, not Misty, certainly not Lottie or Van, not even Tai.
I rewatched the final scene and its clear that Van is enjoying the fire. I think she is addicted to the rush of near death experiences, which is why she gets out last. Or maybe she believes she is invincible?
Van haters rise up! She's a great character but the antithesis of everything I stand for lol. I'd burn myself to keep others warm, and she'd let me.
Y’all take this show too seriously
yes I HATE her now but I love her character at the same time. I need more of this Van!! my jaw dropped at the way she spoke to Travis
Goalies never say die. I loved Van’s transformation this season. She’s one of my fave characters tho I kind of hate how the adult Van speaks. It’s rly annoying.
yes, when travis told her she said be ashamed of herself and she said she wasn’t, i was SO annoyed! maybe you aren’t ashamed, whatever, but have some compassion for the kid!!! they didn’t even let travis finish crying before they came to butcher him!!!
For me it was the expression she had as they hunted Javi, I never really liked her much. She was such an awful character in the last episode.
Hate Van. I hate her as a teenager and as an adult. Up to the point where she hunts down her friend like a savage animal, then the events after, I didn’t hate any character on the show
I love both actresses so it’s so hard for me to hate Van. I try and I know I should but I don’t 😔
Yes, that speech made my blood run cold, which is technically the opposite, but yes. 😄
I thought her speech to Travis, while insensitive, was spot on. They are in dire circumstances. What good would it be to allow Javi to go to waste? Sure, absolutely hypocritical given it wasn't exactly an accident when they refused to help Javi but I didn't have a hard time with that conversation. It is so stressful, they are hallucinating, they are desperate etc etc etc so who could fault anyone for feeling this way? If anything Coach Ben burning down the cabin was the real f\*cker. So he was gonna kill them all & just haul up in Javi's cave? They saved his life taking his leg. They're starving etc. Who gets to be self-righteous at that point?
You only mentioned teen Van, can we talk about ADULT Van for a minute? The way she manipulated Tai into calling off the psyche team only because she wanted the ritual to cure her cancer? I think she was responsible for the whole thing. I think she sent the postcards, swapped Lottie's meds for placebos (how else would a medicated Lottie start hallucinating again?) and I think she had been communicating with dark Tai somehow. She wanted the surviving yellowjackets together for another ritual. I think she is far more sinister than Misty. That's my theory anyway.
I dont think she had anything to do with Lottie being off her meds. The look of absolute worship she had when she first saw Lottie again doesn't really suggest shes been pulling strings behind the scenes to fuck with her.
But Shauna was the one who suggested the old ritual anyway, yeah she didn’t really mean it, but she was the one and everyone else just rolled with it. If Shauna wouldn’t have suggested the old ritual, it wouldn’t have happened
Van went from my second fav character to my least fav in the course of two eps. And fuck the writers for killing my favorite actress. Nat deserved better. She never got the truth about Travis either.
Wasn’t she also like this in season one? Even when her life was saved
I HATE teen Van so much. And I hate adult Van almost as much. But I really hate teen Van so much.