Yellowjackets – What are you doing alive?

Yellowjackets: 3x08 A Normal, Boring Life.

Tai: Our futures would be fucked, this will follow us for the rest of our lives. This place will follow us for the rest of our fucking lives.

We’ve spent the last few seasons watching the Yellowjackets divide over questions of faith. Lottie’s followers have waxed and waned, depending on how useful an explanation her mythologising of the wilderness was. A conveniently personified wilderness asking for sacrifices helps dealing with the reality of cannibalism. A belief that It can be called on, its intents interpreted, makes the helplessness of survival and the loss of friends slightly less unbearable. Them’s the Brakes and Croak have removed most of the mystery, the inexplicable that was left for Lottie to interpret as a sign of something greater at play – but what happens in A Normal, Boring Life is the next logical step. The prospect of rescue creates a new dividing line between those who see a return home as a relief, who eagerly embrace the trivial joys of regular, civilised life, and those who have fully transformed in the wilderness and imagine a return home as a potential loss of that new self or at the very least as a problematic process, considering that there are now witnesses to what they have had to do to survive.

The dream that begins the episode shows the trivial: Shauna is working in a grocery store, a menial, boring, repetitive job. Instead of butchering meat with a knife, she’s scanning pre-packed cuts for a customer, who turns out to be Jackie, once again haunting her and taunting her about her lost potential. “You really did not pan out”, she says, indicating that the grocery store is where she ends up instead of going to Brown. When Shauna looks down, the meat turns out to be decisively human cuts: what she’s done out in the wilderness will follow her home. Shauna tells Jackie to stop calling her Shipman, that she has always hated it, but Jackie reminds her that she never said anything about it: a reminder of exactly the kind of inertia that will lead seamlessly to her marrying Jeff and staying in Wiskayok, where she bottles up her rage and uses it on neighbourhood rabbits (the same rabbits that, in porcelain form, amass in her home whenever Jackie’s anniversary comes around). Then she sees moths, trapped in the overhead lights, drawn to the light, a symbol interpreted easily enough: the false promise of escape just leads into another kind of trap. The sequence of the dream indicates that this is adult Shauna, dreaming in front of Alex’ house, but I think that this makes a lot more sense as a dream that teen Shauna had after the prospect of rescue emerged: it’s what’s marinating in her mind as she comes to a decision, with one of the moths reappearing right before she makes the jump. 

A Normal, Boring Life is Shauna’s episode. It’s the first time that the Yellowjackets have a genuine chance at getting out and leaving, with nothing but a six-day trip through these woods under Kodi’s guidance dividing them from a return to civilisation. But we know that they spent at least another two or three months out there, that they, or at least some of them, had to make it through another winter before they returned for good. What went wrong? When they are getting ready, later on, to set out, and Lottie makes the call to stay, Natalie is ready to leave her behind. When Tai makes that decision as well, along with Shauna, it looks like the three of them will stay behind together. But then Shauna is the one to make a choice for everyone: she will not let them go. She has been anointed their new leader, and she makes the decision for everyone in that position. We don’t know yet how she has the power to enforce it, but the episode reveals what she is capable of, and how Shauna, driven by the idea that the life she would return to is trivial, boring, decides that the version of her who rose to power in the wilderness isn’t someone she can sacrifice, even if it means that everyone else has to suffer.

When adult Shauna finally gets out of the car with her sharp, sharp knife, she walks into a funhouse mirror of her own life. It’s a beautiful, light-filled house, with tasteful furniture (I can see Jeff nod his head approvingly), children’s drawings on the wall. When she hides, she witnesses a practiced and loving morning routine: Alex packing her child’s lunch before taking her to pre-school, lovingly bickering with her wife. We can see the love, even before Melissa professes it, because it’s clear in how they interact with each other. I’m not sure Shauna picks up on it, because all she sees – shocked – is that reverse cap, that undeniable proof that the house she has walked into belongs to a woman she thought has been dead for years. She jumped to the conclusion so quickly that a stranger she has never met, the daughter of a woman she helped kill, is the one behind all the things she has interpreted as personal attacks, but with Melissa there, it immediately makes so much more sense in her head. The way she arrives at the decision in her head that this is an enemy to confront: how much of it is coloured by having been Jackie’s friend, by having been in this complex, emotionally entangled relationship with her best friend for so long that was defined by being undermined and made small, and by the revenge betrayal of sleeping with her boyfriend? Misty has called her a “bad friend” so many times up to this point, but it’s more that Shauna can’t even imagine a relationship that isn’t potential betrayal, that isn’t just one small step removed from adversity (which is why it’s perfect that this is also the episode in which Jeff, for the first time, throws her under the bus). Shauna is incapable of trust, because Shauna can never be trusted. And Melissa – honed by the same experiences – knows there’s an intruder in the house, and picks up a knife straight away, and she immediately recognises Shauna, regardless of how many years have passed.

I’m so glad that we get to see this play out, because after last episode, I thought we wouldn’t. It’s perfect that the first time they see each other again, they both have knives, because, as Melissa points out straight away, there is no way that she is going to talk to her with a knife in her hand and no knife in hers. Remember the first time they talked (first time because Shauna was so surprised that Melissa could even speak) Shauna also had a knife in her hand, and used it straight away to threaten Melissa, and Melissa reacted to that with desire and admiration. It’s a beautiful symmetry, and all those 25 years have added is that Melissa, in her new life that she has literally died to get to, recognises that she needs to wield a knife to make things even. The entire teenage Yellowjackets timeline this episode is about how they will return to civilisation without all the things they did hanging over their head, and here’s a woman who faked her own suicide to get rid of her history, only to then end up marrying the daughter of a woman they killed, who has no idea. Even with her new name, her old pattern of problematic trauma bonding - even if it has led to a normal, beautiful life of love – is still right there. To be fair, Melissa admits that this might be the case, but I don’t think it diminishes the reality of her life in any way. She has done exactly what teen Melissa, with such hope and excitement, said she would do once she got back, even if it took some extra steps.

Let’s catch up with what is happening back in the wilderness. Travis has an interesting arc in the episode that I think ties in perfectly with everything that’s happened since he’s escaped Lottie’s grasp and watched what happened to Coach. It’s not said explicitly, because we haven’t really seen any of his interactions beyond trying to his best to look after Akilah (it’s sad that his relationship with Nat doesn’t exist anymore), but something has definitely been simmering. His visions may have never been real, but he definitely has a premonition of what would happen if he staid out there much longer under Shauna’s leadership, and it’s not good. He makes the decision to trek out with Kodi and Akilah, and without the others, but Akilah is leaving breadcrumbs for the girls to find, and they end up capturing Kodi and taking him back to camp before making a decision about what to do. Misty finds her glasses again and is also one of the drivers behind the concerns about what Hannah and Kodi will tell everyone once they get rescued. She suggests they kill them, and the suggestion must be pertinent enough that someone else takes her up on it eventually (Shauna, in the driver’s seat, wouldn’t hesitate). Natalie tells everyone to pack for the trip, and they go off to have wildly different experiences with the prospect of rescue. Misty, Mari and Van have vivid daydreams about the creature comforts of civilisation – a toilet, a slushie, a feather bed that mirrors adult Van’s hallucination of her hospital bed in the woods eerily. They discuss what their first meal will be once they’re back. On the other side, there’s Akilah with a sad and haunting vision of her plants and animals dead – she’s been a guardian of sorts of this tamed wilderness, and she has a deep connection to nature. She’s also been primed by Lottie to believe that these visions mean something (which makes it interesting that she doesn’t join Tai, Shauna and Lottie when they decide to stay, and also opens the question of what ends up happening to her in the end, since she doesn’t seem to have made it out). Travis insists that it’s not real – he admits that he only served her up to Lottie to escape her himself – but it’s hard to deny that her vision of Coach being the bridge came true to an extent, and her vision of her animals dying is so viscerally upsetting that they must affect her deeply. Tai has a conversation with Van about what a return to civilisation would mean for their relationship, because regardless of how long the time they have spent away may feel, the world probably hasn’t changed enough for them to live openly. The haunting thing is that she’s right: 1997 was not a great time to be queer in New Jersey, and it wouldn’t be a marginally better time for a long while, and they did end up breaking up. As much as they have had to do unimaginable things out there to survive, in the sense of being able to live openly within a community that didn’t judge them, the wilderness has been a better place. Along with what happens in the adult timeline here: Tai struggling to bring a sacrifice to save Van, something she believes to be necessary but can’t go through with, shows that Dark Tai shows up whenever Tai deeply wants something but can’t cross a moral threshold to achieve. I think that’s enough to come to the conclusion that the Tai who steps up next to Lottie and Shauna is not entirely herself, it’s Dark Tai taking over to do what she thinks needs to done (a vision of Tai next to the Man With No Eyes all but confirms it). Lottie – who nobody has really talked to since she’s killed Edwin, who still hasn’t even washed off his blood – was always going to stay behind, because she has become someone who can only meaningfully exist out in the wilderness. Back in civilisation, she would be medicated again, her condition interpreted as mental illness rather than visionary (until adult Lottie finds a way to exist as a cult leader in the context of the wellness industry, which has always been one of the great ironic twists of the show).

Lottie: If I go back, nothing will be well. I won’t be well. I won’t be me. The me that was made out here. And that unwellness that I feel, I feel it so deeply in my bones. We’re safer here.

These three (well, four) characters haven’t thought about what they will do once they return, because all they can see is what they would lose: power (“are you the captain, of the team?), the ability to live and love openly, being a spiritual leader. The wilderness has provided for them in ways that it hasn’t for the others (and it’s interesting to think about the fact that Misty would always have turned out to be exactly herself, regardless the circumstances – she can go back and continue without a break, there’s no conflict, as long as the issue of Hannah and Kodi dabbing them in is removed). The most interesting one among them is Nat though: who sees something in the plane, when she says a final goodbye to Ben Scott, but denies that it has any power over her. “We are leaving whatever you are behind” she says, a statement all the more tragic because she no longer has a mirror image in the present time. Nat may have been removed as leader but she is still responsible for everyone, and wants to make sure that they’re safe.

The verbal showdown between Melissa and Shauna is a little like a fucked-up therapy session in which Melissa diagnoses Shauna, and summarises what has been happening ever since they all reconnected after Travis’ death. Melissa is living the boring life that Shauna was so fearful of, but like the fully realised version of it that doesn’t look like a sad approximation of normalcy, but the real thing. “I have a good life. I have a decent job, I have a great kid. I go to church.” Melissa faked her suicide because she was scared of what it meant to no longer be “one of them”, scared of what Shauna would end up doing. This makes it even more bewildering that she chose to send Shauna that tape in the end, a tape that Hannah asked her to give to Alex, but that she had to hide because it would have blown up her life: even with the explanatory note attached that has gotten lost (Callie? Lottie?), it’s hard to see how Shauna would have interpreted as anything but a threat. Melissa explains that it was an attempt to exorcise a haunting, but she also seems to have a solid grasp on Shauna and what she is willing to do. It’s a small kernel of doubt in the whole beautiful symmetry of their confrontation (a kernel of doubt that allows Shauna to continue believing that Melissa was responsible for all the things that could be more easily explained as anything other than an attack on her, but also one that maybe allows the viewers to retain a measure of doubt about Melissa’s intentions here, and her truthfulness).

Shauna: We can make all the pacts, and vows of silence that we want, but if you really think about it, the only way to truly be safe, to be 100% fucking certain that nobody is ever going to spill your darkest secrets is to be the only one left.

What is that, if not a declaration of intent by the character whose most natural instinct, in any situation where she perceives a threat, is to go for the jugular? There’s a version of the story where this is exactly what happens in however many more years of Yellowjackets we have left. Shauna is desperate for control, and suspicious of everyone. Adam is the best example: he had nothing to do with anything, he was entirely harmless, but she created a version of reality in which he was threatening her, and killed him for it. Melissa tells her that she creates her own problems, stirs the pot just to feel alive. “You hate to be alone, you hate yourself, and you want everyone else to feel just as miserable as you are. You want your life to explode. It’s fun for you. It lights you up. You want to burn it all down just to watch.”

It's this that makes Shauna snaps, not even the moment when Melissa taunts her by telling her that she is lying about Callie loving her. Shauna lunges at her, they struggle, and then Shauna takes a bite out of Melissa’s shoulder and asks her to eat it, or else she will tell her family who she is. The only way to be truly safe is either if everyone is equally implicated, or if everyone else is dead. The beautiful voice of Corin Tucker provides the coda with Dig Me Out.

Random notes:

We love a double bluff! I’ve been thinking about how it works, on the meta level, because it would have never been a bluff in the first place if we hadn’t known, in advance, that Hilary Swank was going to show up eventually (which makes it even more perfect that the thing that proves it, even before the subtitles spoil it, is that cap). 

Sophie Nélisse and Melanie Lynskey perfectly adjusting their characters to match each other as current Shauna begins aligning with past Shauna - these two performances deserve all the recognition.

Van’s “Did Mulder and Scully get together” as the first question she asked Hannah was perfect. I too would have a small section of my brain exclusively dedicated to all the television I was missing out on if I was in a survival situation. How did she end up feeling about Agent Reyes?

Jeff finally losing it in this episode has been a long time coming. He is, in a way, practising what his life would look like without Shauna in the episode, in his two attempts to make up for the failed meeting with “The Joels”. It coincides with Callie coming to her own conclusions about Shauna.

I’m getting emotionally invested in the idea that Akilah somehow made it out alive. Nia Sondaya shines in this expanded role, and whatever bad things that will eventually and inevitably happen will be heartbreaking.

Tai’s little hopeful “Does that count”. UGH. I think it’s clear where we’re going with Van this season and it’s heartbreaking, and Tawny Cypress is really delivering in this episode.

Melissa mentions in the conversation with Shauna that she started having daydreams, visions, after reading about all that was happening with the Yellowjackets and Lottie’s cult (“it was more of an intentional community”) and Natalie’s death: but instead of assigning some kind of mystical value to it, she talked about it with her therapist and came to the conclusion that it was mental baggage that she was holding on and had to process, the way a well-adjusted person would do. A lot of the catalyst for everything that happened in the past is, I think, the fact that the Yellowjackets connected with each other again, that it turned into a mutually-enforced shared delusion with nobody to reality-check. Melissa was insulated from it all, and so her path was radically different.

I think as much as it is difficult to take anything that Shauna in this super-heightened state does or says at face-value, it did make me firmly believe that she didn’t kill Lottie – and there’s a tiny moment between Jeff and Callie in the motel room that gave me a spark of suspicion that Jeff may have done something (but hard to really rely on it, since he was in meltdown – a great performance by Warren Kole, by the way).

“Freaky little four-eyed mushroom.”

This is the first Sleater-Kinney song used on the show, and fittingly, because it was released in 1997, it’s the titular track from Dig Me Out – a whole album about a break-up that miraculously didn’t lead to a band break-up, and also added drummer Janet Weiss to the mix, like all the puzzle pieces falling into place finally. There couldn’t have been a better choice for the end of the episode.