Summary

• The opening scene of Yellowjackets shows a girl wearing Jackie's heart necklace falling into a tiger trap and getting eaten, but the identity of the victim is still unknown.
• The necklace is a part of a sacrificial ritual where the Queen of Hearts card holder is marked for death. Jackie's necklace was worn by the pit girl, indicating she had chosen the card.
• Jackie is not the victim from the first episode, as she died in a different manner. Her necklace foreshadowed her being the first cannibal victim in the series.

Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for Yellowjackets.Showtime's Yellowjackets opening scene created a mystery for the audience, seeing a girl wearing Jackie's heart necklace fall into a tiger trap and get eaten by the other girls — so, who died in the first episode of Yellowjackets? The series pulled no punches from its inception, showing in its very first scenes that a group of high school girls trapped in the wilderness would descend into ritualized cannibalism. The mystery of who died at the beginning of Yellowjackets has remained wholly unexplained as the show's sophomore season comes to an end. However, the ritual itself and Jackie's necklace's importance therein have finally been revealed.

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The only hint about who died in the Yellowjackets opening scene is that the character was wearing Jackie's heart-shaped necklace. Audiences have been watching the necklace closely throughout the show, hoping that someone will take possession of it and finally reveal who the "pit girl" is. Thus far, the only two people that the necklace has passed between are Shauna and Jackie. Since Shauna obviously survives, as one of the main adult survivors in the 2021 timeline, many believed that the pit girl must then be Jackie, but she died in a different manner. However, the importance of the necklace on the victim has nothing to do with how it's passed around, rather, the ritual itself.

Jackie's Necklace Marks The Yellowjackets' Next Victim

Yellowjackets season 2, episode 8 finally revealed the full sacrificial ritual that was teased in the series premiere, and it turns out that Jackie's necklace is a part of the whole thing. The ritual begins with the survivors randomly choosing from a deck of cards. Whoever chooses the Queen of Hearts is the next to be sacrificed. At that point, Shauna puts Jackie's necklace on them to mark them for death. The hunt begins, and the victim is chased down, killed, and eaten. While the ritual didn't go totally to plan the first time around, with Javi dying despite Natalie choosing the Queen of Hearts, the basics have been established.

The fact that the pit girl in Yellowjackets' opening scene was wearing Jackie's necklace proves that she must have chosen the Queen of Hearts card. It also explains why she was being hunted down by the rest of the team when it was previously thought the reason for her choosing was relational. Since Jackie was the first victim the wilderness "chose" to be cannibalized, it makes sense that the group would mark the next victim for death using the trinket. Shauna proclaims at the Jackie feast that she "wants us to," and the survivors believe that whoever lives and dies has been chosen by the wilderness entity.

Jackie Isn't The Victim From Episode 1

Jackie's death in the Yellowjackets season 1 finale proved that she wasn't the pit girl, leading many to still wonder who died in the first episode of Yellowjackets' opening scene. In the beginning of Yellowjackets, Jackie was the girl that gets along with everyone. Jackie lives in a nice house, has the good-looking (albeit dopey) boyfriend Jeff, and doesn’t seem to think too much about anything in particular. Her character is notably absent of the depth given to the other characters and also the conflict, except that Jackie seems to be a good friend to Shauna, while Shauna remains subconsciously jealous of her best friend.

When Shauna's treachery of getting pregnant by Jackie's boyfriend came to light, she gave the heart-shaped necklace back to Jackie, only furthering the rumors that it was Jackie who died at the beginning of Yellowjackets. However, after Shauna and Jackie's big blowout, Jackie made the dramatic move of sleeping outside of the cabin on a night that happened to be the first snowfall of the year, and subsequently froze to death. Shauna kept the necklace on Jackie's body until the girls decided to cremate her, at which point Lottie took the necklace off Jackie and gave it back to Shauna.

Jackie's Necklace Foreshadowed Her Being Cannibalized

While Jackie isn't who died in the first episode of Yellowjackets, the fact that her necklace was worn by the pit girl foreshadowed the fact that she would end up being the first cannibal victim and its importance in the ritual. In one of the most shocking moments of Yellowjackets season 2, episode 2, the girls all wake up to the smell of Jackie's slow-cooked body, and in a moment of desperation, egged on by their starvation, they consume her in a feeding frenzy. The moment is a far cry from the ritualized act committed in the premiere episode, but showrunners clued audiences into Jackie's eventual fate by putting the necklace on the pit girl.

Now that Jackie is the first confirmed victim of cannibalism, and Javi is the next, the question of who died at the beginning of Yellowjackets can at least rule one suspect out. While it was believed that the necklace becomes the proverbial conch of Lord of the Flies, which the series is very loosely based on, the sacrificial cannibalism ritual established that whoever is chosen has to wear it. Jackie's necklace has become a highly symbolic, albeit unexpectedly, piece of the ritual, so that's one mystery solved. However, it doesn't look like the Yellowjackets mystery of the pit girl's identity will be answered any time soon.