Warning: Contains spoilers for Yellowjackets season 1.
The Yellowjackets season 1 finale answered some small mysteries but it has left plenty of huge questions for Yellowjackets season 2 to explore. Yellowjackets was renewed for season 2 in mid-December 2021 about halfway through season 1, demonstrating the faith the studio has in the show and assuring viewers that its unanswered questions would not remain a mystery forever. The show's co-creators, Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson have said that they have a 5-season plan for Yellowjackets in the hopes that interest remains high and SHOWTIME continues to renew the series year after year.
Yellowjackets season 1 has followed the survivors' journey from the initial 1996 plane crash through to the first snowfall in the wilderness, while also providing scenes that tease the group's future. Meanwhile, in 2021, the four core survivors, Taissa (Tawny Cypress), Shauna (Melanie Lynskey), Natalie (Juliette Lewis), and Misty (Christina Ricci) have come together to try and keep their secrets hidden. However, the Yellowjackets season 1 finale asks important questions about whether they all have the same endpoint in mind.
Yellowjackets thrives on its mysteries and always keeps the audience guessing. This is particularly true of the season 1 finale, which meted out very few answers for the many new questions that it raised. While it is possible that the 5-season plan means that some mysteries might not be answered until after season 2, these are the biggest unanswered questions from Yellowjackets going into season 2.
Is Jackie Really Dead In Yellowjackets?
In the Yellowjackets season 1 finale, Jackie (Ella Purnell) and Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) have a confrontation that results in Jackie telling her to leave before the majority of the survivors insist that Jackie leave instead. Jackie sleeps outside by an inadequate fire and in the morning, Shauna wakes to fresh snowfall and an apparently frozen and dead Jackie. While the episode heavily implies that Jackie is dead, it is not entirely clear and there would be a precedence for the show revealing that someone who appears dead at the end of the episode is really alive, as Yellowjackets did this with Van (Liv Hewson) earlier in the season. Moreover, there are some clues that Jackie lives longer than it appears.
For a long time, Jackie was thought to be the one who was killed in the scene at the start of Yellowjackets episode 1 as that person is wearing her necklace. While this could be someone else, the journal that the adult Shauna reads in Jackie’s bedroom in 2021 includes a page that references several movie characters that Jackie thought she would be. Several of these characters, like Rose in Titanic and Mia in Pulp Fiction are briefly thought dead but then survive. More importantly, several of these movies came out after 1996, with Titanic in 1997, American Beauty in 1999, and Bring It On in 2000, meaning that Jackie could never have seen these films if she died in 1996. While this could be a production error, the music selected for the 1990s scenes is carefully picked to not be anachronistic, so dismissing this journal as a sloppy error seems reductive when it could be a clue to the truth. Yellowjackets season 2 will need to confirm the truth about Jackie.
Who Is The Antler Queen?
One of the biggest mysteries that has continued throughout Yellowjackets season 1 is the identity of the Antler Queen. In the scenes of cannibalism that are shown in episode 1, the survivors are all wearing masks, but one appears to be in charge and is wearing a large headdress, giving the order for when others may choose to eat. While Misty is shown to be another member of the group, any other living survivor could potentially be the Antler Queen. With the revelation that Lottie (Courtney Eaton) has survived to 2021, it suggests that she might have played a larger role than originally thought and could be the Antler Queen, but Yellowjackets season 2 will have to delve more into these scenes as the story progresses through the group’s first winter in the wilderness.
What's Going On With Taissa's Creepy Basement Shrine?
There’s been a lot of strange goings-on around Taissa’s house in Yellowjackets season 1. While it was revealed that she sleepwalks and is the woman in the tree that Sammy sees, the finale asked some serious questions about what else she gets up to and whether or not she is aware of it. Taissa’s shrine is found by her wife, Simone (Rukiya Bernard), and it contains the head of their missing dog, the remains of Sammy’s doll, and a version of the Yellowjackets symbol drawn in blood. This suggests that Taissa, or at least a version of Taissa if it is her sleepwalking-self, has leaned hard into the supernatural ideas of the series.
Yellowjackets has walked a delicate line, refusing to confirm whether elements are truly supernatural or simply people’s minds working overtime. Taissa is a good representation of this as she sees the man with no eyes as a child but pushes back on any supernatural ideas in the wilderness when Lottie and Van put them forward. With the reveal of Taissa’s basement alter coming as the announcement of her election victory is shown, it is possible that some sort of ritual helped her come to a victory, and Yellowjackets season 2 will need to answer whether there is really a supernatural power at work here and what is going on with Taissa’s sleepwalking.
Who Is The Man With No Eyes?
As with the previously mentioned supernatural elements of Yellowjackets, season 2 will need to provide more information about the man with no eyes. He is seen by Taissa at a couple of key moments in season 1 and is included in the opening credits, but his presence is never properly explained. In the Yellowjackets season 1 finale, in Shauna’s dream, she sees Jackie being welcomed by the ghosts of Laura Lee (Jane Widdop) and the hunter from the cabin (William Vaughn), and this might imply that the man with no eyes was a man who died. Yellowjackets season 2 will need to explore whether he is a real figure, a ghost, an omen of death, or purely an image in Taissa’s mind.
Is Adult Misty A Threat To The Survivors?
Misty has always had her own motivations, exemplified by her decision to destroy the black box after the plane crash to ensure they weren’t rescued too quickly when people had finally seen her as useful. However, in the future she is carrying on her own secret plans and it is unclear whether her end goal will be damaging to the other survivors. While she clearly has worked to keep Jessica Roberts quiet and doesn’t appear to be actually outing the other survivors’ stories, she might have a new power over them. When disposing of Adam Martin’s body (Peter Gadiot), she says only the hands and head can identify the body and she’ll take care of those. A bag that appears to contain Adam’s head is seen in a casket as it is being cremated; however, his hands are not in evidence. It is possible that Misty has kept his hands and might use them as leverage against the others at a later date. Ultimately, Yellowjackets season 2 will need to dig into Misty’s motivations and psyche a little more.
Is Jessica Roberts Dead In Yellowjackets?
Jessica Roberts, if that is her real name, (Rekha Sharma) was hired by Taissa to make sure no other survivors would spill their secrets. Misty kidnaps her but lets her go in the finale, only after drugging her cigarettes which causes her to pass out at the wheel while driving. At the end of Yellowjackets season 1, it is not clear whether Jessica is dead from the drugs—as implied by Misty’s explanation of how the drug she was putting into chocolates worked in an earlier episode—or only passed out and the plan was for her to be going faster and die in a car crash when she lost consciousness. Once again, this will be an important question to be answered in Yellowjackets season 2, along with what Misty’s plans for Jessica are.
Was Callie Born In The Yellowjackets Wilderness?
In Yellowjackets’ 1996 period it is revealed that Shauna is pregnant with Jeff’s (Jack DePew) child. In 2021, the adult Shauna and Jeff (Warren Kole) have a child together, Callie (Sarah Desjardins). At first, this implies that Shauna gave birth to Callie in the wilderness and was able to care for her for 10 months after her birth before their eventual rescue. However, this doesn’t necessarily line up with Callie’s apparent age in 2021. While the actress who plays her was born in 1994 and could be the 24 she’d need to be to be Shauna’s wilderness baby, she is treated as if she is younger, having curfews and trigonometry homework to worry about. This could mean that Callie is a different child that Jeff and Shauna had after they were married, which makes some grim suggestions about what could have happened to Shauna’s child in the wilderness.
What Happened To Javi?
In Yellowjackets, Travis’ younger brother Javi (Luciano Leroux) seems to be repeatedly forgotten about by the characters and writers alike. While he has some early plots around the death of his father and his friendship with Shauna, his character is rarely explored and his main appearances later in the season come during Yellowjackets episode 9, “Doomcoming.” After accidentally taking shrooms with the others, Shauna tells him to run and he is not seen again in the season, even after Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) and Travis (Kevin Alves) spend time looking for him in the finale. It would be anti-climactic for him to have died like Jackie, but off-screen, so the show will need to explore what has happened to him in Yellowjackets season 2. One ongoing theory has been that Javi grows up to be Adam and seeks out Shauna, which would explain Adam’s fake name, but would make his story particularly tragic as Shauna killed him a short while after Travis was found dead.
What Does Lottie’s Cult Want And What Does The Yellowjackets Symbol Mean?
In the Yellowjackets season 1 finale, the Showtime series introduces a new mystery that is tied to one of the oldest mysteries in Yellowjackets. It is revealed that Lottie was responsible for the emptying of Travis’ bank accounts and several people wearing the symbol from the wilderness kidnap Natalie, who has been doggedly looking into Travis’ death. A connection between the two seems likely and, given Lottie’s behavior in 1996, it is probable that she now leads some form of cult that is centered on an aspect of that symbol and the strange happenings that are seen in the wilderness. With Lottie being presented as a possible antagonist for the series, her position as Antler Queen seems more likely. The symbol's appearance on postcards that were presumably sent by Lottie as well as on Taissa’s shrine suggests a potential connection between the two and asks questions about what that symbol means that will need answering. Ultimately, the finale’s acknowledgment that Lottie was still alive and now behind a cult only raised more questions and they will likely be the focal point of Yellowjackets season 2 and beyond.
Did Lottie Murder Travis?
A lot of the Yellowjackets season 1 mysteries are nebulous and hard to grasp, but the most concrete one revolves around Travis’ death in 2021. Although it appears to be a suicide, Natalie is certain that he didn’t kill himself as they shared a pact to not take their own lives. While she comes to the eventual acceptance that he did indeed kill himself and plans to do the same after the breaking of their pact, her kidnap at the hands of the cultists interrupts her enacting those plans. The revelation of the cult's existence and their interest in the symbol makes it seem probable that they had a hand in Travis’ death as it would fit with the ritualistic nature implied by the candle marks on the floor in the shape of the Yellowjackets wilderness symbol. However, Yellowjackets season 2 will have to address whether Lottie herself had a hand in Travis’ murder and if so, why she would be killing off any of the survivors.