Summary

• Season 2, episode 1 of Yellowjackets brings shocking twists, including cannibalism and troubled characters facing their pasts.
• The premiere answers key questions from season 1 but leaves viewers with more mysteries and unexpected plot developments.
• Shauna's disturbing behavior, Taissa's dark discovery, and Lottie's cult activities up the ante for the series in unexpected ways.

Yellowjackets season 2, episode 1, included some seriously shocking moments throughout the episode. The loose Lord of the Flies adaptation proved early on that it wasn't an ordinary series. Cannibalism was introduced in the first episode, and each of the girls proved to be troubled in their adult and teenage lives from the get-go. As season 1 progressed, the stakes increased, seeing different team members like Laura Lee experience brutal deaths.

The Yellowjackets season 1 finale ended the chapter on a tragic note, with Jackie frozen to death, winter descending on the camp, Shauna and the survivors covering up Adam's murder, and adult Natalie being kidnapped. There were plenty of questions left over from the prior installment for season 2 to answer. A few key questions are resolved in Yellowjackets season 2, episode 1, but these answers only inspire more questions. Yellowjackets season 2, episode 1, has considerably upped the ante in terms of unexpected twists and turns.

7 Shauna Talking To Jackie's Dead Body

Shauna Continues To Have Hallucinations

Shauna's coping mechanism for her best friend's death is hanging on to her corpse in the meat shed and having imaginary conversations with her — by far the creepiest way that Yellowjackets could've brought Jackie back. While Jackie's dark Yellowjackets death did cause a few wayward rumors that she wasn't actually dead, the season 2 premiere proved that this was not the case, and Ella Purnell's character was unequivocally gone. While Shauna showed signs of hallucinating Jackie as an adult in season 1 (seeing her when she was with Adam on the bridge), this reveal is entirely different.

Seeing Shauna hallucinate Jackie while she converses with her dead body was one of the most unsettling things about the episode — save for what she does with it at the end. The two's conversations certainly aren't light or surface-level either, proving that Shauna has some severe psychological damage from the incident, which is something she hasn't fully processed in her adult life. The rest of the girls begin to feel uneasy about Shauna's behavior at this point.

6 Taissa Discovers Her Altar

Taissa's Sleepwalking Grows More Sinister

Taissa finally discovers her makeshift altar in Yellowjackets season 2, episode 1, and it seems like she wasn't aware of it at all. In the episode, Taissa is looking through her basement when she sees blood in the crawl space, which leads her to investigate further. After going through the narrow entrance, she comes upon her altar that holds Sammy's doll, their old dog's head, and a heart. Taissa is completely shocked when she comes across the scene, which implies that she didn't do these things while she was awake.

Taissa's sleepwalking in Yellowjackets has been an increasingly violent problem for her teen counterpart, and the altar is an example of how dangerous it truly becomes in the present timeline. This shocking Yellowjackets moment does at least relieve some culpability on Taissa's part, since she was unaware that she was decapitating her family dog, but it does raise some major concerns for the future. The purpose behind the altar is not revealed yet, but it's clear Taissa's nighttime sojourns are getting more unpredictable.

5 Lottie Kidnapped Natalie

Natalie Was Abducted By Lottie's Cult

The Yellowjackets season 2 premiere at least answered one question left over from the season 1 ending: Lottie kidnapped Natalie. Natalie was last seen being taken from her motel by a group of purple-clad assailants after she got a message from her sponsor revealing that Travis' bank account had been emptied by the latest Yellowjackets survivor, Lottie Matthews. Yellowjackets season 2, episode 1 sees Natalie being held in a room and fed by one of Lottie's cult members before she can make her escape by stabbing the acolyte with a fork.

The fact that Lottie survived the wilderness was shocking enough, but the admission that she was the one who kidnapped Natalie is even more surprising. Her intentions for taking her former teammate are hidden for now. The biggest question this leaves behind is why Lottie would take Natalie in the first place. Lottie says that she has a message for her from Travis at the end of the episode, and her true plans are later in the season, but for now, Natalie and the audience are in the dark.

4 Shauna And Jeff Cover Up Adam's Murder

Jeff And Shauna Destroy Adam's Art Studio

While the adult survivors helped Shauna cover up Adam's murder in the 2021 timeline, Jeff does them one better by going to his art studio with his wife and defacing pictures of her. The biggest problem for adult Shauna is that she has killed her lover, and when it's discovered that Adam had an art studio in town, she and Jeff take a trip. Upon gaining access, the two see a ton of pictures Adam painted and drew of Shauna, so they decide to dispose of the evidence. Then, using paint thinner, they smear Shauna's face so it's unrecognizable.

The moment is made even more shocking when the couple decides to have a little fun of their own. Sexual proclivities aside, that Jeff would further assist his wife in covering up the murder of her former lover is downright astounding. She indeed helped Jeff hide his blackmail scheme, but murder and blackmail are two entirely different beasts. Jeff and Shauna's relationship is slowly being revealed to be far less one-note than initially depicted. This Yellowjackets moment proves that Jeff may be just as chaotic as his wife.

3 Lottie's Cult Tried To Bury Someone Alive

Natalie Stumbles Upon Lottie's Cult Digging A Grave

Adult Lottie's cult is revealed in Yellowjackets season 2, episode 1, and they're shown trying to bury someone alive toward the end of the episode. Simone Kessell's adult Lottie Matthews is introduced in the opening of the installment, and she's shown giving an impassioned speech to her new followers in the present Yellowjackets timeline. The whole thing seems very harmless enough in this tiny glimpse since her words are about finding power from within. However, when Natalie escapes and comes across the members wearing animal masks, they try to bury someone alive.

Like Taissa's sleepwalking, Lottie is slowly but surely proving that she revels in and reveres violence and bloodshed. In addition, her influence as a spiritual leader in the 1996 timeline is growing exponentially, further blurring the lines between the supernatural and reality regarding her "powers". Between the bear heart offering and trying to convince Shauna to kill Travis during Doomcoming, Lottie has proven to be a more bloodthirsty force than originally thought. This astonishing moment in Yellowjackets only furthers the idea Lottie as the antler queen.

2 Callie Finds Adam's ID

Callie Gets Closer To Discovering The Truth

Callie finding Adam's burned driver's license in the Yellowjackets season 2 premiere is definitively one of the more staggering moments of the episode — and it threatens to bring major problems for her mother going forward. Callie was one of the first to find out about her mother's affair in season 1 and was understandably upset over Shauna's selfishness. However, when Adam disappeared, Callie found out about it on the news and was immediately suspicious of Shauna. She tried to get answers out of her parent but to no avail.

Shauna and Jeff decide to burn Adam's belongings on their grill, including his driver's license, and their efforts are seemingly successful. In the final moments of Yellowjackets season 2, episode 1, Callie goes to the backyard grill and discovers Adam's partially burned ID in the charcoal ashes. This shocking moment only fuels Callie's intensifying desire to uncover the truth, which is a bad sign for Shauna. This moment carries major significance going forward and significantly affects the family dynamic going forward.

1 Shauna Eats Jackie's Ear

The First Act Of Cannibalism Is Done By Shauna

Another shocking moment of the Yellowjackets season 2 premiere was Shauna being the first to commit the act of cannibalism by eating Jackie's ear. During one of her and Jackie's hallucinated conversations, an argument breaks out, and Shauna pushes Jackie over. Jackie's decomposing ear falls off, and Shauna decides to keep it on her person as a trinket of sorts. If this isn't nauseating enough, the pregnant Shauna does the unthinkable in the very last shot of the episode and consumes Jackie's frozen ear.

While there was never a clear guess as to how the ritualistic cannibalism started in the first place, no one could've seen Shauna succumbing to the act first and without the influence of the other girls. Shauna mentioned that she had to cut back on food rations again, and Natalie and Travis hadn't had any luck with hunting. With Shauna being the first to commit cannibalism in Yellowjackets, it signals that the rest of the girls will follow suit in season 2.

Watch on Paramount+