Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for Yellowjackets season 2, episode 1.
Of all the twists and turns the Yellowjackets season 2 premiere brings, Shauna's actions toward Jackie at the end of the episode are by far the most shocking, raising questions over why she did it. The Yellowjackets season 1 ending sadly saw Jackie freeze to death outside the cabin, swiftly followed by Shauna's heartbreaking reaction to her best friend dying. Cut to two months later when Yellowjackets season 2 picks up, and Shauna has developed the bizarre and creepy coping mechanism of carrying on conversations with Jackie's frozen corpse in the meat shed.
While the rest of the team wants to put a stop to this, and for good reason, antler queen Lottie remains steadfast in letting Shauna grieve in her own way. Shauna imagines that Jackie is talking back to her, but a particularly unpleasant conversation between the two leads to Shauna pushing Jackie over and her ear falling off. In another peculiar turn, Shauna decides to keep the ear in her pocket when she realizes she cannot reattach it. Shauna obviously does not tell the rest of the team about her trinket, but keeps it with her throughout the day. Then she does the unthinkable.
Shauna Eating Jackie's Ear In Yellowjackets Season 2 Teases Cannibalism
The very last shot of the Yellowjackets season 2 premiere is Shauna eating Jackie's ear, foreshadowing and paying off the cannibalism depicted in the first Yellowjackets episode. Since the opening installment, audiences were clued into where the story would eventually end up, with the soccer team turning into a ritualistic tribe of cannibals who hunt down other girls. While it was initially thought that Jackie was the girl who fell into the tiger trap in Yellowjackets episode 1 because of her necklace, Jackie's death disproved this theory. However, that does not mean Jackie will remain uneaten.
The question of what the girls are going to do with Jackie's body is weighing heavily on audiences and characters alike. Since Jackie is frozen, her body is not necessarily decomposing. In addition, Yellowjackets has shown that the group's food sources are starting to run low, with Shauna remarking that she had to cut back on rations. Travis and Natalie have had no luck on their hunting excursions, so it is only a matter of time before the Yellowjackets soccer players start considering the gruesome alternative. Shauna is the first to take part in the taboo act, but it now looks likely the rest will soon follow.
What Shauna's Ear Scene Also Means In Yellowjackets Season 2
Shauna is an incredibly complex character, and her relationship with Jackie is equally so. It is easy to see that her actions are layered with different meanings, such as killing the rabbit in Yellowjackets season 1. Shauna consuming Jackie's ear is not necessarily just about being hungry. Rather, the act is somewhat spiritual when taking into consideration what hallucination-Jackie said during their fight: Shauna wants to be her. By devouring part of Jackie in the Lord of the Flies adaptation, Shauna is literally putting a piece of her friend inside of her, which, in her mind, could translate to becoming Jackie.
Shauna constantly oscillates between coveting what Jackie has and demanding to be her own person. This is proven through the fact that she got pregnant by Jeff, but hours before that, fought with Jackie over wearing what she wanted to the party before Nationals and considered going to a different college than the pair originally planned. By eating Jackie's ear, Shauna is both paying off the foreshadowed cannibalism, and subconsciously connecting herself to Jackie. It remains to be seen what the girls do to Jackie, but it seems likely that Yellowjackets will not see her buried.