Yellowjackets – Them’s the Breaks Review

Well, that was a hell of an episode, right? This is the first installment that really feels like the story is taking a step forward – in both the past and present – with our characters starting to move beyond their set patterns of the past seasons and step into the future. And it’s always a great thing when we get to spend a bit more time with good old Jackie, no? Since each section of the story had some major plot movement, I’m going to break the review into timelines, so I can cover all the key points I noticed within each. Let’s dive in.

Past

Okay, so to start off, it looks like Shauna is starting to weave her spell over Melissa in a major way this week while still managing to keep her at arm’s length. It’s a smart move on her part – make sure she knows just what Melissa’s endgame is here (relationship, crush, some sort of path to get Shauna’s approval) before making a clear move toward granting it. But it seems as if Shauna (and the rest of the team) are going to have more pressing matters now that Mari has returned and Coach Ben has been captured.

Which brings me to the huge development in this section of the narrative: The shared poison gas dream. Now, we don’t know for sure it was a shared dream, but I think we can at least assume that at this stage of the game – or at least until we’re told otherwise. The selection of Akilah, Shauna, and Van as the characters to participate in that trippy as all get out moment is particularly interesting. For one, we know two of the three make it out alive and presumably Akilah does not. Now, Lottie has latched onto Akilah as the chosen one of the Wilderness, which means that all of that symbolism within the dream (the llama telling her that she was chosen and that the Wilderness was calling to her, Lottie showing up as a teacher who instructs Akilah to take the snap bracelet off Shauna’s throat to save her) could have come from Akilah’s own mind, meaning we were seeing only Akilah’s hallucination (while Shauna and Van’s personal hallucinations were in the lake and the burning plane/cabin respectively, before they each woke up on their own without experiencing the second half).

But if it was a shared hallucination – with Jackie’s appearance and the animosity between her and Shauna lending some credence to this theory – well, then that’s pretty creepy on a number of levels. For one, it seems to show Akilah being anointed by more than just Lottie as the new savior of the Wilderness – and that the Wilderness might be looking to take her next. After all, Lottie’s writing on the chalkboard definitely hinted that the easiest way out is death, and the llama was saying that the Wilderness wants what it wants and you can do it the easy way or the hard way – accepting death presumably being the easy way and the hunt being the hard way? Van and Shauna’s personal hallucinations hinted at their own traumas – Van nearly burning to death twice (there’s a theory out there that perhaps Van or Tai set the cabin fire, and the flames in Van’s eyes might allude to that, but to me, this is more a reference to her continually cheating death after initially escaping the flames in the crash) and Shauna losing her son (who has turned into a talisman of sorts for Lottie and the rest of the team, reigniting that trauma for Shauna again). But Akilah’s was the only one that seemed to speak to what might be coming – or rather, what we all know is coming. Perhaps Coach’s upcoming trial will lead to a hunt or an execution in an attempt to appease the Wilderness. But whatever is to come, we know that Lottie will convince the team that death and blood are the only way to make the Wilderness quiet – and it looks like Akilah might need to accept her role as the vessel for the Wilderness or suffer the consequences.

Present

Oh boy. Lots to get into here, which is a relief after a couple of weak episodes out of this side of the story. To start with, Tai and Van got a heck of a lot to do this time around. I had been wondering how long it would take the writers to devise a plan to make sure Van (and the great Lauren Ambrose) could stick around awhile longer, and this twist with her cancer heading toward remission after the death of the waiter is a really interesting way to get there. For one, it loops Van back into the manic side of Tai’s storyline (anyone else think we got a look at Other Tai when she went to light that candle?), forcing her to at least consider that there’s a supernatural link to that death and her good fortune. The look of trepidation on her face when Tai insisted that this was the case was pretty jarring – Van, more than anyone else, seems to desperately want to leave the past in the past, and yet that seems like it won’t ever be possible for her so long as she stays with Tai. Oh, and to finally find out the source of Tai’s eye-less monster, and have it simply be something from her past that lodged into her brain? That might have been the smartest twist of them all this episode. For all the trust Tai puts in the supernatural – like her immediately deciding to run off to the closed restaurant to see if there’s a sign (and to see the coyote as one, even when it probably was just a damn animal out in the wooded area) – it was nice to see that there was a reasonable, normal explanation for something that seemed so creepily not normal. But man, I worry for both Tai and Van if they keep running headlong down the supernatural path like this.

And then there’s Shauna. Still so quick to blame everyone but herself for, well, everything that happens to her. There’s no way in hell Misty left that cellphone, and Shauna absolutely knows that, since she saw her passed out on her couch when they got back from dinner. At what point would Misty have been able to execute that move? And cutting Shauna’s brakes? Why would Misty do that and put both of them at risk? Shauna is grasping at straws and starting to spiral. And she doesn’t even know about the package Callie intercepted. Which makes one think that Shauna suspects just who might have left that cellphone in the bathroom – and with Teen Shauna saying, “Stalk much?” to Melissa this week, I think the series is really pointing to an Adult Melissa as the survivor who is stalking Shauna now (after all, “Queen of Hearts” is a love song of sorts). But that blow up with Lottie was, for my money, the key to Shauna’s section of the story this week.

For all of her inability to be a real parent to Callie, she certainly didn’t want her wearing the infamous necklace. (And that was an interesting question – just why did Lottie have that necklace?) Lottie’s tearful insistence that the necklace never meant what Shauna thought it did was also pretty intriguing (excellent work from both Melanie Lynskey and Simone Kessel here). We’ve all assumed that the wearer of the necklace was the person who would be chosen as a sacrifice, considering the Pit Girl was wearing it in the opening sequence of the series. But Lottie’s insistence that it meant something more is intriguing. What does it mean? Is it some sign of leadership? Of being chosen by the Wilderness not necessarily for sacrifice but for something else? Lottie, for all her riches, was all too willing to get Callie to willingly shoplift that $1500 dress – and she knew exactly how to spot the guards and get away with it. And she knew that Callie was absolutely enthralled with Lottie for more reasons than just that she has secrets about the Yellowjackets she could share with the teen. I suspect that awe and respect was much more of the reason Shauna was so wary of Lottie – she’s someone who can easily charm others under her spell (when she is properly medicated and not suffering from a psychotic break) and that’s someone who can take Callie’s attention away from her mom. For all of Shauna’s protestations about being a bad mom, what she really wants is Callie to like her. She wants that power she once had over the others in the wilderness. She wants to be the queen bee and have the respect she’s craved all her life.

This was a hell of an installment with a lot of intriguing character beats, narrative movement, and hints at just what might be coming our way in future installments. This is what we’re all wanting out of Yellowjackets and I’m super excited we got an episode strong this early in the season.