Tamal Kundu
Created by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, Showtime’s ‘Yellowjackets’ revolves around the members of a New Jersey high school female soccer team who get stranded in the Ontario wilderness after their plane crashes. As winter comes and everything freezes, the survivors are forced to resort to cannibalism. Twenty-five years later, the scars of what they have done remain fresh in the minds of those who made it out of the wilderness alive.
In season 2 episode 4, titled ‘Old Wounds,’ lines are beginning to be drawn between the leading figures among the Yellowjackets in 1996. Nat (Juliette Lewis as adult and Sophie Thatcher as teen) and (Simone Kessell as adult and Courtney Eaton as teen) compete to see who can find food faster, and both nearly die. In the Present Day, Misty (Christina Ricci as adult and Sammi Hanratty as teen) and Walter (Elijah Wood) go on a road trip, Shauna (Melanie Lynskey as adult and Sophie Nélisse as young) comes clear to her daughter, and Taissa ((Tawny Cypress as adult and Jasmin Savoy Brown as teenager) finds her way to an old friend. Meanwhile, Lottie comes to terms with her visions. Here is everything you need to know about the ending of Yellowjackets season 2 episode 4. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 4 Recap
The episode begins in the past, with Taissa once more sleepwalking and finding another of the Symbols. Van seems to believe that whatever is inside Taissa is positively responding to their presence in the wilderness and regards it as a benevolent entity. But Taissa isn’t so sure. Her past experiences have made her wary of what she sees in her own visions.
Meanwhile, a considerable number of the girls believe that Lottie has special abilities, particularly after her demonstration in the previous episode, where several birds hit the roof of the cabin for no apparent reason and die, providing the survivors with enough food to last a few days. Despite what the others think of her, Lottie herself has begun to question the veracity of her abilities and whether the abilities are a manifestation of schizophrenia. In the present day, with the visions returning, the first thing Lottie does is to speak to a therapist and asks her to increase her drugs. It becomes apparent that Lottie has come to see her visions as schizophrenia, and she doesn’t want to dwell on the notion of how real they are. In her mind, they are all unreal and dangerous.
At the Sadecki household, Jeff breaks it to Shauna that the police know she cheated on him. When he tries to place the blame for their circumstances entirely on her shoulders, she reminds him that he was the one going around in a ski mask, blackmailing people. As their daughter’s behavior continues to spiral out of control, Shauna decides to tell her the truth about Adam in a desperate attempt. Surprisingly, it seems to work, and Shauna and Jeff seem to get their daughter back. Jeff and Shauna aren’t entirely sure how long this transformation will last. They are just glad to get their daughters back.
While this is happening, Misty embarks on a road trip with Walter, who continues to linger between complete trustfulness and the subject of deep suspicion for Misty. But knowing exactly who she is, her assessments themselves can be quite dubious. Toward the end of the episode, she and Walter arrive in the town near which Lottie has established her cult’s headquarters. Misty doesn’t know that Lottie is behind the cult. Given how other Yellowjackets respond to Misty, it will be interesting to see how Lottie reacts to her. Toward the end of the episode, Taissa visits an adult Van.
Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 4: Does Lottie Have Special Abilities or Is She Schizophrenic?
We know that before she is stranded in the wilderness with her fellow Yellowjackets, her parents put Lottie through treatment for schizophrenia. After her visions seem to come true, it is implied that they should be seen as a vindication of her abilities. However, in this episode, we come to learn that the present-day Lottie sees them as hallucinations of a dangerous mind and is heavily medicated to keep them at bay. She is genuinely disturbed by their sudden return and initially wonders whether the dosage of her meds needs to be changed.
In the past, as the scarcity of food begins to turn survivors against one another, Nat challenges Lottie to a game. The objective is to see who can find food the fastest: Nat, a seasoned hunter, or Lottie, who apparently receives divine visions. Nat spots the moose from the previous episode buried under a frozen lake. She goes back to the cabin for reinforcement, but even with the help of the other girls, she is unable to pull it out and nearly drowns in the process.
Meanwhile, Lottie slashes her hand open before the makeshift altar she made but doesn’t get any meaningful vision until she is near death. This is when she finds herself in a mall, with Laura Lee urging her to return. She also returns to the cabin empty-handed and near death. In the present, Lottie once more sees visions involving blood and a queen, this time in the form of playing cards. In utter desperation, she embraces her visions and begs whatever entity causing them for help.
Where Was Javi Until Now?
Javi has been missing what the girls call the “Doomcoming,” during which they nearly killed Travis while under the influence of hallucinogenic mushrooms. He is found in this episode by Taissa and Van. This establishes multiple things simultaneously. Travis realizes that Nat lied to him when she showed him Javi’s bloodied jacket. Some of the girls claim that this is another example of Lottie’s visions coming true, as she said multiple times that Javi was alive. For Van, this proves whatever is inside Taissa is a force for good.
Javi looks wild and confused and doesn’t say a word during the reunion, not even to his brother. But he seems well-fed and has grown in the months he has been missing. Evidently, he had access to food, shelter, and water wherever he was. Nat came to believe that Javi was dead under the presumption that a young boy of his age with no survival skills would not be alive alone for long in the frozen wilderness. And she was right; he shouldn’t have survived. Either there are people here that the Yellowjackets don’t know about, and they helped Javi, or the entity Lottie speaks about is real and is behind Javi’s survival
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