The Yellowjackets put Coach Ben on trial in a fascinating bit of Wilderness ritual, but we object to the present timeline’s latest death.
Recap
Following their capture of Ben at the end of last week’s episode, the Yellowjackets decide that he deserves a trial, with Taissa acting as the prosecution, Misty defending him, and Nat presiding over it all as judge. The rest of the team is meant to act as jury, but already the process is flawed because it’s clear that they—especially Shauna—are hungry for revenge and far from impartial. It’s a tall order for Misty to convince them that Coach didn’t burn down the cabin, even though it’s increasingly looking like that’s the case. With their need for ritual, they turn their dining table into the jury box, procure a gavel from somewhere, and the Honorable Natalie Scatorccio sports a proto version of the Antler Queen crown along with her robes.
There’s little real evidence that Ben definitively set fire to the cabin, but there’s plenty of resentment and hurt feelings. Shauna leads the charge in this, reminding everyone how apathetic he was during her traumatic labor. But Misty introduces reasonable doubt by pointing out that many of the girls had their own motives for burning down the cabin, from Shauna and Lottie’s resentments at not being picked to be leaders, or losing what power they did have, to the possibility that it was simply a freak event, maybe even caused by the Wilderness itself.
Ben eventually must defend himself on the stand, which initially seems like a disaster. Despite Misty’s attempts to prod him into saying he loves working with teens, he’s painfully honest about this job being at worst a stepping-stone gig after he tore his ACL, at best an attempt to piggyback on their success. Except, that’s what inspired him—how relentless the Yellowjackets were on the field, yet also how vulnerable as (queer, bullied, underdog) teenage girls. Ben grew to respect them as players, then to love them, and ultimately to fear them. He fled because he was afraid that he could no longer be an authority figure for them, but also that he would be their next sacrifice. Still, he says, that’s no excuse for abandoning Shauna during her delivery, or for abandoning any of them like his parents did to him.
In the present, the adult Yellowjackets each struggle with changing their convictions. Shauna won’t apologize to Misty for accusing her of cutting their brakes, even after she finds out that it was an honest-to-goodness accident. Or, as Jeff is convinced, karma coming after them for everything bad they’ve done these past two seasons. His attempt at balancing their karmic ledgers involves volunteering at the retirement home where Misty works, which is mostly him telling lots of dad jokes to adoring fans at bingo, while Misty does not get her desired revenge of putting Shauna on tapioca duty. However, Shauna winds up locked (by someone else?) in the deep freezer, where she hallucinates a frosty Jackie.
Though Randy eventually comes to her rescue, Shauna is understandably triggered by being stuck in the cold; it doesn’t help that Jackie taunts her about how “I’m the most interesting thing about you.” Back at home, she runs with Jeff’s idea about good karma, finding a cat at a city shelter that matches a lost neighborhood pet and otherwise trying to get the Sadecki clan back on track.
In other twisted justice, Tai and Van decide to leave a queen of hearts card on the street in New York City and see who the Wilderness “chooses” as the latest sacrifice for Van’s continued health. As they follow a random man back to his apartment, they make up half-hearted excuses to convince themselves that it’s worth killing him (like maybe he’s a predator instead of a dad), but when it comes down to actually entering his apartment, Van stops them. Of course she wants to live, but not like this.
Tai abruptly shifts gears to a different date idea: They meet in Central Park in an hour’s time, where she lets Van buy her a pretzel and take a horse-drawn carriage ride, what their teenage selves had always dreamed of doing together. But Van’s hand is shaking, and neither can pretend they’re not living on borrowed time.
Ironically, Lottie seems to be making the most effort to atone… if that’s what you want to call practicing a rather unconvincing apology in the mirror. She also visits a bank and makes either a significant withdrawal or deposit, before fielding a call from Tai in which she refuses to clarify what she meant about “it” being pleased with Nat’s death.
Meanwhile, Misty has been searching for a message from Walter. It wasn’t his usual invisible-ink missive left at the retirement home, so she starts scrolling the Citizen Detectives subreddit. But right as Walter texts her that he’s sorry about Lottie, she comes across a new post about a mysterious death: Lottie’s body, found sprawled at the bottom of a mysterious creepy stairwell lined with candles.
Back in the Wilderness, as the Yellowjackets are reluctantly moved by Ben’s apology, Tai pulls out her secret weapon: Shauna’s revelation that Nat knew Ben was alive all along, which was helpfully delivered to her by none other than the defense, i.e., Misty (oof). Even though that should be more of an indictment on Nat’s leadership than Ben’s possible involvement in the fire, it stirs shit up again. When they vote, they can’t reach a two-thirds majority in either direction, so Nat has them vote again and again, with no breaks in-between, landing them in an exhausting stalemate.
In a reversal of the film 12 Angry Men, the Yellowjackets’ consensus gradually shifts from “not guilty” to “guilty,” thanks to Shauna basically bullying most of the team into changing their vote. Ben’s apology is not enough for her to let go of her anger and hurt, and they’ve got a twisted version of reasonable doubt thanks to Nat protecting him, so soon the majority finds Ben guilty.
Travis, who according to the episode title has been drunk and/or in an altered state this whole time, shows Lottie a drawing that the Wilderness showed him: “the outcome,” or a prone body surrounded by vengeful shapes.
Commentary
Okay, so I was wrong (at least for now) about a potential pulling-back of the gas-induced-hallucination veil regarding the Yellowjackets’ village. Ben appears to be seeing the same setup as we have, which will make it even more disturbing to witness how exactly justice gets doled out in the next episode. If anything, the village all being real further cements his awe and terror of the girls, that they were able to work together to build this little society, while he lucked into a rations store and has otherwise been living far more desperately.
But even if he didn’t set the fire, Ben is the clear outcast, and has been since he turned away from eating Jackie’s body in season one. Over at Autostraddle, Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya has the excellent take that because the Yellowjackets’ society is predicated on cannibalism as survival, the act itself becomes less transgressive than refusing to participate.
That makes it even more upsetting to watch Shauna violently push the vote back toward guilty—that no matter how much of his apology made it through, she and other Yellowjackets were unwilling to be swayed from their guilt and rage. The mock trial isn’t about offering Ben a fair shot at redemption, but at giving them all the plausible deniability that they gave him a chance before they decide to burn him at the stake, or exile him, or turn him into next winter’s rations.
Really, the mock trial is Shauna’s grasp for power. She demonstrates how she can bring a majority over to her side—catch Melissa with the adoring hand-grasp—and instills doubt in Nat’s leadership abilities. I’ll be curious to see who actually decides on the justice next week, the judge queen or the resident butcher.
Director Jennifer Morrison (yep, see below) told the New York Post that Ben’s trial also represents a turning point for the Yellowjackets from justifying the cannibalism to making more deliberate choices and being (in her words) “culpable” from that point on. So maybe the trial is linked to what the Jackie hallucination was referring to, i.e., what they did when they were rescued—bringing the Wilderness back with them. And yet, when we saw them reenact the queen ritual in the season two finale, it seemed as if they hadn’t shuffled a deck together in 25 years.
And yet, Lottie is now dead, not long after Misty accidentally killed Nat. Both (Other?) Tai and Shauna disappeared into the city for a few hours before her body was found, but those seem like red herrings. What I’m hoping is that this gives the present timeline a solid mystery to chew on, eventually bringing in Hilary Swank’s character and allowing the adult actresses to do more than run off in random pairs and snipe at each other.
Fingers and Ears
- This episode was directed by Jennifer Morrison—yes, Cameron from House slash Emma Swan from Once Upon a Time! In the past few years she’s directed episodes of Euphoria, One Of Us Is Lying, and Dr. Death. She shares some interesting tidbits in this New York Post interview, including how they moved the dining table to a different spot in the village, with the girls’ seating mimicking their allegiances.
- We’ll see Morrison’s work again in episode seven which, if IMDb is correct, is titled “Croak.”
- Misty stabbing Shauna in the back was so outlandish that I figured it was a dream sequence from the start. The real shocking knife-centric moments won’t be from the trailers.
- “After I died, did you finally turn into the person you always wanted to be?” Damn, Jackie, that’s cold.
- So Tai and Van were fine with a child nearly picking up the queen of hearts? Not to mention potentially killing their victim in front of his daughter? And no mention of Tai’s son? Come on.
- “No, Jeff, that cat is definitely dead.” Jeff is too pure for this world.
- Even though it wasn’t a big nostalgic needle drop, I appreciated the irony of adult Shauna bopping to Ace of Base’s “The Sign”—this ‘90s anthem of separating yourself from toxic people, when Shauna may not be the one for everyone else.
Next week! Shauna talks a big game about letting Ben play with fire, but the absence of flames in the promo makes me wonder if they’re going to find an even crueler punishment.
