#Yellowjackets S2E2

[docholligay]

Yellowjackets S2E2: Shauna

Hello! This is about up to Season 2, Episode 1 of Yellowjackets, and ONLY that of Yellowjackets. I have not seen beyond this spot, at all, and know NOTHING about this show. Please do not spoil it for me.  Things that are spoilery in nature, for me, include: saying things like  “Just wait!!” confirming or denying anything I put forward, outside information about the cast interviews or creator statements, leading questions like “Do you think “blank moment” means anything?” etc. Remember  that Y’ALL HAVE SEEN THE SHOW AND I HAVE NOT. This informs the way you  talk about things relating to the show. Just be really careful is all  I’m asking. Also: If there is LITERALLY any stance I  could take on this show or character that would make you upset, please  just fucking block the tag

If you WOULD like to discuss the show and my takes on it, the Discord is right here! I don’t go there, so it’s a great place to get every emotion out.

Please thank @sailorsunspot and @moonlight-frittata for backing this odd way of doing a liveblog, and remember my tip jar is always open

I love the whole line of devotion with Shauna, and how I don’t know and I’m not sure Shauna knows where devotion ends and insanity begins. Is she even loyal to Jackie, or is she happy enough to use the memory of her as the pawn in whatever she happens to need? 

Jackie has functioned primarily as her chief critic, in her death, in a way so much meaner and sharper than in life. Jackie is the tool by which Shauna criticizes herself. I loved Jackie, especially when she was bitchy, but she wasn’t clever in that emotionally intelligent, meanspirited way that Shauna actually is, on the inside. Jackie wouldn’t ever think to say these things even if she knew them, but Shauna, oh Shauna has been waiting to tell herself this shit for years. Jackie, who she loved, Jackie, who she killed, Jackie the god she worships and her own demon, only she’s the one possessing jackie, isn’t she? Making Jackie say the things she wants her to, be as mean as Shauna thinks she must have been, because why wouldn’t she be?

Even the whole braiding of the hair and doing of the makeup is this sort of adornment you might give a shrine. As long as Jackie is there she can be anointed in oil, metaphorically. More on that later. 

It’s all deeply fucked, and I am very here for it. 

This is also a really good example about how your inability to deal with a problem always affects more than just you. I mean, obviously, this is an outside case, but they are waiting for dinner because Shauna can’t stop drawing her fingers to the candle of jackie’s memory. Calling it now, the baby is almost certainly going to die or be stillborn because of the things that Shauna is doing right now. She is also providing a major point of friction for the group, represented mostly by Taissa and Lottie. Lottie wants her to be allowed to process in whatever way she sees fit, including apparently staying out until all hours of the night in a freezing shed, because Lottie is an idiot. Taissa forces the issue of confrontation with her grief, because that’s a huge part of this episode, and, I suppose it really does deserve its own post but its unlikely to get it: The things people do to confront the grief of others. But because Shauna won’t deal with her feelings, everyone else has to. Shauna is still trapped in a world where her friend is her judge and jury, in a way that was never true when she was alive. And it costs EVERYONE. 

Anyway, back to what i was originally talking about, I’m so glad they had Shauna eat the ear first because it sort of got the “What the fuck!?! Ick!” out of the way so we could use this literal consumption of Jackie as something else. We’ve had time to sit with our disgust, and so it’s not the first thing we think of when Jackie talks about Shauna’s HUNGER. We already tip our hat to this when Jackie says that Shauna slept with Jeff just so she knew what it felt like to be her, but so much of this is about never being able to be close enough to Jackie to become her, to crawl inside her skin, to love her as a sister and a friend and a lover and as herself. I feel like some of this resonates differently as a woman of a certain age--because being a lesbian was so fringe, we were afforded the intensity of female friendships that blurred the line between love and desire and possession in a way that realy just doesn’t exist anymore, because things are seen through a more sterotypically romantic lens. It’s not bad, per se, and it makes a lot of things easier, but it means that when looking at things like this, the question of “Was Shauna in love with Jackie?” has a multifactorial and complex answer that I’m not sure SHAUNA knows the answer to. Yes, and, you get me? 

So when Shauna-speaking-as-Jackie tells herself that it isn’t some fucking game stew she’s hungry for, that she literally wants to eat Jackie, and make her a part of herself, wants to cut her open and feast upon her, it’s true. She knows it’s true, and it’s not just the physical hunger talking. You could give Shauna a big old dead elk and she would still want to eat Jackie. 

Because if they cremate her, as Tai very wisely says they need to do, then she will be lost forever. There will ne nothing tangible that Shauna can point to. Shauna needs that. Jackie has been the trellis on which Shauna has grown, and as much as she might have sometimes longed for freedom, she found herself wandering right back to that trellis. What will she do without it? But consuming her? Well, then won’t she always be a part of Shauna? She  can finally have Jackie literally inside her, like Nut swallowing the sun only to give birth to it again. Giving her something to revolve around.

I made a joke about while i was watching the episode, but this is why Shauna won’t let them take her jacket, but they CAN eat her. Because taking her jacket would make her less Jackie, but eating her will allow Jackie to be ever-present, in every one of the girls. It will allow Jackie to have been the most useful of them all. It is such a fucked up form of love and intimacy, and i ADORE it, because we often in media have cannibalism as a way of showing how far people have been pushed from society, and that’s certainly a part of what is going on here-- that’s the whole reason the spirit of the forest dumps snow onto Jackie and helps force their hand--and that’s great, but ALSO, the reason i love it is as a show of Shauna’s grief and love and need to carry Jackie with her. 

[monathedefiant]

[edit by: @monathedefiant ]

[yellowjacketslesbian]

Why do you think that van is the only one wearing gold / everyone else is wearing white during the eating Jackie scene?

I actually had to go back and rewatch the scene because I couldn't remember all their outfits, but I after rewatching I believe Taissa, Mari, and Travis also have similar gold togas in the scene, Van's just is more noticeable because both sides of it are over her shoulders.

You can kind of see the other gold togas in the screenshot below.

However, I do think the gold togas / gold embroidery on the other's togas (like Lottie's) was a very intentional symbolic choice because in ancient Greece gold decorated togas (called toga picta) were worn by generals celebrating triumphs or praetors celebrating gladiatorial games and it is a really interesting signal that their descent into cannibalism is actually a victory since it ensured their own survival.

[ligbi]

Yellowjackets is my favorite offering to Dionysus

We have a maenad moment

and now a bacchanalia 

[pearlycomplaints]

Omfg I had to pause cause I was laughing so hard about Coach Ben. He was just like

Gurl Bye ✌️

[castielsparkle]

my yellowjackets meme

[cuntyqueerleondraisaitl]

HOLY SHIT ELIJAH WOOD?????

[badatwebweaving]

A World Alone - Lorde // Yellowjackets S1E1 // Yellowjackets S1E1 //  Francis Forever - Mitski // Yellowjackets S2E2 // The song of Achilles - Madeline Miller // Yellowjackets S1E1 // Judith and Delilah and Me - Michèle Roberts // Yellowjackets S1E3 // Yellowjackets S1E3 // Penelope awaits the return of Ulysses - Michèle Roberts // Yellowjackets S1E2 // Winter sacrament - Michèle Roberts // Yellowjackets S1E10 // Feeling like the end - Joji // Yellowjackets S1E10 // For Jackie - Michèle Roberts // Yellowjackets S1E10 / Ribs - Lorde // Yellowjackets S2E1 // Re-discovering Pompeii - Michèle Roberts // Yellowjackets S2E1 // A Martyr - Charles Baudelaire // Yellowjackets S2E2 // Winter Sacrament - Michèle Roberts // Yellowjackets S2E1 // On Highbury Hill - Michele Roberts // Yellowjackets S1E5 // Psychopomp - Hozier // Yellowjackets S1E1

[girliefag]

yellowjackets s1e6-7 s2e2-3 // a series of unfortunate events: the bad beginning, the hostile hospital, the penultimate peril by lemony snicket

[lilacs-in-the-moonlight]

okay this has probably already been said but i love the ways that Lottie justifies and legitimizes the cannibalism from S2E2. the first thing she says to Shauna, who is understandably grappling with intense emotion over the way she felt during the act, is that Jackie would have wanted them to do it (reaffirming Shauna’s identical declaration from last episode) and providing further justification in the health of the baby. by doing this, she’s excusing the act, essentially saying that it was a sacrifice for the betterment of the group and Shauna’s child, and that therefore it was a just and moral act. when Shauna pushes back, states that she “wanted it too,“ and gives into her emotion, Lottie immediately comforts her by communalizing it, by saying that her wants are irrelevant because the group did it, and none of them are to blame. it was the Yellowjackets who ate Jackie, not Shauna, not Lottie. the group bears the blame, but not anyone inside it. it’s perfectly acceptable that she wanted to consume Jackie because they all did it together, and that act of unity absolves her of guilt.

also i think there’s an interesting parallel to Lottie’s cult heavily emphasizing unity and communalism that i’m not totally sure on yet

[docholligay]

Yellowjackets S2E2: Lottie

Hello! This is about up to Season 2, Episode 2 of Yellowjackets, and ONLY that of Yellowjackets. I have not seen beyond this spot, at all, and know NOTHING about this show. Please do not spoil it for me.  Things that are spoilery in nature, for me, include: saying things like  “Just wait!!” confirming or denying anything I put forward, outside information about the cast interviews or creator statements, leading questions like “Do you think “blank moment” means anything?” etc. Remember  that Y’ALL HAVE SEEN THE SHOW AND I HAVE NOT. This informs the way you  talk about things relating to the show. Just be really careful is all  I’m asking. Also: If there is LITERALLY any stance I  could take on this show or character that would make you upset, please  just fucking block the tag

If you WOULD like to discuss the show and my takes on it, the Discord is right here! I don’t go there, so it’s a great place to get every emotion out.

Please thank @sailorsunspot and @moonlight-frittata for backing this odd way of doing a liveblog, and remember my tip jar is always open

Okay, so let’s start this off with my own honesty. I HATE Lottie. Lottie is pretty much everything I hate about a person, I hate her impractical, woowoo, honor your own heart, feel the rhythm cult leader bullshit. I want to note that is most defintiely informing my read of this situation. Despite all that, I ask you to pleas please please not attempt to inform me of nayhting or spoil me. Okay. 

I do not for one second believe that Lottie ended up fucking…accidentally killing Travis because of a BUTTON MALFUNCTION. I could go into how she could have lifted up his legs and put his feet on her shoulders to help keep him from FUCKING DYING, and ALSO how he didn’t actually need to be more than an inch off the ground, but this isn’t about what Lottie failed to think of in a moment of desperation, because I don’t believe in the moment of horror and desperation.  

Remember, when she’s weaving this splendid little tale, SHE IS WEAVING THIS SPLENDID LITTLE TALE. She is the framing device for what happened with Travis. She even sets the stage, with a bunch of candles in a dimly lit room, covered in soft furnishings, as if it were a sort of confessional, and she the priest, communicating the will of God. 

THis is a story, that she is telling to Nat, a woman who has proven she is willing to severely hurt someone, and who is deeply entangled with Travis. Why WOULDN’T she frame this in a way that a woman who is absolutely haunted by the choices she made in the woods would understand? Travis wanting to make it all make sense, Laura Lee showing up and horrifying Lottie*, a moment that had horrific consequences, Travis saying --a nd of course POOR Lottie would never say this unless directly asked--that Nat would just make things worse. This entire story is being cast with the sort of lens that Nat would relate to IMMEDIATELY. It has great fucking narrative flow. 

Lottie might believe her own bullshit, but I’m not sure I think she does. The show is tipping its hand to the fact that Lottie enjoys her position of power, the way she fucking corrects her little follower about her healing smoothie, and corrects Nat about the specific color they use (which in itself is something else--heliotrope is the answer to a riddle in Finnegan’s Wake, a very confusing novel altogether that requires a lot of patience and untangling, and I think there’s something in that but I can’t really get it set in my head right). She doesn’t wear heliotrope, she wears goldenrod, or whatever she would call it. Lottie thinks herself above the people she leads, and I think that was true even back in the cabin. Maybe Lottie can commune with something, but she’s ALSO a fucking grifter. I want all of it to be true. 

“Sharing is in session” eat my entire dick, CHARLOTTE. 

I mean in fairness, Nat doesn’t believe her either, and I do think that is a great impulse. 

*I concede it is intentionally played ambiguous whether or not this is a part of the story Lottie tells. I, obviously, think she does, but again, I’m admitting my anti-Lottie bias here. 

[oscarpiastriwdc]

6, 8, and 19!!!

6. episode of tv that defined the year?

SUCCESSION FINALE!!!!!!!!! I miss succession Sundays so much 😭 but also S2E2 of Yellowjackets rocked my world (cannibalistic gay teens!!!!) and i rewatched all of Lost while listening along to The Storm podcast and remembered why S3E10 is my favorite episode of tv of all time

8. game of the year?

for the 26th year in a row, solitaire

19. what are you excited about next year?

manifesting someone will fall in love with me in 2024 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

[yellowjacketslesbian]

Yellowjackets spoilers//

theory based on S2E2

Travis said “the only way to confront the darkness is to get as close to death as possible.” Van has already “confronted the darkness” because of the wolf attack and her other close calls, and that’s why she’s the most well adjusted as a adult

[lesbianlotties]

i just made enough yellowjackets s2e2 memes to last me the whole week. i'm going to be so annoying i hope you guys are ready

[ahaura]

havent been this excited for airing television in a long time im so ready for yellowjackets s2e2 and succession s4e2

[52rats]

Just finished S2E2 of Yellowjackets and…fuck. That was a lot. I’m so worried for my boy Ben. I mean he’s not gonna make it. But he has by far gotten the worst deal out of all of these people (that are still alive) and he’s stayed the most stable despite everything. He’s a champ and I will hate the moment he’s gone. But, I hope it’s willingly and sacrificial because he does not deserve any more hardship

(Also why isn’t white text showing up?)