ALRIGHT so this is a rough draft, i've only seen the movie once now and i'm not gonna watch it again for a bit, but this is the basic outline I came up with. If someone wants to put this edit together you are more than welcome to!
Putting it under a readmore
-opening beats of the song-
-[arriving at the starting point of the long walk]-
Born down in a dead man's town
-[walking through one of the towns in the start of the movie]-
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
-[curly holding his head, yelling "it's not fair!", shot cuts before his execution]-
You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
-[Rank Sanders hitting the ground, skidding]-
'Til you spend half your life just coverin' up
-[the boys shocked faces at the first two deaths]-
Born in the U.S.A
I was born in the U.S.A
I was born in the U.S.A
Born in the U.S.A
-[panning over the boys during their "happy" moments together, Tressler holding up his radio, the boys holding each other, ray and pete throwing the ball together]-
Got in a little hometown jam
-[Ray's dad's execution]-
So they put a rifle in my hand
-[Ray tapping the carbine moment]-
Sent me off to a foreign land
-[steep incline climbing scene]-
To go and kill the yellow man
-[the boys being shot during the steep incline scene]-
Born in the U.S.A
I was born in the U.S.A
I was born in the U.S.A
I was born in the U.S.A
-[montage of the local spectators, the saluting cops, ray's fan, etc]-
Come back home to the refinery
-[walking through a town mid movie]-
Hiring man says, "Son if it was up to me"
-[cutting between Stebbins and the Major, either different moments in the movie or specifically the bridge scene]-
Went down to see my V.A. man
-[clip of the boys trying to physically help each other, [no specific scene in mind]]-
He said, "Son, don't you understand"
-[ray and pete when pete reveals what he wants for his wish]-
I had a brother at Khe Sanh
-[clip of Art trying smoking with Pete]-
Fighting off the Viet Cong
-[Collie fighting the soldiers]-
They're still there, he's all gone
-[Hank holding up his gum when it was gone]-
He had a woman he loved in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms now
-[Pete and Ray during the scene with Ray's mother]-
Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
-[the walkers coming up on the burning car, leading into-
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
-[-the song about Clementine, in memory of Hank]-
I'm ten years burning down the road
-[Tressler pushing to the front and running down the road, cut before he gets in front of the lead car]-
Nowhere to run ain't got nowhere to go
-[the scene of the boy trying to escape into the store and not making it]-
Born in the U.S.A
I was born in the U.S.A. now
Born in the U.S.A
-[fast montage of the boys' faces when they were fresh]-
I'm a long gone Daddy in the U.S.A. now
-[Ray's dad before his execution talking to Ray in their house]-
Born in the U.S.A
Born in the U.S.A
Born in the U.S.A
-[fast montage of the boys' faces when they're all haggard]-
I'm a cool rockin' Daddy in the U.S.A. now
-[The Major at the start of the film explaining the walk to the boys]-
-outro music for 1 1/2 min-
-[clips of poignant moments, "fuck the walk" scene, the soldiers, the camera watching them, holding and helping each other]-
-scream from 3:40-3:50 of song-
-[pete and ray in the rain]-
-very last beats of the song-
-[the end shot of the movie, pete turning to look at/walk down the long dark road after speaking to the major]-
i’m forever grateful for everything that joshua brought to collie’s character, he already was such an interesting character in the book (and yes, im biased bc he was my favorite reading idc im right), and he just added a lot and give him probably the most devastating death in the movie
To be clear I think the political compass is a joke and also I'm using a mix of movies and books in this compass. Which is which I won't say because I think it's funnier that way. Anyway this is my dystopia compass spectrum.
I'm sort of working on some more essays but in the meantime, here's my thoughts on what positions the team would have in a "Yellowjackets but softball" universe:
1st base - Van
2nd base - Tai
Short stop- Nat/Mari
3rd base - Gen/Akilah
Pitcher - Jackie/Mel
Catcher - Lottie
Left field - Britt
Centerfield - Shauna
Right field - Robin
And Misty, Coach Ben, and Coach Martinez in their same positions as canon.
It's So Easy to Come Back: Natalie Scatorccio and Recovery
Contains spoilers for Seasons 1-3 of Yellowjackets
CW: discussion of substance abuse and addiction, mention of character death, discussion of the rehab industry, mentions of isolation and lack of support, mention of a suicide attempt,
Word count: 4.3k
Writer's note: The title of this essay and the lyrics used throughout are from the song "Lover Dearest" by Marianas Trench.
Special thanks to my loved ones for loving and supporting me, especially on the hard days.
-----
"This is gonna sound weird, but I haven't really wanted it."
"I used to think all the drugs and all the drinking and the sex, I use to think I did those things because of what happened out there. What I saw, what I did. But the real reason is much simpler. After they rescued us, I lost my purpose."
"Not today."
-----
Paramount's Yellowjackets is a masterclass in how the addition of information can change our perception of something. The most prominent example is the portrayal of the Queen Hunt in the pilot, and how the information given to us in Season Three changed everything about how we perceived it. The same is true of the characters themselves, and in particular Natalie Scatorccio. Nat, once she was rescued from the wilderness, coped with everything she and her team had experienced by turning to substance abuse for the next twenty five years of her life. This, obviously, would have a massive impact on how she walked through the world, both in how Nat treated others and how others treated her.
According to a study conducted in 2013 "Americans hold significantly more negative attitudes toward persons with drug addiction than toward those with mental illness." The study found that people were more unwilling to have an addict marry into their family or work alongside them at a job and that more people thought that discrimination against drug addicts was not a serious problem, compared to those who are mentally ill *1. This attitude towards addiction extends into clinical settings as well. A 2016 study found that clinicians frequently believed that people with alcohol use disorder (AUD) had character flaws, were unable to control themselves, and were choosing their condition and could quit if they wanted to *2.
Natalie came from a working class background with at least one parent who abused alcohol. We see that in high school she drank and did drugs, and was seen as a burnout by her peers. After the plane crash, when the group is in need of a disinfectant for Coach Scott's leg, they turned to Nat expecting her to have alcohol on hand. From the start there was a set perception of who Natalie was as a person because of her background and her substance use, regardless of anything else she did. As far as the show is willing to tell us, there was no support extended to Natalie as a teen to help her quit her substance use, and we see an example of this when Coach Scott merely shrugs off Nat's stated desire to not drink during Doomcoming.
When we as the audience meet Nat in her adulthood, she is meditating while facing the Pacific Ocean just before being called inside for a group meeting, and we quickly find out that this is her last day of rehab. Later, as she gets into a cab to leave the facility, she asks her driver "Do you pick up a lot of people here?" and "How many go straight to a bar?" While this exchange can be interpreted as being an example of the show's gallows humor, it also highlights something that many people are unaware of when it comes to addiction recovery; that rehab does not work for everyone. It certainly did not work for Natalie, as she was in rehab multiple times and only achieved sobriety after being brought to Lottie's intentional community and connecting with Lisa, shortly before her death. To properly understand who Nat was before her passing, we should examine her behavior as belonging to someone going through the early stages of recovery.
-----
This place is a hole, but I don't want to go
I wish we could stay here forever alone.
This time that we waste, but I still love your taste.
Don't let him take my place, don't just sit there.
Sometimes I wish you would leave me.
-----
Addiction is defined as "a chronic (lifelong) condition that involves compulsive seeking and taking of a substance or performing of an activity despite negative or harmful consequences" *3. As discussed in a prior essay on stereotypes about PI peoples and how that effects fandom interpretation of Lottie Matthews, there are many who believe that Lottie caused Travis Martinez to develop an addiction to psilocybin mushrooms. Per the Canadian Centre for Addictions, "unlike the iron grip of substances like alcohol, opioids, or cigarettes, psilocybin mushrooms don't sink physical hooks into users' biochemistry... When someone stops taking mushrooms, their body doesn't revolt with withdrawal symptoms – that telltale marker of physical dependence" *4. Travis, as far as the show tells us, did not take psilocybin mushrooms again once he and the others were rescued from the wilderness. He did, however, engage in destructive spirals whenever he and Natalie were with each other, which involved alcohol and cocaine. Though we do not know what recovery looked like for Travis, if he chose that, we do know that Nat was in rehab at least five times, per a conversation she had with Lottie as adults.
There is a perception that once someone has gone to rehab, they are cured of their addiction. The reality is, however, that "there are no federal standards for counseling practices or rehab programs. In many states, becoming an addiction counselor doesn’t require a high school degree or any standardized training" *5. The rehab industry is so unregulated that anything can be qualified as therapeutic at many of these facilities. In a 2018 segment for the show Last Week Tonight, John Oliver noted that "for all those claims of success it is very hard to know exactly what you're getting at any given rehab. You might get the traditional twelve step based approach, which undoubtedly works for some, although most experts argue that there should also be consistent access to newer treatments like certain behavioral techniques or medications like [naltrexone, buprenorphine, and methadone]. But rehabs are not required to offer those, and because a rehab can essentially be whatever its proprietor says it is, that means they can frame almost anything as treatment" *6.
Part of the problem with the depictions of rehab in the media is that many believe it is a one size fits all solution to every addiction case. The reality is that, surprisingly, different people have different needs, and what might work for one person with addiction might not work for another. As we see in the figure *7 below, different lengths of stay in a rehab facility are suggested to have different levels of success, and the suitability of a treatment type depends on an individual's circumstances. This table, generated by New Jersey based Alina Lodge, would suggest that Natalie would have most benefited from a Long-Term Residential or even Extended Care facility.
(figure 1 description: a table with four columns labeled Treatment Type, Duration, Success Rate, and Best For. In the Treatment Type column are four rows labeled Detox Only, Short-Term Residential, Long-Term Residential, and Extended Care. The table lists the different lengths of stay for each treatment facility, the success rate for each type, and who might best benefit from each type.)
Not everyone is aware of the existence of long term care, however, and it can be prohibitively expensive. Even short term care can be costly without health insurance, ranging in the tens of thousands of dollars depending on location, facility, and type of care needed *8. Rehab facilities are so profitable that the term "the Florida shuffle" has emerged, which describes a practice in which patients with insurance are moved through different rehab facilities as a means of continuously billing their insurance *9. Natalie herself was not paying for these stints, as we find out when Taissa Turner mentions that the "pay cut [she] took to run for Senate isn't going to fund another stay in rehab" in reply to Shauna Sadecki suggesting Nat could be scoring drugs during the stakeout of their blackmailer. Taissa is a lawyer who graduated from Howard and Columbia, and who ran for Senate in her state, and yet she sent Nat to rehab multiple times despite being able to see that she would continue to relapse.
To be clear, this is not an indictment of Taissa's character or her intelligence. Dr. Thomas McLellan, who was the Deputy Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President Obama, did not know what to do when one of his children became addicted. When speaking with Martin Smith for the FRONTLINE documentary Chasing Heroin, Dr. McLellan stated "all that training, all that knowledge about addiction did not prepare me for the most fundamental question of all; where do you send your kid for treatment" *10. Even those who know the most and have the best resources can still be at a loss when someone they know becomes addicted. If anyone should be blamed for the harmful system we have, it should be those who profit off of keeping people in a perpetual state of relapse and recovery, and not those who genuinely try to help them. Tai continuing to send Nat to rehab is a testament of Tai's love and devotion, something very few people in the world had for Nat.
One might ask, why not Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) or Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings, then? These meetings are free, and chapters are located much more locally than many rehab facilities are. However, despite the fact that "its absence of religious doctrine has accommodated agnostics, atheists, and believers in nontheistic religions such as Buddhism" *11, AA, and by extension NA, are both culturally Christian organizations. We see examples of this in texts of theirs such as the Twelve Steps, the Twelve Traditions, and the Serenity Prayer. While AA/NA encourages members to adhere to their own understanding of a higher power, their literature still invokes God specifically, which implies that these groups have a Christian background. Digging deeper into the history of AA, we find that "AA has its roots in the Oxford Group, a conservative evangelical Christian organization" *12. This is important to consider when thinking about Natalie's path to recovery, as her prior experiences with spiritual or supernatural forces in the Canadian wilderness would likely make her wary of having anything to do with any group that had a spiritual focus.
Furthermore, Natalie did try AA. The show does not tell us why this didn't work for her, or even why she chose to go, but we know that she attended meetings and even had a sponsor named Susie, who she committed identity theft with, at some point assaulted, and eventually blackmailed into helping her access Travis' bank account. If we were to make an educated guess as to why AA did not work for Natalie, it would likely be a combination of the inherent religious and/or spiritual nature of AA, and the group sharing element. Not only would she be wary of any group that even hinted at a belief in the supernatural, Natalie would not be able to share what she had experienced in the wilderness with an AA support group, and would likely have felt alienated in these meetings as a result.
A treatment that could have been effective for Natalie, but that the show makes no mention or acknowledgement of, would be medication based therapy. There are medications that can assist with recovery, such as acamprosate, naltrexone, and disulfiram *13. These medications each work in slightly different ways and are taken differently, but they all can be prescribed by a doctor to assist someone who wishes to stop drinking completely. Although there is no equivalent medication that exists currently for cocaine withdrawal, recent research suggests that bupropion could potentially be used to help certain individuals stop using cocaine *14. There also exists a form of treatment called SMART Recovery, which touts itself as "an evidenced-informed recovery method grounded in Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)" *15. SMART Recovery is by its nature a secular program, and places emphasis scientific evidence, personal empowerment, and community building. Nat is someone who thrives in community, and would have benefited immensely from a judgement free treatment program like SMART.
The tragedy of Natalie's story isn't just what she experienced as a teenager, but also the ways in which she was failed as an adult, and the lack of compassion and care afforded to her even in death reflects the lived realities of a great many people who live with addiction. Nat's story, when stripped of the fantastical elements, is a reflection of our reality and should be examined as such.
-----
I stand for awhile and waited for words,
Seen but not heard and struggled to try.
My tongue's turning black, but I'll take you back.
You're still the best more or less, I guess, I guess.
Don't you leave me
-----
When someone quits or reduces their substance use, there is a chance they will experience withdrawal. Withdrawal looks different for everyone, but the most common symptoms related to alcohol withdrawal are headaches, anxiety, nervousness, irritability, insomnia, excessive sweating, upset stomach, heart palpitations, increased blood pressure, increased heart rate, hyperthermia (high body temperature), tremor (shakiness) of hands or other body parts, confusion *16, and in more severe cases hallucinations, seizures, disorientation, and impaired attention *17. The symptoms for cocaine withdrawal include agitation and restless behavior, depressed mood, fatigue, general feeling of discomfort, increased appetite, vivid and unpleasant dreams, slowing of activity, and paranoia *18. Withdrawal symptoms may also be associated with suicidal thoughts in some people *19.
Both of these types of withdrawal can last for months in those who stop long term heavy use of these substances, and given that Natalie used both substances heavily for over two decades it would be safe to say she would have experienced some if not all of these symptoms at one point or another in her lifetime. Natalie as we saw her was almost always in a state of agitation or irritability, behaved restlessly, and moved in a way that suggests a level of disorientation. When she tried to practice shooting her rifle at Lottie's intentional community, she was not able to hit her targets, which suggests that her previously good aim could have been thrown off by tremors. Her search for whoever was responsible for Travis' death was marked with erratic mood swings, and could arguably have even been a means of combating depression at his passing, a state that would have been exacerbated by cocaine withdrawal. Arguably, the events of the adult timeline are started as a result of Nat's paranoia, as she decided to investigate who had sent her the postcard marked with the wilderness symbol rather than ignore it.
When she thought she had finally run out of possible leads regarding his death Natalie attempted to take her own life, which is a choice that was likely also exacerbated by being in withdrawal from cocaine. Every instance we see of Natalie as an adult should be examined carefully, and her behavior should be understood as belonging to that of someone in withdrawal. Her words and actions are completely in character even if they do not match up with her younger self, because while she is in withdrawal she is nothing like her younger self; she is someone who is currently experiencing a complete shift in brain and body chemistry, for who knows how many times by this point in her life. As a teenager Natalie likely did not experience severe withdrawal symptoms while in the wilderness, for the simple fact that her substance abuse at that stage in her life was not as severe as it would become post rescue, and also because her substance use was for a much shorter duration than it would be in her adulthood. A teenage Natalie would have a much shorter and much less complicated period of withdrawal, and therefore would have reached a state of equilibrium much more quickly than she would have as an adult.
-----
It hurts me to say that it hurts me to stay.
And it might be alright if you go.
It hurts me to say that I want you to stay,
But it might be alright if you go.
So leave me,
well, I'm not sick of you yet,
Is that as good as it gets?
I'll just try to hide it, or I could slip into you,
It's so easy to come back into you.
-----
In 2009, Canadian band Marianas Trench released their second album Masterpiece Theatre. During a live performance of the album's penultimate song, front man Josh Ramsay told his audience "when I was seventeen years old I was a heroin addict, and I had to go to a rehab center, and when I was there they asked me to write a love letter to my drug of choice, and I turned it into a song called 'Lover Dearest'" *20. Longtime fans of the band are well aware of this part of Ramsay's past, and this song is not the first or last time he makes mention of it. Without this additional information, it is easy for one to think that this is a song about another person, and not about addiction.
What sets Josh Ramsay and Natalie Scatorccio apart, besides one being a real life public figure and the other a fictional character, is the level of support the two received regarding their addictions. Josh Ramsay, thanks to the support of his friends and family and his love of music, was able to get off of heroin, and has gone on to have a successful career in the music industry.
Critically, Natalie's longest period of sobriety was during her time in the wilderness with her team. Even when presented with the opportunity to drink with Coach Scott, she turned the offer down. She could have indulged in the seemingly endless supply of psilocybin mushrooms, but as far as the show tells us she did not. She chose to remain sober, and the reason she chose to do so is because during her time in the wilderness she had a community and a purpose. Natalie admits as much in the pilot episode, when she tells the group that "after they rescued us, I lost my purpose."
As discussed in a prior essay on how she embodies masculinity *21, Natalie is shown to naturally gravitate towards being a protector and a provider. While in the wilderness the team relied on her to provide food for them, and both before and during her time in the wilderness we are shown instances where protecting others was an instinctive choice for Nat. In the adult timeline, after stating that she would not be able to afford another rehab stint for Nat, Tai remarks to Shauna "Who does Natalie have? Who does she really have? No one, and now she has less." Natalie did not have a support structure in place after each stint in rehab, and when Tai makes that remark about who Natalie has in her life, Travis is dead. Travis was until that point in time Natalie's greatest support and reason to continue living. After his passing, Nat had no one and therefore no reason to get sober. That is, until Lottie and her intentional community enter the picture.
Despite the religious foundations that AA/NA rest upon, research suggests that "AA confers benefit through multiple mechanisms simultaneously but, in particular, through facilitating helpful social network changes (e.g., by helping people drop heavy drinkers from their social networks and adopt abstainers and recovering people into their social network) and, by boosting people’s confidence in their ability to remain sober when faced with high risk social situations or when feeling down or angry" *22. AA/NA meetings allow someone in recovery to build community with others who share their struggles with substance use. This is not to say that AA/NA should be prioritized over other forms of treatment, but rather that the importance of community and support are vital to sustained recovery. As previously mentioned, SMART Recovery utilizes community building to help those who live with addiction, but they are not the only program to do so. There exists other programs, like the Sober Faction and the Recovery Dharma, that give people living with addiction a means to build community without involving a religious framework.
As the show tells us, AA did not work for Natalie. Rehab also did not work for her, and we are not told if other forms of treatment were even attempted. But we do see that during Natalie's time with Lottie and her community, Nat is finally able to to achieve what would likely have been lasting sobriety if she had lived. Natalie was able to find purpose again by connecting with Lottie's community, and particularly with Lisa. We see this when, after helping Lisa regain ownership of her fish, Natalie decided not to drink. Before this point Nat drank heavily, as we saw she she, Tai, and Shauna attempted to catch the person who had been blackmailing them. For the remaining days of her life, Nat was completely and willingly sober, and this was made possible through making peace with her past and regaining a sense of purpose. She could not have done these things in a rehab, or AA, or possibly even in conventional therapy. For as much as it was mocked and denigrated, Lottie's intentional community was able to able to help Nat heal when everything else she had tried had not.
"Do you know why we have the sunflowers? It's not because Vincent van Gogh suffered. It's because Vincent van Gogh had a brother who loved him. Through all the pain, he had a tether, a connection to the world. And that is the focus of the story we need. Connection."
-----
*1 Colleen L. Barry, Emma E. McGinty, Bernice A. Pescosolido, Howard H. Goldman, "Stigma, Discrimination, Treatment Effectiveness, and Policy: Public Views About Drug Addiction and Mental Illness," Psychiatric Services, Vol. 65, Iss. 10 (Oct 2014): 1183-1289, accessed Jan 15 2026. https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/epdf/10.1176/appi.ps.201400140
*2 Joseph E. Glass, Sven Andréasson, Katharine A. Bradley, Sara Wallhed Finn, Emily C. Williams, Ann‑Sofe Bakshi, Antoni Gual, Nick Heather, Marcela Tiburcio Sainz, Vivek Benegal, Richard Saitz, "Rethinking alcohol interventions in health care: a thematic meeting of the International Network on Brief Interventions for Alcohol & Other Drugs (INEBRIA)," Addiction Science & Clinical Practice, Vol. 12, No. 14, (May 2017): 1-16, accessed January 15 2026. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13722-017-0079-8
*3 "Addiction," Cleveland Clinic, published August 27, 2025, accessed January 15 2026, https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/6407-addiction
*4 Seth Fletcher, "Are Psychedelic Mushrooms Addictive? Risks Explained," Canadian Centre for Addictions, April 14, 2025, accessed January 15, 2026, https://canadiancentreforaddictions.org/are-psychedelic-mushrooms-addictive/
*5 Maia Szalavitz, "What Science Says To Do If Your Loved One Has An Opioid Addiction," FiveThirtyEight, July 19, 2016, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-science-says-to-do-if-your-loved-one-has-an-opioid-addiction/
*6 LastWeekTonight, "Rehab: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)," May 20, 2018, virtual, web video, 19:06 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWQiXv0sn9Y
*7 Megan Hein, "Quick Reference: Rehab Duration Options," Alina Lodge, August 1, 2025, accessed January 16, 2026, https://www.alinalodge.org/addiction-treatment/how-long-does-rehab-last/
*8 "Average Cost of Drug Rehab [2026]: by Type, State & More," National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics, published May 02, 2024, accessed January 16, 2026, https://drugabusestatistics.org/cost-of-rehab/
*9 German Lopez, "She wanted addiction treatment. She ended up in the relapse capital of America," Vox, March 2, 2020, https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/2/21156327/florida-shuffle-drug-rehab-addiction-treatment-bri-jaynes
*10 "Recovering From An Addiction", Chasing Heroin, directed by Marcela Gaviria, (2016; Boston, MA: WGBH Educational Foundation, 2016), Web. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/chasing-heroin/
*11 Michael Gross, "Alcoholics Anonymous: Still Sober After 75 Years," American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 100, Iss. 12, (Dec 2011): 2361-2363, accessed January 15 2026, https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2010.199349
*12 Tom Gregoire, Mike Broman, Keith Warren, "A Brief History of Alcoholics Anonymous," Origins, June 2025, https://origins.osu.edu/read/brief-history-alcoholics-anonymous
*13 "What Medications Can Help Me Stop Drinking?," Alcohol and Drug Foundation, accessed January 16, 2026, https://adf.org.au/insights/medications-stop-drinking/
*14 "Antidepressant Medication May Be Key to Help People Stop Use of Cocaine While in Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder," Johns Hopkins Medicine, March 15, 2023, https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/2023/03/antidepressant-medication-may-be-key-to-help-people-stop-use-of-cocaine-while-in-treatment-for-opioid-use-disorder
*15 "What is SMART Recovery?," SMART Recovery, accessed January 30, 2026, https://smartrecovery.org/what-is-smart-recovery
*16 "Alcohol Withdrawal," Cleveland Clinic, June 2, 2025, accessed January 16, 2026, https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/alcohol-withdrawal
*17 Amelia Sharp, Ryan Kelley, "Alcohol Withdrawal Symptoms, Detox, Timeline, and Treatment," American Addiction Centers, updated January 17, 2025, accessed January 16, 2026, https://americanaddictioncenters.org/alcohol/withdrawal-detox
*18 James Regan, Wendy Manwarren Generes, Ryan Kelley, "Cocaine Addiction: Signs, Symptoms, and Treatment," American Addiction Centers, updated Jun 30, 2025, accessed January 16, 2025, https://americanaddictioncenters.org/stimulants/cocaine
*19 "Cocaine withdrawal: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia," MedlinePlus, accessed January 16, 2026, https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000947.htm
*20 Jessica Laura, "Marianas Trench The Noise Tour Lover Dearest Live Irving Plaza, NYC," June 16, 2013, virtual, web video, 5:19 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oEcFMkwm7s
*21 "Is Alcoholics Anonymous Religious, Spiritual, or Neither? Review Finds AA Effective, But Not In the Way You Think," Research Recovery Institute, January 22, 2025, https://www.recoveryanswers.org/research-post/alcoholics-anonymous-religious-spiritual-neither-review-finds-aa-effective-not-way-think/
*22 @mano-writes, "The Undying Masculinity of Natalie Scatorccio," The Power Is Yours (tumblr), August 3, 2025, https://www.tumblr.com/mano-writes/790887095278452736/contains-spoilers-for-seasons-1-3-of?source=share
Writer's note: For the sake of brevity, I will only be utilizing Season One for locational information. This is not to say that there is not more information to be found in Seasons Two and Three; rather, it is only necessary to use Season One to make my point. There are only so many times I can watch this show to analyze it, and I have other things I'd like to write about it at some point.
Please also note that in the section regarding median household incomes, the years 1989 and 2023 were chosen for the sake of keeping all the economic information consistent, as these were the years where data could be most consistently found. The choice to use median household income, as opposed to any other income statistic, is for the same reason.
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New Jersey, the Garden State. Home to the Pine Barrens, the Jersey Devil, Batman, and the fictional town of Wiskayok. There has been ample discussion about where, exactly, Wiskayok is located in the state of New Jersey. The show runners don't make it easy for fans to triangulate this; however, careful examination of the show's dialog allows us to approximate where Wiskayok might be located. The first season is rife with clues to help us with this. Seven out of the ten episodes make either direct or oblique references to where the characters live, from direct place names to subtle references to the local geography.
The pilot episode alone gives us the clearest indication as to where the characters live, as Jackie Taylor tells her boyfriend Jeff Sadecki to "turn on Port Monmouth" in order to drop her off at her home after the outdoor party. Port Monmouth is an unincorporated community located near Middletown Township, Monmouth County. The rest of Season One gives us specific place names like "The Meadowlands," likely the Sports Center located in East Rutherford, Bergen County; Hacklebarney Park, located in Morris County; Legislative district 31, the district Taissa Turner ran for state senator for located in Hudson County; Phil Bathurst's daughter's school Blair, likely the boarding school located in Warren County; and Route 9, a highway that runs through Monmouth County and down the coast of New Jersey. Multiple references are also made to New York City, demonstrating the influence that the city has on the lives of the characters; Van references wanting to go the city, "NYC style pretzels" are something the characters are familiar with, and Adam tells Shauna a story about something he had done in Chelsea (NYC) that caused him to "move back across the river," the river most likely being the Hudson River.
Something that is interesting to note is that there seems to have been at least one attempt by the creators of the show to obfuscate where Wiskayok is located. The real life Molly Pitcher Inn is presented in the show as the Jolly Hitcher. There does not seem to be a reason for this change, given that several other locations in the show maintain their original names. It's also interesting to note that the real life Molly Pitcher Inn is located in Red Bank, which is a borough close to Middletown Township. Others have pointed out that there is also a zipcode listed on Shauna's Brown acceptance letter, and claim that this zipcode corresponds to Red Bank, NJ. However, running this zipcode through the USPS database turns up no results for anywhere in the United States, let alone New Jersey.
There is another more subtle indication that appears in the pilot; during Nat's group therapy session, one of the members uses the phrase "getting on line." This is a specific phrase that is unique to New York City. Per Merriam-Webster, "Waiting in line is much more common than waiting on line, which is a phrase largely local to the New York City region" *1. Normally this would indicate that someone is likely to be from New York City or an area close to it, and could still be the case for the actor who used that phrase in the pilot; however, it is equally possible that one or more of the creators of the show might be from that particular area, which would make sense given the details listed previously.
It is very clear that this is a show specifically based in the northern part of New Jersey, and given the abundance of details to the effect it would be reasonable to assume that Wiskayok is located in Monmouth County. Knowing this, we are able to locate data regarding the socioeconomic environment the characters would have grown up in, and then experienced in adulthood.
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It makes sense that there are so many references to this particular area of New Jersey. Lyle comes from Belmar and Nickerson comes from Middletown Township *2, both located in Monmouth County, NJ. In particular Lyle is stated to have been "able to take inspiration for the show from her years as a student at The Lawrenceville School, a boarding school in Mercer County" *3.
Why does it matter? Because the writers, likely due to their experience growing up in these particularly wealthy areas, have a difficult time with accurately portraying the class of the characters. In one episode, Travis was stated to be making "barely making minimum wage" at his job at the Willowbrook Ranch. This is not enough for a single adult with no roommates to live in the state of New Hampshire *4, where his house was located. Even if we factor in the fact that New Jersey has a much higher minimum wage than New Hampshire, it would still not be enough for Travis to live on his own; therefore, his ability to own a house and live by himself in New Hampshire is questionable.
This has the effect of transferring over into fandom spaces. While there is nothing wrong with each individual's personal thoughts or headcanons regarding the show and its characters, having more knowledge of the setting can allow us to develop a more nuanced understanding of the characters.
To start, looking through New Jersey's general election history *5 we see that, barring the 1996 and 2000 general elections, Monmouth County has favored Republicans during presidential races since 1980. While this is, of course, not the end all be all of any region's political climate, it does give us an idea of what living in Monmouth would have been like for the Yellowjackets team. If we factor in wealth on top of this, this creates the image of a wealthy and conservative setting for the characters to grow up and later live in.
Which leads to determining just how wealthy the area is. Monmouth County had a median household income of $41,450 in 1989 ($111,172 in 2025 dollars), and $117,752 in 2023, which is the latest confirmed data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis *6. To be even more specific, we should also look at where Lyle and Nickerson come from. Nickerson is from Middletown Township, Monmouth County. This is important to note because Middletown is wealthy, even by Monmouth County's standards. Per Census Reporter, their median household income in 2023 was $144,546 *7, and according to a 1990 New Jersey Census report the median household income in 1989 was $54,025 *8 ($144,899 in 2025 dollars). Lyle is from Belmar, with a 2023 median household income of $92,859 *9 and a 1989 median household income of $32,331 *10 ($86,714 in 2025 dollars).
If we look at some of the surrounding municipalities, we find the following economic data: for 1989, we find that Red Bank had a median household income of $39,367 ($105,585 in 2025 dollars), Port Monmouth had $39,004 ($104,611 in 2025 dollars), Rumson had $63,647 ($170,706 in 2025 dollars), Matawan had $47,079, ($126,269 in 2025 dollars), and Holmdel had $82,141 ($220,308 in 2025 dollars), all of this compared to the median household income for the entire state of New Jersey at $42,740 ($114,632 in 2025 dollars) *11. If we look at their median household incomes for 2023, we find the following for each municipality: Red Bank at $101,738 *12, Port Monmouth at $106,677 *13, Rumson at $250,001 *14, Matawan at $122,026 *15, and Holmdel had $172,566 *16, with the state median household income at $99,781 *17.
(An important thing to note about the information cited from the 1990 New Jersey Census report is that it lists median household incomes broken down into sections according to the race of the householder, or head of house, with no section for a median of the general population. This essay lists here the information for houses with householders who were white. Further reading of the report shows that houses with householders who were not white had different, often lower, median household incomes. Some of the above listed towns did not even have 1,000 people of each listed racial demographic, which is the threshold the report lists for its data. Readers are encouraged to explore this Census report to better understand the full scope of the data.)
According to a blog post published by the Manitoba Collaborative Data Portal, "median household income refers to the income level earned by a given household where half of the households in the geographic area of interest earn more and half earn less" *18. Assuming that Wiskayok is located within the same area as the above listed municipalities, it is reasonable to assume that the town would would have the same level of wealth both historically and in the present day.
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Understanding that many of these characters likely come from upper class backgrounds impacts how they move through the world. It also gives us insight into what the media landscape could have been like for them, without knowing what we will see when Season Four premieres. It would not be a stretch to suggest that the media in universe would be especially interested in a potential story about young women from well-to-do backgrounds devolving into a more primal and animalistic state, as this would be a much more lurid story to report on.
It also gives us a different frame of reference for some of the characters. Shauna Shipman, for example, was accepted into Brown University. For the 1996-1997 school year, when she would have started, tuition was $21,592 *19, ($44,079 in 2025 dollars). Compare that with the tuition of Rutgers at $4,028 *20 ($8,223 in 2025 dollars). Rutgers would have been the much more affordable option, and yet Shauna chose Brown. While this is of course a testament to her intelligence, it's also a sign that she may come from a background where a high tuition is not a barrier to attending the college she desired. Interestingly, Princeton had a similar tuition for the 1996-1997 year at $22,000 *21 ($44,912 in 2025 dollars), which suggests that it was not enough to attend an Ivy League but to attend one that would take Shauna away from Wiskayok. Understanding Shauna as someone who comes from an upper class background can have massive implications for her character. However, this interpretation is complicated by the life she lives in the present day, as she is a stay-at-home mom married to a struggling furniture salesman with very little saved in her daughter's college fund. We could further theorize about what this means for her character history, but that can be done at a later point in time.
We could also assume that someone like Lottie Matthews, who canonically comes from a wealthy family, might not stand out for her wealth in such an environment, and instead would either blend in thanks to her economic status or stand out due to other factors such as her race or for having divorced parents. Misty Quiggly lives in a home with a large in ground pool, and given that they live in northern New Jersey this pool would necessitate winterization costs on top of regular maintenance costs, indicating she might come from a family of means as well.
Mari Ibarra and Travis Martinez both demonstrated an understanding of a complex concept like the existence of the multiverse. These two, in conversations with their fellow survivors, each make a brief mention of their belief in other timelines. Though this is a concept that many of us are familiar with today as a result of franchises like Marvel and DC, as George F. R. Ellis mentions in his 2011 article for Scientific American that "the notion of parallel universes leapt out of the pages of fiction into scientific journals in the 1990s." When we read through his article, we can see that the scholarship he cites all date back to the 1990s and 2000s, with a brief mention of one form of the concept existing in the 1980s *22. This is not to say that the concept did not exist before the late 20th century; rather, Mari and Travis dropping a casual mention of it into conversation could suggest that they both came from families that gave them the means to study such topics, which is typically a luxury that wealthy families can afford.
The previous three paragraphs are of course speculation, but it's speculation that is made possible by considering where Wiskayok is located. The important thing to understand is that looking at these characters as though they come from a wealthy, conservative town can greatly impact how we might view them, and that as such we should pay close attention to where they all came from, as that too plays a part in this story.
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Works cited:
*1 "Do you wait 'on line' or 'in line'?," Merriam-Webster, accessed November 30, 2025, https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/is-it-on-line-or-in-line
*2 Gary Phillips, "‘Yellowjackets’ Buzzes With New Jersey Connections," New Jersey Monthly, January 16, 2022, https://njmonthly.com/articles/arts-entertainment/yellowjackets-buzzes-with-new-jersey-connections/
*3 Amy Kuperinsky, "Showtime’s ‘Yellowjackets’ is the survival drama you need to see. N.J.’s Christina Ricci, Tawny Cypress tell us why," NJ.com November 12, 2021, https://www.nj.com/entertainment/2021/11/yellowjackets-is-the-survival-drama-you-need-to-see-njs-christina-ricci-tawny-cypress-tell-us-why.html
(NOTE - author used the following link to bypass the paywall: https://archive.is/CHigX#selection-1179.0-1183.37 )
*4 Amy K. Glasmeier, "Living Wage Calculation for New Hampshire," accessed November 30, 2025, https://livingwage.mit.edu/states/33
*5 "Election Results Archive," NJ Department of State, Division of Elections, updated January 08, 2025, accessed November 30, 2025, https://www.nj.gov/state/elections/election-information-results.shtml
*6 "Table Data - Estimate of Median Household Income for Monmouth County, NJ," Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, last modified December 20, 2024, accessed November 30, 2025, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/data/MHINJ34025A052NCEN
*7 "Middletown township, Monmouth County, NJ," Census Reporter, accessed November 30, 2025, http://censusreporter.org/profiles/06000US3402545990-middletown-township-monmouth-county-nj/
*8 "1990 Census of Population Social and Economic Characteristics New Jersey," U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, Bureau of the Census, accessed November 30, 2025, https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1990/cp-2/cp-2-32-1.pdf
*9 "Belmar, NJ," Census Reporter, accessed November 30, 2025, http://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US3404930-belmar-nj/
*10 see note 8
*11 see note 8
*12 "Red Bank, NJ," Census Reporter, accessed November 30, 2025, https://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US3462430-red-bank-nj/
*13 "Rumson, NJ," Census Reporter, accessed November 30, 2025, http://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US3465130-rumson-nj/
*14 "Matawan, NJ," Census Reporter, accessed November 30, 2025, http://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US3444520-matawan-nj/
*15 "Port Monmouth, NJ," Census Reporter, accessed November 30, 2025, https://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US3460360-port-monmouth-nj/
*16 "Holmdel Township, Monmouth County, NJ," Census Reporter, accessed November 30, 2025, http://censusreporter.org/profiles/06000US3402532640-holmdel-township-monmouth-county-nj/
*17 "New Jersey," Census Reporter, accessed November 30, 2025, https://censusreporter.org/profiles/04000US34-new-jersey/
*18 "Median vs Average Household Income: What is the Difference Between These Indicators, and How to Interpret Them," Manitoba Collaborative Data Portal, November 02, 2018, http://www.mbcdp.ca/blog/median-vs-average-household-income-what-is-the-difference-between-these-indicators-and-how-to-interpret-them
*19 Mark Nickel, "Brown approves lowest percentage fee increase in more than 30 years," News From Brown (Providence, RI), published February 14, 1998, https://archive2.news.brown.edu/1987-2007/1997-98/97-082.html
*20 "Average Annual Resident (In-State) Full-Time Undergraduate Tuition Charges at N.J. Public Senior Colleges and Universities: Academic Years 1990-91 Through 2007-08," accessed November 30, 2025, https://nj.gov/highereducation/statistics/TUITweb08.htm
*21 Jacquelyn Savani, "1996-97 Tuition and Fees Rise 4.6 Percent For Lowest Rate of Increase in Nearly 3 Decades," News from Princeton University (Princeton, NJ), published January 22, 1996, https://pr.princeton.edu/news/96/q1/0122budg.html
*22 George F. R. Ellis, "Does the Multiverse Really Exist?," Scientific American, Auguest 2011, https://faculty1.coloradocollege.edu/~sburns/courses/Summer2019/PC120/images/SciAm_Multiverse.pdf
titling this my long winded laura lee character rant about everything.
this is probably gonna sound like a lot to read through and a bit disjointed in places, but see I really love seeing some people's character interpretations on laura lee and her pre-crash lore that doesn't stereotypically/generalise/pocket her singularly into her christianity defining her. especially about her deeply rooted depression, suicidal tendencies and attempt at the pool as a child, the struggle with her own faith and her home life.
the flowers all over her bedroom and single picture of jesus; she is the wallflower of her family — the excluded one — the one who's always on the sidelines (quite literally in her soccer position). how religion is an oppression in her life, always overlooking her despite the clear resistance she has to it even when she thinks she has accepted it, but she hasn't, it's skewed in her mind.
she was a young girl in an american evangelist family in the 90s which were most likely voting red state. lord what was going on around with evangelism in the 80s with reagan and televangelism still had its impacts especially when new jersey changed from red to blue state in the early 90s by an edge with clinton. also why have I assumed her family are evangelists? new jersey has a deep history with evangelism and the rise of megachurches + pentecostal movements there in the 1980s which lead to a huge impact on the religious landscape of the state and evangelism as a whole. the conservatism and traditional vaules hounded within the gospel of the bible clashing with the growing raw, open, exterminating and grunge filled youth culture of the 90s where christianity was falling out of faith with kids who struggled to connect with the institution of the church (especially when jane said they played laura lee in the mindset of her faith being open, progressive and all loving, all accepting with infulence from their time growing up in the episcopal church). that's one of the reasons how clinton managed to get votes in '92 because he tapped into the youth culture that were insecure with their faith in traditional vaules (this eventually led to the '96 'christianity crash' phenomenon... well at least the yjs didn't miss that social event in different context. 💀) and communities such as the lgbtq+ to sway the vote. this could also be added to the discussion with what was going on with laura lee's disconnection with her faith in the beginning of '93 too. how their was such a split between the youth, the church, faith and social issues going on in that time context yj is set in.
but why is her perception of faith skewed? it all goes back to the pool scene. where she is purposely segregated from everyone even when she tries to fit in again after gaining her "faith". (side note it frustrates me when people just deduce laura lee's christianity to homophobia because this whole scene here shows when she started to follow her "faith" and finally believe in the god that saved her and deemed her, in her own mind of logic, worth something to keep living).
I also do agree in the believe she was depressed here (and jane did play her like that, entering a fugue state — jane said they played her with background of having these ideas that lead her to moments of near death too with constantly having these impulsive and taboo thoughts). her being lonely and the odd-one out gives us insight to her depressive, impulsive, subconsciously suicidal desires of — why aren't i just getting it like the rest — why can't understand this? and I do think it is linked with her family life from the few context clues we get in the world's narrative and outside in the time it is set in like I explained before. I also think she was neurodivergent being on the autistic spectrum. though not explicitly stated, she has many characteristics and qualities that lands her there that I've previously explained in another post that makes her read as such. which adds more nuance to the pool scene, of her being left out, alone, she gives off that wall of that she is coping, but deep down she is not. a floater in many senses. again like jane had previously mentioned she has many faces, many sides (once again similar to lottie) she had her face with the yellowjackets, her face with her bible group, her face with her family. but, she is always on the sidelines in every single group she floats around in (again that water motif) — she doesn't know who she is and that makes her a ghost in the wind still haunting the narrative and still taking forms of people's opinions — even herself at the time where she flipped and flopped between beliefs despite being strongwilled.
(again I feel that lottie and laura lee are extremely similar in the lake baptism scene compared to laura lee's pool scene. it is such a starke jump of character for laura lee when we see it, when we see her drown. that, similar to lottie, that has been building up because what she is surface level, under the surface, deep in that water of her own mind, she is terribly troubled).
we see her alone at the pool, during the seance scene, meticulously sweeping the whole cabin down by herself despite having power. again she is a very paradoxical character, she is one of the few characters that has that established agency, we do see to insert her voice and opinions onto things, she has that power to push herself to do things other characters wouldn't do like get in that plane, like plant the first seeds of doubt against ben, like refuse the seance. but, like everyone shown in yellowjackets, her biggest "demon"/"monster"/"enemy" has always been herself, her downfall was always going to be herself in the end — the complexity of human nature is the true wilderness.
the self-isolation, not being good enough in all aspects of her life, her needing to prove herself. find her purpose of living running alongside that desperation that comes within reality; that blinding hope that comes with idealism. all coming back to that pool scene that changed her life dramatically — if god is real like everyone has been telling her all of her life, if god loves everyone, if it is really true that everyone has a purpose to their life thanks to god then he would save her, he would keep her alive, he would guide her eventually because the people around her have not.
finding her own independence, yet reliance within religion through her own interpretation which she uses faith to keep herself alive, to use it to try and make sense of her life she never understood — this is her own struggle that she is constantly having (that is one of the reasons why her and lottie become extremely close because they end up having a similar association with faith, hope and crisis). she doesn't impress religion on others because she sees interaction with religion as personal (which again can be shown with her and lottie how they both similarly but very differently approach the topic). we also get a glimpse of how she internalises everything to be her fault with how she behaved with the piano teacher, calling her a cunt in her head, it was ludicrous but it makes sense to laura lee... this could also be reflective of her home life too. god heard her, so this happened to her, god punished her through actions of others and it's her fault everyone around her is effected. she internalises it, blames herself for it, even when it is stupid. again and again, we see her silently internalising everything to the point that she can't any longer and feels the need to do something.
this also does reflect on her position in the team and the person she is in their unit. she is a defender, she is someone who's supposed to clean up the mess the others get into — she is supposed to be a backbone to the team. she's the one that pulled lottie out of that "possession", she's the one cleaning up lottie's blood after the seance. things start to go further and further into shit once laura lee dies because she is someone that they all rely on, she was someone part of their defence. she is someone that highlights another message within grief of that you don't realise how much you needed something until its gone.
(I think it's interesting that relationship between the defence and midfield and strikers, that once lottie, laura lee (and to an extent van who got attacked) lost their heads essentially the midfielders started off on their individual extreme sided spirals of power/control which then crumbled the strikes who couldn't hold onto anything — the defence really held them at the seams).
I see some interpretations of her character being "saintly" but this all shows she is far from that generalist assumption, I feel like some people focus in on the christianity image instead of her power in her faith. she doesn't have the crystal clear christian girl image either, usual of those archetyped characters too. she's not prude, or reserved — she can bite back, she is a headstrong challenging person, she is quite sassy within her bluntness too. she was hanging out at the highschool parties (she was hanging with nat in the background before shauna and tai's fight), she was involved with the group's shenanegins that did break rules even if she wasn't drinking or doing anything illicit, she was making jokes about nat and travis, she was caught laughing about misty in the background, she brought up travis's "nickname" first in a snarky way when he upset javi, she had also shot a gun before and said she didn't like it unlike others in the original script. there were bubbling hints of her resistance against authority when she felt something wasn't right (like jane said she is extremely headstrong and becomes stubborn when she is focused on something). she was vocal which made people annoyed but also gave her power in acknowledging her voice in some way even if it was negative towards her. such as when she went against jackie's idea of a seance and that she wasn't going to participate, or when there was a vote if they should stay with the plane or go to the lake — her and mari were the only prominent ones voting to stay with jackie. mari obviously did it to follow jackie who she saw as in power while laura lee is personal. she looks around at everyone to see what they have voted for, but still doesn't change her vote despite being in the minority. her brief dialogue with tai too we see that it doesn't hurt to try, that she is quite sardonic with her (so funny that both lottie and ll part of the defence line had their shots with her). she even challenges god which again isn't a "saintly" thing to do. she is questioning her faith again in the wilderness, questioning everything she was taught, questioning everything horrid that is happening to them.
(outside of the inner character world, she kicks of the motion that vocalises ben stripping of power and kickstarts the motion of basing lottie's delusions into reality which have serious negative, dooming, haunting repercussions in the narrative. even if in the inner world, she didn't mean for them to be intentionally bad, they narratively were, highlighting again her importance and impact of her character).
I also think it is very important that she died a way where her heart would have exploded from the pressure and if she didn't die instantly in the plane explosion she would have drowned to death just like the first time she got her faith — she got it the same way she lost it — making it full circle.
(it's worth noting an extremely interesting the intersection between christianity and paganism within yellowjackets and just theological analysis in general — the undoing of everything including how christianity adapted many forms of early paganism into their practices down to its raw original concepts. also how jane said they got inspiration to portray some of laura lee's interactions within her faith based off of wiccan ideals too, so once more it's not a singular portrayal of traditional christianity which laura lee never was anyways).
but despite everything that happened, at her core she was being a normal teenager here, being herself around the yellowjackets. which it all comes back to. all the yellowjackets were deeply depressed in one way or another or hiding something about themselves which didn't fit in who they should be and personally felt like outcasts in society. they all had that rage building within them, struggling with the image of womanhood and that transition from being a young girl to adult. laura lee was no different especially with that social context of being a young christian girl with a lot of pressure on her to perform. she has a lot of pressure on her as we can tell from herself, the people around her and the presense of god; she plays soccer which is a sport extracurricular, she plays the piano which is another extracurricular in music, she is smart being able to retain a whole plane manuscript. in that we get information that her grandpa was illiterate, so the family education can be assumed to not be that good, nor were they well off but make enough to send her to a community bible camp (looking again at the emptiness of her room with a single picture of god looking down at her). but, we see she is someone who is trying to break out of the cycle of her life countless times despite everything.
and again from the little information we know of her family, home life, from how she acts in school, from how she survives in the wilderness, from how she acts getting into the plane — she was the odd one out. the one who is never rewarded, constantly bashing at that glass ceiling placed on her life. the gloss of sudden optimism she has in her blinding faith is to hide that existentialism deep down in her, that depression about life that she (along with many kids at the time) feels. she has the pressure to learn to fly to new heights from everyone around her including herself, but also she wants to do deep down is fly away. that when it gets too much she simply needs to escape at any cost and this time she does. as tragic as what happened, she was finally able to fly away in her own way, and once again she drowns, bloody and alone, taken out by her own mind with people's expectations right on her again.
another thing that really makes me sob though about laura lee though is her connection to leonard. that she holds onto a childhood teddy bear, taking him everywhere with her — it says a lot about her. the child-like wonder that she still clings onto despite all this emotional turmoil going on in her life. leonard really is the only thing we see she personally owns that isn't a requirement to basic living or her faith. he has so much life in him to her. her brings her comfort, the comfort she probably wasn't getting throughout her childhood from her parents, or the people around her. he probably reminds her of how she felt before she fell into a deep depression, before she felt the pressures of faith, the expectations of her family, the weighted reality of society and womanhood settling in. there can be no judgement or change in an object thats narrative when given to her is meant to be full of unconditional love, protection and promise. a pure symbol of innocence. so, when the blood of an adult drips on leonard, that is a huge symbolic moment. a visual showing of the horrible bloody reality being placed on these kids. and when leonard catches on fire during her attempt to fly, it is a sign — her childhood is gone, her adulthood is gone, everything in her life is gone. that burning, scarring, life alternating, inescapable, but could have been avoidable if she didn't take these steps. here, the bear turns into this huge motif of how trauma changes a person from a childish innocent teddy bear to an animal that is brutal and unforgiving when provoked in that primal need to just survive.
also leonard having one eye — one eye open — may also be again reflective of laura lee balancing between the blindness, ignorance and compliance in life to be guided and how she can't, having one eye open to see the reality of things around her. reflecting that line between idealism and realism within escapism which her character floats between. it is also interesting that leonard is a name of a saint who is the saint of prisoners, who brought comfort and compassion to prisoners — he had the role of a protector and helper to guide them to their freedom... like shauna said, the saints were all tragic and laura lee's life and death was quite tragic too with leonard by her side every step of the way of her life... guiding her to finally escape everything. leonard also gets picked up by lottie in her hallucination too, lottie being a prisoner in her own mind (just like laura lee is) helping her down and to laura lee which pushes her out of her deathly hallucination.
tbh all that I've explained again adds more clarity as to why she parallels lottie extremely well (and indirectly lottie/shauna's dynamic because laura lee functions similar to jackie as lottie's haunted love one and who they both have dealt with that grief and understanding of it with how it shaped them consciously and unconsciously). both her and lottie are extremely similar.
so yeah yap over that laura lee's character to me is much deeper than just this christian character made for the plot certain people in the fandom likes to paint her as.
Contains spoilers for Seasons 1-3 of Yellowjackets
CW: discussion of racism against indigenous people, discussion of stereotypes that affect and are applied to Pacific Islanders and indigenous peoples, discussion of Christianity, discussion of colonialism, discussion of sexual assault, discussion of mental health issues, discussion of violence typical of the show, discussion of drug use and use of mind altering substances,
Word count: 6.4k
Writer's note: This essay is written by a person of Native Hawaiian descent, and is about a character of Māori (and Chinese, and Cook Islander) descent. As such, the primary focus of research and discussion will be on Māori and Hawaiian cultures. Other Pacific Islander (PI) and indigenous cultures will be included as best as possible and where appropriate.
Please also note that some sources will refer to Polynesians, Micronesians, and Melanesians. These terms refers to PI peoples who live within specific geographic areas that are labeled Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia. They are all still Pacific Islanders. Additionally, some sources will make use of or reference to dated language and slurs when describing PI peoples. The writer of this essay has made an effort not to include such language here, but reader discretion is advised when exploring any works listed as being cited.
Special thanks to Jae @softantlers for always talkin' story with me, especially about Lottie Matthews. Thanks to Courtney Eaton and Simone Kessell for giving us PI folks greater visibility and more representation in the media to look towards. Thanks to Alien Weaponry for putting out three great albums that I listened to back to back to back on repeat to get me amped enough to write this. Mahalo nui loa a me aloha nui loa i ku'u mau kūpuna a me ku'u mau lāhui kānaka. "No ku’u lāhui e hā’awi pau a i ola mau."
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"They took the Land
They took Aloha
Overthrew the Queen even though they didn't know her
Suppressed Ikaika
And the Kūpuna
Broke the 'Ohana
But they couldn't take the Mana
But they couldn't take the Mana"
"Ou mata e matagi
I have crossed the horizon to find you
Ou loto mamaina toa
I know your name
Manatu atu
They have stolen the heart from inside you
Taku pelepele
But this does not define you
Manatunatu
This is not who you are
You know who you are"
"You take and take
But you cannot take from who we are
You cannot take our mana
You cannot take our māoritanga
You cannot take our people
You cannot take our whakapapa
You cannot take, you cannot take
Raupatu!"
Lottie Matthews is one of the least understood characters in Paramount's Yellowjackets. She is viewed, variously, as being a popular girl at Wiskayok High School, as a sex goddess with a lengthy and mostly unknown string of conquests, as an aggressive and dangerous individual who manipulates her vulnerable teammates while stuck in the Canadian wilderness, as someone who is lazy and does not contribute to the survival of the group, as crazy and delusional, among other things.
Most gallingly, Lottie is even viewed as a white woman, a view completely ignorant of the fact that both Courtney Eaton and Simone Kessell are mixed race Māori women, with Eaton additionally having Cook Islander and Chinese heritage. Kessell herself was intentionally cast as adult Lottie, as she mentions in two separate interviews with Glamour *1 and Buzzfeed *2. Given this intentionality on the part of the show runners, it is not a stretch at all to say that Lottie Matthews is Māori (and Chinese, and Cook Islander), and it is therefore critical that we ourselves be intentional in the ways in which we view the character.
Here's what we know for sure about Lottie, per the show. She comes from a wealthy family, with a father rich enough to provide a private plane for the Yellowjackets team to take to Seattle for Nationals. At a young age, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and heavily and strictly treated for it. Her parents are divorced, with her father living in New York and her mother living with her in New Jersey with full custody over Lottie. After the surviving team members were rescued, Lottie was sent off to a Swiss institution to be treated for her mental health issues. Lottie, as an adult, lead what she called an intentional community of people who she aided in regard to their own mental health. Lottie was eventually killed by Callie, Shauna's daughter.
As for her time in the wilderness? Well, that's hard to say, because one of the overarching statements this show seems to be making is that our perception cannot always be trusted. Additionally, Lottie lives with a condition that causes her to experience reality differently than the norm, and this is an experience that no one else in the surviving group is privy to. Even we as the audience do not fully see or hear everything that Lottie does, as best exemplified during the group's seance scene where she suddenly came under attack by some otherworldly force that came from outside the attic window.
Despite this, there are several scenes during the teen timeline that are taken at face value by many in the fandom, and are used as evidence for their less favorable views of who Lottie is. So, even if the show itself is attempting to tell its audience to be skeptical of what we perceive, we will still discuss those scenes, specifically with regards to how these scenes are used by fans as a basis for who they believe Lottie to be.
So, who is Lottie Matthews?
I'll tell you who she is.
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Chamoru poet Craig Santos Perez wrote that, "Pacific Islanders have been represented as violent, primitive, hyper-sexual, exotic, childlike, cannibalistic, dependent, noble, athletic, hyper-masculine, uncivilized, and hospitable" *3. It's interesting to see that several of these qualities are in direct contradiction with each other, and yet they are all still applied as stereotypes of PI peoples. Obviously, when dealing with a show like Yellowjackets, some of these qualities become applicable. Lottie is an athlete, and during the teen timeline she does engage in cannibalism.
However, looking at the above list of traits ascribed to PI people, one cannot help but notice that most of the rest have at one point or another been applied to Lottie as well by the fandom at large. This is not to say that a PI person cannot be interested in sex, or cannot be violent, or cannot be masculine or hospitable. Rather, it is important when engaging with the character of Lottie Matthews that we ask ourselves why we might view her as any of the terms listed by Perez.
But where did these views of PI peoples come from, exactly?
European and American imperialists, mostly.
Hawaiian professor Maile Arvin, in a 2021 presentation about her book Possessing Polynesians, tells us "Indeed, since the earliest encounters between Europeans and indigenous Pacific Islanders, white Europeans and later, white Americans, express a fascination and partial identification with the racial origins of Polynesians ... while these theories shifted over time, the enduring logic that Polynesians could be understood as more natural or classical or otherwise primitive versions of white civilizations remained throughout changes in social scientific trends. This logic really persists to this day, from the daily exotification of light-skinned [Hawaiian] so-called hula girls as understood as naturally available sexual conquests for visiting white tourists, to complicated matters of legal recognition for Native [Hawaiian] people" *4.
In a 2024 interview, Professor Arvin further states that "Because of the way [Hawai'i] and other Pacific Islands are often sold to Americans and other international audiences, there is often a depiction of Pacific Islander women, Native Hawaiian women in particular, as naturally welcoming hosts who, to put it bluntly, are sexual objects for tourist men to receive. Those kind of stereotypes can be really harmful, because they increase the rates of sexual violence against Pacific Islander women" *5. This statement is reiterated by a report on Missing and Murdered Native Hawaiian Women and Girls put out by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. The report mentions, among other things, that "today, Kānaka Maoli women continue to be sexually subjugated. For example, the iconic image of the scantly clothed, hip-shaking hula dancer is one that makes Kānaka Maoli women objects of sexual desire in the minds of foreign men. The commodifing and sexualizing of a sacred Kānaka Maoli art form (hula) is validated through ideologies of Kānaka Maoli women as uncivilized and needing salvation through relationships with white, western men" *6.
The perception of Lottie Matthews as being very sexually experienced, even being nymphomaniac, plays into the stereotypes that Professor Arvin mentions. These stereotypes have the real world effect of fueling an epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, and thus it is critical that we exercise care when it comes to how we view and speak about indigenous characters.
Of course, being PI does not disqualify a person or character from being interested in sex; rather, the pervasive insistence that Lottie must be interested and that she must have a voracious sexual appetite should be examined closely for potential racial bias, especially given the dearth of evidence provided by the show. When we do examine the character within the context of the show we see that Lottie Matthews displays little, if any, sexual interest or desire towards anyone, regardless of gender. The only time she demonstrates any overt sexuality towards someone is during Doomcoming (which we will discuss later in this essay), and even that interaction was under the influence of a mind altering substance.
When trying to better understand Lottie Matthews' sexuality, we can turn to meta commentary done by tumblr user @softantlers for their observations on the character *7. As this post discusses, Lottie would have been under a great deal of surveillance once she and the survivors were rescued, which would have prevented her from exploring her sexuality for several years. Even before that, the show gives us very little in terms of demonstrating Lottie's interest in sex or sexuality, as opposed to characters like Nat or Shauna, who are shown to be interested in and having sex. In the second season, the most we see of teenage Lottie being involved in anything sexual is in connection with Travis. We have a scene where Lottie calms Travis during his panic attack and he has a sexual response that she ignores, and we have a scene where Travis appears to hallucinate Lottie as he's having sex with Nat. In both instances, Lottie does not engage sexually with Travis, and in the latter instance she is a figment of Travis' imagination.
It isn't until she's an adult that we see Lottie make reference to her potential sexuality, and it's a passing comment regarding not wanting a specific ingredient in her smoothie as it would impact her libido. She makes no mention of partners or experiences she's had, nor does anyone refer to partners or experiences connected to her. The sheer absence of sexuality flies in the face of the characterization that many in the fandom have of Lottie as being overtly and aggressively sexual.
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There is also the matter of the ways in which aggression is assigned to Lottie. Though she is just one member of a high school soccer team, a sport that is extremely high contact, Lottie is more often than not seen as the most aggressive of the team. This is not a new phenomenon when it comes to how Pacific Islanders are seen and portrayed. As noted by Susi Feltch-Malohifo’ou of the Utah based organization Pacific Island Knowledge 2 Action Resources, people who are not PI “assume we are aggressive; that we are bullying other people’s kids. We speak a bit louder, but we’re not angry; we’re passionate.” Feltch-Malohifo’ou also notes that “for every positive thing I send to the media, they pick out the negative things that are happening in our community” *8. Similarly, many in the Yellowjackets fandom not only pick out the negatives when it comes to Lottie's portrayal in the show, they also distort her actions into something they are not.
The fandom reaction to Doomcoming is a prominent example of how aggression is assigned more to Lottie than any other character. This is not to say that Lottie was not an aggressor against Travis; rather, it is telling that she is the primary one viewed that way. From start to finish, seven people were involved with sexually assaulting and nearly murdering Travis; Shauna, Mari, Akilah, and Lottie had direct physical contact with Travis, Van and Taissa participated in the confrontation of Jackie and Travis as well as the beginning of the sexual assault before breaking away to be alone together in the woods, and Misty was revealed to have been watching and not intervening in the attempted murder of Travis.
During the chase scene, Shauna is the first to reach for a weapon when she grabs the knife at the cabin, and Akilah is revealed to have picked up a large and possibly pointed stick during the chase to either bludgeon or spear Travis with. Additionally, these events occurred because Misty left psychedelic mushrooms near the food that Mari was preparing for the party, which Misty had intended to use to drug Ben with in order to assault him. And yet in the eyes of the fandom at large, Lottie appears to be the only one to have done any harm to Travis.
Out of the seven people involved in Travis' assault, the one most see as the aggressor is the person with Pacific Islander heritage.
When we take into account the ways in which Pacific Islanders are portrayed by the media, this is not surprising. A 2023 study on the reality show Police Ten 7 noted that "Māori/Pasifika suspects on the show are ... significantly overrepresented in five ANZSOC offence divisions: homicide and related offences ... sexual assault and related offences ... dangerous or negligent acts endangering persons ... fraud, deception, and related offences ... and property damage and environmental pollution ... This overrepresentation leaves Police Ten 7 viewers with the impression that Māori and Pasifika offend in these divisions at twice or three times the rate of their actual offending" *9.
The study further drove home this point in the conclusion, by telling us that it "found that Police Ten 7 severely distorts the offence categories with which Māori, Pasifika and European suspects are typically associated. Māori and Pasifika suspects are not only associated with a wider variety of offences and more often associated with violent offences than European suspects but are also overrepresented in violent offence categories compared to actual offending rates" *10.
There is also the perception of Lottie's relationships with Travis and Akilah to consider. Many in the fandom believe that Lottie forced Travis to consume psychedelic mushrooms or that she forced Akilah to inhale the cave gasses, in both cases to induce visions and establish a connection with the Wilderness. In both instances, this is false; at no point were Travis or Akilah forced to do anything, and indeed both of them exercised their own agency when interacting with Lottie. When Travis and Akilah rebuffed or diverted her away, Lottie did not push back. In fact, the only time anyone in the Wilderness was forced to consume something was during the force feeding of Ben when he stopped eating, an event that Lottie did not take part in.
It should also be noted that psychedelic mushrooms are not addictive. This is important to note because there are some in the fandom who would have us believe that they are, in order to reinforce their claim that Lottie was harming Travis with them. As the organization American Addiction Centers states "there are also no reports of physical dependence developing from chronic use of psilocybin" *11, which is further elaborated on by the Canadian Centre for Addictions who state that "unlike the iron grip of substances like alcohol, opioids, or cigarettes, psilocybin mushrooms don't sink physical hooks into users' biochemistry... When someone stops taking mushrooms, their body doesn't revolt with withdrawal symptoms – that telltale marker of physical dependence.Your system doesn't develop a biological need for psilocybin to function normally" *12. To say that Travis became addicted to psychedelic mushrooms is false, because you cannot become physically dependent on them. This claim is used to assign malicious intent and behavior to Lottie where there is none, and thus feeds into the stereotype of Pacific Islander people being aggressive and dangerous.
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There are those who allege that Lottie was lazy during her time in the wilderness, and that she did no work whatsoever. This is patently false, and completely ignores the work that Lottie did as a spiritual guide for the group. Mental labor is still a form of labor, and to ignore this in favor of calling Lottie lazy displays at best sheer ignorance as to what labor constitutes, and at worst is indicative of the pervasive hold the Protestant work ethic has on Western culture.
We see in the first season of the show that the Yellowjackets team divided up their labor by using the deck of cards. Which card a person drew determined what job they had, as we see in three separate scenes with Akilah, Misty, and Kristen/Crystal. Presumably, Nat and Travis were both exempt from this card draw being that they were the group's hunters. Why would this not also be the case for Lottie? Make no mistake, Lottie does perform labor for the group. Lottie, because of her connection to the Wilderness, becomes a spiritual guide for the other survivors. Lottie leads daily prayer meetings for the team, where she coaches them in what are arguably mindfulness exercises. These daily meetings not only improve the survivors' morale, they are also credited with helping Taissa with her sleepwalking. Lottie also rises in the mornings with Nat and Travis to bless them before they go out to hunt, and provides spiritual assistance throughout the day to each of her teammates. This is a role that she is thrust into by the others, notably by Mari and Akilah during the hunting contest between Nat and Lottie.
She also utilizes the knowledge she's gained in therapy to assist with the group's mental well-being, such as when she calms Travis during his panic attack. Lottie also attempts to perform this mental health aid for Shauna during her delivery, even if the attempt did not go as desired. When Shauna's delivery becomes especially dire, Travis gathers those not immediately helping into an impromptu prayer circle that utilizes the very same mindfulness techniques that Lottie had taught them in the daily prayer circle meetings. Even the sessions she holds with Travis where they use psychedelic mushrooms together are a form of therapy, despite the lack of professional supervision. Lottie consistently demonstrates that she does in fact work towards the group's survival by providing for them mental labor that, seemingly, no one else is able or willing to provide.
It's also worth explaining what exactly the Protestant work ethic is, and why the concept has come up in this discussion around Lottie's productivity. Put simply, it "is a concept emphasizing the belief that individuals have a spiritual duty to work diligently and use their earnings responsibly. Followers of this ethic, especially the Puritans who settled in North America, valued hard work and frugality, viewing these traits as indicators of one’s spiritual fate" *13.
Make no mistake, when early missionaries encountered indigenous peoples, they forced their views regarding labor onto them as part of their efforts to proselytize to the people they encountered. As Shawn Malia Kana‘iaupuni cites, missionaries coming to Hawai'i saw “not a system of working in the cool morning and resting later, but people ‘lazy and indolent.’ Not the natural order of eating when hungry, sleeping when tired, but ‘an entire lack of system’" *14. Missionaries in Australia, even if they supposedly sympathized with the right of the Aboriginal people to maintain ownership of their ancestral lands, also believed that they needed to work hard to maintain that right. Jessie Mitchell writes of the missionaries that "their descriptions of nomadic hunter-gatherer life as disgracefully wasteful and idle were also undoubtedly influenced by their Evangelical Protestant belief in the virtues of thrift, diligence, and self-improvement, the minimisation of “waste” time and the elevation of worldly work to a religious duty and even a blessing. [William] Thomas, for example, lectured Aborigines in 1841 that if white men were as lazy as they, God would punish them by sending a drought to destroy half the earth" *15.
These attitudes regarding the work ethic of indigenous peoples have not gone away. In an article published by Mission to the World, a missionary supporting ministry, writer Patrick Lennox mentioned that "when folks hear of the plagues in Native America such as addictions, violence, and suicide, they are quick to attribute it all to government handouts that are keeping Native Americans lazy, which in turn causes them to drink because of all the time on their hands, ... the shrewd potential donor would ask, “What is the point of sending missionaries to Native America? They are not really poor, just lazy”" *16. Crucially in this article, no mention is made regarding why Native American individuals might be suffering. There is only the belief that they need Christianity to deliver them from their "brokenness."
It should be noted that colonialism, of which missionaries and missionary culture benefits from and influences, is directly responsible for the various forms of suffering that indigenous peoples all over the world live through in their daily lives. As Mitchell wrote, "starvation was not necessarily the greatest danger for beggars, missionaries believed. Rather, protector [William] Thomas and missionary George Langhorne warned that Aborigines’ ability to beg decent food made them lazy, ungrateful, and discontented, less likely to submit to missionary authority" *17. In the eyes of missionaries, the worst thing that an indigenous person can be is insufficiently obedient to the will and authority of the ones proselytizing to them.
This is not to say that there is religious intent behind the belief that Lottie Matthews is lazy. However, given that Western culture is greatly influenced by Abrahamic religions, and that Christianity is especially deeply rooted within Western culture, we cannot ignore the possibility that this belief about Lottie is influenced on some level by religious attitudes regarding work. With this in mind, and knowing that there is a long history of Western culture imposing its views on work and labor onto cultures that do not share those views, it is vitally important that we be mindful in the ways we view those who come from non-Western cultures, even if their work ethic does not align with what we believe to be correct.
Furthermore, even if we the viewers see Lottie's labor as inadequate, it's clear that the Yellowjackets team does not feel the same way. There is overt social pressure on each member to pull their own weight, and we know this because of Shauna and Jackie. When the group's menstrual cycles have all begun, we see that they all continue to do the daily tasks needed for their survival. Jackie, however, lags behind the rest, and there is clear frustration from the others at her lack of productivity. Shauna eventually pulls Jackie aside and attempts to teach her how to butcher the animals Nat and Travis bring back, before telling Jackie that the rest of the group is taking notice of Jackie's unwillingness to pitch in. Even if we are still unwilling to consider Lottie's mental labor as sufficient, there are in fact instances where she helps with physical labor. On the day Jackie's body was burned, Tai asked Lottie to retrieve another log to be chopped. That same day, after the decision to cremate Jackie had been made, we see Lottie and Tai carrying Jackie's corpse to the pyre. Though these are only two instances, it is clear that Lottie is performing labor in a fashion and at a level that satisfies the group. It's telling that Jackie's lack of labor is seldom brought up whereas Lottie is frequently called lazy by many in the fandom, when this is untrue both in the eyes of the survivors and according to the text of the show.
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Of course, when we talk about how the fandom has treated the character of Lottie Matthews, we should also consider that the attitude of ignoring her indigeneity did not start with the fans. The show runners of Yellowjackets have, from the start, flirted with the idea of indigeneity, but have yet to commit in any meaningful way. In a 2025 interview Tawny Cypress, who plays adult Taissa Turner, revealed what she knew regarding the naming of the Yellowjackets hometown of Wiskayok, stating that "Lenape, the Native American tribe, is a Jersey nation, and they have words — Manasquan and all these words — of towns all over New Jersey. So Ashley and Bart [Nickerson] went and found somebody who speaks Lenape, and Wiskayok roughly translates to is “killer girls” or something. It’s pretty crazy. It’s a deep dive" *18. Notably, this interview came out in 2025, several years into the show's run. It is, frankly, bizarre that a detail like this has been withheld for so long, and we can only speculate as to why it was.
Nevertheless, rather than choose to establish the hometown of the team in a real place or to use a generic English name, the show runners are credited as having intentionally sought out someone who spoke an indigenous language and asking for a word with a meaning that would tie into the story they are telling. This makes the naming of Wiskayok an active choice, especially when we consider that the show runners have also intentionally made ample use of deeply symbolic imagery and iconography from various sources such as religion and mythology.
(An aside; as some fans have noted, there is resemblance between the Antler Queen imagery and a certain folkloric figure. Out of respect for the indigenous cultures that figure comes from, this essay will not name that figure nor will any further mention be made of it, and anyone who engages with this work is expected to do the same.)
Furthermore, there was a demonstrated intentionality in the casting process for Lottie's adult actor. In an interview with Vulture Courtney Eaton states that "I’m part Asian, part Islander, and I don’t often see that many actresses who are a similar heritage to me" *19. The show runners very clearly made an effort to be conscious of this, as they then cast Simone Kessell. In an interview with Glamour, Kessell mentions that she "loved that they honoured Courtney's ancestry and where her parents are from" *20. Kessell also spoke with Buzzfeed, stating that "in 2025 especially, you have to really acknowledge people's ethnicities and diversity and background, and they really did ... it was very important for them to make sure they cast in ethnicities, and they did that really well" *21.
It is vital to not understate just how important it is that the show runners were conscious and respectful with regards to keeping the character of Lottie Matthews PI in both her teen and adult portrayal. It is also important to note that this was most likely all that the show runners did on their own to engage with the actors' indigeneity. Kessell mentions in an interview with The Cut that she was the one to come up with Lottie's koru tattoo, and to implement its portrayal in the show *22. This is not the only time an actor from a racialized background has needed to add more to the show to make it more realistic or truthful to their lived experience. Regarding season two, Jasmin Savoy Brown mentioned in an interview with Collider that "we've seen more scenes with Taissa and Akilah, and I’m definitely a part of that. Let's be honest, if there's two black girls in a group and they're the only two, they’re gonna stick together, especially in a survival scenario. And Nia [Sondaya] and I both believe that that's happening a lot more off screen than we happen to see on screen. But I've been championing that from the beginning that we see that and so it's nice that that got taken into account” *23.
Make no mistake; it is good that the show runners listen to their cast when suggestions are made, both for the story we see on screen and for the actors' own well-being, as Nia Sondaya tells us in an interview posted to YouTube regarding Akilah's hairstyle in season three *24. However, that does not exempt them from criticism for any creative choices they've made that mirror real world harm that impacts marginalized groups. Even if we accept that Yellowjackets is a show where all the characters will be dead by the end of the story, it is still important to acknowledge the framing each of those deaths takes place in. Whereas white characters like Nat, Laura Lee, and Van have more heroic deaths, characters like Lottie do not. Nat, Jackie, and Van die in less visually graphic ways than Lottie does, do not have their bodies displayed in sensational ways, and are shown to have been given some form of funeral or memorial. Conversely, as we see in season three, there is an effort on the part of Lottie's white father to have her death ruled as an accident. This does not even begin to touch on the deaths of characters like Mari and Kristen/Crystal, and others as we move into season four.
With regards to Lottie specifically, her death in the show is a fictional example of a real world problem that affects indigenous people; Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two Spirit people. Not only is Lottie killed in a sensational way, and her body displayed in a sensational manner, but she is also killed off specifically for the character advancement of Callie Sadecki, who is white. It's also worth noting that this is not the first time that Callie has behaved aggressively towards other characters, as we see when she dumps animal entrails onto three of her classmates. Notably these three classmates are portrayed by racially ambiguous actors, and one of the classmates is given the name Keiko, as we see in the credits of the episode It Girl. Callie, like her mother Shauna, has a history of behaving violently towards others, and the show runners made the choice to have her kill Lottie. In choosing to kill Lottie off in this manner, they chose to do so in a way that was undignified for her as a person and meaningless for her character arc. This lack of care for Lottie Matthews' part in the story is disappointing, especially when we consider how much care is put into so many other parts.
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While it is not necessarily inherently wrong to imagine a fictional character any particular way, it is important to ask ourselves why we do, and to be mindful of any potential biases that may be coming into play. Lottie Matthews is, like all of the characters in Yellowjackets, a complex and multi-faceted character. She is not wholly good, but neither is she wholly evil. Lottie is human, just like everyone else in the show, just like everyone who watches the show.
She is also indigenous, by virtue of being played by two indigenous actors, one of whom was intentionally cast for the role due to being someone of Māori descent. Choosing to ignore this is choosing to engage with only the most superficial aspects of her character. The characterization of Lottie as being aggressive does not encapsulate all of who she is as a person, and the ideas that she is lazy or extremely and overtly sexual has no basis in the text of the show. Even if these ideas of who Lottie is are well meaning, they have the unfortunate side effect of playing into harmful stereotypes about indigenous peoples.
The absolute dearth of indigenous representation, and especially of Pacific Islander representation, makes the presence of even just one such character extremely meaningful to those who long to see a part of themselves reflected in the media they consume. We are fortunate to live in a time where we can see more and more of these portrayals with each coming day. This does not, however, erase our responsibility to treat the portrayals we currently have with care.
Reducing Lottie to the worst aspects of herself, and to characterize her as someone she is not for arbitrary reasons, is to make her nothing more than a cardboard cut out in terms of dimension. There is more to her than what we might see on the surface with a cursory glance, and Yellowjackets as a show seems to demand of us that we look beyond what we initially see. Yellowjackets tells us that our initial perceptions might not always be correct, and that we should be wary of becoming set in our assumptions.
There is immense suffering that Lottie lives through and even causes to others. But that's not all there is to her, and to focus only on that is to make her something she is not. It is, to use a turn of phrase, to miss the forest for the trees. In that same vein, there is great sorrow experienced in indigeneity, and there is also great joy to be found. To ignore our joy, to focus only on the saddest parts of us, is to wear our experiences like a costume. To reduce us as indigenous peoples down to only the worst parts of our lives and histories is a demonstration of how little you know us as people and how little interest you have in getting to know us.
Lottie Matthews means so much to so many people. Her inclusion in the show has given some in the fandom a point of connection with others with similar lived experiences. There is so much joy to be found in genuine connection, and Courtney Eaton and Simone Kessell, in their dynamic performances of the character they share, have given us an avenue for that connection. Our ability to connect with each other is what has allowed humanity to survive for so many thousands of years, but we cannot meaningfully connect with each other if we operate from a place of ignorance.
In the words of the poet Craig Santos Perez, "I invite you to learn more about the histories and cultures of the Pacific by reading our literatures, listening to our voices, recognizing our strength and humanity, empathizing with our struggles, and supporting our fight" *25
Mahalo nui kākou. A hui hou, mālama pono.
"Ua Mau ke Ea o ka ʻĀina i ka Pono."
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Work cited:
*1 Jabeen Waheed, "Simone Kessell, the breakout star of Yellowjackets, on diversity in Hollywood, the beauty of motherhood, and the expectations of playing 'Antler Queen' in season two," Glamour Magazine, March 31, 2023, https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/simone-kessell-yellowjackets
*2 Morgan Sloss, "Simone Kessell Revealed If She Would Return For "Yellowjackets" Season 4, And She Surprised Me," Buzzfeed, May 01, 2025, https://www.buzzfeed.com/morgansloss1/simone-kessell-interview-voices-of-the-pacific
*3 Craig Santos Perez, "New Pacific Islander Poetry," Poetry, July/August (2016), accessed August 31, 2025, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/89705/new-pacific-islander-poetry
*4 Maile Arvin, ""The Polynesian Problem": Western Studies of Pacific Islander Origins: Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology," March 17, 2021, virtual, web video, 1:04:48, https://peabody.harvard.edu/video-%E2%80%9C-polynesian-problem%E2%80%9D-western-studies-pacific-islander-origins
*5 Matilyn Mortensen, "Reducing anti-Pacific Islander bias on campus, a Q&A with Maile Arvin," theU. The University of Utah, January 26, 2024, https://attheu.utah.edu/uncategorized/reducing-anti-pacific-islander-bias-on-campus-a-qa-with-maile-arvin/
*6 Nikki Cristobal, "Holoi ā nalo Wāhine ‘Ōiwi: Missing and Murdered Native Hawaiian Women and Girls Task Force Report (Part 1)." Office of Hawaiian Affairs, December 2022, https://www.oha.org/wp-content/uploads/MMNHWG-Report-Web.pdf
*7 @softantlers, "Fr about your take on canon Lottie's sexual experience.," Are You My Keeper? (tumblr), August 20, 2025, https://www.tumblr.com/softantlers/792439454831968256/fr-about-your-take-on-canon-lotties-sexual?source=share
*8 Sunita Sohrabji, "Pacific Islanders Are Misrepresented in Mainstream Media," American Community Media, July 2, 2024, https://americancommunitymedia.org/race-relations/pacific-islanders-are-misrepresented-in-mainstream-media/
*9 Antje Deckert, Wairua Taru Grant Busby-Pukeiti, and Juan Tauri, "“Young Brown Men Being Brutish”: How Police Ten 7 Portrays Māori and Pacifica People as Violent and Criminal in Aotearoa New Zealand," Journal of Global Indigeneity Vol. 7, Issue 1, (2023), https://www.journalofglobalindigeneity.com/article/77757-young-brown-men-being-brutish-how-police-ten-7-portrays-maori-and-pacifica-people-as-violent-and-criminal-in-aotearoa-new-z2aland
*10 see note 9 above.
*11 "Psychedelic Drug Effects, Side Effects & Dangers," American Addiction Centers, October 25, 2024, https://americanaddictioncenters.org/psychedelics
*12 Seth Fletcher, "Are Psychedelic Mushrooms Addictive? Risks Explained," Canadian Centre for Addictions, April 14, 2025, https://canadiancentreforaddictions.org/are-psychedelic-mushrooms-addictive/
*13 "Protestant work ethic," EBSCO, accessed October 23, 3025, https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/protestant-work-ethic
*14 Shawn Malia Kana‘iaupuni, "Ka'akālai Kū Kanaka: A Call for Strengths-Based Approaches from a Native Hawaiian Perspective," Educational Researcher, Vol. 33, No. 9 (Dec 2004): 26-32, accessed August 31 2025, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3699821
*15 Jessie Mitchell, ""Country Belonging to Me”: Land and Labour on Aboriginal Missions and Protectorate Stations, 1830-1850," Eras Journal Ed. 6, (November 2004), https://www.monash.edu/arts/philosophical-historical-indigenous-studies/eras/past-editions/edition-six-2004-november/country-belonging-to-me-land-and-labour-on-aboriginal-missions-and-protectorate-stations-1830-1850#:~:text=(Australian%20National%20University),embracing%20hard%2C%20regular%20agricultural%20work.
*16 Patrick Lennox, "Have We Become Cynical about Native American Missions?," Mission to the World, June 30, 2016, https://mtw.org/stories/details/have-we-become-cynical-about-native-american-missions
*17 Mitchell, ""Country Belonging to Me”
*18 Erick Massoto and Perri Nemiroff, "There's Great Meaning in the Name "Wiskayok" in 'Yellowjackets' and We Know What It Is," Collider, Feb 28, 2025, https://collider.com/yellowjackets-season-3-hints-clues-tawny-cypress/
*19 Roxana Hadadi, "Yellowjackets’ Courtney Eaton on Lottie’s Heel Turn, Cast Theories, and Her Favorite Needle Drop," Vulture, January 9, 2022, https://www.vulture.com/article/courtney-eaton-yellowjackets-lottie-doomcoming-interview.html
*20 Waheed, "Simone Kessell, the breakout star of Yellowjackets,"
*21 Sloss, "Simone Kessell Revealed,"
*22 Bindu Bansinath, "Simone Kessell Wants to Throw a Very Kiwi Dinner Party," The Cut, April 17, 2023, https://www.thecut.com/2023/04/simone-kessell-yellowjackets-lottie-interview.html
*23 Perri Nemiroff, "'Yellowjackets' Season 2: Jasmin Savoy Brown Shares a Change She Pushed for That Happened," Collider, May 06, 2023, https://collider.com/yellowjackets-season-2-jasmin-savoy-brown-interview-taissa-akilah
*24 kfunggg, "Nia Sondaya Talks Akilah's Fate After the Yellowjackets S3 Finale, New Dynamics, and Those Visions," Apr 16, 2025, virtual, web video, 54:50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY3NwQrg3Gs
Contains spoilers for Seasons 1-3 of Yellowjackets
TW: discussion of substance abuse throughout, mentions of gun violence throughout, mentions of a suicide attempt, mentions and discussion of abuse and domestic violence, mentions of a fatal overdose
Word count: 5.2k
Writer's note: This essay will utilize she/her pronouns for Natalie Scatorccio and Van Palmer. This is for ease of essay writing, and is not intended to make any particular statement on how these characters' genders should be interpreted.
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The Undying Masculinity of Natalie Scatorccio
"Purpose, find a purpose."
Natalie Scatorccio. Punk rocker. Soccer player. Accidental expert on wilderness survival. No matter how we might conceptualize this character's gender, there is always an inherent masculinity present. As a teenager, this masculinity is obvious - Natalie, as the best shot in the group, is in charge of hunting and providing food for everyone. Natalie also exhibits many protective tendencies, as we see during Doomcoming where she fights to save Travis from the others. During her short time as leader the group was able to not just survive but also thrive, as we saw when they had the time, resources, and spare caloric energy to devote towards a leisure activity such as the solstice game of capture the bone. Despite the extreme circumstances, in many respects Natalie was in her element during this time.
And then she gets rescued, and taken out of the place where her masculinity shone so brightly. Then she is forced back into a world where this kind of expression, this kind of power, is not meant for her to access and display. The provider, the protector, the leader Nat was in the Canadian wilderness has no place in the society she returns to.
And then Natalie turns to drugs, alcohol, and sex in order to cope with everything she experienced during the 18 months she and her team were lost in the wilderness.
Who could blame her? Natalie's struggles with addiction and substance abuse make sense - as many have pointed out, after everything she went through, it's no wonder she wouldn't want to be sober. And given that the only support she seemed to receive was Taissa paying for her stints in rehab, it's not surprising that Natalie couldn't stay sober. Even when she was with Travis, the only survivor she mentions seeing with any kind of frequency, their reunions were centered around substance use. On the surface, we see this lifestyle as a means for Natalie to drown out the horrific things she witnessed and participated in. But this isn't the full story.
As Natalie herself says in the pilot, "I used to think all the drugs and the drinking and the sex, I used to think I did those things because of what happened out there. What I saw. What I did. But the real reason is much simpler. After they rescued us I lost my purpose."
When we think of Natalie Scatorccio, specifically when we compare her teenage self with her adult self, there is a tonal dissonance between them that makes it hard to connect them together. Outside of the story, we can simply say that Sophie Thatcher and Juliette Lewis had two different understandings of the character that they utilized for their respective portrayals. But if we dig deeper, and look more closely at the choices the actors and writers made, a different picture emerges.
Not only is Natalie Scatorccio most comfortable when she embodies masculinity, regardless of her gender, when she no longer could embody it in the way that was most comfortable to her she turned to substance use. Only in her final days, when she was sober, was she able to return to this form of expression that she discovered for herself in the wilderness.
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We meet adult Natalie on her last day in her latest rehab facility. During the group meeting where she utters the statement on losing her purpose, we see that there is a deference that the other members of the group have for her. When a younger member of the group has an outburst towards Nat, with regards to how little she speaks of her experiences, she is calmly silenced by the woman next to her (who, interestingly, is in this group as a result of her anger issues and a physical assault she committed). Nat is respected here, and it's clear from how the group facilitator speaks that she has spent her time in these meetings helping the others by sharing her own wisdom. We see glimpses of the leader she once was peeking through.
When she's released, the first thing Nat does is catch a flight back to New Jersey, where she goes to pick up her Porsche and the hunting rifle she had in a storage unit. The Porsche is pristine, indicating a great deal of effort and care has been exerted towards maintaining the vehicle. Notably, the rifle Nat kept in the unit looks nearly identical to the one she carried in the wilderness. It's very possible that it's even the very same rifle she carried, kept and maintained after all these years.
Right off the bat, this tells us several things. First and foremost, Nat prioritized having this sports car. As we discover when Dave, the storage manager, expresses his surprise at seeing Natalie, this storage unit was leased for a number of years. Being that the unit is in New Jersey, that means she willingly spent thousands, even tens of thousands, of dollars over the years to store this vehicle. Not only that, but the car was ready to drive right from the start. If gasoline is left to sit for too long not only will it eventually go bad, it will wreck the engine as well. The parts can rust and corrode. Insects and small animals can make their way into the storage unit and make a home in the vehicle. And yet, Nat's Porsche was ready to drive the moment she turned the key in the ignition. This is a very clear indication that someone maintained that car, and if it was not Natalie herself who did so, then she had someone else doing it. That is potentially tens of thousands of dollars more that she spent on that vehicle, in the form of replacement parts and labor costs.
All of that money could have been put towards any substance she desired, and yet she chose not to do that. She chose to expend a large sum of money towards keeping and maintaining the vehicle. Sports cars, as we see in media, are used as a material means of demonstrating masculinity. We have entire film franchises devoted to expensive cars as a means of performing masculinity. It stands to reason that keeping the Porsche allowed Natalie to express her masculinity in a socially acceptable way, and for that reason she was willing to financially invest in keeping the car, despite the fact that doing so would keep her from indulging even more deeply in her vices.
And then there's the gun. We are presented with two possibilities regarding the gun, as noted previously; either the rifle she kept in storage is the same model to the one she carried in the wilderness, or it is in fact the exact same one. Both possibilities carry their own implications, but the end result is the same. Natalie chose to keep a very real, very physical reminder of her time in the wilderness, to say nothing of her past experience with gun violence in her own home. Aside from the ways in which guns are used as decoration for American men in an effort to appear more masculine, carrying a gun allowed Nat to actually perform masculinity by providing sustenance for her team.
We also later see Nat choose to take up her rifle again, during her time at Lottie's commune. Though she is no longer as good of a shot as she once was, likely a result of her decades of substance abuse, she still tries to practice her aim. There's no discernible reason for it, given that the commune seemingly has no need of hunters or guards, but she still chooses to practice anyway. In particular, she chooses to do this after speaking with Lottie in the Sharing Shack, which indicates that she is choosing to practice shooting as a means of easing whatever tension she feels. We can safely assume that Natalie is still very knowledgeable about guns, as we saw her cleaning her rifle when Taissa called her regarding a sum of money they needed. Despite the gun violence she has experienced, despite needing to depend on a gun in order to keep herself and her team alive, and despite nearly taking her own life with it, Natalie chooses to not only keep her rifle around but use it as well. This decision to continue engaging with her rifle after everything she's been through speaks to the attachment she has towards the gun, and potentially even indicates that some of her sense of self is tied up with owning her rile.
And not only that, but she stored the gun with her car. This choice to keep the gun and car together, as well as her own demeanor during this time, evokes the image of the gritty, worn out hero of many Westerns. Natalie, on a mission to track down whoever dared to interrupt her self destructive path, retrieved her steed and her chosen weapon and rode off to confront her first target.
Give her a duster and a wide brimmed hat, and Natalie Scatorccio could give John Wayne a run for his money.
But, what about her choice of dress? If we are suggesting that the car and gun are examples of Nat's masculinity, then why doesn't she also reflect that in her clothes? To which I would argue that her masculinity is, in fact, reflected in what she wears. Once she's left the rehab facility Natalie adopts a style of dress that is, in so many words, erratic and conflicting. Where once Natalie had a defined punk style, now she dresses with all the precision of buckshot. Fishnets and jean shorts and heels and a bomber jacket-esque hoodie worn to a children's soccer game, fashion t-shirts and skintight leather pants as casual wear in a home setting, cheetah print pants at an upscale restaurant - these are wardrobe pieces that can fit together, but with the way Nat pairs them together they don't. This is to say nothing of the situations in which she chooses to wear these clothes, which are arguably odd if not outright inappropriate times and places.
Her fashion sense as an adult feels less like something chosen with intentionality and more like the wardrobe someone would put together if they had no clue how to dress in a style that was foreign to them. This is an abrupt shift from Natalie as a teenager, who had a clear and coherent sense of style. It suggests that Natalie, after years of being under the influence of any number of substances, has mostly snuffed out her ability to dress in a way that makes sense to her. Her style as a teenager, especially during her time in the wilderness, allowed her to express some degree of masculinity. Now as an adult, Nat simply wears whatever feminine coded clothing is available to her. She has traded in the clothes that gave her personality for clothes that function as a mismatched armor, more than anything else.
On the subject of Natalie's choice of clothes, we should also consider how she was dressed on the plane as she was dying. On the plane, she wore a black leather jacket and a red button up collared shirt. It stands to reason that her subconscious or spirit had the ability to choose what she wore as she passed, which means that Natalie chose an outfit similar to what she wore on the night she was coronated when she was a teenager. Natalie left the world of the living dressed as she had been the night her masculinity was recognized and celebrated. This decision to present herself like that, even if there was no one but the ghosts of the past around to see her, shows us that Natalie understood who she was, perhaps for the very first time, and that she was finally ready to stop running from this part of herself.
Contrast this with Van's death scene. As Van lay dying, her spirit chose to wear the same clothes she had on in life. Van was secure in her identity, in how she dressed and presented herself to the world. Van had no need for her subconscious to choose something else to wear as she passed, because her own masculinity was not something she ever ran from. She embraced it in life, no matter the negative attention that doing so would draw towards her. The difference between the two plane scenes implies that there is an element of choice in how the characters pass on, and the clothing choices made by these characters supports that idea
To take it a step further, when we take into consideration the environments Natalie and Van found themselves in aboard their respective planes, it is blatantly clear that these plane rides to whatever lays beyond for them are a reflection of their inner selves. Van's plane is calm and almost idyllic, and Natalie's is turbulent but still controlled. Van is met with a large screen television and her younger self, and Natalie sits beside younger versions of herself, Lottie, and Javi. Even their younger selves reflect their adolescent masculinity while aboard these final plane scenes; Van and Natalie's teenage selves wear similar clothing as their adult selves when they appear to them. In light of all this, it is greatly significant that adult Nat wore her black leather jacket and red button up shirt coronation outfit as she passed on as this shows us that this is how she feels about herself at her core.
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It's not just how Natalie dresses or what physical accessories she chooses, of course. Performing masculinity also includes how we act. Across many cultures, being a provider and a protector are both viewed as essential to proving one's masculinity. In a setting like Wiskayok being a provider would look much different than how it has historically, and being a protector in a modern day to day life would not be needed to the extent that it would have been in centuries past. But in a place like the Canadian wilderness, with the possibility of rescue diminishing each day, both of these roles were vitally important to the survival of the team. And while each person would have acted to some degree as both provider and protector for their teammates, Natalie was the most active in these roles. As an adult she admits to her therapy group that once they were rescued she lost her purpose, which means that Natalie believes that she is inherently meant to provide for and protect others.
The first time we see adult Natalie act as a provider for others is when she works with her surviving teammates to try and catch the individual blackmailing them. When Taissa calls her to say that she is unable to come up with the money, Natalie tells her that she'll take care of it. She doesn't say how, even when Tai asks, and later we see her climbing into Kevyn's car having sold her Porsche. The very same car that Natalie could have easily spent upwards of $100,000 to acquire, maintain, and store for several years despite not even using it. Nat parts with her Porsche without any hesitation in order to provide the funds to catch her team's blackmailer. Even twenty five years of pain, isolation, and separation later, Natalie Scatorccio continues to fulfill the role of provider for her team.
We should also consider Nat's relationship with Lisa. After being kidnapped and brought to Lottie's commune, the two meet each other and initially come into conflict. Once Nat has had time to settle in to life at the commune however, the two manage to make peace with each other. It is in doing so that Nat is able to observe Lisa's fraught home life. When she sees how much the 14th Gilly means to Lisa, and how distressed she is when interacting with her mother, Nat decides to steal Lisa's fish for her. She was not asked to do this, and there was no suggestion made to the effect. In doing this Natalie is acting as both a provider and a protector for Lisa, by giving her relief to her anguish and by ensuring she no longer has to interact with someone who antagonizes her. Her relationship with Lisa allows Nat to step into these roles for someone other than her surviving teammates.
Doing so ultimately has fatal consequences for Natalie. When Lisa intervenes in the queen hunt, she is brandishing Nat's rifle. Suddenly Natalie is the one staring down the barrel, just as she had when Travis turned the gun on her twenty five years before, and just as her father did when she pointed his gun at him. Unlike her father, however, she reacts calmly in the face of Lisa's distress, attempting to talk her down and acquiescing to Lisa's demand to drop her knife. It's only when Misty brandishes her syringe of fentanyl to inject it into Lisa that Natalie moves. In this scene we see Natalie flash back to Javi's death, and it's this traumatic memory that propels her into action despite the fact that there is still a gun pointed at her. Nat is unwilling to let someone else die in her place, and because of this she pushes Lisa out of the way, taking the syringe of fentanyl in her place. She passes on, surrounded by her teammates in the physical world and comforted in the metaphysical one by the echos from the place she came of age in. She dies having protected someone she cares for.
There is also Nat's capabilities as a leader to contend with. Once she's sold her Porsche, Nat climbs into Kevyn's car. He informs her that he's received a call from his ex, and that he has something he needs to do. Kevyn offers to drop Nat off, but also suggests that she can come along. Nat elects to stick with Kevyn, and we next see the pair attending his son Mason's soccer game. After a short exchange about Nat's own experience with playing soccer, she gives him some advice on how to play against a specific opponent. Mason takes her advice, and is able to score a goal. Though she immediately has a trauma related episode and has to step away from the game, Mason's team is able to win their game. As Kevyn tells her, "that move you gave Mason clinched it." Though we can assume she has avoided soccer for decades by this point in time, her strategic insights are still as sharp as ever. Importantly, she does not keep this insight to herself, and instead chooses to share it with Mason in order to help him succeed. Despite years of substance abuse Nat's mind is still sharp, and she is naturally inclined towards putting her skills and her knowledge to use for the sake of others. She has an internal drive to lead and guide others, and the ways that she does it suggests that her style of leadership combines her abilities as a provider and protector. We can only imagine what the story would have looked like if Natalie had been captain of the Yellowjackets in high school, as opposed to Jackie.
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One might ask, "How does any of this indicate that Natalie Scatorccio is more comfortable emulating masculinity?" To which I would posit that everything mentioned to this point are just the behaviors, qualities, and presentations that Natalie has displayed during and after twenty five years of substance abuse. As a teenager Nat actively chose not to drink during Doomcoming, even when she had permission from Ben to do so. She could have used the psychedelic mushrooms at any point in time, even during her tenure as leader, but she chose not to. She chose to remain completely sober during her time in the wilderness, and it's during this period of sobriety that Nat's masculinity presents most strongly. In the adult timeline, though she still drinks, she manages to maintain a level-headedness that she would not have if she were in the midst of another bender. It's in this not quite sober state that we begin to see bits and pieces of her masculinity come to the surface. When she chooses to quit substance use entirely, including alcohol, we begin to see her masculinity present itself in full.
It's clear that, when it comes to Natalie Scatorccio, engaging with her internal masculinity is incompatible with substance use. She can do one or the other, but not both at the same time. But, as Natalie herself says, she lost her purpose when she and the surviving team were rescued. There was no need for her to continue accessing and utilizing her masculinity. Given the environment she grew up in, the treatment she would have seen Van experience as a butch lesbian in the 90s, and the media circus that surrounded the team once news of their survival reached the rest of the world, it's not a surprise that Natalie would feel disincentivized to embrace her masculinity.
Given fan speculation and some oblique references made throughout the show, for the sake of this essay we will assume that Wiskayok is located in Monmouth County, New Jersey. A quick skim through Monmouth's record of voting during presidential elections *1 makes it clear that for the majority of Nat's life, Monmouth has voted Republican. There were only two elections in Nat's lifetime where this was not the case, the 1996 and 2000 presidential elections, the first of which she was not around to witness. Wiskayok is also likely to be rich, given that the median household income for Monmouth was approximately $53,000 *2 in 1996, roughly $111,000 in 2025 dollars. This indicates that Wiskayok is a wealthy and conservative town, or at the very least a significant percent of the population is likely to be.
Natalie is not as well off financially as many of her peers, and would have faced discrimination for that in her wealthy town. She would have seen Van, of similar socioeconomic status as well as being more undeniably masculine, being treated poorly for both of these things in the conservative environment they lived in. She would have been at least somewhat cognizant of the sociopolitical environment she lived in, possibly even more aware than many of her peers given the subcultures she and her closest friends participated in and her own social status within her community. Once the pressure of a media circus began to pile on, the smartest thing to do would be to present as conventionally as possible. But, conforming to others' expectations is not Nat's style. She is keenly aware of what others think of her, and she does not let their judgement rule her life.
She does however seek relief from the cards her life has dealt her, as well as a means of filling the hole left behind by no longer being able to actualize herself like she had in the wilderness, which gave her a sense of fulfillment in her life despite the dire circumstances. For Natalie, that relief came in the form of substance abuse and casual sex. And if her masculinity is unable to shine through while she is under the influence, then that would be an additional and half-heartedly welcome relief for Nat, as she would not have to deal with any further pressure on her with regards to her inner sense of self.
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This does not, however, take into account one very crucial influence in her life - that of her parents.
We are first introduced to Mr. Scatorccio, who appears in a nightmare Nat has about the plane crashing. With a turn of his head, he reveals to us that prior to the start of the show he acquired a fatal head wound. He tells Nat that she "already has blood on [her] hands," and the shot pans down to show Natalie's rifle in her gasp. Later, we meet Vera Scatorccio when we see her fast asleep on the couch in the Scatorccio home while Nat sneaks her friend Kevyn in to hang out in her room. As it is slowly revealed to us, this is the day her father died. We see Mr. Scatorccio react explosively to Kevyn's presence in the home, and then behave aggressively towards Natalie when she attempts to defend Kevyn. Vera intervenes in the unfolding domestic situation between Natalie and her abusive father, for which Mr. Scatorccio strikes her down in front of Natalie. Nat reacts to this by retrieving his gun and attempting to shoot him. When she fails to do so as a result of the gun's safety still being on, Mr. Scatorccio takes the gun from her and mocks Nat by demonstrating how to turn the safety on and off. This is what ultimately kills him, as when he turns to confront Natalie after she calls him "the useless one," he trips and shoots himself with the gun, having forgotten to turn the safety back on. Vera reacts to his death by rushing to his body and weeping over him, while Natalie stands by and watches.
It's worth briefly touching on the fact that, every time Mr. Scatorccio threatened someone else during this altercation, Natalie's instinctive reaction was to defend the other person even at the cost of being harmed further by her father. Even before her time in the wilderness, Natalie was a protector, indicating that this is an inherent part of who she is.
Given that our introduction to Mr. Scatorccio was Nat's nightmare of him sitting beside her with a drink in hand as the plane was going down, it is safe to say that he likely abused alcohol, which would mean that Natalie would have a genetic predisposition to substance abuse on at least one side of her family. Additionally, there are headcanons that Vera also deals with addiction and substance abuse. If she does, then that would give Nat a genetic predisposition on both sides of her family.
This does not even factor in Natalie's experiences with physical and verbal abuse. As discussed by many studies, such as the ones cited in a study published in the Journal of Stress, children who experience physical abuse will as adults report abusing substances at higher rates than their peers who did not share the same childhood experience. *3 Furthermore, as cited by Tawakkol in a literature review for the Arizona Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, "Problems like drug abuse, alcohol abuse, depression, mania, and mood episode frequency are all likely to increase in severity due to verbal abuse." *4
Natalie had many factors working against her with regards to her susceptibility to drug and alcohol addiction. And yet despite all of that, when it would have been perfectly understandable for her to cope with substances while trying to survive in the wilderness, Natalie chooses to remain sober. In doing so she allows her innate masculinity to come forward, which she is able to utilize towards the cause of her team's and her own survival. The same can be said for Natalie as an adult. Even after so many years and so much substance abuse, Natalie still retains the masculinity that made her a provider and a protector, and for a short while a leader.
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One does not need to be a specific gender in order to embody masculinity. Which is why however we view her, we cannot deny that Natalie Scatorccio carries within her a deep and undeniable masculinity, even if she buried it for an extended period of her life. Her substance abuse as an adult is, in her own words, a result of losing her purpose. Once the surviving team was rescued, she stopped being their provider and their protector. She stopped being their leader. Nat no longer had a means to express her masculinity, nor a reason. So, she turned to drugs, alcohol, and sex in order to fill this void that she felt. But even in spite of her attempts at numbing out everything she felt post rescue, that masculinity still came through in her actions. Finally achieving sobriety also meant that she could embrace her masculinity fully.
Natalie's arc as an adult is about making peace with herself and coming to terms with her past. When she attempted to relapse, she was prevented from doing so by Misty. When she attempted to end her own life, she was prevented from doing so by Lottie. With no other avenues left to her, her only option was to move forward. In doing so, Nat was able to briefly build community with people who valued the masculinity she displayed, and because of that acceptance she was able to actualize herself fully.
The great tragedy of this character arc, however, is that Natalie could not leave the others behind. She was their leader, after all. If she was going to try to come to terms with the past, she was going to give the others the chance to do so as well. And it's in doing this, in stepping into her masculinity fully, that Natalie ultimately lost her life. This is not to suggest that acceptance of oneself would or even should lead to a character's passing. Rather, because of the constraints of the story Natalie appears in, death is the vehicle by which peace may be attained for the characters.
As the show itself tells us, "Of all the ways to lose someone, death is the kindest." Death grants the characters peace, which is a great kindness after everything they have been through.
On the plane, at the encouragement of the specter of teenage Lottie, Nat is able to "let it in" and relax into her passing. This is the final step for Natalie in embracing her masculinity, and by doing this she is able to find peace and ultimately move on from her difficult life.
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*1 "1980 United States presidential election in New Jersey." Wikipedia. accessed August 3, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_United_States_presidential_election_in_New_Jersey
*2 "Table Data - Estimate of Median Household Income for Monmouth County, NJ." Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. accessed August 3, 2025. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/data/MHINJ34025A052NCEN
*3 Min, Meeyoung, Kathleen Farkas, Sonia Minnes, and Lynn T. Singer. "Impact of Childhood Abuse and Neglect on Substance Abuse and Psychological Distress in Adulthood." Journal of Traumatic Stress Vol. 20, No. 5, (October 2007): 833–844 https://case.edu/academicaffairs/sites/default/files/2018-03/Journal-of-Traumatic-Stress%2C-2007%2C-20%285%29%2C-833-844.pdf
*4 Tawakkol, Aiya. "The Psychological Impact of Verbal Abuse: A Scientific Literature Review." Arizona Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies (Spring 2025): 38-52
