my analysis/cornplating of the famous shauna/lottie scene. 2x07 is such a powerful episode and i have a lot to say about it so buckle up
before shauna even enters the cabin, the main "believers" seem to be holding some kind of prayer circle. there's lottie leading it with travis and akilah on either side of her, possibly foreshadowing their wilderness trio dynamic in season three. then we have van and mari, two of the biggest supporters of lottie and the wilderness religion/cult at this point in time, misty, who most likely does not actually believe in any supernatural entities but sticks with the believers to protect her standing with the group as a whole and find validation/community. then there's tai, who doesn't believe but goes along with it to please van + try to cure her sleepwalking.
something i find especially interesting about this short scene are the people who aren't participating. javi is sitting near travis without being a part of the circle, which makes sense since he is very traumatized and scared at this point and doesn't seem to want anything to do with anyone who isn't travis, nat, or ben. then there's melissa, who is sitting across the room from the prayer circle, and gen who isn't in the frame but is in the main room or near the main room since we see her a moment later.
up until now, both mel and gen have been regularly (i think) attending the prayer circles. other than that, they pretty much keep to themselves this season aside from gen hanging around mari and akilah and mel hanging around shauna and having some interactions with van. in season three, misty makes a comment about gen not having attended all the prayer circles and melissa "going either way" when it comes to believing in the wilderness (which was probably more of a subtle dig at her relationship with shauna/a threat to out her) so we can assume that gen and mel are lukewarm wilderness believers who were just following the group in season two. after the blizzard stops, they both make comments showcasing a newfound hopelessness in the wilderness entity they'd been following (gen: that's the trade? two people dead for a break in the snow? melissa: that sucks.) so it could very well be that shauna's stillbirth + being trapped in the cabin for days + being miserable and starving even more made them both give up on being a part of the believers group.
when shauna comes into the cabin, mel glances up and she and shauna share a quick look. (shaunahat crumb). i think its kind of sad that everyone else takes their sweet time noticing that shauna is back even though she's assumably been gone for half the day. even tai doesn't move, which makes me wonder what lottie was encouraging them to think about that had them all so locked in.
the last time we saw shauna she was hysterically crying in the meat shed, and based on her expression and the marks around her eyes, that was probably within the hour of this scene. it's been a few days since her stillbirth at this point, which means there is a lot that leads up to her breaking point here. she is absolutely still exhausted and in severe physical pain, and she's spent the last few days assumably lying motionless with her baby's corpse pressed to her chest, and she's probably also quite dehydrated as we see her refusing water. as we see in the scene towards the beginning of the episode when they strip the bed she gave birth on, she's still having hallucinations of the team eating her baby. her paranoia and resentment is now incredibly high, and even though she buried her baby a few hours ago, she is now back to completely believing that he was eaten.
shauna's expression before she punches misty is really interesting. we can tell by the position go her eyebrows especially, that this isn't anger, its fear and despair. misty humming the same song that the yellowjackets were humming in shauna's hallucination is proof to her that it really did happen, that misty (and by extension, all of them) are mocking her and purposefully reminding her of what they did to her baby. a note about the song, misty says it's something crystal was singing, which is probably why it was in shauna's subconscious in the first place and wormed it's way into her hallucination. according to reddit, some of the lyrics to the song "qui" that is hummed are: by giving birth to a new well-being, another happiness? who will take over to fulfill your dreams.
nat's reaction here is a good reminder that the other yellowjackets don't know what's going on in shauna's mind. nat is quick to jump in and physically defend misty (a byproduct of growing up in a violent home) and tell shauna that misty did everything she could. it seems like the general assumption here is that shauna is lashing out at misty because misty was the one primarily trying to deliver her baby. after all, while shauna was accusing them of doing something to her baby when she woke up after giving birth, her explanation was frantic and jumbled and she allowed tai to hold her afterwards and didn't lash out at anyone, so at this point none of them have any reason to assume that shauna believes they ritualistically stole and ate her baby. but now her paranoia and rage has been festering and building for days, so when shauna starts screaming and accusing the group of having done this, they're all genuinely shocked, because: where did that come from?
shauna functions like an animal caught in a trap here, with the way she thrashes against van and akilah’s hold on her and uses her teeth to attack the nearest hand. i don’t think this is a malicious bite (not like when she later bites mari and then mel in the adult timeline) this is just pure desperation.
despite how hard she was fighting to be free, shauna freezes up the moment lottie steps in front of her. at this point lottie is enemy number one in shauna’s mind. she’s been overstepping shauna’s boundaries about her baby all season, and this manifested in an especially sinister way in shauna’s hallucination, as lottie was the one to take her baby from her while she was sleeping and possibly lead the group to eat him. shauna also likely feels that lottie has “taken” tai from her as tai began joining the prayer circle and siding with lottie, something shauna barely had time to process because she went into labour immediately after.
on the other hand, lottie has also been validating and supporting shauna. she was the only one to defend her and show understanding when it was revealed to the group what shauna was doing with jackie’s corpse, and she also comforted shauna afterwards and gave her jackie’s necklace to wear, which we know meant a great deal to shauna.
all of these circumstances put together creates very conflicting feelings about lottie to shauna. in her face we see a mixture of mostly fear and despair
which switches to rage a moment later.
lottie is so interesting here. she has basically no reaction to shauna punching her. i think lottie and shauna both become disconnected from their bodies in this scene, shauna losing herself to violence and lottie possibly dissociating.
according to this interview with courtney eaton (teen lottie’s actress) this is a moment of both selflessness and self harm. lottie frequently endures pain (cutting her palm) in order to connect with the wilderness and possibly bear the burden of the messiah role the others have placed on her. she places herself as a punching bag for shauna to protect the group and allow shauna a place to release some of her anger, while simultaneously trying to punish herself.
i am obsessed with how lottie puts her hands behind her back. this is a technique used to soothe frightened (smaller) animals to show them you’re not a threat, but it’s not recommended for wild animal encounters (which is what this scene reminds me of) because it leaves you defenceless. but that’s exactly what lottie wants. she’s showing shauna that she’s submitting to her.
i love the expressions of these three. van is looking to lottie for guidance as we’ve seen her do all season, (and she has her arm around shauna ☹️) shauna is silently preparing herself for what she’s about to do, and akilah looks heartbreakingly young and scared.
i think this is the moment when gen truly appears for the first time in this scene. before this, she was standing by akilah just out of frame. something i like is that while she’s staring at what’s happening, akilah has turned her entire face away. akilah is no stranger to violence and gore; she didn’t turn around when misty hacked ben’s leg off, and she was the one to stitch van’s face back together. but direct violence from one of them towards another is what makes her look away.
i really love this shot. shauna is stalking around lottie’s body like a predator, everyone else is standing with their hands limply at their sides, and the antlers from the mantle almost look like they’re protruding from her head, similar to the famous shot of lottie in front of them in season one.
another thing i love about the group shot is that we can see it’s only the girls who are bearing witness to this. travis takes javi to the bedroom and doesn’t return, and ben is either wandering in the woods or also hiding out in the bedroom (i genuinely don’t remember where he was at this point in the episode). this is one of the moments of the show that frames female adolescence as being a terrifying and monstrous experience.
lottie looks directly up at shauna as she beats her. this reminds me of when adult lottie tells callie that looking into shauna’s eyes is “like looking straight into the earth” which is an intensely weird and almost romantic thing to say. i think that’s what lottie is experiencing here. she sees all the power of ‘it’ in shauna.
van’s expression while lottie is being beaten is so chilling. she starts off looking worried and empathetic and eventually shifts into this colder look of understanding. according to this interview with liv hewson (teen van’s actor) this is the moment when van accepts that violence is the new norm for them and there is no turning back. van has also been incredibly devoted to lottie this season, which i think is a big part of why she doesn’t step in. lottie is allowing this to happen, which, in van’s mind, means that it must happen.
misty is truly terrifying in this clip. we know she is deeply drawn to power and control, and seeing shauna destroy the image of lottie (who misty has also been devoted to) is extremely exciting for her.
nat reacts like she’s watching a train wreck. she doesn’t want to watch, but she can’t look away. we know that this is not the first time nat has experienced something like this. she also stood and watched with a similar expression as her dad beat her mom (and then she pulled out his gun, which didn’t end well). nat has been trying to maintain the group’s humanity and rationality (laying jackie’s bones to rest, hunting and mapping out the area, showing disgust towards the wilderness cult) and witnessing the group’s descent into ritualistic violence horrifies her.
shauna looks so incredibly devastated as she beats lottie. this is not a triumphant moment for her. i feel like at this point she wants to stop but can’t.
like akilah, tai also doesn’t watch, but her covering her eyes seems more like exhaustion and stress. i feel like there is some self blame involved here. tai holds herself to high standards and puts herself under a lot of pressure. i also think she feels responsible for shauna because shauna has been incredibly physically and mentally vulnerable during the last months of her pregnancy, and tai was the main person looking out for her, as well as the main person taking care of her during and after the birth. for shauna to go completely off the rails like this, tai probably feels like she could have and should have done more to prevent this.
i also love how it seems like nat is reaching forward purely on instinct- she doesn’t actually step forward or do anything to stop it, her hands just hover uselessly in the air.
mari has a pattern of orbiting the girls who carry influence over the group (jackie, lottie, then nat) and she has been a devoted follower of the wilderness cult all season. we see her clinging to lottie and treating her like more of a beacon of hope than a person. mari depended on lottie to make her feel safe, and seeing that image of lottie as an untouchable holy figure be shattered has her literally curling in on herself in anguish.
mel has the mildest reaction out of everyone. she has violent and cruel tendencies like the rest of them, but we also know her to be sensitive and kind (why can’t you just be a nice person? and i’m sorry for everything that’s happened to you) so her not really seeming all that upset here is very intriguing. in season two it seems like melissa is already drawn to shauna, and seeing this new, powerful shauna be born strengthens this, according to this interview with jenna burgess (teen melissa’s actress).
once it’s done, lottie has her hand placed on shauna’s shoulder like a silent gesture of reassurance even though she’s barely conscious. also the space between the crook of lottie’s elbow, their heads, and then the bones jutting into the frame kind of makes the shape of a heart. (i’m reaching here).
i love how shauna leans on lottie in order to get off the floor, then keeps her hand on lottie’s arm for longer than necessary. it looks almost like she’s stroking lottie as she slowly removes her hand. there’s something very intimate about this entire moment between them, even amidst the violence.
van is the first person to rush to lottie’s side. everyone else seems momentarily stunned and waiting for shauna to leave before they intervene, but van is already on the floor beside lottie before shauna has even reached the door.
lottie’s position on the floor also mirrors that of jesus on the cross. she’s often presented as a ‘christ-like’ figure, (the others projecting their needs onto her, laura lee baptizing her, stirring her blood into nat and travis’s tea) but rather than a true saviour, she’s a vessel for the group.
prguitarman
snowghoul
theartofmadeline
pixelskylines
vaporwave
jbbartram-illu
