ok wait. hallucination/dream jackie actually brings up a great point! shauna is possibly the worst communicator out of the yellowjackets! she deceives, she lies, she covers things up and then gets mad when people don't know what she wants. like girl, jackie had NO idea that you didn't want to be called shipman. she didn't know you liked jeff, she didn't know you resented her or how inferior she made you feel because you never fucking told her! the crux of like 99% of jackieshaunas issues stems from the fact that shauna is incapable of communicating issues before they bubble over into fits of rage! which shauna knows! because when she told jackie she was bothered by the dress/randi hookup thing in season 1 jackie immediately dropped it! COMMUNICATE SHAUNA!!! pls for the sake of literally everyone COMMUNICATE!
ok so lowkey adult melissa was justified! don't snipe me y'all explanation under cut!
spoiler warning for yj s3 ep9
look obviously i didn't want van to die! i love van! this is a van fan household! but! but! to be fair to melissa! she's just been assaulted in her own home by her crazy abusive ex girlfriend, forced to eat her own flesh to escape (from her OWN house), and was then kidnapped and tied up by her former friends and held hostage in HER house where they didn't listen to anything she had to say and were listening to crazy abusive ex-girlfriend so.... just putting that out there...
and then one of crazy abusive ex-girlfriends partners in crime (our lovely van <3) stands over her with a knife spouting off about the possibly non-existent cannibalistic god of the wilderness saying it wants van to kill her so van can live! so... yeah no id probably get stabby with anyone in the vicinity in order to escape! just saying! melissa may or may not be a crazy murderer, but also yeah this was pretty justifiable in my opinion
i think we are going to see the group split in mentality next episode. both tai and lottie (and lowkey akilah) showed hesitation at rescue. van, travis and nat are all obviously willing to go even tho it'd mean the truth coming out. shauna thinks they could leave AND have no witnesses, so i think theres going to be a split of some kind next episode. especially considering that they have HOSTAGES now.
ah yes, the cannibalistic soccer team trapped in the canadian wilderness has captured hostages and are probably going to murder and eat them. trying to recommend this show without being seen as a menace to society is like trying to disarm a bomb ngl
i think that while jackie loved shauna in a romantic context, shauna did not. now hear me out!!! there was definetly something between them, but I dont think that shaunas resentment and jealousy would allow her to actually feel genuine romantic love for jackie. also post mortem I just dont think shauna could even process her feelings toward jackie without her guilt warping her perception. like, consistently we see her hallucinate jackie as a much meaner and cutting version of herself when that is just... not accurate. also something something melissa was an attempt at filling jackies void and when that didn't work she just self destructed and repressed herself even more something something...
I'd even go as far to say that I dont know if shauna is capable of feeling romantic love at all. not in like an aromantic way but in a "I conflate your direct usefulness to me as romance and love and when you dont provide that i self destruct and take you down with me" sort of way. she's definetly capable of feeling love, ie. wilderness baby and callie (although showing it very... poorly), but none of her romantic relationships/situationships seem to be genuine outside of what she can use them for. and the second any of them put up any resistance to her she just can't handle it
she loved jackie, but mostly the idealized version of her she wanted to be. but also she definetly wanted to kiss her. and also tear her apart. its complicated.
ok so I havent seen anyone point this out yet, but im pretty sure the girls are still starving? this ties in with the whole yellow filter theory (is there a actual name for that btw?) Because I think things aren't what they seem!!!
(spoilers for s3 ahead be warned)
so, we're shown in episode 1 that the girls have set up a functional animal farm AND we're told by Gen that there is plenty of deer to be hunted. this, along with the fact that they are willing to expend a lot of energy and time playing games like capture the bone and have a fairly extravagant feast implies that the girls (and travis) are all doing well in terms of food. however, in both episodes 1 and 3 we are shown evidence that directly contrasts this idea!!!
first example happens with Coach Ben in episode 1 when he comes across the food stash. we know that out of everyone he has probably been showing the most thruthful version of the wilderness (see the Jackie feast scene). so, right before he finds the pit we're shown an empty rabbit(?) trap that he resets. this on its own doesn't necessarily mean anything other than he got unlucky, but we've also been repeatedly shown since season 1 (when he taught the girls how to hunt and field dress animals) that he's got a good grasp on outdoor survival even with his missing leg. i dont think we see him catch or find any food during that whole sequence until he finds the food stash, which is a bit odd considering that according to the girls there is plenty of food to be found, which ties into my second point: Akilah's hallucination.
immediately after finding the berry bushes in her hallucination sequence she begins eating them incredibly fast and almost aggressively (like shes STARVING), when within the girls own reasoning there should be no reason for her to react so manically. we are told explicitly in episode 2 by Nat that there are plenty of berry bushes in multiple different areas (one of which being where we know Coach Ben is, so shouldn't he, an experienced outdoorsman, have been able to locate some, hm?). so we can deduce that akilahs reaction probably isnt just excitement at having fresh fruit! she was also one of the girls who were being served food at the feast, so we know that she just had access to a fair amount of food in the last day or so, so there shouldnt be any reason for to be as hungry as she seems
those are my main 2 examples of the fact that there doesnt seem to be nearly as much food as the girls are saying there is, but id also like to point out the fact that Mari ate a fucking bat? like it was likely just part of the ruse to get the bear spray from Coach Ben, but also thats one hell of a risk for her to take considering that bats are well known (even in the 90s) carriers of rabies. and while shes not the sharpest tool in the shed, she has shown that shes intelligent enough to trick both shauna and ben, so its not totally far out to assume shes smart enough to know that. and frankly i dont know if id be willing to risk getting rabies or some other disease unless im actually starving so, just pointing that out :)
id also like to point out that the feast in episode 1 looks a lot like the hallucination from when they ate Jackie! including the way the table is set up and the outfits!!! which makes me think that along with the weird yellow filter that all of that is just an idealized version of reality that the girls are projecting
also back to the animal farm, how did they manage to catch live rabbits? as someone whos owned multiple rabbits, its basically fucking impossible to catch them when they get loose outside and dont want to be caught, which im assuming since these are WILD rabbits that they do not. also, as many have pointed out, that they also have a domesticated breed of duck? could be just an unintentional thing, but considering how in depth and full of meaning every other detail of the show is id be surprised if it wasnt intentional!
tl:dr: the yellowjackets say they have a lot of food, but never actually show them catching or finding any and act like they are starving when presented with food. (and Mari eats a fucking bat) so methinks they are not doing as good as they say they are
sry this got long and rambly and idk maybe this is all a reach and im grasping at straws but i thought id just put it out there in case someone else thought the same. im not a theorist so pls do not eviscerate me if this sounds stupid pls and thank u :)
okay so i have a theory about how akilah (and possibly many more) is going to die! i wasn't going to mention it till i had more proof but i've connected some dots. current working name is the Bite Theory because "everything with teeth bites" :)
obviously, spoilers for s3 ahead, be warned!
i think the yellowjackets are going to get rabies. at the very least akilah! theres a couple things that make me think this, the main being what we saw in her hallucination in episode 3. we're told by the talking llama that "everything with teeth bites", which while it could mean a variety of things i think its probably a very literal meaning in akilahs case. her whole thing this season (and a large part of season 2) revolves around caring for animals. wild animals. and its fairly likely that that the reality that the yellowjackets have shown is not accurate to what is really happenong (yellow filter theory), so i think theres one of two ways that the Bite Theory could happen.
1.) and the most straightforward, akilah is bitten by one of the animals shes caring for or an animal she comes across in the wilderness. possibly in the caves since it's likely that a fair amount of season 3 is going to revolve around them. this could also be what her sinking into the dirt in her hallucination could mean. the wilderness is taking her, like the way it took laura lee and javi, into it and under it. further evidence supporting this theory is how weird all the animals are in the wilderness. the suddenly dead birds, the sick bear, even the wolves were strange because wolves generally do not go out of their way to attack humans, especially not humans in groups (from my understanding). while this may be due to some other phenomenon occurring out in the wilderness (possibly due to heavy metal poisoning) we at the very least know that the animals out in the wilderness are NOT normal.
as for the 2nd way the Bite Theory could occur, its a little more out there, but personally my favorite and i think would work well with the girls further descent into the wilderness:
2.) and, the more outlandish, is akilah being infected by coach ben or mari. akilah has shown herself to be a very compassionate character, especially within season 3, and i think thats going to get her killed. from what we know currently of the final survivors, its reasonably safe to say the neither akilah or ben are likely to make it through the final winter. we also know that pit girl is probably either gen or mari, however, with the "It Girl" episode the general consensus is that its probably gen, and the "It Girl" episode is a misdirect. so, mari probably died before the final winter. we have also directly been shown mari AND ben consuming bats (gross), which as i mentioned in my previous theory, are EXTREMELY well known carriers of rabies. and we already know that all of the wilderness animals are NOT well. rabies can also be contracted through eating an infected animal, so even if neither of them were bitten during their time in the cave its still possible for them to contract the virus. ben has also been living in these caves for MONTHS and exposed to bats and likely other rodents the entire time. we also know he's not well because mari hears him talking to "something", so maybe it was because of the gas in the caves or maybe he's already sick and losing his mind.
so assuming either ben or mari (if not both) are infected at the current point, how would akilah be infected? if its ben i think it will be dependent on his outcome during the trial. if hes found guilty i think he'll try and escape and end up attacking and biting akilah during the process. if he's found not guilty (or held prisoner) he'll get gradually sicker and akilah will try and help him, maybe by bringing him berries, hm? if its mari that bites akilah i think it will happen at the end of the season or after a timeskip. mari is clearly a more important character this season, so i imagine her death will be fairly dramatic. i could see her getting extremely sick and lashing out in a fit and biting akilah.
also another thing to note is that literally in the 1st episode of season 3 we see mari get bitten by shauna!!!! which considering how symbolic yellowjackets is could totally mean something since "everything with teeth bites" seems like its going to be an important theme this season.
another reason i think this theory holds weight is because i don't see ben NOT being eaten when he dies. they hate him and as much as the girls claim to "not being doing that anymore" i really don't see them wasting that much food. they've been willing to eat people and they will again, so i think they'd need a better reason than morals to stop them now. same with akilah and mari, i think depending on how close to winter they die they'd be willing to eat them even tho they care a lot more about them than ben. unless they cant, in which case they'd either burn or bury (cough cough like in akilahs hallucination cough cough) them. also shauna straight up says she wishes they'd eaten mari first so.... definitely not gonna be morals that stop her.
we also know they literally do go back to cannibalism at least by winter. why? well, it could be because they have run out of food, but if they know how hard winter is wouldn't they have prepared better? unless they can no longer trust their food to be safe.
anyway thats a lot to read so tl:dr: theory goes, akilah gets bit by either a.) animal b.) coach ben, or c.) mari and contracts rabies, dies and results in the girls going back to cannibalism.
maybe im totally off base here idk but this was fun to think about! sorry this got really long and i think i even missed a few things to say, but thanks if you read this far! (also if anyone agrees or has more to add pls let let me know!)
i think mistymarinat would just be the funniest dynamic ever. perhaps even more dysfunctional than jackieshauna. just nat and her 2 freaks who hate each other but also kinda worship her
