ugh, there is just something delicious about the parallel between mistynat and jackieshauna in the first two episodes of the new season. i barely know where to start.
obviously, misty and shauna lose their best friends. they're both to blame/blame themselves for nat and jackie's death, because essentially, they killed them.
misty actively kills nat whereas shauna passively kills jackie, which shows the difference in their relationship. but at the end of the day, once they realised what they'd done, they have a similar reaction. screaming 'no' in disbelief and holding them in their arms. they refuse to believe not only their best friend is dead, but they've killed them.
OH! and they're both too late to save them. shauna is too late to save jackie from the cold and misty cries, 'it's too late' when tai asks her how to save nat. i can't believe i almost forgot this!
another obvious parallel, misty wearing nat's jacket!! we see that shauna can't seem to let go of jackie's butterfly top, treating it as a security blanket, and now in the adult timeline misty clings onto nat's jacket. both items of clothing are physical reminders of their 'best friend' that they lost.
finally, what parallel stuck out to me the most: misty and shauna became the versions of their friends they THOUGHT they were. shauna marries jeff and becomes a suburban housewife, misty dresses like nat and goes to a bar to do whisky shots and pick bar fights.
however, nat was more than an alcoholic, despite being reduced by misty to a caricature. she feels purposeless after the woods, she's broken and from what we've seen, isolated. nat barely leaves her hotel room except to do risky shit like chase the blackmailer or help shauna dispose of adam's body. the most we see her reach out is to kevyn, who she immediately pushes away when he tries to break down her walls. she's built up this alcholic, uncaring, asshole wall to keep people out.
so when misty plays her as some rough, badass femme fatale, she's demonstrating to the audience that she hardly knows nat. she only knew nat's exterior, and nothing like her true character. to put it frankly, misty never truly knew nat because nat didn't want her to. so when misty 'becomes nat' she's becoming the shallow understanding she has of her best friend.
this ties into shauna never truly understanding jackie's true character. not because jackie hid it from her, but shauna's resentment of her did. every action we see from jackie is protective of shauna—giving her valium to calm down, saving her from the plane explosion, and even 'allowing shauna to eat her.'
however, shauna can't see how much jackie loves her because of her own bitter resentment. even as a ghost jackie is seemingly punishing shauna for letting her die, but most importantly, for hating her while she was alive.
'i don't know who you are anymore shauna.'
'maybe you never did.'
if anything, it should be completely switched around. shauna doesn't know anything about jackie. shauna is projecting this mean girl persona on jackie that just isn't there.
misty is projecting this badass, gets in bar fights and tries to light men's dicks on fire persona onto nat. sure, nat has done those things, but that isn't who she is at the core. just like how being a mean girl isn't who jackie is at her core (i've gone more into depth before, here).
i love mistynat as much as the next yellowjacket fan, but we have to be honest, for the most part, nat was always cagey with misty. something happened out in the woods that made her distrust misty, and i think they're going to explore that this season. especially with the whole, misty telling shauna that nat knows where coach ben is.
both misty and shauna make up these fantasies about their best friends to connect with them after their deaths. it's just so fascinating the writer's have decided to parallel these characters, because when i think about it, misty has always been written as this desperate character, craving attention and love. . . but so has shauna.
they've been narrative foils this entire time and it took natalie dying for me to realise it.