mari and travis’ comments about “two versions of reality/do you ever wonder whose reality we’re in” had me thinking about how we viewed the pilot hunt vs s3 finale hunt — both being different realities of the situation and how it’s changes how i view the finale now.
like travis said, do you ever wonder whose reality we’re in? and for the pilot we’re in the outsiders pov/reality bc we don’t know the yj’s all we know is that we witnessed some cannibalistc cult in the wilderness who hunt with death traps and in that moment we’re like the scientists and guide who stumbled upon them and witnessed the horrific scene of a decapitated coach scott with a bunch of feral children howling at the moon, dancing around a fire and eating human flesh in the wilderness.
but by s3 finale? we see the actual reality of the situation bc we now know the yj and their story (not all but up to what the pilot shows). we see how all the yj survived the loss and trauma with all the fucked up & unforgivable things they did. we see how they each fuel each other in different ways that pushes everyone to breaking points & pivotal changes. we come to learn that mari wasn’t suppose to be pit girl and that she wasn’t being ritualistically hunted by all of them, just shauna bc they were trying to keep her distracted for natalie to escape for rescue. we learn that it was travis who built the spikes into the pit that was meant to kill lottie bc he felt trapped by her influence on the girls, that van was looking into the pit only to be find out she’s broken by mari’s death, that gen tried to help her friend and was then forced to drag and string up her dead naked body and cry while eating her, that hannah (someone just trying to find frogs) was forced to butcher a teen girl to not expose their plan of escape. that misty wasn’t smiling bc she’s enjoyed the violence of the hunt but bc as the shot in the pilot pans to the mountain she’s happy bc they outsmarted shauna so natalie could go find rescue.
