Last week, Yellowjackets struggled to maintain the momentum from season three’s first two episodes, especially in the present-day timeline. The plot points in “Them’s The Brakes” weren’t compelling enough to supplement the more intriguing issues the show had already established. But a bunch of stranded teenagers holding a kangaroo court in the middle of the woods to determine if their former soccer coach tried to kill them? Yeah, everything else can wait. I’m so on board.
“12 Angry Girls And 1 Drunk Travis” is easily the best episode of this season so far. It centers the deliciously captivating teen drama, which has consistently been the show’s greatest strength, and builds upon the series’ established thesis that the source of whatever’s going on in the wilderness—whether it’s supernatural or a collective delusion—doesn’t matter: Only the resulting power, and how it affects whomever it attaches itself to, does. And a trial is a perfect way to explore that shifting power dynamic.
It’s Natalie’s idea to put Ben on trial for arson and attempted murder after they drag him back to their camp. Pretty much everyone except for Nat is convinced that he’s guilty, but Nat’s still the group leader, so she has ultimate decision-making power—at least for now. We’ve seen various characters privately question her leadership over the past three episodes, and it’s finally beginning to bubble over into public criticism. Shauna tells Nat that Ben doesn’t deserve a trial; she wants to move straight to punishment. When Nat shoots that idea down, Shauna argues that the outcome of the trial should be decided by a simple majority vote, but Nat insists on a two-thirds majority. Nat ultimately gets her way, but her authority feels tenuous. She needs this trial to go well if she wants to hang on to her position.
In the present, Jeff is also trying to reassert control over something that he’s quickly losing his grasp on: his own sense of self. After he learns that the brakes on the van failed because of a bad part (it was not, in fact, Misty’s fault), he thinks it’s karma for all of the bad things he’s done. He needs to do some good in the world to help cancel out his role in Kevyn’s death (and the blackmail and covering up Adam’s murder and…), so he signs the family up for volunteer work. Callie refuses to go, but Shauna is trying to be supportive, so she agrees to tag along. She’s surprised to find, though, that the place at which they’re volunteering is the assisted-living facility where Misty works. The first time I watched this episode, my eyes nearly rolled out of my head at the contrivance; the second time, knowing what the show was trying to achieve, it was a little easier to swallow. There’s no getting around that Jeff unknowingly signing them up to volunteer at Misty’s workplace is not a believable situation (there must be dozens of other places in the area that could use help and the probability of them landing at this specific place is pretty low), but it does efficiently get all the necessary chess pieces on the board. It ends up providing a good backdrop for modern-day Shauna’s storyline in this episode, which nicely mirrors past Shauna’s character beats as well.
Back at the trial, Nat is the judge, while Taissa takes on the role of the prosecutor and Misty acts as Ben’s defense attorney. They’re going to do this right, or at least as right as a bunch of high school girls with no legal training can manage. Seeing them all take this so seriously, with arguments and objections and cross-examinations, is a reminder of why we root for these teenagers: Despite everything they’ve done, their tenacity is undeniable.
Taissa’s prosecutorial strategy is to establish that Ben tried to burn down the cabin because he became afraid of the group after they ate Jackie and that Ben kidnapping Mari so she wouldn’t be able to tell everyone he was still alive is a sign of his guilt. Misty’s defense strategy is to argue that plenty of people besides Ben could have set the fire. Misty’s first target for a possible arsonist is Shauna: She was the first person to realize the cabin was on fire, and Misty claims that Shauna looked disappointed when Natalie was chosen to be the leader. Shauna doesn’t deny being disappointed, but says, “Why the fuck would I burn down the cabin because of that?” “Maybe you resorted to something drastic to show us all who the real hero is, the real leader,” Misty responds. “I mean, maybe you started the fire so that you could save us all, so that you could get yourself crowned.” That’s definitely something Misty would do, but it’s not Shauna’s M.O. But the way Shauna dodges the question about wanting to be the leader is a nice insight into another part of what’s driving her anger.
This scene is contrasted with one in the present where Shauna and Misty have a different confrontational conversation: Misty demands an apology from Shauna for kicking her out of the car after the brakes incident, but Shauna refuses and says she has nothing to apologize for. She doesn’t mention that she knows Misty wasn’t actually responsible for their near-accident; in fact, she says she should send Misty the bill for the brake repairs.
This is something we’ve seen Shauna do before: Once she’s decided on a narrative about a given situation, she won’t deviate from it. It’s what allows her to lie to everyone around her so effectively. She lies to herself all the time, too, and justifies it by convincing herself that she’s always right, even if the facts prove that she’s wrong. Admitting she was wrong about something is a weakness she couldn’t afford in the wilderness, and continuing that behavior as an adult is just one way in which the Wilderness never really left her. Whether or not they encountered something supernatural in those woods, they definitely brought It back with them. The structure of these two scenes works so well because we see the root of something taking hold of Shauna in the past and following her into adulthood.
Later, Misty assigns Shauna to make tapioca in the kitchen, and Shauna gets locked in the freezer. (Again, it’s not Misty’s fault, but Shauna convinces herself that Misty is responsible.) Shauna starts to hallucinate and sees Jackie (Ella Purnell, back for the second episode in a row) taunting her. It’s a joy to see Purnell and Melanie Lynskey, two of the show’s most gifted actors, playing off each other, and they both nail the scene. Jackie can see right through Shauna’s defenses, and she cuts Shauna to the bone. “Someone’s fucking with you and you’re just hurling accusations left and right. You’re not actually doing anything about it. You’re all talk,” Jackie says. The wilderness did follow the survivors home, and it’s still haunting them.
The show effectively conveys that point with adult Tai and Van’s storyline, too. They leave a Queen of Hearts card on a sidewalk and watch from a nearby cafe to see if anyone will pick it up. They’re trying to see if It—the Wilderness entity, explicitly, there’s no ambiguity this time—will choose someone else. A man stops to pick up the card, and Tai and Van follow him back to his apartment. Just before Tai follows him inside, Van stops her and says she can’t go through with whatever they’re planning. (The exact nature of the plan is ambiguous, but it seems bad.) Tai admits she doesn’t want to do it either, but she craves more time with Van and needs her to live. Van says she also wants to live, but not if this is the cost. “Fuck the Wilderness,” she says. “Can we just enjoy the time we have left?” It—the entity or the trauma—only has power over them as long as they allow it to. They can still take back control.
After they abandon their plan, Tai and Van head to Central Park, where Tai’s booked a carriage ride for the two of them, complete with a soft pretzel. Back in season one, when Tai was about to leave the group behind to try to find help, Van told Tai she was coming with her because she still had things she wanted to do that she couldn’t accomplish if they died in those woods—things like finally taking a proper trip to New York City, buying Tai a pretzel, and taking her on a hansom cab ride. During their expedition, Van nearly died after wolves attacked her. Tai was so convinced that Van was dead that she even started to burn her body, but the flames jolted her awake (or alive?) again. Maybe it was the Wilderness signaling that it wasn’t Van’s time to die yet, or maybe it was Van’s tenacity that saw her through. It doesn’t really matter when the result is that Van gets to live. The present-day scene of their carriage ride is set to “Linger” by The Cranberries, a band whose music has underscored some of the best moments in this show, and this needle-drop definitely lives up to that legacy.
In the woods, the trial comes to a head when Ben takes the stand and delivers a beautiful monologue about how he was wrong to judge the team for doing what they had to in order to survive. It’s a convincing speech—convincing enough that the team is split when it comes time for a verdict. There are more people in favor of acquittal than guilt, but it’s not a two-thirds majority, so Nat keeps conducting votes in the hope that someone will change their mind. Even after several rounds of voting, though, they’re still not getting anywhere until Shauna steps in. “He literally tried to fucking kill us,” Shauna says. “He set the only shelter we had on fire with us inside of it. Anyone who finds him guilty, raise your fucking hand.” One by one, the votes flip, and they have a two-thirds majority in favor of convicting Ben.
“This is what I’m talking about,” Melissa says to Shauna after the group convicts Ben. “That’s fucking power.” The dynamics in the group are shifting—Nat lost all credibility after a disastrous testimony during the trial, and it looks like Shauna is going to make a run at stepping in to fill that power vacuum. Maybe the Wilderness is responsible, or maybe Shauna’s just an expert manipulator—the why of it all is so much less interesting than the outcome, and it’s nice to see the show acknowledge that.
The episode ends in the present, with Misty receiving a mysterious text message from Walter. “I just heard about Lottie, are you okay?” it reads. The scene cuts to Lottie lying dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs. Looks like we’ve got ourselves another mystery for Yellowjackets to explore.
Stray observations
- • Warren Kole deserves an Emmy solely for his startled gasp after he says, “I didn’t stop it.” He continues, “And now the van—the van doesn’t stop. Jesus Christ, that is karmic.”
- • Similarly, Steven Krueger’s line reading of “I’m in a jail with birds, Misty” had me rolling.
- • Loved the detail that Misty’s workplace is where Randy serves his community service hours for his DUI.
- • I’m a little nervous about how the show will handle Lottie’s death after it bungled Nat’s so badly, but I am cautiously optimistic that this could lead to more interesting narrative consequences than what happened to Nat. It still feels a bit like the writers just killed off a character they didn’t know what to do with though.
- • I’m intrigued to see how Lottie, Travis, and Akilah’s storyline in the past plays out. The show advanced that plot a little in this episode, but it’s clearly building toward something bigger.
