'Yellowjackets' Episode 10 Deep Dive
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by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at applecard.com. This episode is brought to you by The Home Depot. It's starting to look like spring and spring starts with savings at The Home Depot. There are savings for every project, whether you're starting with a queen slate with convenient cordless power, like a new pressure washer.

or leaf blower, or starting to love the yard again with colorful flowers and fresh mulch, start your spring with early savings at the Home Depot. Shop now at homedepot.com. Hello, welcome back to House of R. I'm Joanna Robinson, not Jody Walker joining me today. No baseball hat on her head, but here just to fill my heart with joy, it's my beloved Molly Rubin. Molly! Hello. You know,

Jodi wanted to be here. She was desperate for someone to talk to, but you were busy eating your ex-girlfriend's arm. Listen, you got to do what you got to do here in this world. Jodi did an incredible job filling in for me last week on House of R, as did Ben Lindbergh and Daniel Jin, but I'm back. Yeah.

And it is me, it is Mallory, till the end of the world. We are here today to talk to you about Yellow Jackets, season three, episode 10, the finale. So that is, we're here to wrap up Yellow Jackets. We had a lot of people being like, ahem, excuse me, where's the Yellow Jackets finale? I was traveling, and then also there was a little show called The Last of Us that premiered, and we wanted to make sure to get our hot mushroom takes, a little like

appetizy a little appetizer of of mushroom takes before the full cannibal fleshy protein packed meal that is the yellow jackets finale um what's going on elsewhere in any of the feeds you you ask so thrilled to tell you so we have our last of us deep dive that we did uh you can check that out of course the midnight boys pew pew did their last of us instant reaction so you can check that

out. They will have their Daredevil Born Again reactions. We will have our Daredevil Born Again reactions later this week. It's a double finale week for us and a premiere week for us. What a piping hot time here in the House of R and the Ringiverse. My goodness. And next week...

Can't believe it. Started my rewatch. Just a little fucking blast. So good. Popped in that physical media. Those 4K discs. Looks stunning. Oh, I bet. Stunning. Yeah, it looks great. Oh, that's a great investment. I didn't do that. Clever girl. Okay. Adam did it. I had literally nothing to do with it. Clever Adam. Okay, so...

all that's happening. There's also the midnight boys, I believe are, are hoping to cover a sinners, a film that I am extremely excited about the long awaited midnight munchies episode. Um,

Button Mash is covering The Last of Us from like a gaming POV. So there's a lot going on. Mallory Rubin. Yeah. And or Last of Us, Daredevil, Munchies, Sinners. How can folks keep track of all of that yummy, scrummy content? That's scrummy. Thanks for asking. Here's what I would recommend. Yeah. Follow the pod. Okay. Follow House of R.

Follow the Ringerverse. Follow any Ringer pod that you're interested in on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's the thing. If you are on your 10th Yellow Jackets episode of the season, you know this. But if you're like, oh my God, you guys are covering Last of Us? What's up with that? Video this time. Season one, no video. But now you can listen to or watch every episode of House of R and Midnight Boys Pew Pew on Spotify or Spotify.

the Ringerverse YouTube channel. So follow along, subscribe while you're at it. Yeah. Follow the Ringerverse on the social media platform of your choosing. Sure, sure. We've got breakouts from all of the pods.

Who knows what other memes and goodies await. Jomie's doing a little Mission Impossible Monday series to get hyped for that film because summer blockbuster season is just around the corner. Wow. It's winter for the Yellow Jackets, but here comes summer for us. It's warming up here. And while you're out of your computer, your phone is in your hand. Yeah. Send us an email.

The inbox is always open and it's always the same inbox. No matter what we're covering, no matter what season it is, no matter how much snow is on the ground, it's hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. You've sent us some wonderful Yellow Jackets emails. Thank you for that. Keep all of the Last of Us emails coming. Make sure you get Joanna your recipes, your mushroom recipes. She will feature at least one every week. I will. And if there are a lot of great ones to choose from, maybe more than one,

Send us your Andor emails. We are mere moments away from Thunderbolts. Start getting the Thunderbolts emails in. Send them all. Send them all. Send them all. Oh, we just got our screening notification for Thunderbolts. I'm so excited for Thunderbolts. Okay, so listen. You going to come back to LA?

For your most anticipated movie of the year? Maybe. Okay. Yeah, I'm not in LA anymore. To that end, a couple things. Number one, if you watch our The Last of Us episode, you can see Mallory rocking an incredible jacket. It's a wax trucker. Is that right? Do I have your... Yes, I have Joel's jacket. Am I speaking your lingo? Yeah, wax trucker. Okay, great. For a few minutes before I got really overheated and had to take it off. Old school.

also on this sort of like pod video pod front, I just want to say for the yellow jackets fans, for the fans of the nineties, uh, the rewatchables this week is bill Simmons. And you're, you're truly covering absolutely icon of 90 cinema. Can't hardly wait. So Lauren Ambrose fans, if you're missing, if you're missing van on yellow jackets, you can go see her make her sort of like big,

debut splash into pop culture on can't hardly wait uh our coverage of that also i wanted to ask you mallory been on the on the sort of video pod front because yeah i'm back in uh the bay area you are in in your cozily ensconced in your home uh office but yeah what was it like being in the void your first time in the void how did it feel

Thanks for asking. I'm still processing the experience. Did it alter your thoughts and feelings about me spending like 85% of my time in LA inside of the void? So I will say I actually kind of liked it in there.

Amazing. As you know, I like the way The Void – I don't like the way I look on any of our videos, but I like the way other people look in The Void on our videos. I think it's a cool visual effect. I liked sitting in there. As you know, I do not like when at the office in the studio having to put on those headphones for an entire podcast. Yes.

Yes. And do a lot of like torso gymnastics to reach my water 845 times per recording. So there was some stuff for me to get used to. But overall, it was an illuminating experience and one I'll carry with me. Yeah.

Hopefully everyone was dying to tune in to hear studio chat, but how did it feel? Ben went to the office. I know, I saw that. It's just shocking stuff. It was amazing. I saw it. Okay. So we've been in similar studios over there, but there's something about The Void when they close the door and it's just like... Arjuna did say, I'm locking you in and then left. Yeah. The door is very heavy and then you're all alone and there's bright interrogation lights on you. Anyway. Okay. Okay.

So glad Mari got in the pit and Mallory got in the void. And that is what we are here to talk to you about. Did I remind you of season two when Misty and Shauna prepped for the interrogation? Where was my cookie? Where was my cookie cake? I know. It would make all the difference. Guys, it's something to keep in mind for the next time Joe's here. Spoiler warning, all of everything ever yellow jackets. Full Circle is the name of the episode written by Amenia Rosa and directed by one of the co-creators of the show, Bart Nickerson. We've got a...

The showrunners, Ashley Lyle, Bart Nicholson, Jonathan Lisko, did a large-ish breakdown with The Hollywood Reporter. So we've got quotes from them sort of like throughout our coverage today. They all are pretty much sourced from this one THR article. So I recommend you read it in full. We love journalism and we support it. So I want to start... Actually, before we get into like our usual sort of unreliable narrator, hallucinator, dreamer counter, Molly Rubin.

How'd you feel about this episode of television? And did it impact either positively or negatively your take on the season as a whole? I enjoyed this finale. I did not particularly enjoy the first 10 minutes, which I found...

I would say just slightly tipping to me into needlessly confusing. Like, I think it's fun to try to have to puzzle something out and figure out and theorize on exactly what we're seeing. But like when they're first pulling that out for the bed check, I'm like, wait,

Have we just come back from the Nat Misty conversation? Is this perhaps further into the future? No, there's no snow on the ground. Cody's head hasn't rotted yet. How far could it possibly be? But also it's frozen. Maybe the head would be fine. It just, I was like, I had to...

It felt like too many speed bumps early. You're like, where are we on the BBYs? You're like, how much time has passed precisely? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. I thought the stuff with Lottie and the very heightened, this is a mythical creature, Antler Queen with flames behind her, that was all really fun. Overall, I have some notes, I think, both stylistically and in terms of maybe what it signals about like,

Okay, we had a lot of gaps to fill in for you and had to kind of do it all here with a special, like, whoosh, zoom, bam, fill in the blank cam kind of effect multiple times throughout the episode, you know, with the letter, various other places that I didn't, like, love.

in volume and presentation. You didn't love the way that that letter defied logic and physics and our concept of how non-cartoon things work. How much mayo and or vomit residue is on the decky kitchen floor at any point that could lead objects to slide in true slip and slide like fashion? Who am I to say? Sure. Like,

anything is possible underneath a Sedecki fridge. No, that had a, like, was just pulled by a mythical force. Yeah. Were there magnets involved? Like, magnets, bitch! Yeah, exactly. What happened here? Okay. However, all that said, I thought that this was a, in both timelines, like,

Quite exciting and propulsive finale. I think that where it left us, hopefully heading into, as yet, upon recording, not greenlit, but hopefully pending. Bizarre. Future season, very interesting and exciting. I thought there was a lot of rich thematic text to parse here in both timelines. And I thought, to the episode name Full Circle, everything with Pit Girl and everything with The Hunt, I honestly found riveting.

Absolutely. It was just thrilling to finally get it and see it. Devastating. R.I.P. Mari, a queen and our queen. I may never recover. I'm so excited to mourn with you and talk to you about this today. But I thought that was all just fantastic and really fun to watch and also just really rewarding to watch for people who have been fans of the show for three seasons. So, you know, a couple things didn't work super well for me in it, but overall I thought it was a successful finale and a fun end note for the season. How about you? I think that

great. I watched this because I knew I wasn't going to be on last week. So as soon as we finished recording two weeks ago, I just watched the rest of the season. And then I rewatched the finale yesterday. So it had been a couple weeks. And when I had talked to you sort of in between, I was like, I loved the finale. And then I rewatched it yesterday. I was like, oh, wait, I actually do have a lot of notes about this finale. But I still loved it. And there's just something about like

I think they were able to accomplish something in this finale that there was just, like, an assurity of a couple of the moves and a couple of the reveals that were so exciting. Like, that's not Nat, it's Hannah was, like, I thought a really exciting moment. Like, there's a lot of, like, flashbacks inside of what happened, who's conspiring where that was a little muddled. But that...

It's not Nat, it's Hannah reveal I thought was really, really... They really got me. And then the cut to I told you that I loved the Aerosmith needle drop. Not everyone did. We got some emails about it, but I loved it. And so the Aerosmith needle drop, Nat on top, and just the visual of her up on that mountain. It was like freaking Lord of the Rings-like territory. How beautiful it looked up there. And...

And we love young Nat. We love that moment for that character. And so, and then just the voice, like, you know, I know, I know that there are plenty of people listening who don't like how often we talk about loss. I understand that. I will just say that like hearing that voice on the other side of the radio, just remind, not even a specific moment, just gave me that one of those like great loss finale moments of like,

someone's out there. Someone heard them. Now that person might get an arrow to the fucking head mere minutes into the as yet announced and I'll talk about it in a second season four premiere but it just left me feeling like so exhilarated. The Misty Ty summit left me feeling excited for the first time in a long time about where Ty's storyline is going to go because I feel like it's been really floundering but like drawing her into Misty chaos very exciting for me and then Shauna is like

You know, freaking full villain turn, seemingly, is... That relieves some pressure for me around that character because I was just like... I felt like I was drowning in my attempt to...

empathize with her and I can still empathize with her. But if I'm empathizing with like a villain, that's a different mode than me trying to empathize with like someone I find heroic. And so I can still find ways to empathize with her, with her trauma, what drove her here. But if, if we're taking the pressure off of me, like having her in, in,

one mode and putting her into another, all of a sudden I got really excited about what Melanie Linsky can do with that character and all the rest. So I just, I felt like reinvigorated after a season of a lot of ups and downs. It's just really got me excited. So yeah, I really agree. And I think that's a, I would say seasons two and three were both uneven, but that upswing in the finale is a notable contrast to how we felt coming out of season two where we were like, Oh boy. Yeah. Oh boy. We have some, just,

some questions and concerns that we would like to work through in Steve Allman's Stockholm hotel room with everybody trying to cram into three square feet to record a podcast that we heard episode we watched at 3 a.m. Memories. What a time that was. With no air conditioning. No air conditioning. That's right. How could I forget the no AC? I really agree on the nap moment. I thought that was incredible. I got chills watching that. I also was really thinking of Lost for plot specific reasons, but I'm with you that just feeling it evoked

And the other thing I love about it is the recontextualization then of something like seeing Misty's face, the mask removal, the glasses, the smirk. Like we just have, we're able to, and that's a hard thing to do to return to a moment that has been so central and hyped and anticipated in the fandom. When will we understand what led to this? Yes. And to be able to hold it together for,

But then imbue it with all of this new context and clarity, character motivations, even just a glance like that, even the half of a wrinkle of somebody's lip can mean something completely different to us now because of everything unfolding around it. That's impressive. So everything there at the end was just like this like surge. And I really can't wait to see what they do. And I really hope they have a chance to finish this up.

Okay. So I'll say this. I do think it's a bit bizarre that they have not announced the renewal, but my understanding, and I know that people like take what I say and put it on the subreddit, just like, which is great. And I feel honored, but like, take this with a grain of salt, but this is what I've heard. So I'm not reporting this. I'm not an outlet. I'm not the trades. I have heard this though. They are for sure getting a season four.

And that the question is, are they going to do four and five or are they just going to do four? And so I think what they're currently, the reason they haven't announced it is they're negotiating that deal. Are they going to do, we've been renewed for fourth and final season or we've been renewed for four and five and that's how we're going to wrap it up. So that happens all the time in Hollywood. That's a, that is the holdup. The show is to be clear, more,

I believe, than it's ever been, which is wild to me because I think season one was far and away their most creatively successful season. So the fact that it is much more popular now in a season that has had a lot of ups and downs is wild to me. But I would say if you're fretting at home whether or not they're going to get a fourth season, this is a hit for the network. So they're going to get a fourth season. Are they going to get a fifth season, I think, is the question. And that has nothing to do with what the network wants, but sort of creatively, are they going to do a fifth season? So that is what is going on. They can afford Arrow?

Like they said in the THR piece, they wanted to, that was really funny. It's like, we wanted this in the pilot. We couldn't get it. Now we can afford it. Great sign. I love that. I love that. So yeah. So, so, you know, breathe, breathe calmly, breathe some relief. We are going to get more of the story, but how much more of the story I think is the question right now. On that front, on that THR piece, you know, what we like to do this, like, oh, sorry, one more thing I want to say.

To your point about like, so Mari being pit girl, which is something that like, not just us, but like so many people have clocked for so long. Even the actress gave an interview and was just sort of like, yeah, I was pretty sure that I was the pit girl from like the beginning. Like we were all pretty sure it was me. But like, so for it to be Mari, two things. One, it underlines something that I love to say on pods, which is just sort of like,

around my, my, my feelings are on spoiler culture. Now, like I have really altered the way in which I engage with spoilers because of how I podcast with you and how like the ringer audience, uh, likes to enact with interact with spoiler culture. But like the thing that we always used to say on like a storm of spoilers. And I did that podcast. It was like, uh,

it's not, it's not what, it's the execution, right. That matters. And so like, you could know what's going to happen and it can either be executed well or executed poorly. So like, we were really sure that Mari was going in that pit, but the way they executed both in the incredible character rehab that they did for her this season, like historic, genuinely some of the best character rehabbing I've ever seen in my life. Right. So like,

So the character rehab, so getting us like, no, not Mari, after saying get in the pit Mari over and over again. So all of that. But then also, yeah, it just matters how you do it. And we were watching her run

inevitably towards something we knew was coming. And it was like, I was edge of my seat. It wasn't edge of my seat. I maybe she'll, maybe they'll zag and she won't go in the pit. It was just edge of my seat. How is it going to happen? When is, when's the moment? How many more seconds do I have with Mari? You know, like it was, I thought it was, what is everybody else thinking and feeling about it? What does it mean to them to be a part of this? Yeah. I thought it was really well done. Okay. So a thing we like to do at the top,

or I like to do anyway, is this unreliable narrator slash hallucinator slash dreamer counter. And we can talk about, you know, like certainly Lottie, like, you know, there are certain plenty of people inside of this episode where we can talk about that. But something that Bart Nickerson said in the THR piece and has said versions of this before. Right. But I was just reminded of it. And it was just like a real, like, what are we doing here moment is Bart says,

quote, we're not seeing anything that is necessarily entirely objective, even in the present day storyline. And that is sometimes hard for me to wrap my arms around because like when I'm trying to parse a show, it's less to do with like theorizing and mystery and stuff like that. And more to do with like, I want to be sure I can track the emotional reality of characters. And if at any point the show is like, actually that didn't happen, that's a little tough for me, um,

to think about. Do you have any thoughts or feelings when, when you read something like that? Yeah, I, it gives me pause and some, some trepidation in my gut as well. I think that yellow jackets is the kind of show in which an idea like that in an approach like that can simultaneously work much better and actually be like important in a way that it, it maybe wouldn't in certain other shows and also is riskier because when everything is about yellow

I mean, we're going to talk about this a lot as we go through all of the beats of the finale, where the idea of memory and remembering and what are you repressing and why? And then what has...

uh, activated inside of you and new and why is so central to the text and to the character journeys. Um, because of that, the idea that there is a, a, uh, very much like in the eye of the beholder interpretation of events, recollection of events feels like not only true and reasonable based on what the characters have been through. Um, but also like it would be in keeping with how we are assessing their journeys already. Uh,

all of that said, it can tip so easily into just, we are kind of in the pit and we are navigating in every scene we play

consume and interpret uh impaling spears where like we sort of never know if we can trust the ground that we're we're navigating um so i think it is i think it is risky i guess the fact that it's on their minds actively um gives me some comfort because hopefully it's something that they're deliberately like accounting for as they work but it is the kind of thing that feels like it can just sort of be wielded as a cover also which i don't i don't love yeah yeah exactly and there's a few things inside of this episode and throughout that feel a bit of like uh

for writing zigzags and casting choices and stuff like that. But I think that...

To your point, like we got an email a little while back from someone who was like, when I was talking about the no eye man being an ice cream mascot and we got a, we got a, we got a, an email from someone called people being like, well, do you think that actually happened? Like, did Van and Ty actually go to that place? Did, did they, did Ty actually see anything on that video or was it just, did Van actually see anything or was it just Ty hallucinating? Like all this sort of stuff like that. And I was like,

I feel like I would, it is important to me to know that answer. It's important to me to know whether or not Van saw the same thing that Ty saw. If Ty sees a No Eye on Man ice cream mascot and Van looking at the same thing sees like, I don't know, an Unscary Clown, whatever it actually was. Right.

I, the audience, would like to know that. That feels important for me to know because it determines how a man is thinking about Ty at any given moment. Agreed. It can be sticky. Okay. Speaking of emails, Mailbox Etc. is on my mind because it's in The Last of Us Season 2. They have a Mailbox Etc. in Jackson, so I've just been thinking about it. Do you know I used to work at a Mailbox Etc.? It's true. Okay. Okay.

No free ads for a company that doesn't exist anymore. Oh, just like on a, I think like a winter break from college. I spent like a couple of weeks working at a mailbox, et cetera. I had a great time. Learned a lot about laminating and notarizing things. Yeah, notarizing things. Very useful. I honestly couldn't notarize because I was not a notary, but we had a notary and I learned a lot of things. A lot of things about what people come in to get notarized. Okay. Tatum wrote in to let us know.

But the track names for season three, the season three score are great. Highlights being, quote, Goop Sorceress, quote, Pushed by a Cult Nutso, and quote, The Birds and the Bees of Frog Orgies. Love it.

Thank you for highlighting that, Tatum. I'm always bad at paying attention to the score track names, but I love a pun score track name. I love like when, you know, Ramin Djawadi, not very pun based, but just some really notable names. Michael Giacchino, of course, king of the TV score puns sort of thing. So thank you for that. Goop Sorceress, just iconic. Really good. Okay. Okay.

Lauren wrote in to ask about the significance of 25 years later, which I'm certain is something that we've talked about before. But in terms of like memory and 25 years later,

Lauren was like, is there, Lauren was asking if there's sort of like a supernatural, like in 25 years, the wilderness will allow you to remember the things that you suppress or something like that. And that's, it's possible. She also knows that we've been seeing, you know, the number 25, that the flight number was 25, 25. It's Shauna's journal safe combination. It was on the vial that young Vanin checks. That's for the Sudeikis as usual. Yeah, of course. Um,

On the vial that young man injects into the man's IV bag, blah, blah, blah. So like, obviously we love to talk about numbers and as they recur. To me, there's a couple options. Pop culturally, yeah.

There is Twin Peaks. I'll See You Again Another 25 Years is like a very famous line from the original Twin Peaks show. And then 25 years later, they did Twin Peaks The Return. That was like, that's a whole Lynchian cycle. But I think more importantly, and I was thinking about it a lot when I was thinking about some of the Callie Lottie stuff inside of, we didn't even talk about the fact that it's a Callie reveal, Callie Lottie stuff inside of this episode in terms of like your mother, you're just like your mother or...

Or she's jealous of you so she can't raise you properly or all this sort of stuff like that. This mothers and daughters piece, this sort of like Shauna, you know, just firmly ensconced in middle age, thinking about the power of her teenage self, grappling with Callie, who is the age, you know, that she was at this time. I think that in terms of the cycle of growth,

Maybe anyone's life, but let's say because this show is concerned with that specifically a woman's life. I think that is... I think that more than any sort of supernatural in 25 years we unlock this, that, or the other thing. Yes. When you are confronted with your mini-me that is Callie, what does that force you to confront about yourself and who you were and how far you've come from who you were sort of thing? Yeah. I agree with that. And I think also like...

Because we definitely talked about this. I was trying to remember when... I think we talked about it on and off quite a bit in Season 2, but I think one of the times we talked about it most was when...

when everybody started, you know, Nat, Lottie, everybody started to talk about this, like, what they brought back with them and how, like, so many other things in the show, there could be multiple interpretations. It's this thing you carry inside with you that has awakened or is it literally, so is there some sort of, like, supernatural explanation, the kind of eternal question of Yellow Jackets? I think that this, like,

I think it is like so many other things in the show possible. That's something about the magic of this place was in way. It's not to me, it's not impossible, but it's not my, it's not my interpretation of it. And my read of, of what happened in the show. I think what you said is, and also just like, you know,

Time more broadly sparking this instead of magic. Society sparking it. Again, this idea of kind of shared memory and awakenings. Like, what triggers sparked this thing? I mean, they all received postcards with...

the symbol because Jeff sent them, you know, to get that symbol like mailed to your door and have that awaken something inside of you or Ty sending Jessica Roberts to grill them, just putting them on their guard. Oh wait, what would somebody be trying to like unearth? Of course it would be what we did out there. What do you mean, Mallory? This is all Shauna's doing. Shauna did all of this. Ty definitely didn't run for a highly public office.

Oh, Shauna's fault. Even just like, you know, thinking about one of our favorite moments from season one when they strut into the high school reunion alley, trauma bond. A lot of talk of trauma in this episode. Alley is always on my mind. Trauma bond. The video montage, like all of the photo collages, everybody waiting to say...

at the high school reunion, like, remember the thing you went through. There were so many triggers all around them for this to be brought back to the fore. So that feels more in the mix to me than some sort of, like, actual the magic works this way explanation. But in Yellow Jackets, I'm always open to that. And sometimes it's interesting for, like,

naturally occurring psychological phenomenon to be sort of literalized as supernatural phenomenon. You know what I mean? In a show like this. So to your point. Yeah, I, I, um,

about the way in which nostalgia works because you know when people talk about the current trend of like 90s nostalgia and I think about the fact that when I was like a teenager in the 90s that there was like 60s nostalgia so it works on this sort of like 30 to 25 year cycle of nostalgia so that's something I think about as well

I'm really loving the 90s nostalgia right now in terms of jeans. Just particularly jeans. Oh, you are rocking a wide-leg jeans. I've recently purchased some 90s jeans that I feel just thrilled. I'm so glad to be out of the skinny jeans era and into the 90s. The wide-leg jeans are a really good look on you. The wide-leg jean plus the various Carhartts and jackets. Your Nick Nelson era is really working out for you. I know. I love it. So many sneakers and jackets, you know? Just...

I did send you some Nick Nelson Carhartt Instagram content recently. And then I thank you for it. Okay. Our listener Polly wrote in to say, to sort of summarize some of the behind-the-scenes drama, because as you and Jodi talked about, you know, after Lauren Ambrose's some exit interview stuff, some Tawny Cypress stuff, obviously Simone Kessel has had some things to say, and

et cetera, et cetera. Melody Linsky has been like bizarrely messy on her socials recently while also saying, and I really hope we get a fourth season and like, you know, at the same time.

So Hillary Swank said that nothing was written for her two weeks before filming started. There was nothing written for her adult, Melissa Evans, Evans Johnson, an actress whom a lot of people presume would be playing adult Akilah. That was never announced. She Evans just said on her Instagram, our socials that she was going to be in yellow jackets and then never showed up. So was she cast as adult Akilah or, uh, just random waitress number five who was cut out of the show? We have no way of knowing. Um,

but Akilah question mark, the way Akilah ends this season is very bizarre, not in a fun cliffhanger way, but it just sort of, we kind of forgot to, you know, yeah. Yeah. Like either cliffhang that or conclude it in some way or another pair that with the, the information we had about Jason Ritter's episode being cut, uh, from last season, uh,

Holly's just asking, is Yellow Jackets the messiest behind the scenes show? Do you think, Molly, what do you think? Uh,

Is Yellowjackets the messiest behind-the-scenes show? I have no idea. I mean, obviously a lot of productions are riddled with hot gas and tea spilling and people having different opinions on how things should go and then saying certain things either in overt, direct fashion in the press or in very thinly veiled and not-so-expertly-coded fashion on their various social media platforms, which is also a tradition I love in sports. Yeah.

Okay, this quarterback unfollowed his own team. Let's get ready to cover a trade. You know, that's like a great tradition on the internet. Wait, pause. Do you have an Amy Lou Wood-Wallengoggins take?

Oh, I've been, I gotta say, only out of, only out of respect for your vacation did I not send you 800 text messages about this last week. I've like, I said to stop myself so many times. I miss the crime of the century. I know. We have so much to talk about. We have so much to catch up on and talk about. But yeah, so is it the messiest you could say? But does it seem like it's a vibrant and always interesting message?

place to work? It does. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, to your point, like, we're in the era of, like, Jason Isaacs being like, it was on, I'm coming back to White Lotus, Jason Isaacs being like,

People didn't like each other. It was messy, blah, blah, blah. And then later being like, it's none of your business. And I was just like, Jason Isaacs, you opened this can of worms. What are you doing? So White Lotus is certainly quite messy. But like the thing about White Lotus is the behind the scenes mess doesn't really seem to impact as far as we can tell the storytelling. And that doesn't seem to be the case on this show. It's just like characters come and go in a way that feels more personal than creative. And that is that's hard for us.

to sort of navigate sometimes because we want to say like, oh, it matters. You know, they'll give an interview and they'll say like, it matters that Van dies because...

wanted to have that one character who xyz and her death symbolizes this and i'm like i do not think that is true i think this actress was no longer fitting for you on this show and that is why van died that's why we had this like yeah very abrupt exit for this character and that sort of stuff also if it's like so important for one character to have that line and maintain it wouldn't that be more

Keep them alive. Character remained alive to hold that line. Right? Baffling. Okay. That's not leads. We already addressed this. Listener Sergio said the Yellow Jacket season three finale felt like a pseudo series finale to me and noted that as of this email, season four has not yet been greenlit. I don't feel like this felt like a series finale at all.

Me neither. I would feel tremendously unsatisfied if this were the end of Yellow Jackets, and I just don't think it will be. So with love and respect to you, Sergio, I think we're fine. I think the only thing that I would move forward feeling a sense of peace that I knew, but not like active rage that I didn't get to continue forward, really specifically with Nat, just because we were so actively in mourning in the present timeline still and missed her character in the show. Knowing that Nat did this amazing thing

And knowing like what that means also for Nat and Misty's history together, I feel like we have moved forward in a really meaningful way with that part of the story. I think literally everything else I would be like, until I left this mortal coil and sat in the middle row of the,

Very large airplane with a younger version of myself and then said a pretty clunky thing about it. You know, I would wonder, how actually did the rescue unfold? Did people continue to try to stop it? How many more people died and were eaten? What was it like? The thing that I'm really like, I really want you to know what it is like for these people when they get back.

For us to have been teased by the plane and the return in season two, I will think, I will be very, very salty if we don't get to spend time with the young version of the characters back in Jersey after the return. And that was always their plan was to do at least a season back.

And when we get lines in this episode or in the previous episode of adult Melissa saying, like, when we got back, I was no longer one of you. You know, like, what did it mean? Why did adult Melissa, like, fake her own death, et cetera, et cetera? So the question is, I guess, if there's only one more season, if they just do a fourth and final season, do they get rescued in the premiere? You know, does it happen immediately and then the rest of the season is then back or...

You know, we've got a lot of other bodies there that don't make it back. Is it? I had a moment where I was like, they're filling in the pit. Guess we're leaving soon. And then I was like, wait, you wouldn't use that. People would just not run that way. They know about that. But you got to come up with other ways to murder each other. In theory, Mari knew where the pit was too. And lo and behold.

Tough lesson. At the end of the day, Mari kind of doing a couple stupid things at the end while also having worked her way fully into our hearts. That's really, that's what felt right. All of that being there in the brew. Brew. In the brew. All right, let's go to our deep dive. All right, so as we often do, we're going to go in sort of timeline chunks. We've got the then, the now, and something in between that we'll talk about in the middle. The...

The center of the sandwich. I do want to mention, you had dropped that incredible line when you were talking to Jodi about the last episode about sitting in the middle of the middle aisle of the middle row in the middle of it. And I was like, God, if I have to get on a plane in the afterlife, I mean, cinematically, of course, that's where you want to sit. And also what I loved about that plane moment, actually, is

Is that in terms of nostalgia. Yeah. When we all used to watch one movie on the plane, there was just one movie projected on a screen at the front of the plane. I was like, that's that's I have a really fond memory of watching Moonstruck on a plane with like the whole play was watching Moonstruck. Yeah. But a middle seat on the way to eternity. What a fucking nightmare. Absolutely not. So my question, Molly Rubin, if you if you window or aisle. Yeah. Where are you sitting?

I've always been a window seat enthusiast. Controversially in my family, a family of aisle seat enthusiasts, um,

But I always worry that I'm going to get a big boop on the elbow or foot from the passing drink cart. So I don't like the aisle for that reason. Also, too many people passing me and breathing on me. So every now and then I'll dabble with the aisle and I'm like, no, I got to make my way back to the window. That's my preferred spot. How about you? So flying to New York and back. So on the way out, I do often pick a window seat.

Though those are better for shorter flights because I think I've mentioned this before. I physically just conk out on planes. Yes. Yeah. So it is nice for me to just be like tucked into a window seat and then just sort of like pass out and then nobody like has to talk to me or bother me or anything like that. I'm just like not there. Yeah.

So that's fine. But on the way out to New York, I like really had to go to the bathroom and I just like didn't want to like bother anyone. And so I just didn't. That's a long flight, dude. Not the whole time, but just like I would say like the last like 45 minutes or whatever. I was just like, it's fine. You could just like maintain it or whatever. So on the way back, I was like, I think I'll do aisle on the way back. Yeah.

You know, and so I did aisle and this like absolutely like stunningly beautiful, wonderful woman sitting next to me. Caps bothering you to go to the bathroom. Got up like nine times to go to the bathroom and I was just sort of like, okay. Nine times is a lot. A lot. That feels like either cocaine or diarrhea. Two great options on a flight, but yeah.

Here's me, like, half passed out for most of the flight. And she was... Sorry, I'm almost done talking about this. But she was wearing, like... She had, like, socks that she had put on especially for the flight or whatever. Like a comfortable sock to keep warm or, like, a compression sock? A sock that had, like, airline... It was, like, you know...

Some airline provided sock at some point in her life. We're going into the airplane bathroom in our socks. No, no, no, no. She had sneakers that she could slip in and off. And so she was like... She took her sneakers off, put her airline socks on. I was trying not to stare at her, but a lot was going on, okay? So she did all of this. And then...

And then every time she got up to go to the bathroom, it was a ritual of her getting the shoes out, putting the shoes on. So it became this thing, like, she didn't talk to me. I just, like, would see the shoes would come out and I'd be like, time to get up again for the ninth time. But, like, anyway, okay. Sounds honestly horrible. So here's where I think the best place to be is, actually. I think I've cracked it. If you can't afford in the afterlife to fly first class.

I think, and hopefully you can. All things should be equal in the afterlife air travel. I think you should try to go for the front row of first class window. Because then your window...

Yeah. Because in your window, but there's enough room there that you can like get up and go to the bathroom without bothering anyone because there's like a whole bunch of extra room. You don't want any of your bags with you in the afterlife if you're in the front row and in first class, you have to put them above. Yeah. Second row? No, I think it's front. I think it's front row. Okay. I'll be behind you in second row. Okay, cool. I'll see you there. All right. This has been an extremely relatable conversation. All right. So.

I mean, if you're watching Yellow Jackets, you know, through the end of the third season, this probably is on your mind. How do I sit on my plane to the afterlife? Where do you sit on the plane to the afterlife? Okay, so opening sequence. Mm-hmm.

featuring Shauna's regime were on bed checks. And to your point, I had thought when I first watched it, I was like, I thought a lot of time had passed. Same. And then I, yeah, I realized about the, about the snow and for sure Cody's head is way into the future. Still. Yeah. Because I was just sort of like, how far into Shauna's regime are we? How, how long has Hannah been a Shauna Toadie? How,

How much has Nat's hair continued to grow out? You know, like all this sort of stuff. My most reliable benchmark are the Nat roots. And I see the world often through your eyes in that respect. And the hair is styled when Nat is pulled out of her hut very differently. Yeah. And the way it's pulled back just differently than the Rambo headband from the intercut in that moment conversation with Misty about the transponder. So kind of odd, but so it goes.

So we've got the Misty and Nat confrontation over the transponder, the conspiratorial looks with Van. So our earliest indication that like, this is a trio of conspirators are, are the, are the gadget girls, right? These three. Um, and then, thanks. I love that. Just, just came to me. Uh,

Is your interpretation that Cody's head is being used as target practice for Team Crossbow? I guess I'm relieved that Joel McHale is still on the show in some way after his incredibly brief run. Nice to see him there. Yeah, you know, some well-placed crossbow bolts. Crossbow bolts. It's 45 minutes in. We're doing fine. Okay, so listen.

Lottie's dreaming. All of this is scored to an original song that was composed for the show. Lovely. Let's talk about the needle drop section. Very ethereal, scary stuff. Lottie's having this dream of the Antler Queen, and I love this because not only are there this cool backlit imagery of the Antler Queen, but this indication that like, and we've talked about this before, this indication that Lottie sees

sees herself as a, like, puppet master of whoever the Antler Queen is. It does matter. It's not like it doesn't matter. Because Nat's regime is very different from Shana's regime, right? So it definitely matters.

In terms of quality of life in camp, et cetera. But in terms of like, who is the power behind, because there's like, Lottie goes out and like does, you know, I don't know how much the camera is catching me if it catches these movements, but like doing yearning tendril hands, jazz hands. Right. And so is the antler queen. So it's this indication that like where Lottie moves, the antler queen moves. And there are moments inside of this episode, like when Lottie's like, we got to have a hunt. Yeah.

And Shauna, like, initially looks like, I don't really want to do that. And then she's like, yeah, okay, we'll do a hunt. You know what I mean? It's just sort of like, Shauna's being driven by Lottie in a way that is surprising given how aggressively controlling Shauna is elsewhere, you know? Yeah, and I really like, I really liked this Lottie, Antler Queen, kind of heightened visual stretch of the opening. I think that this, like, idea of, um...

The way that the branches are growing out of the fingers and different parts of the body, to think about what later we hear Lottie and Callie talk about with the way it looked like looking down into the earth when you looked into Shauna's eyes. This idea of something tangible in Lottie's mind, almost more taking the form of spirit god than just concept,

something older than, you know, memory and, like, and this place. I think the way that that manifested was really cool and interesting, and I think the mirroring that you're identifying and the puppeteering is spot on. And then to think about what that means, that, like, Lottie's role is...

Lottie's role is evangelizer. Like Lottie's role is spreading the gospel and trying to compel people. Like we talked about a few weeks ago, okay, when Shauna is almost trying to like force into and then out of her mouth these words of belief,

that she does not actually abide by and adhere to, to see the way that Shauna, I think, rightly clocks, that the idea of, even though we'll hear her say in the present timeline, in the episode, like, you know, I was a fucking queen, and she's now seeking that again. I think in young Shauna's eyes there in that moment, what she recognizes in Lottie and the circumstances around them, and we'll re-recognize in her, is like, the crown is not as powerful as the ideas.

And Lottie is the one perpetrating the idea. And so like that is, I think, an interesting power dynamic, even though Lottie is not actually adorned in the Antler Queens. Though when we're getting those quick flashes and we are seeing young Lottie, like in black and white multiple times, we get that like very kind of there's the one creepy as we go to the morgue corpse, multi-timeline young adult mashup of Lottie's face over the body with the symbol.

overlaid on top of it. But before that, we get a couple very quick shots, like you've got to really freeze frame it to see them, of young Lottie, the antler behind her, which we've seen as we've tracked across the season. In the cabin. Many characters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the cabin, framed in that way. So this idea that this is always kind of in Lottie's mind, like the whole Lottie stretch of this episode was very just like

True detective time is a flat circle to me. What has happened when that inspires some sort of decision or behavior to not only connect adult Lottie and teen Lottie from the wilderness, but younger Lottie, child Lottie, which has happened before, obviously, with us learning about the with the car accident incident.

the prophecies and the visions felt appropriate. I thought it was really interesting when you and Jodi were talking about your reaction to Travis's gambit with a pit last week, his, his manipulation of Lottie's belief. Um,

And Akilah, similarly, we're about to talk about Akilah, but Akilah sort of using her vision and what Lottie knows of her vision to enact this con job here inside of this episode. So this like extremely cynical abuse of belief, but this idea of belief, fear pushes a lot of these people into their belief of the it of the wilderness. Right.

And how that can just be used to control them. And how Lottie, for all of her genuine belief, does never shies away from using this as a method of control and a method of power. Right. The idea of this show, the bare bones of this show, is taking...

Character archetypes or personality types, Enneagram numbers if you prefer to be in a white lotus space still. Always. And examining what gives you power. How do you cling to power? For high school girls especially, there is this like...

around do I have any power inside of the situation? How can I cozy up to power? How can I shelter underneath power? How can I grab some of it for myself? Does it come from my physical beauty? Does it come from the way in which I am like attractive to men? Does it come from my intelligence? Does it come from my ability to intimidate other women? Like what, you know, what is it? A lot of, a lot of times access to that power comes in like insidious channels. And so inside of this space, it's like,

even more ancient ideas of like religion and spirituality and belief as a method of control. Violence is a method of control. Physical dominance is a method of control. All of that is really interesting to me. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by athletic brewing company, non-alcoholic brews. The other day it was golfing with some of the guys. They're like, Hey, you want anything? I was like, I'm an adult. I got stuff to do tonight. I'm not doing one of these like semi retired deals, 18 holes and see how it goes. Um,

Luckily, Athletic Brewing Company had reached out to me. They sent me a bunch of stuff, including the Irish Red or the Run Wild IPA and my personal favorite, Upside Down.

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So we already mentioned the Gadget Girl Alliance, which is Van and Misty and Nat, right? And then we have... So I'm going to break down what I think the alliances are, and you tell me if you agree or disagree. So that's one. That's Team Van, Misty, and Nat is we're working in secret on the gadgetry, and we're taking any opportunity we can to get that done. Yes. Okay.

Then we've got what I'm calling, even though they're not all on the JV team, JV team uprising, team JV team uprising. And it is Jen and Melissa and Mari and Akilah as we get from via flashback. Yes. Using, wanting to, you know, trigger a hunt in order to take out Shauna. Mm-hmm.

also Lottie. Lottie, yeah. Because Melissa's job is to take out Shauna during the hunt. And it seems like Akilah is going for Lottie. Is going for Lottie. So this is team quick

They call team crazy, right? Yeah. Shauna and Lonnie, team crazy. Team stay, team remain. Well, my question then is what Jen, the gambit Jen runs with Ty, because Ty is also team stay, where she's like van, sprained an ankle, come. And then Jen has that, I thought, very touching moment where she's like, Mari's my friend. I'm just trying to help her. Yeah. Is that, I think that is true. Mari's her friend and she's trying to help her. Is she, was her task to take out Ty? Yeah.

I thought her task was to isolate Shauna. Yeah. And I think what complicates all of these alliance is the core, always complicated alliance of Ty and Van, which is its own thing. And you and Jodi talked about this plenty, its own thing inside of even when they're on opposite sides of there is the Ty-Van alliance. And then the other...

sort of question mark is Travis. Travis seems to be on Team JV Uprising based on his

weird mushroom man performance as the hunt kicks off it seems like he's really trying to like buy mari time uh as he like delays them but uh or that could just be him you know going independent or him you know sinking deeper back into the mushroom tea because he failed to kill lottie uh last week or something like that so yeah the travis one is i think the the most fun to

and feels the most open to interpretation. Obviously, he tried to... tried in frankly shocking fashion to kill Lottie even though he failed. He didn't really go for it. And he and Akilah have been...

forging a closeness and an honesty across the season. So the idea that he would be continuing to try to eliminate Team Stay and working with Akilah actively to do it makes total sense to me. What he said to Shauna was, I thought, one of the more enticing... Is there actually something going on here? Well, similarly... We've talked so often about these shared dreams and visions. That was basically what he was describing. Yeah.

Yeah. On the one hand, yes. But also he was just fucking with Sean. Could he not have made up any of that stuff? He's like, yeah. What do teen girls think? Sleepovers? Jealousy? Let me mention my brother and the person who haunts your every step. Like it could be any of it. Yeah. That was, I thought, really, really fun. Also, of course, on Team JV, like,

Dear sweet Mari, like, sealing her own fate without meaning to is just so perfect for that character. Very tough. Mari pushing for the hunt. She's like, I know what we should do. Yeah, some great, like, shifty eyes. Oh, yeah, we're in cahoots. I know what I should say now. And then, boom. So Missy and Van are wholly not involved in the Team JV plan because they're shocked when they hear Akilah screaming, right? Yeah.

Now I have some questions. I don't think she's in on it. And I think when she's just sort of like, well, I'll just leave then. Yeah. That was just her like, so I could go work on the transponder more. I think so. I just won't be up. I won't be a party to this. And then Sean is just like, but you got to be. Thank you so much, by the way, for you and Jodi spending so much time on one of the most aggravating things to have happened on any show ever, which is Shauna just getting the gun.

And then they're all just like rolling over. I couldn't believe it. I mean, the fact that you didn't get to go off on that and or talk about Walter arriving via helicopter, genuinely tragic stuff. Genuinely tragic stuff.

The other thing, last week's episode of Daredevil, that felt rude and personal, honestly. I know, as I said, the fact that I was out of town for the Frank episode and you were out of town for the Dex episode is the universe conspiring against us in a way that I frankly don't appreciate. But as always, we do appreciate all of our pals who stepped in for both of us in those times. Oh, hugely. The, like...

In terms of a through line, you know, memory remembering, we're going to keep talking about. We've talked about it already. This was kind of another one, though. Like, self-fulfilling prophecies, right? Akilah sees a vision and then, like, brings it about. Lottie sees her vision back during her season one Laura Lee baptism and works hard.

The tape for Lottie is like a piece of cheese in a maze to lure Callie to her, right? Like, these characters are actively seeking to cultivate something that they have seen before, and that is just, like, that is fascinating. I like that the show is playing with that idea. Yeah, so then it's like... It perpetuates the mythology. It's just sort of like... Okay, so, yeah, Akilah manipulating...

Taking this dream she had and making it reality in order to trigger the hunt, in order to try to take out Shauna. A true animal lover would never do this. Wow. Akilah has fallen so quickly. You don't know what you would do in the wilderness, Mallory. I would never. I would never poison the animals. No. A fascist dictator? I would find another way.

Wow. I'd probably fail and die in my pursuit. You're so fucking pure in the wilderness. I wouldn't need a friend. I wouldn't harm an animal. I would survive on twigs and berries and waste away during the first winter. Did you feel seen when Jodi was like, I need someone on day one? I was like, finally some fucking honesty around here. Jesus Christ. Okay. So as you and Jodi mentioned last week, Vanna's been practicing her shuffle, and this has some really...

implications for and I thought really well done Liv you mentioned young Van being your favorite character and I mean obviously I'm team Walter but also like Van young Van my favorite character other than Jeff Walter Randy hot Kevin Cody all the men all the men

Just kidding. That was a joke. We are kidding. But young Van and young Nat are really captivating to me. And a lot of that has to do with Liv Hewson is so good. Sophie Thatcher is so good. But your points of connecting the dots between young Van and older Van. This moment for young Van where she is essentially the one who

because Shauna's paranoia. Honestly, it's tough to call it paranoia because honestly, it's like 80% of the time she is right. You know what I mean? And so, but Shauna's decision to move inside of the circle is what puts the drop on Mari. But it is Van's manipulation of the deck that gets it there. And later we get this moment with Liv saying,

their performance of, of, of young man being like, it's Mari. You know what I mean? Like that was just like, so, so how, how we find man broken is,

In the present timeline, based on this thing that she did, that no one else did this particular thing. I thought this was great. All of this. I loved the conversation between Ty and Van about whether to do this. We talk so much in this show about how you justify the things you do to yourself and the way that Ty ultimately does

does compel Van is like, well, because Van's like, our friends, our teammates, you want me to choose who dies? And

And Ty's argument is basically like, it reminded me of how we talk about last of us. It's like, it's us or them. Yes. Who's an us? Who's the us? Yeah. Right. Hannah's a new. Yeah. You do anything to protect the person you care most about. In theory, that's a good thing. In theory, that's a coming from a pure place. I love you. I want you to be okay. And literally no matter what, but then what does that mean for the world that you're building?

in the world that you live in and then the way you need to navigate it. I thought this was like really great. And then obviously like Shauna, I'm with you. I like, I started writing like paranoia on my notes and then I switched it to like heightened suspicion because like she's very good. Yeah. And I thought that the way she clocked right away, that something was up with the, uh, the cutting, the final cut of the card right before like, okay, yeah, we can, we can do this. Um,

This was many things about the hunt and Pit Girl finally, all of it just finally being cemented. Fantastic. This was like spine tingling when Shauna moves. And first of all, you realize what she's doing and why. It's like, I'll prove a point. I'm in control, not you. It gets back to what you were saying about control.

But also, like, she's not, doesn't, for a second, believe, again, it chooses. She's going to choose. Or she's at least not going to let somebody else choose, right? Like, the gall that they would try to be the ones to make the decision. And also because it's a threat. What does it mean? Who's up to what? How are they trying to harm me? What don't I know?

And the moment where you kind of the camera pans and you realize that we're if we're who's one away from Hannah. Oh, my God. It's going to be Mari now. And then the delicious aspect of even though I was in a state of active grief, Mari and Shauna fucking ate each other. So for Shauna to get to turn to Mari and be like, aww.

tough break Mar I mean that was just great for that dynamic really was horrible okay so she's um she's wearing like before we got to that right we wake up there's snow everywhere uh Shauna's wearing Jackie's butterfly shirt which she often does but I do think it's always like sort of work worth tracking when Shauna's wearing Jackie's butterfly shirt they're all wearing each other's clothing but this one particular item is like only Shauna wears Jackie's butterfly shirt um

bitchily, which is how she says everything these days, says to Ty, like, how did you even get into AP stats or whatever? We got this hilarious email from our listener, Jackson. The title of the email was, did Sean take AP stats? And then Jackson goes on to say, the odds do change. In a group of four, he counted 14 people in the circle. In a group of 14,

And a deck of 52. If it's equal numbers round and round, the odds don't change. But given that it's not, the odds do change depending on where you are in that circle and where we start. So he's like, fuck your AP stats, burn Shauna, actually. And then also, one of my favorite memes that has been going around from this episode is when Shauna's like,

Who was the, like, what was your plan or whatever? And everyone's like, Shauna, can you count to one? Like, the plan was for Hannah, who's right next to Mari. What did you think? And then, like, so that was one of the things, like, can't even count to one, Shauna. And then later when, like, various people are missing, like, Nat's missing and Travis is missing, it's like, it makes sense Shauna can't count to one. So she can't.

Count how many people are missing from the final feast, et cetera. So, yeah. Great stuff. Mari draws the queen. As you mentioned, Shauna, real tough, you know, person about it. Gracious always, yeah. Travis does this mustard man moment. The girls put their sort of, I'm calling it regalia on. And then Shauna has this demonic baseball cap mask, which is so...

sick and even sicker when I read, I read this on the subreddit. Someone was like, that's Javi's baseball hat. And I was like, well, I can't, I need to go find out for myself. So I went back and like looked it's, it's just a, it's just a, their high school baseball cap. We do see their coach, like as in died in the tree coach has that hat on.

so it might be that Javi's wearing his dad's hat or it might be that they all have that hat because it might just be like one piece of uniform that they all have or whatever but it's not one that we've seen a lot and we have seen Javi his dad wear it we've seen Javi wear it and now

we see that Shauna has turned it or someone has turned it into a mask with the... It looks very like Jack Skellington with the sort of jack-o'-lantern eyes and then the script on the front of the ball cap when she pulls it down becomes this sort of like grin. And then the horns are fine. Some of my favorite arts and crafts. And there's a lot of great arts and crafts going on in the bonus, but this is like top tier for me is the baseball hat mask. Really disturbing. It's obviously like...

upsetting to see them

and cloak themselves in animal furs and perform a cannibalistic ritual where they hunt a friend and teammate. All of that stuff. However, this was like this, this, the hat did that thing that we love to talk about in yellow jackets where like you take something with, it was like a symbol of the, the old world, the before times, the team, like unity, team spirit, being proud of this thing that we did together. And also just being literally a unit, um,

cutting creepy eye holes and then running around trying to kill each other using that. It's a choice. And it's a disturbing one. It's a real move. I want to know what the day was like when they killed that skunk that they used for the skunk headdress one. That's a really good one. Was that a delicious meal? Like the skunk? How did it taste? I don't know.

I'm pleased to say that I have no idea what skunk tastes like. You're so pure. So pure. Okay. So Mari's on the run for her life and it's devastating. She's wearing this brightly colored, Hannah's brightly colored jacket, which we mentioned before. Takes it off very smart, right? Take off the brightly colored jacket.

Then she takes everything off. And, like, we know that she had to because in the opening, Pit Girl's running around in a nightie. So we know we have to get down to the nightie at some point in order for this to match what we saw in season one, episode one. But, like, when she takes her jacket off, sure. Maybe even the pants. But the shoes, Mari? Like...

To your point, Mari makes some poor choices here at the end of her life. But I was like, you keep those fucking shoes in the snow no matter what. And then, like, seriously, then she cuts her foot. And it's like curtains for Mari when she cuts her foot. But, like, oh, my God. Split foot. Just devastating moment. I was glad they had the cover of just, like, she's in such a hurry. She kind of can't. She's trying to get the pant leg off. It seemed like maybe over the shoes. And then can't. Has to in panics. But, yeah.

Is Mari our favorite character in the show after season three? She is. Was it also satisfying to have a reason for somebody at her eulogy to say, Mari was so dumb she chipped a tooth on a vibrator? Also, yes. Also, yes! Let's honor our entire time with Mari here at the end. Like Ty says later, she's going to be her entire self. And sometimes her entire self takes her shoes off in the snow when she's running for her life.

All right. So we already mentioned some of like Shauna's instincts, which we can no longer call paranoia because she's right about certain things. Something's weird. Stay close. She says to Ty. She knows that Jen's lying when Jen shows up and says that fans hurt. And we get this, the conversation between Nat and Hannah is,

I love this. This is just like the best version of like something's afoot, but we don't see it. We see this confrontation. We see Hannah defend her actions with Cody. I wasn't sure I believed her. Yeah. You know, I wasn't at all sure that like she was telling the truth. It just felt like something she could have been saying in that moment. And when Hannah shows up as Shauna's lieutenant, she's like,

During the bed check sequence and stuff like that, I was like, oh my god, are we going to spend a long time watching Hannah fall into this, that, or the other thing? And so it was sort of a surprisingly quick JK, I was just doing what I could to survive, sorry, moment. But I love so much about this, the fact that we had inside of this season Shauna teaching Nat how to...

dress a human. And so then we got this payoff of the season one, episode one, the person in the pink suit

plastic raincoat is the one who is doing the butchering. And we think that's Nat, but actually it's fucking Hannah. Tough beat for Hannah's first undercover mission is like, she has to butcher Mari. I guess she's done a lot of animal dissecting over the years. Her work as a scientist, I would not be able to... I personally would not have been able to stab Cody through the eye that quickly, but certainly wouldn't have been...

able to do this so quickly, but I was really ready. Just out of the wilderness polishing your halo better than everyone else around you. No, I don't have to polish my halo. I'm dead on day one, so I don't have to worry about any of this. You guys are just like chowing down on Malmeet. I'm like, I don't have to make any of these choices. I'm dead. My integrity remained intact. I don't think I could eat you, honestly. Like...

I would want to nourish you. Thank you for saying that, but I would want to nourish you if it came down to it. Okay. You all heard it first. This is a legally binding contract now. Mal said that she wants me to eat her. Okay. What do you... Take me into the cave. What do we see with Lottie? What is your interpretation? What's going on here? So...

Akilah arrives at the mouth of the cave and seeks her out. Knew she would be there. Reasonable. I like the idea that Lottie is simultaneously like, I won't let anybody seek shelter in this cave system. This is the goal line I'm defending. And also, I'm here to pray, right? Because she is...

whispering to the wilderness, like, I can hear it. I'm not afraid. Whatever you need, I will give you freely with every breath till my breath finally stops. This recurring refrain for Lottie. And then for Akilah to say...

Like, you made me believe that I could see things. And none of that was real. And Travis told me the truth. And then Lottie saying, no, but you did see things. Like, it can be real. I was really, I thought the parallel between this Akilah-Lottie confrontation and the Travis-Lottie confrontation around the pit from last episode was really palpable. Like, Lottie, uh,

was not part of the team JV. We've hatched a plan to forge a, to spark a hunt so that we can eliminate the people who are standing in our way. But Lottie's happy that the hunt is happening. She means it when she says we haven't offered ourselves. That's not a pure sacrifice. It's like, this is the nature of sacrifice.

And like what felt, what felt true to me with the pit sequence last episode and what felt really true here is that Lottie is trusting that the wilderness will either protect her in the face of this imminent threat or choose her. And she'd be fine with that too. Just like at the sunshine honey sequence at the end of season two in the present day, she's like,

I'll take the poison alcohol. Like the part of Lottie is courting that. She would be honored to be the chosen one. Super ready to die Lottie Matthews. Chosen either way, right? Chosen as the sacrifice or chosen as the one who has been shielded and allowed to go on preaching. Lottie says, Akilah grabs the rock, goes after Lottie. Lottie is pleading, imploring the wilderness for a connection, which we've seen her do before.

She says, just like actively huffing those vapors. It says, this place is in us now. Even if we go home, it will come with us. Which is sort of, we've heard this idea before, Shauna a bit, like we can never go home again, all of that sort of stuff. We brought it back with us. Yeah, but I like this idea of it as like an infection almost. It's got its little tendrils, its little...

Interview with a vampire, spindly roots inside of... In spite of them, you know, all that sort of stuff. And then we never see Akilah again. And in a way... So what do you think? Knocked out by the gas or Lottie killed her or they haven't decided so we don't know? They haven't decided so we don't know is what it feels like and that's... Oh, it's satisfying to me. But like, if it's like...

There's a way in which you can shoot that where I come out of it going, oh my God, we don't know what happened to Akilah. I can't wait for season four to find out if Lottie killed her in the cave or...

or if she passed out, if they're going to get rescued. I had this down for Batch at Theory Corner, but we had talked about this before, this idea, like, Akilah passed out in the cave and everyone gets rescued because she had that vision of just her in the camp. So she comes back to camp and they're all rescued. And Lottie's like, oops, I don't know what happened to Crystal. I mean, Akilah. You know what I mean? Like, it's...

That's me making a commentary on the show and it's treatment of its black characters sometimes, not my confusing two black characters on the show. And I will say that like, I am once again, let down, I think by the show's inability, especially to pay off the tie Akilah connection. We did. Do you get this one? It's Ty who rushes to Akilah. Yeah. And like, hold, we get a shot of them like holding hands as Akilah is like mourning the animals. But like,

I don't know. I just... I feel like... I feel like I would like this show to do better, and I really hope this is not the last we see of Akilah. A character who I think has... I think especially in season two... Season three was a little hit or miss for me, but season two really...

caught my attention, my interest, and I don't think they've fully explored her as a character. And I would really be disappointed if this is the end of her character. I strongly agree. And I think in terms of season three specifically, so many of the characters, whether it's Shauna saying, I was a fucking queen, I want to be that again, or Lottie saying, I want to commune with the wilderness. A character like Akilah saying...

And Travis had his version of this. It's not the first time, but it feels... It's a very rich text with Akilah. Actually, I don't want you to tell me I'm special. Like, stop trying to make me think that something unique is happening with me. We're all out here trying to survive and I want to go home. Like, to rebel against the idea that you have been chosen in some way is, I think, fascinating. Totally. That feels to me like the show doing what they're kind of saying they were doing with Van in the present. Like, actually having a character say...

wait, this is not like the way that we should behave or the choice that we should make. So I really like that. And then I think also, you know, Akilah having to like sacrifice something that she cares about genuinely with the animals and like do this horrible thing. You know, we've talked about it with Misty and the transponder. We talked about it with Lottie and Edwin, no, Hedwin, like...

At the end of the day, the reason might have been noble. The intention might have been noble. Let's get rid of the people. Let's create a circumstance that allows us to isolate and get rid of the people who are trying to keep us here so that we can go home. Okay.

you did a thing that took away the food supply so that you guys had to hunt and eat each other. And now Mari's dead. Like, I want to see Akilah have to process that. Yeah. Her role in that thing that they did and what happened. So I really, really hope that Akilah is still here. Season four is a lot of other things, but additionally, Akilah has frequent dreams of Mortimer and Mortimer talks to her in her dreams about the end of his life. Mortimer.

Melissa attacks Shauna. Again, this seems to be like what we were all working towards. Melissa attacks Shauna. The opposite like pin position of the present kitchen. Melissa on top, straddling Shauna and choking her out. And even though we know it's not going to happen, she got pretty close. I was like, what the fuck, Shauna? Yeah.

And I was really rooting for you, Melissa. And it was too bad that she wusses out on it. And Shauna goes, I knew you'd turn out to be boring. I mean, Shauna's ritual humiliation of Melissa in the last week's episode is its own thing. But I knew you'd turn out to be boring. Once again, I just find she's really trying to cosplay Jackie in a way that she can't carry those lines the way that Jackie did. It's not natural to her. If Jackie said, I knew you'd turn out to be boring, we're like, that's

kind of fun and bitchy in a real housewives kind of way and when shauna says it i'm just like you're the fucking worst shauna like i don't know how to enjoy the delicious bitchery from shauna the way that i did from jackie you know what i mean yeah i think not to imply that like um teen cruelty and and you know the words the old words not stones like i i

Obviously, just teenagers being cruel to each other and saying hurtful things is genuinely really damaging. However, I think, like, Jackie's mean girl viciousness, like, at the end of the day, it always felt like posturing and, like, a lack of care, which is harmful, but almost more like a persona that she was inhabiting. Whereas, like, I think the other thing is with Shauna when she says something like this, there's such a deep-rooted menace behind it that we're like...

Okay, yeah, the last bullet that you fired clipped the edge of his sleeve so that Mel pissed herself in front of everyone, and that was painful for everyone to watch. But, like, I would absolutely have believed it if she had just fired the gun right into her heart. Like, that is inside of Shauna, too, in a way that I don't think it was with Jackie. So that's also, I think, how we receive it from them is interesting. Great point. With Mel, this was, like...

You're on the verge. You press down for one more second and with one more bit of firmness and you end that person's life. How could that not have been on her mind with Van? Oh, yeah. In the present, right? It's like what she's saying, you know, but I do about like, you know, I want to be that. Did she spend 25 years wondering if she would make a different decision the next time? Like, 100%. 100%.

All right. I am obsessed. This is my favorite thing that you've said about this episode. This idea that like Lottie is inside of a true detective episode. So Lottie and Mari collide. Yeah. And Lottie in her most Russ Cole is like, you've already been here. You've been here already, Mari. You could let it be different. Yeah. Is,

Is Lottie referring to Mari going in the pit at the beginning of the season? You've already been inside this literal pit, except there are spikes here this time. I can walk over the top of it, but you are not so chosen, Mari. You can't do that. Yeah. Mari going into the pit in the season one opener as like a meta sort of we've all been here before. Time is a flat circle. Here we are back at pit girl. Or something else? Or let what be different? Like what? Yeah. What?

agency does Mari have inside of this moment? Just sort of like stand still and let them kill her? Like what can she let be different this time? Like what is Lottie implying here? What's your interpretation? I don't know. That was a little odd to me just because Lottie's whole thing is like it chooses. Yeah. So Lottie, and this was really on my mind with Lottie and Callie in terms of like

This idea of everything being faded and Callie having, from Lottie's perspective, no choice in the matter at all. The only choice is to say, is to embrace the fact that you were always meant to be here, basically. Which, as you know, I find to be a distressing idea, but also something I like when stories play with. So I guess I read it as, you can just give in. Stop trying to evade this thing. If you've been chosen, you've been chosen, and you're not getting out of the pit to really rapidly and shockingly heal this time. Listen, I'm not saying that.

Mari was able to run at all is still the single nuttiest thing that this show has done. Mari goes in the pit and you're like, maybe she'll walk it off this time. But then there's like a spike through her literal face and you're like, nope. Yeah. When we get like so many of the shots we get from, you know, from the pilot, the twitching fingers. Yeah. The one that gave me a real like kind of fun little chill was the pink converse, you know, moving to the edge of the pit. You're like, oh my God, all of these moments, great. But I think we could not see before because it would have revealed the character was...

the impaled cheek. And that was fucking disgusting. Poor, you know, poor Ty. She's not going to get her whole face eating experience. Some of the best meat. It's just ruined. Swiss cheese. Okay. So we're cutting back and forth between Mari and season one episode footage. It doesn't really match, but it gets like pretty close to matching. They had a different budget when they did season one, episode one. So the film quality is different and all sorts of stuff like that.

But according to this THR interview, per the showrunners, they said that the back and forth was meant to show viewers the difference between how the adult survivors remember what happened compared to how the horrific event actually played out. Now that is, end quote, now that is a very convenient cover for differences. And there are major, like if you want to play the highlights magazine spots, the difference between this and that. I just love those. There's a lot of different, but I really like this theory that I saw on Reddit, which was that

The version that we see in season one, episode one, which includes all the girls sort of joyously participating in the hunt is Shauna's POV and memory. Her memory of like, we all did this. We were all really excited when Mari went in the pit and we all waited together. And that's how that worked out. All of us.

Not like Jen doing one thing, Melissa nearly killing me, Van and Ty only concerned about each other, Van weeping about this, Nat has fucked off to do something with the transponder. Like, it was all of us together. We had all previously also spit in Marie's stew.

knocked it to the ground and then rubbed her face in it. Everyone did that. Oh my God. All of us. But yeah, so this is the showrunner saying like, if this looks a bit different from what we saw in season one, episode one, and it's true because like, you know, a lot of us, especially the people who love to exist in the theorizing space have like,

poured over the footage of the assemblage of people around the fire. And it's just sort of like, if the number count is different, which it is, if the like, you know, if the general demeanor is different, which it is like, um,

like there are some things that that work so well in the new p of u to your point the misty smile moment so good yeah like that is brilliant and that seems like a really clever thought and then some of this other stuff feels a little bit like coverage for landing at a slightly different spot but that's fine like eight more characters are alive than they initially intended to be so here they are doing various things or lost in caves like okay um

We get a moment of silence for Mari. There's, like, a lot of score and a lot, but, like, when Mari goes in that pit and it's over for Mari, the episode takes a beat. Oh, yeah. And just sort of, like, gives us a moment. I should fucking hope so, given the season three run that Mari had. My God. On this van...

This is our fault. It's Mari moment. Jonathan Lisko says to THR, quote, all of these people know they're complicit in the death of a friend. I don't think that's something you shake off lightly pretty much for your whole life. That's going to haunt them forever. And that's something to mine for seasons moving forward. So, end quote. So this idea of like, it was Mari. It wasn't, I mean, Van had that great line, which she pointed out where she was like, we ate a kid. We ate a hobby. Yeah. But that was...

Javi wasn't Mari. Javi wasn't a teammate. Javi wasn't a girl our age. And this is like, we... Jackie, oops. Jackie was an accident. A real oopsie moment. Learn to not fucking fire Jackie and you'd be alive. But...

We chased a person through the woods until they fell into a pit full of spikes. Totally. The Javi one is still the closest to me, not because of Javi, but because it was supposed to be Nat. Yeah. You know, Nat pulled the card. Nat had the, they put the necklace on Nat. Like, they were engaging in the ritual and they were willing to put one of their teammates and friends in that mortal peril in theory. So it was a bridge, much like Ben was, in fact, a bridge because he smelled great when they were cooking him, brought

the frogger's over and that sat phone allowed Nat to make a call out to the wider world for rescue. Great work, Ben. We appreciate your service now and always. To Nat, Ben was a friend, but it was very different. His death as well. This is a leveling up of not only the intentionality, but also then the outcome. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why I'm curious too, like how long until rescue, like how many more times do they have to do this, if at all?

Jen, are you making it back, Jen? I don't think so. But again, I want to say, well, we've seen the footage of them getting off the plane and we know how many people there are. Maybe a handful of people were in the bathroom. Yeah. You know, they were so excited to get back. A few people just lingered by the vending machine. Which is different. To be clear, you know, and this is where...

Like, I know, again, I know we referenced Lost a lot, but I want to give Lost credit because, like, there are many times in which Lost had to zag, like...

when the actor who played Walt had a growth spurt and Walt, who was set up to be this like chosen one, interesting kid was just sort of like written off the show. Mr. Echo was set up to be this very important character written off the show. So they had those moments of these zigs and zags, but there are certain things that they did where they were like, if we establish this, we establish it. If it's oceanic six, it's oceanic six people made it off, you know, the island, uh,

Well, also Desmond, I guess. But like, you know, like there are things that they did where they're just sort of like, we have this target that we said we were going to aim for. We have to stick to that. And I think Yellowjack is just sort of like any number of people could have come off that plane. It could be everyone, you know, still there makes it home. So we're pulling for you, Jen. Now and always a person with absolutely no personality, but could possibly make it through. Who's to say?

Shauna orders them to fill the pit. Van makes this move like she's going to go after Shauna and Ty stops her. Yes. What the hell is Ty's allegiance to Shauna at this point? We know, like we've seen them from the beginning. They have this affinity. We, in season two, especially a lot of like Ty's, you know, praying to the, you know, the it in moments for Shauna on Shauna's behalf. Like I,

I just don't know. I think this is a failure on the show's part to not give you more Shauna and Ty scenes to help me understand. I understand the Van and Ty allegiance. Obviously, it's not just sex. These women are, like, in love and they have shared these moments of camaraderie and all this sort of stuff like that. So, like, why would Ty put herself between Van and Shauna? I'm uncertain of it at this point. What do you think? So, it's a great question. I think, um...

I do think that because there's the moment where Ty really stands up to and challenges Shauna and Shauna just whips. Backs down. Like in a way that she just wouldn't with anyone else. That felt like a reminder in yet another way of how unique that particular relationship and dynamic is. I read this a few ways. One, I think reminding us of their history together.

everything in the past with Ty being the first to know about the baby and being there for Shauna, et cetera. We've talked a lot about in the present timeline where they're cuddling in Callie's bed, like kind of almost reverting to that teenage space of sharing secrets with each other, reminding us of that before then the present day declaration of the hunt is on and we are opposed. It's over. We are not aligned. And I won't try to convince myself any longer that we should be. Yeah.

So I think some of it is that. The thing that felt even more present to me, though, was just protection. That Tide thinks that if Van went after Shauna, she could be harmed. Because Shauna is a complete wild card and would not hesitate for a moment to try to stab Van through the heart. Van has been on fire and also had her face eaten at a certain point and just doesn't have the best track record with putting herself in dangerous positions. That's a great point. Wolf face mauling? Yeah.

Fine. You get impaled by a spear in a pit through the face, you're fucking toast. Yeah. But a wolf eats your face, you're good to go for another 25 years. Get a really cool artistic star on your face. That's great. Okay. Yeah.

We get Mari being dragged naked through the snow. The showrunners talked in THR about the fact that this was a really upsetting moment for them. That we had seen the dragon without the face, but to see it be Mari dragged naked through the snow. Very exciting. Bring me her hair, now we understand. So the hair thing has sparked this whole...

controversy that I feel unqualified to get into. So you can Google that if you want to, but visually visually,

I think it is an extremely, I mean, obviously very creepy. Shauna from the start, Shauna loves a trophy. She kept Adam's driver's license. She loves a trophy. She kept Hannah's lock of hair and a little like a sort of indicator that this was coming. Visually, from a like costume design point of view, the way that it turns her white robe into like an ermine, essentially, like it looks like a royal ermine cloak. Yes. But it's Mari's fucking hair is...

Is tremendously creepy. And Shauna, scary. Okay. That's the then. We'll get to the rest. I mean, we already kind of talked about it, but we'll wrap it all up at the end. The breakdown between then and now, we've got the medium and I'm just saying the Lotties, this sort of like time-bending Lottie moment. What do you want to say about this? Or do you want to wait and save it until we get to the Lottie and Callie confrontation?

I think we can probably hit most of it in the Lottie-Callie conversation. I guess just the way that adult Lottie kind of rises from the slab in the morgue and says, oh, no, no, no, no, did I miss it? And then young Lottie kind of soothes and calms, shh, we didn't miss anything. Do you remember what we promised? And then adult Lottie nods and young Lottie says, it's time to meet her. So the her...

of callie we'll hear everything a lot he says to callie about our the you're the wilderness you're you're the baby of that place our baby all of it um but also like then everything that let callie and the idea of this baby represent in terms of like the uh the call of the antler clean the queen the call of the wilderness etc um

Just again, like the melding of the timeline stuff was what stood out to me here because I think typically when we see the adult and teen versions of the characters with each other, it is this like, I am dying. Liminal space. Yes, I am moving into the next plane, into the next phase. And this was not that. Was this adult Lottie dreaming of being in the morgue?

And being woken by her teenage self because then she kind of sort of snaps awake in her gym jams in the stairwell. Sleepwalking, as the song is saying. Yeah. And was this young Lottie dreaming of the future, of her own future, and she always knew... A bridge across time. That this death was coming because she dreamt of it when she was in the wilderness. Yes.

Yeah. That's how it seemed. Unclear in a fun way, I think. Yes. Yeah. Like the fact that in the dream she's in the same white nightgown that she had been in in the season one Larley baptism stretch and then kind of like seems to be deliberately wearing a white dress in the present timeline with her little blazer over it to kind of like

mimic that outfit while also making sure we recognize that it is different. All of that was interesting. I have a quick question on the costuming front. And maybe I forget a moment in the cabin when they discovered a lot. Did they discover a lot of knitwear in the cabin? Because they have so many like alpine pattern knitwear aspects of their costume. When they were going to Seattle in the springtime,

Why are they packing all these ski sweaters to go to Seattle in the springtime? They should basically have formal outfits for whatever thing there is to celebrate nationals. Their soccer kits and then just a shitload of condoms from what Ben pays. That's all they should have. So those outfits should not be made of sweaters. They should be made of prophylactics is what you're saying. Yeah.

But that's exactly. If that was someone with a mask, just a condom head. It's sort of similar to Nicolas Cage in Raising Arizona with the pantyhose. And we just had like a condom over someone's head. Okay, cool. Someone should do that. It's not too late. It's not too late. Season four. They're not rescued yet. All right, the breakdown now. Yeah. Okay, these are actually just some like catch-up questions I wanted to ask you. Was Shauna right?

to be so aggressive about Melissa, given the you don't want to be, but I do stab moment. Like, how are we interpreting that? Was Shauna right? So last pod, I was still very much in the, like, Melissa could be revealed to be the perpetrator of all of this and like the villain of the season space. I think that given what we learn about Callie and Lottie,

And the gravity defying letter. And the gravity defying letter that was not a ruse, but was in fact there, scooting its way across multiple kitchen tiles. Yeah, and dimensions. Yeah.

Oh my God. I just couldn't get over that when that happened, truly. And does, in essence, contain what Mel was trying to convince Shauna it did, which is like...

I've been carrying a lot of this with me, like literally, but also emotionally, spiritually, and I want to move forward. Like I have a family that I love and I want to try to let go. And this is an anchor that is preventing me from doing so. I hope you can find peace too. What it feels like to me then is yet another, like, and we talked about this last part too, like another, like we create our own demons kind of continuation where much like in the past, like,

Shauna activated Mel as an enemy, that that happened here. Like...

Mel was ready to hurl that knife. Do you hurl a knife when you're stabbing someone? I don't think that. That would be more of like a Violet Sorengel throwing knife. This is more of a stab, stab, stab than a throw. Speaking of Violet Sorengel, sorry, really quickly. I finished the third book in Court of Thorns and Roses, by the way. Okay, let's talk about it, but not this very moment. This very moment, I want to circle back.

To one of your favorite lines, or actually I think it was Jodi's favorite line from Cody, which is like, have fun braiding each other's hair and engaging in some light cannibalism. And in this episode, Shauna's like rocking all these, like she's got a fishtail braid. She's got a lot of intricate braids going on, leadership braids. And I was just sort of like, who's on hair braiding duty for Shauna? And Shauna...

I hope you loved Katniss Everdeen. Like, I hope you loved Violet Sorengale. I hope you love a well-braided white woman. Okay. Um...

Sorry, back to you in the studio. What were you going to say? So I guess it just, it feels to me like less Mel was engaging in some, executing some master plan to kill everybody. And now that she might try to, because she has once again, this like violent impulse that had been, you know,

has been awakened. That's, I think, what seems more in play currently. They will never ally because, I don't know if you remember, but she stabbed Van. But, like, if Ty and Misty were to invite Melissa to the diner table, then we can all just, like, get this out. Let's all take out Shauna together and call it a day and then we can all rest in pieces. Right.

But I think what I really loved and I forgot to write this down in the notes, but I was thinking about this a lot, this idea of like the the various factions, the the gadget girls, the team JV Travis as this sort of like wandering entity, blah, blah, blah.

All of us had... The fact that Shauna is holding this camp, and let's say Shauna and Lottie if we want, and Shauna and Ty and Lottie if we want, and Shauna and Hannah and Ty and Lottie if we want, but really Shauna with one fucking gun, majority under her boot, if we all work together, then we should be able to easily overwhelm her. But isn't it the nature of...

I don't know, our current political landscape or whatever, like a fascistic rule or whatever, that like there are too many factions that can't figure out how to combine their interests against this person wheeling power like a cudgel who's wheeling power like a cudgel and who is deeply invested in keeping you separated and keeping you vulnerable and keeping you scattered. Yes. I thought that was a really good, like I was reading, someone was writing about the fact that like if Hannah had gotten to camp

you know, Hannah and Edwin and Cody had gotten to camp just like three days earlier, they would have found the like, you know, the Nat regime, the democratic socialist regime, the utopian regime. But oops, they got to like, what was it? They called, they called the, this is a meme I saw, they called Shauna gay Stalin. They're like, oops, she got gay Stalin instead. And it's just like, what a difference a couple of days makes. But I guess they still would have found

Not Ben's head, but Ben imprisoned in an animal pen, soaked in his own piss, next to piles of rotting food. Not great, but I guess they could have said, hey, man, he tried to burn us alive in a cabin. Better, yeah. He tried to burn us alive in a cabin. What were we supposed to do? We're just...

That reminds me. One of the Lottie flashes... I completely forgot about this until you just said burned in the cabin. One of those rapid Lottie flashes was the burning cabin. Do you take that to mean that Lottie burned the cabin or no? I wouldn't be fucking surprised if she did. She's a loon. We support mental health issues. Okay, so...

Let me follow back, swoop back to this other question. Was the other one, capital O, other capital O-1, right that she could have saved Van when Nice Tie could not? Could she have protected Van, do you think? What do you think? I don't know. This is very muddled to me in the show still. Same. Like, I'm... And not just in terms of what is happening when, but kind of the message, like, of what we're supposed to take from it. And, like...

My interpretation... Okay, so let's talk about... Okay, great. Would you like to care to comment on how deep the grave was that Ty dug for Van? This is the first thing I texted you about. Yes, it was. What do you want to say? I think I was like, watch the finale, and then immediately just like, can we talk about the grave? Okay. Famously, infamously in Yellow Jackets, Adam's severed, mutilated corpse was found because they didn't do a good enough job of digging a grave. I will say...

Obviously, everything that happened with Van is very sad. However, on the genuine comedy front, being like, well, it's a redhead, so all we need is just a few strands of red hair poking through the carnivorous. You don't have to show up to set. Incredible stuff. High comedy. The fact that this was such a shallow grave that Ty could basically just proper elbows lean forward and cut

a human heart to then chow down on. Uh,

The grave is not deep enough. The body will be found. What are we doing here? Have we learned nothing? Also, why not burn the body? You need to eat the organ meat. Travis took a bite out of Javi's heart. I guess this is how they honor each other, as they like to say. Okay. But then burn the body? Won't Van be found? Speaking of braided white women, Ty, you're going to love Daenerys Targaryen. I know. Oh, my gosh. Similar technique. Yeah. Real chomp energy. But...

Does seem easier to chew through a human heart in yellow jackets than it ever did to gnaw the horse meat. Okay, so listen. That grave is too shallow. And it's also... The corners are beautifully squared off. I was like, what are we doing squaring off the corners of this grave if we're not going to take the time to dig it deeper? Also, yeah, Shauna, fuck you. I'm mad at you. But...

Help me dig the grave deep. You know, like, get out of the car and help me dig the grave and then we can never talk again. Like, it was just like, what the fuck? Okay. So then she says, this is to go back to your point of like, we're having trouble tracking this. She says, I'm done forgetting it. Starting now, Van, I'm going to remember all of it. All of you and all of me. Okay. So is all of her...

the other one? Is she reconciling her two halves? We've never understood sort of how this two half thing works. Is our understanding that for the rest of the episode we are dealing with a fully integrated, reintegrated tie? Or are we, is the other one got the wheel again? If there were a time for the other one to take the wheel, would it not be after Van dies and we're hunting Shauna? But there was no

In her demeanor in that diner scene with Misty, it did not really seem to me like the other one, though I have a hard time always distinguishing. So what do you think? So I think in part to latch on to this other read of it because I am having trouble with the actual kind of like canon of the show in this respect. What felt important to me about this is that Ty is seeking...

retribution and vengeance against Shauna and that this is something that Ty has struggled with that Shauna has not. Part of Shauna's journey and the thing we have tracked with Shauna is, like, we talked about this a lot with when the scene with Shauna and Jeff in Adam's studio in season two. It was very top of mind for me watching Callie work through how she felt about her mother and what Lottie was saying to her about her mother and how similar they are and what that might mean. Um...

Shauna likes the dark parts of herself and Shauna, her journey has been a journey of embrace and then rediscovery and embrace again. And for Ty to be an equal match for Shauna, she has to do that too. I think that is what the show is telling us. Mm-hmm.

whether we have any ability to understand who's what or like, I don't know, you know, when Ty is hiding in the tree outside of Sammy's window and scaring him or eating dirt while Van is getting mauled by a wolf or mutilating Biscuit and not remembering it,

it's about fearing what she is capable of and not knowing what she has done or the impact it has had on herself and the people she cares about. And this is just a deliberate decision to pivot her relationship to that, like, duality inside of her. I thought it was really interesting to me that, like, the showrunners talked in that THR article about, like, the fact that, like,

Ty had maybe channeled some of that into her like political career ambition that like she had sort of repurposed that side of her into this other thing. Um,

um and that shauna had like suppressed it and buried it in her like deeply mediocre there's no judgment on anyone who wants to like live in suburbia and be a mom but for like no but that's how shauna thinks about it stifling like stifling it all down to be you know quote just a mom or whatever and in suburbia and so like um and yeah so this is this reclaiming this reawakening this rechanneling for both of them but my takeaway from that was like

All along, has Misty been the most psychologically healthy of all of us? Because she didn't suppress or mischannel. She's just like, guess what? I got some darkness in me. And it's here. You piss me off of the old folks' home. I'm going to deny you your medication. Oops. I won't change your soiled linens. I won't change your linens. Like, anyway. Even Misty, though, is not capable of saying to Callie,

Let me tell you, take it from an expert. I know how secretly poisoning people works. What about Misty? What a stretch for Misty. Misty. Showing up at a high school to interrogate a young star. Part of the bleachers while Callie is vaping. Okay, listen. Oh, man. Misty, star of the show. Christina Ricci, star of the show. So good. The day Christina Ricci dies on the show is the day perhaps I am done with this show, okay? Yeah.

That's a devious thing to do, drugging someone without their knowledge. Go off, Misty, you unselfaware queen. Just like incredible stuff from Misty to Callie. Really, really good. It's really hard to pick a favorite Misty line from this episode because she had a couple incredible ones both to Callie and then some unreal ones.

Unbelievable eyes later for Shauna. But I thought when she was talking about mitochondrial DNA, which I know you have some impending dispatches about for us here, when she then said, and apparently homicidal tendencies in terms of things they shared, I found that quite amusing. Laura, or it was her, Laura, who had previously written in a very long email about sort of like whether or not

Callie's DNA could be confused for Shauna. Laura wrote a medium-long email, of which I'm only going to read a little bit, but she says, Missy tells Callie that mothers and daughters share mitochondrial DNA, which is absolutely true. Actually, mothers pass their mitochondrial DNA down to all of their children, regardless of sex. But in no universe is anyone using mitochondrial DNA for forensic identity testing for this exact reason. It's not specific to one individual. So Laura was like...

this is absolute scientific bullshit. Yeah. Did it result in this great scene with Misty and Callie? Yes. Was I amused? I was, so I'm not mad about it, but just in case you're wondering about the science, it's bullshit. Okay. I guess that's what happens when it's just a bunch of Misty's would-be boyfriends who are cracking the case here. Like the guy she bribed into sending over the evidence and then Walter who's like, I ran some comps. I do have a

actual question about this, though, not about mitochondrial DNA, which is not a thing I understand even after that helpful email. Does it make sense to you in the universe of the show where multiple seasons were spent with law enforcement pursuing the Sudeikis that

Whether the mitochondrial part of it tracks or not, that there is DNA evidence on the victim, like a dead person, and there's no knock, knock, knock, we have some questions for you. My only answer to that, and it's a shabby one,

Do we think Mr. Matthews, even in his deep dementia, could once again just be throwing money at a problem and being like, let's bury this. He didn't want to do that. Let's bury this. Maybe. Maybe that's why we had that moment in the apartment where he was like, yeah, down at the station, yada, yada. That's probably it. Kat.

Callie tells Misty about the tape and that she knew Lottie had taken it. And then we just get this amazing moment where Callie walks into the building and Lottie walks out of the door of the basement. And she's just like, hello, it's me, Lottie, in a silver jacket and silk dress in my grimy, drippy, underground candlelit lair. I'm Phantom of the Opering. You know, Misty and Walter would love this moment for me as I...

Basically put on a half mask and draw you, Christine, down into my lair. Really great, like, there's a lot about this I don't like, but you want to understand your mother is a great thing. And, like, again, as I mentioned, all this back and forth about, like, Callie is, yes, someone who is, like, I don't know, channeling, capital I, it, maybe. Yeah.

has inherited the homicidal tendencies from her mother, maybe. But as a teenage daughter who just wants to understand, does my mom even love me? I look at her sometimes and I'm not really sure I see actual human emotion there. I don't know what's going on. I want to understand what happened to her out there. Will that help me understand why my relationship with my mother feels so different from...

what some of my peers experienced with their mother. Like all of that stuff I think is really interesting to me.

and then Lottie is just being her most absolute Lottie in the midst of all of that. Yeah, I think that Kali-Shawna aspect of this was, I agree, quite poignant. You know, it made me think back to multiple prior moments for both of them, I think, from Shawna's perspective. It made me think about the season two police interrogation sequence where, you know, she's

working the room, but also it felt in real time really said something very honest and true. Like you have a kid that you don't want to save a marriage that you got into out of guilt and shame. And you just, you can't really let yourself love either of them. And then she pauses and says, but of course you do. You love them despite yourself. You're just incredibly bad at it. And that this like really central defining insecurity for Shauna about herself and

and who she is as a wife and a mother and for her family, like, is something that Callie feels and wonders about was so painful and sad to hear and confront. I just loved that because that relationship is such a core, like, heartbeat of the show. And then from the Callie side of it, you know, obviously we'll get to the Jeff Callie part of it where it's more...

I would say, clear in that scene from both of them, Jeff and Callie, like, you're not like Shauna and we'll say that out loud and that's important for us to say. Because being exactly like Shauna would be bad and scary. Here in this conversation with Lottie, it felt more complex to me from Callie's perspective that she simultaneously yearns for that closeness and proximity and similarity and was the person who sat next to her mom and watched and laughed together the Swift Deeds organ bag dumping. Yeah. And like...

also is scared of that also is scared that she did hold a gun out in the in the forest last season and did poison misty and did order the order you need to dump on a friend and did did did did did and is like what does it mean if this thing that i fear in my mother is inside of me and then it made me think of the mall conversation with lottie and callie in episode three this season

Where Lottie, the way that Lottie positioned it to her was like, I guess what I'm really asking you is tell me who you are. If you could describe yourself without embarrassment or shame, and especially without the fear that you might say something that scares you, what would you say? And it's like so much of the show orients around that question, right? It's a little bit of the like, Gail, are you brave enough to say it out loud thing, but about yourself. And like, I think that's,

Will this ultimately be a source of closeness for Callie and Shauna or a rift, an unresolvable rift between them is something I'm very interested in. Yeah, that's really interesting to me. I think about this all the time. So, like, you know, I have a very fraught relationship with my own mother. And, like, what's interesting to me is, like, there are ways in which my mom interacts with people, shows or doesn't show emotion, all the sort of stuff like that that I find, like, really...

And a way in which I don't want to be going through the world. And then there are times when I'm really good at a crossword puzzle or I can do languages or I can do this and I know I get that directly from my mom. Like directly from her. That I'm like...

you know, there are ways in which you're like your mother and you're excited about it. And then, you know, and then I'm like, oh, there are ways in which I am like her and I'm not excited about it. And I'm just sort of like, but it's not a wholesale rejection of it. It's like, this is a person who like has these interesting, good qualities, has this kind of power, this, that kind of power or allure that I'm interested in. But then like, if I, if I,

pursue that do I then have to take on these other things that come with it that I that feel less attractive to me um so it's it's all like mothers and daughters stuff is so complicated and I love the show is trying to actively engage in that inside of this episode um inside of this like kind of dumb moment I'm counting the weeks

There's a lot that's really cool. Lottie once again being her classic, like, it's our baby. Like, shut the fuck up, Lottie. Like, what are you doing? Sort of moment. This idea that Lottie, I love the way you phrased it earlier, this idea that the tape was a little piece of cheddar in the maze to lure Callie there to her death. Like, she's like, I'm supposed to die here at the hand of the wilderness baby. That is sort of like a little, like, do it. Like, I want to see the wilderness baby

and blossom inside of you and killing me will help it grow in you. And I want to... That is a sacrifice I'm gladly making my beautiful silk gown, you know, in my weird, like, floating down the stairs death. My memory, did I misremember, is that when Misty goes to the scene of the crime, does she not take...

Like scrapings from the wall where there were like nail furrows in the wall. Am I misremembering that? You are not. Body free falls and does not make any contact with any piece of plaster on her way down is what I saw with my eyeballs. Is that what you saw? We certainly got the like, okay, I'm grabbing Callie's hand. So we've got the under the nails check. Yeah.

The arms are wide enough that I was like, maybe there's some grazing of the wall. Maybe Lottie's keeping her claws as sharp as the branch fingers from the Antler Queen. I don't know. Yeah, that was... Given the zoom-in effect on the nail markings on the wall earlier in the season, that was... If I wasn't going to do it as part of the fall, I would simply have cut that part early in the season. Not to do it.

That's just me. Okay. So as you mentioned, Callie and Jeff have this conversation where Jeff is like, okay, I didn't like this. Jeff says it took your mom 25 years to tell me 10% of the truth, and now it doesn't even seem like it was even that much, like even 10% of the truth, maybe only 1% of the truth. I really hate this revisionist history because we discussed this earlier. We really liked this idea that Jeff knew everything and loved her everything.

Anyway. Anyway. Yeah. And I hate this idea that Jeff is now like, actually, I only know a little bit, a little smidgeroo, and Shauna sucks. We agree, Jeff, but that's okay. Shauna sucks. And he says he's sorry he didn't protect Callie from her. Was your interpretation of this from Lottie or from Shauna? You think it's from Shauna? Which is just heartbreaking, right? Because like...

Obviously, his teenage child has been embroiled in this. Oops, she did a murder. In this aspect of the Yellow Jacket's experience that has led her to, like so many of them, commit murder. Yeah.

And, you know, I think when Lottie, who, you know, throughout season two, we heard, you know, muttering to the baby, you're going to change everything, et cetera, has been obsessed, as we've talked about many times with this child, for Lottie to say, like, you only could have come here. I've been waiting 25 years. And again, like Rob Calley of the agency, weirdly, like,

Jeff is doing that in a different way too, I thought. You know, by saying like, I mean, obviously part of it is the comfort of a parent. It's going to be okay. You were scared. You didn't mean it. You were protecting yourself. That's true. But also, Callie sought in many ways, in an effort to understand, Callie sought a presence inside of this. Callie sought a connection to it and wound up

seeking the tape, but first a pursuit of some sort of insight and understanding as well, wound up in a place where she was in the bowels. You used the word bowels in the outline and it got me right into bowels of a pleasure den. That's why I used it. Sadly, not a pleasure den here, but always wonderful to see the word bowels in the outline. Thank you. The bowels of Lottie's

father's apartment building in a position where this enticement to push leads to someone dying. Like, Callie is actually a part of this and has culpability, too. Has she been...

ill-served by many of the adults around her? Yes, definitely. But what does it mean that she wanted these things? That she felt this kind of pull? Like, that also has to be, I would assume, something that the character thinks about moving forward. I love this. This is of that...

Really great sort of sprawling THR interview. I thought this answer from Jonathan Lisko is one of my favorite where he's talking about this interaction between Jeff and Callie and he says, quote, we'll see how Callie continues to remember that moment because her dad has already given her a justifiable reason. Quote, you were scared. You didn't mean to do it. All of that. And then when she looks back,

she'll only remember that time of remembering it. As they say, you only remember remembering it the last time. So the data in your brain gets warped. It'll be interesting to see where Callie winds up in terms of how she has a perspective on that moment. So this, you know, end quote. So this interacts with like so much of what you've been sort of seeding and teasing all episode discussion of this idea of memory and what do we remember and what has been real and what hasn't and how have we warped something? How has Shauna warped something

the Mari hunt to be, oh, something we all did together rather than something she or Lottie drove sort of specifically. And Jeff...

I like the way you're connecting it to the sort of robbing of agency and vandalizing sort of like you were just scared. That's all. That's all. You couldn't help. You had no control over it. What could you possibly do? We saw the shove. That was a shove. Yeah, not push her down the stairs. That wasn't a let me pull my hand out of your grasp and oops, you're wearing impractical heels in a drippy basement. And he fell down because you chose glamour over practicality once again, Monty. In a nice rubber jacket.

sold shoe with grip. Yes. And not dresses. Okay. Lottie being like, I'm going to, this is it. It's time. I'm going to die in this candlelit stairwell and I'm going to look fucking dynamite when I do it is honestly iconic. That's true. I think to your point about Jeff rewriting this thing that felt really central to his relationship with Shauna, I do agree with you. I think like,

I guess it could fall into this same thing we're talking about where Jeff is recontextualizing for himself because he is so bitter right now and driven by resentment. And he feels like whether it's Shauna not supporting him or Shauna withholding. I think the thing that felt like the distinction he's drawing to me here was like,

Callie sought him out and told him, and Shauna has never done that. Like, even though he, in his mind, right? Like, he found the journals, he read them, he accepted her anyway, and then she was like, you knew and you loved me anyway, and that was beautiful, that she didn't offer that up freely to him. Now, I'm not saying she should have, but I think then every moment since, he has begged her, like, I'm here, I stayed, just keep showing me who you are, I love you anyway. Obviously, he has, uh,

reached a limit, but I think in part driven by his feeling that she did not continue to confide in him or trust that he would remain around and maybe he has not earned that trust. But he seems to then be like doubting that he knows the things that he thought he knew because he's like, well, what did she give me actually ever? Which is not really true. What I think is so interesting is like you're saying like, well, Jeff is...

yeah, it almost seems like this sort of transference. You see this sometimes in parents, this idea of like,

Your partner is your person, and then your child becomes your person for a variety of different reasons. But he's just sort of like, I'm all in on Callie now. Like, fuck Team Shawna. I'm all in on Team Callie now or whatever. What's interesting about Jeff's interpretation of she came to me. Shawna never did, but she came to me. Misty. It's really Misty. Yeah. Push her to Jeff. And that brings us to my favorite scene of the episode and maybe of life itself, which is Misty.

Prying Walter's beautiful sign for Caligula off the cage. Tough. But there's hope for these lovebirds yet. I'll come back to that in a second. Shauna comes storming, finds out that Jeff and Callie have gone. Callie's phone has been turned off. She starts over to Misty's. This is incredible. This is what the show should be.

Misty has so many incredible lines, but I do have to give the line of the episode to Shauna when she says, I know neither of them would ever know how to contact the phone company. Incredible and definitely like true. His phone has been cut off and I know neither of them. And the way that Melanie Linsky said it, it was just like, it had me in stitches. It was so good.

But yeah, but Missy saying the shock of you taking responsibility for your actions might actually give me a stroke. That was great. Yeah. The aforementioned busy eating your ex-girlfriend's arm line that you quoted earlier. This is my, that was my absolute favorite. But here's the deal. They're talking about it and Sean, they're talking about everything.

Misty being so she's like there's all these cameras on you I'm gonna get a restraining order I know what you are and I'm not scared of you I was like kissing your ass at the beginning of the season but now I am in like more control of myself thank you Walter by the way but she says like Shauna's like oh so Walter knows and Misty's like no Walter doesn't know anything and I was just like

protective of Walter. Don't let Misty know. Don't let Shawna know that Walter knows a single thing about this. Yeah. I thought it was two things. I thought it was like Misty really boldly declared that she was going to get to the bottom of all of it. And I do think she wants them like the credit for having done so. But I agree with you. It was like, all right, I stole the cologne phone. I bailed on the Erica cow shavings on the cocktail. Yes.

But I know that Shawna is capable of and will probably seek to eliminate anybody in possession of this damaging information about her daughter. I have to make sure that he's in the clear. And that's hopeful. That gives us hope for what might await. All right, let's go to the diner scene. Ty and Misty, the showrunners talked about how they really tried to match

the initial diner scene between Shauna and Ty, which was filmed in LA and they had to like find the closest comp in Vancouver or whatever. A lot of people on the subreddit seemed to feel like this was bizarrely shot so much so that I rewatched the scene. I was like, I disagree. Yes. They shoot it to give you Misty as a reveal. Misty as a surprise ally. Yeah. But,

But as, let me just tell you, and I don't like to self-aggrandize, but as a connoisseur of these two people were definitely not in the same room when they shot this scene analysis of television that goes back to The Good Wife and before. They were both there. This was like, because the theory is that it was supposed to be a different character, but that doesn't make sense because...

you know, the theory is that they stitch Christina Ricci in there and it was originally supposed to be like adult tequila or someone else, like whatever. Um, right. With love and respect. I have to push back on that because Ty says, uh,

And Shauna's responsible for everything. Wasn't me. Wasn't me hiring Jessica Roberts. Wasn't anything like that. It was all Shauna. Right. Shauna's responsible for everything. Yeah. She's responsible for Van's death. She's responsible for Nat's death. And the reason that she hits Nat so hard is because she knows that will get to Misty. Doesn't make sense that it would be anyone other, I think, than Misty sitting across from her there. There are so few people left for it to be. We think. Yeah.

Yeah, Jen, where are you? We'd love to see you, blah, blah, blah. My theory brain, like, what is going... Is there something else afoot in this scene hang-up was actually, like, what I thought, perhaps just because I am losing my hearing and or my headphones needed to be charged, was... I thought, like, a crackly static sound from the jukebox, and I was like, is this another, like, neon glowing phone, like...

Oh. Something. I don't know. I mean, given that quote from Bartnick, who said that we were in the beginning, who knows whatever is happening on this show. In terms of this idea of forgetting, which we've been talking about throughout, which is really compelling as an idea. Yeah.

But it is also like clear cover for these discrepancies that you've been talking about. We got this email from, I want to say you would pronounce his name Elena, but perhaps Alana. But there's a fun little I in there, so it might be Elena, who wrote, it seems to me that they've tried to correct for the team timeline development of Shauna with Ty's statement at the end about forgetting how bad it was out there, specifically forgetting how bad Shauna was as a way for us to understand how the adults could have possibly undergone

acted the way they did and worked together in earlier seasons after we now have seen what happened in their past. It might be true that they always had Shauna being essentially a dictator as part of the plan, but the development of it leaves something to be desired. And I kind of agree with that, you know? Yeah, I do as well. And I think, you know, we're going to hit this same idea in the journal entry that Shauna has. I think, like, it is definitely true that throughout the entire show, this idea has been present. Like...

A memory. Yeah. So recently, it was last week, um, uh,

young Van said to young Ty, like the mind forgets to protect itself. I get it. Like they're, they're priming for this a little bit. Um, I, the, the one example that really stood out to me thinking back, like, okay, how primed have we been for, for the centrality of this concept here at the end of season three was, um, season two, episode seven, when they're all together again, up at Lottie Cole, uh, sunshine, honey land. And they just have a conversation about memory. Nat asks, how much do you guys remember?

I remember. It's just some things are hazy. And Ty says, yeah, like they've just been stuffed somewhere deep down. And Lottie replied, well, that's a familiar cognitive response. In an ecstatic state, the human mind can't hold memory that well. And Shauna said, well, if I'm repressing things I don't know about, I am very okay with never finding out. So it's been there. It's been there. I really agree with what you said, though, that the worry I have is that it's always going to be the like, well,

I don't remember. I don't remember. And now we can explain why this like completely different dynamic exists between these characters based on something surfacing. I think in terms of what Shauna wrote, what Ty is declaring here too, but what Shauna wrote and this idea of like the thing that you tamped down, um,

maybe not being out of like fear, but almost because nothing else in your life could ever compare to it again. But that was when you were most alive. Like this idea of the activation again, like that's really interesting to me. I think like almost not letting yourself remember what it was like when you felt like you were the purest, truest version of yourself because you don't know if you can be again.

I'm interested in that and the show's desire to explore the way trauma remains very present in your life, but maybe through its specific lens of interest in Yellowjacket's land, where the darkness and the way the darkness surfaces is so crucial to the story that they're telling. So I think it's interesting. I'm open to it. But yeah, I have the same worry about how it could just always be the

Yada, yada, yada. Yeah. We didn't remember it. Okay. Did you know that Walter was out there and we just forgot about it? Okay. Oh, Walter. Walter is watching this while listening to Slayer.

Yeah. It's a different vibe. Where are the show tunes, Walter? It's a different vibe. Also, a very awkward, like, Elijah Wood moment here in the finale. I'm always happy to see him. I'm not upset to see him, but good use of Walter. Could we have found a better way to, like, have Elijah Wood show up in the finale? What do you think?

Yeah, he could have gotten out of a helicopter again. Wow. Some like anti-mame blares on the speakers or something like that. Okay. I want to shout out... Bart Nergis, again, as we mentioned, directed this episode. I want to shout out the cut from...

Whoever's choice that was, the editor, script writer, whoever's choice this was. The cut of Mari getting butchered to Shauna heating up a hot pocket and swigging rum from the bottle in her throwing muses shirt was just like incredible stuff for me. Anything you want to say that we haven't already mentioned about Melissa's gravity defying letter? I guess I will. Okay. Actually, yes. I will say because I...

I'm not sure if either of us has mentioned this pod that this was just extremely silly. Very, very silly. However, here is what I will say in defense of this reveal.

It's another version of it's not it's not supernatural. There's always another explanation. But like, was this person trying to kill me? Yeah, there's another explanation. There was a letter and it slid and I didn't see it. And then I went on this rampage of inciting the compounding exponentially catastrophic outcomes because I felt really sure that this thing was happening. That wasn't. Yeah.

I think the mundane explanation being actually the explanation that maybe nothing nefarious or something less nefarious. I won't say nothing nefarious. Something would be less nefarious than you cut the brakes, you left the phone, you did the freezer door, all of it. I think that the fact that just like a thing happened in your normal life

And then you thought it was something extraordinary. Feels like always something that's interesting for the show to play with. And interesting for Shauna. I like that. And interesting for Shauna in particular to have to confront. Yeah. The reads from Misty and from Melissa to Shauna about who she is. Great stuff.

So let me get if if if we're still doing clips, we would hear this, but we are not doing clips or more sporadically, more sparingly doing clips on the show. So Sean tears up the letter, puts in the garbage disposal. Totally fine. Normal. That's fine. We get the flashback to the rabbit death, to Adam's death, to Yankee, like all his feral moments for Sean. Right. Right.

And then we get, she's journaling, but really she's writing on some Jolly Hitcher stationery. And she says, I've tried for years to remember what happened out there to understand why it seemed like I couldn't remember so much of it. Why none of us could. I'm finally starting to realize we can't remember it because at some point we became super

so alive in that place that we lost our capacity for self-reflection. The trauma people say survivors forget things to protect themselves because they were so horrible, but I think we can't or won't remember it clearly because we recognize deep down that we were having so much fun. That's the terrible truth we left out there buried, along with people we called our friends, except it's all coming back to me now.

The danger, the thrill, the person I was back then, not a wife or a mother. I was a warrior. I was a fucking queen. I let all of it slip away from me. It's time to start taking it back. Okay. Great. Yeah. Really good. Yeah. Great writing. Phenomenal stuff. Um, we were having so much fun. Shana, you were having some fun, uh, being a boss bitch in charge. Uh,

I would say someone like Travis, who's like, we've been stuck. We've been locked in hell. And I ate my brother. We ate a kid. We ate a kid. But the fundamental idea of like that,

The flower we had then, that ecstasy, that all of that stuff that we got, that feral, fuck the patriarchy. Joel McHale is Bailey on the show because he is simply too masculine to survive out here. Travis gets to live because he's like a little soy boy drinking mushroom tea, like is...

An interesting thing that the show has always had on its mind, that the show has done well and does really well here, I think. Totally. And I think that's why also this is like a delicious moment as a fan. We've talked a lot throughout the season about where we are with Shauna. And, you know, I love what you said at the beginning about empathy specifically with Shauna. And I thought this was a great complicated moment to be a viewer of the show. And I found myself simultaneously...

proud of Shauna for being honest, excited more broadly about the show's continued interest in, like, a middle-aged woman saying, this is who I am and I'm not embarrassed by it and I'm not ashamed of it, actually. I'm going to embrace who it is and it's up to everybody else to decide if they're okay with it or get out of my fucking way. Like, I love, I honestly love that part of it. And then also, I was terrified by this. And, like, to see Shauna, uh,

No longer held in check by herself, by an intact family unit, by some however flimsy idea of a pledge and a vow that they had all made when they got back to stay true to each other. Unburdened by her role of mother and wife and stuff like that. What will she do? What will she do?

I'm excited. And I'm so excited that Misty is on the other team. Because like with love and respect to Ty, we'll see what Ty can do. We haven't like gotten the full scope of what Ty can do, but I know what Misty can do. And Misty v. Shauna is... And that's why I thought it was so interesting to come back to this end moment. Again, we talked about this. I loved this gnat on the mountain, um...

you know, Aerosmith moment, but the cut to Misty's smile, sort of framing it as this Misty victory was so important in a show where Nat is no longer alive in the present timeline. So it's gotta be like, and neither is Van. So in terms of like, Team Gadget Girl, it's just Misty carrying the torch here. So like, Misty v. Shauna. You would have kept us there forever and I helped get us home. Yeah. Great stuff. Okay. We already talked about the afterlife stuff. I had a

had a moment where I thought I misinterpreted what Van says on the plane in the last episode where I thought it meant we were going to get like this is very lost brain of me but like flashlight like more plane based stuff and we would get to see like dead characters get to exist in some sort of afterlife thing but it seems like that's not what they were going for at all it seems like when Van was like if this isn't the ending then what happens where would be the fun in that they're talking about like what actually happens in the afterlife per the interview that they gave THR but I was sort of hoping we would get a like

what's, you know what I mean? What's their bardo? What's their whatever? Yeah. Anything you want to say about any Theory Corner stuff? Anything we haven't gotten to?

I had to at least get close to your episode runtime with Jodi. I couldn't be shown up in my own feed by Jodi Walker doing a supersized episode. There was a lot to talk about at the end of this Yellowjacket season. My goodness. Theory Corner, I guess this is like, I mean...

let's see, where was it? That's the terrible truth we left out there buried along with the people we called our friends. The sentence structure there, buried, I assume that means just literally they're talking about the dead people, the people who died and were buried there. But I did have a part of me that was like, along with the people we called our friends left behind? Because we've been excited, I think, and interested in that possibility. Are there going to be people who just don't

get rescued. Now I wonder if they have like enough time left to play with that idea. If there is only one more season left, perhaps it feels like, I don't know, a lot to introduce, but 10 episodes is not nothing. And maybe it's 20 and then that's actually a lot. So yeah, maybe it's two whole, two more seasons. Um, any last thing. Sorry. I would have, if honestly, if I hadn't asked you this, I would have been like, we need to jump back on our Jeff and Callie with Randy. Um,

what I need to know is that where they're hiding out are they with Randy follow-up question for you and I would just I don't want to hurt your feelings is there a version of the show where Jeff is not in season four if the point is Shauna if the point is Shauna Unshackled is there a version of the show my god

I don't think they can resist using Warren Cole, but I do feel like sometimes the show gets a little like, Jeff is so good, we have to use him. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And to that, I would say Jeff is so good, they have to use him. I mean, a similar thing could probably be said about Walter. So like, okay. Don't worry, our favorite men will survive and hopefully back in season four. Best needle drop. Okay, so we already mentioned the Slayer needle drop in Walter's car.

Yeah. There's this sleepwalking, like, original track by Craig Worden and Anna Warrunker. I don't know, Warrunker? They seem like W names that would be V at the beginning of them. Warrunker, Anna, maybe? Great stuff, Craig and Anna. Great stuff. A Marian Faithfull track, which is great, because Marian Faithfull's voice is, like, so Yellowjacket. So great stuff. Yeah.

And that fucking Aerosmith living on the edge. It's got to be Aerosmith, right? How could it not be? This is an all-time needle drop for me in any show ever. I will forever think about Nat up on the mountain and Aerosmith kicking in. Like, I just thought it was great. Just a genuinely great moment. Hearing this needle drop, seeing Nat, thinking of all of those fucking Javi hunts with Travis...

up the summits, all the cartography work. Like, not being in the best position to do that and then doing it. Is the assumption, it's Hannah's, like, the reason you can't get it to work is you need to take it to higher ground. Is that...

That was my assumption. That like they have this conversation, we don't see what happened where they switch clothing and stuff like that. But Hannah's like the reason you can't, you got the doohickey, the theme of Bob and you put it in the who's he, what's it, but you're not getting any reception. You need to go to higher ground and that's what Nat-

goes for a climb. Maybe specifically as the ceiling bit of intel, it's like somebody telling another person about their idol on Tribal. It's like, I could just tell you that I like, yeah, I actually like did what I had to do because I want to survive. But what if I actually helped you? What if I gave you information that you could use so that you left me alive and then you went and did this thing? That seems, that seems reasonable. Who answered the call? Ugh!

I don't know. Who is that? Is it a frog scientist? Is it another frog scientist? Could be. I don't know. And is it Penny's boat or is it not Penny's boat? That's the question. You know what I mean? Is it someone they want to have rescued them or not? Hannah, is she making it through season four, episode one? Now that Shauna knows what she did? We still haven't seen the Mel and Jen got close to her stuff. I know. So I think she has to live a little longer than that. Okay.

I feel like they could have been like, yeah, that happened. You missed yada, yada, yada. Or that was just how someone remembered it, but wasn't true and never happened. Okay. This has been

This has been it for season three of Yellow Jackets. We've had such a blast covering it. Thank you to everyone who emailed us, tweeted at us, blue-skied at us. You guys were just really enthusiastic about our coverage of the show. We really appreciate it. Shout out to all the bad babies that I met at the Buffy Vampire Slayer prom in Torrance, California two weekends ago who all wanted to talk to me about Yellow Jackets theories and their feelings on Shauna. It was very cute. So shout out to all of you guys. You're the best. And we will be back for Daredevil coverage. Yes.

for The Last of Us coverage. Listen, if you've made it through the cannibal apocalypse and you're like, ugh, what do I do with myself now? Come on board the mushroom apocalypse. It's great. It's great. If you did not watch season one of that show, I just... Mallory doesn't like horror and she loves The Last of Us. It's an incredible show. It's the best. We really, really recommend you watch it. Okay. HobbitsandDragons.gmail.com if you have thoughts and feelings you want to share with us about anything. Thank you to

We're double blessed. I know. My God, what a treat. Carlos Chiriboga and Stephen Holliman are on this episode. An embarrassment of riches. The dream team. Our dinner ranker pal, thank you so much for everything you do and to Joe Miodinaron for his work on the social, clipping something probably truly unhinged that we said about eating your friends from this episode of the podcast. We'll be back soon. Mallory, I'm so delighted to be reunited with you, even though we are long distance now. Stay my darling. And I'll see you soon. Bye.