What’s up guys this is Jim from the BingetownTV podcast and I am here with one last video before the finale airs tonight. Beware, there are major spoilers for Season 2 episode 8 ahead, so please make sure you are caught up before reading this blog post!
So today I am taking off my tinfoil hat to talk about some comments I have read about Yellowjackets Season 2, Episode 8 since it has aired. Comments like, “there were way too many hallucinations and they have no point” and “why were the survivors okay with killing one of their own?” In this post, I want to address all of those comments and explain the episode 8 ending sequence.
Comment number 1: “There were way too many hallucinations and they have no point”. My response to that is that the hallucinations are very important to the story and play a major role in helping us understand what the survivors were going through during their time in the wilderness. Ever since the girls and Travis feasted on Jackie (Remember Coach Ben did not partake), they have been working with rations and small amounts of food. Food (especially protein) is so scarce at this point in their story that they decide to boil a leather belt in hopes that it can give them some kind of sustenance. The characters at this time in the story are in a DIRE situation, and will not last much longer. If you research a little into starvation… when you get to a certain point, you can have severe mental and neurological symptoms such depression, anxiety, panic and yes, sometimes hallucinations. Many people worried that the amount of hallucinations in this episode are due to the wilderness and the supernatural aspect of the show, and that the writers are leaning way too heavily into this and that it will make the viewers have to question literally everything they are watching. However, I think the opposite. I think the hallucinations are there to really explain the state of the survivors at this point in time. Showing their slipping mental states and their desperation for food. Remember, this isn’t a one time occurrence for the writers. When Coach Ben does not partake in the Jackie buffet, he starts to experience hallucinations and dreamlike states that continue on and off. Of course, in this episode the hallucinations by design are also there to fake out the viewer a little until they are revealed to be hallucinations, but still, I do not believe that major hallucinations like this will continue until they become hungry again. Because this is a television show people forget that to understand the story they need to really try to put themselves in the characters shoes. In Episode 8, they are currently residing in a living hell and I do not know how mentally stable many people would be in that situation. If you think about it, the writers have been consistent when it comes to their hallucinations. When the girls and Travis eat and Coach doesn’t, they have a time where they are okay while he is suffering and hallucinating. As the girls and Travis are starving and have not eaten, they begin to hallucinate similarly to how Coach did. I do want to make clear, though, that I DO think that some of the hallucinations have meaning and may be influenced by the supernatural aspect of the show, but it is pretty obvious that they increase as the survivor’s situation gets worse and they get closer to death.
This leads to comment 2: “Why were they okay with killing one of their own?”. Now, admittedly this comment definitely went through my mind during my original watch. I do think that my response to comment 1 needs to be taken into consideration here. These survivors are in a dire state and are on the brink of dying of starvation. They are also starting to find that their only form of relief has seemingly come from the wilderness and Lottie’s teachings. Whether that should be considered true or not is for another video. But for arguments sake, most of these survivors are firm believers in Lottie and the wilderness right now. When you are on the brink of starvation and are not mentally stable and unable to think clearly, it would make sense that they could be convinced that sacrifices must be made to the wilderness. One comment that I also saw is that they are stupid because they were willing to kill one of their hunters. And logically, that is a very, very true statement. Logically, you would not kill one of your hunters. But if you go back to the episode where it was Nat VS Lottie 1 V 1 hunting for food, most of the girls did not believe Nat really was bringing the food to the table. They believed it was the wilderness through Lottie. And at this point in the story, more of the survivors have are on the Lottie train. Even Travis, who is one of the hunters himself. So logically, yes, I think it was so dumb to let Nat get chosen. But for story sake, it makes sense. Lottie was upstairs literally dying and saying that she is okay with them eating her and they said they should have the wilderness choose, but instead of killing Nat, they let Javi die and took him instead. If they were thinking solely based on “we need food” and not “we believe in the wilderness/lottie” then they would have climbed the ladder upstairs and finished Lottie off. They would have never drawn cards, never went after Nat, and never let Javi drown. The one issue that I have is Travis. I get that I just defended the survivors and their actions based on their mental states but I still think that Travis’ character should have had a problem with Nat being chosen. Yes, he did eventually intervene and save her, but it took him awhile. Nat showed that she drew the Queen card, Shauna turned her around and put Jackie’s necklace on her and put the knife to her neck, Nat turned around and stated “you’ll have to look me in the eyes”, and then FINALLY he decided to intervene. I feel like if he loved her he would have immediately tried to intervene when she showed she drew the Queen card. It can be argued that him standing there and letting it happen is even more proof of how dire the situation was and how he has bought into the wilderness spirit Lottie stuff, and I am okay with that, but it still seemed off to me.
So what do you guys think? Are the hallucinations showing how dire the situation is for our favorite yellowjackets or did the writers go overboard? Should Travis have intervened sooner for Nat? Let me know in the comments. BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ.
