Yellowjackets finale recap: Hello, Antler Queen – CNET [CNET]

Showdowns, reunions, elections and… bears capped off a glorious first season of Showtime’s Yellowjackets.

The show about a high school girls soccer team stranded in the harsh wilderness promised Lord of the Flies, but with periods, complicated relationships and more intelligent female leaders. Creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson knew the fire had to burn slowly, so that when the girls finally forget all remnants of who they once were — when they get an appetite for human flesh — it’s as believable, impactful and disturbing as can be.

Episode 10 unleashes some of that hell. We get answers. Not all of them — the season 1 finale poses a ton more questions — but at least we find out (some of) Jackie’s fate. Once team captain of the Wiskayok Yellowjackets, once best friend of Shauna, Jackie is the only main character who isn’t around in the present timeline. How does she die? Is she killed in the opening chase scene that everything seems to hinge on?

Apparently, no. After finally confronting Shauna about sleeping with her boyfriend Jeff behind her back — not to mention picking apart the cliches in their cool girl and sidekick best friend dynamic — Jackie angrily spends the night outside the cabin. Just before tragically freezing to death during the unexpected first snowfall of winter (who else was pleasantly surprised Jackie didn’t end up being brutally stabbed by anyone?), Jackie has a vision, one that was presaged by Van’s similar experience in the limbo between life and death. Jackie dreams herself and Shauna as best friends once again, and the rest of the Yellowjackets team, including Laura Lee, who died in a plane explosion two episodes ago, welcome her back into the warmth with open arms.

Only, there’s one more figure waiting in the corner. A shadowy man, with a not so subtle demonic vibe. “So glad you’re joining us,” he intones. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

So… is Jackie really gone for good? I’m guessing the answer is a tenuous no (although apparently actress Ella Purnell only had a one-season contract). Maybe all the dead Yellowjackets are set to return thanks to supernatural forces, which the writers wisely kept at bay for the majority of season 1. Is the man the same person who died in the cabin? Is this “in between” place, as Van describes it, the basis of a cult? One connected to the group of people who kidnap Natalie just before she sadly attempts suicide?

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