All the Yellowjackets Questions We Need Answered in Season 2

Season 1 of Showtime’s Yellowjackets became a word-of-mouth hit in late 2021, growing in audience and acclaim as it continued. The series jumped between 1996 and the present day to tell the story of a high school soccer team stranded in the wilderness for 19 months after a plane crash, and what they did (and who they ate) in order to survive. 

25 years later, the survivors are haunted by the sins of the past, and over the course of the first season, the present proved just as twisted. When we last left our incredible ensemble in 1996, winter had begun and the group’s former alpha Jackie (Ella Purnell) had frozen to death after a falling-out with her pregnant best friend Shauna (Sophie Nélisse). In the present, things are equally brutal: Nat (Juliette Lewis) has been kidnapped, the disappearance of Shauna’s (Melanie Lynskey) murdered lover is being investigated, Taissa (Tawny Cypress) is still disassociating and is now a State Senator, and Misty (Christina Ricci)… well, Misty is still the delightful sociopath we somehow came to love. Now that Season 2 is finally upon us, Primetimer looks at the biggest mysteries that remain unsolved.

Who was skewered in the pit and eaten by her teammates?

Yellowjackets co-creator Ashley Lyle has said the team has a five-season arc in mind, so this one is unlikely to be solved any time soon. We still have two winters to get through, and presumably the series’s opening scene, in which a fleeing teen falls into a trap and is barbecued and devoured, is from the second winter, when things have gotten their most gnarly. But… there aren’t that many teammates left. From casting news, we know Van and Lottie are alive in the present and will be played by Lauren Ambrose and Simone Kessell, respectively, in Season 2, so there are only a handful of options as to who was served for dinner.

What does that symbol mean?

There are still very few clues as to the meaning of the symbol, which first appeared in the cabin. Could it be a marking of the occult? If you tilt your head, it looks a bit like a girl being impaled on a spike. But that triggering memory doesn’t explain why it strikes such fear in our present-day ladies. Does its origin unlock who, or what, originally resided in that cabin?

What was Adam’s deal?

While no one is debating why anyone would want to start a steamy affair with someone who looks like Melanie Lynskey, is it really possible that Adam was really just some nice artist who happened to show up wherever Shauna went and left no trace of himself on the internet? Season 1 kicked off an investigation into his disappearance, so who Adam actually was will likely be explained. But whether or not Shauna will face any consequences for butchering her lover is unlikely to be so neatly resolved. 

Who killed Travis?

The smart money is on this being tied to Lottie, as her followers kidnapped Natalie in Season 1’s finale. With all the mysterious behavior leading up to Travis' death, it seems like someone with money and power was involved. But what purpose did his death serve anyone beyond making Natalie spiral? Will her kidnapping be the key to finally unlocking the traumatic end of their love story? His final note to “Tell Nat she was right” is an intriguing prospect.

After Nat hits rock bottom, will we see a new side of her?

Though she was meditating in the pilot, Nat had a rough first season; beyond Travis’ death, she fell hard off the wagon and slowly but surely lost the will to live. Juliette Lewis, who is herself sober, called it a “de-evolution” which was "really depressing to play" and that "it wasn’t what I expected." But now that Nat is in the clutches of a cult, and hopefully, one that doesn’t involve happy hours, will we be able to see the more enlightened side of Nat again? 

Who killed Taissa’s dog Biscuit?

This is my most pressing question as, in the words of Tony Soprano, “I know what it is like to lose a pet!” Admittedly, it's among Taissa’s smallest problems — she has just won an election, her marriage is in shambles, and recently found herself taping up self-inflicted bite marks after a night she cannot remember. We still don’t know the identity of the man with no eyes who haunts her, or why her grandmother and son Sammy were haunted by the same visions. But Taissa’s wife Simone found the head and heart of our dearly departed Biscuit in a horrifying shrine in their basement, with the symbol etched in blood above it. Simone is not afraid of holding Taissa to account so this may be the path to finding out what is going on with Taissa. If not, I will start the #JusticeForBiscuit hashtag myself.

Why haven't the teens in the past tried building a raft or fishing in that giant lake?

This one's more of a comment than a question.

What does Natalie save them from?

As well as being a skilled hunter who was largely responsible for them not starving to death in the wilderness, Nat also seems to have earned present-day Shauna and Taissa’s loyalty by having saved them from something besides food scarcity. Could it have been the cult that we see forming at the end of Season 1? Who else will join the crew that forms when Van and Misty kneel down behind Lottie in the snow?

What happened to Shauna’s baby?

This seems like a question that will be decisively answered this season. Judging by the bump that Sophie Nélisse is using, Shauna is well into the second trimester, and we know they are a year from being rescued. Having personally caught a lot of flak from fans and Lynskey for suggesting that Adam might have been her baby, the prospect of a less disgusting answer is tantalizing.

How will Jeff recover from his massive debts and learning that there was no book club?

I am personally more invested in the latter.

Where is Javi?

Young Javi has gone missing in the wilderness much to his brother Travis’ horror, but it's unlikely that an off-screen departure is what the creators have in mind. He’s also nowhere to be seen in the present so the probable answer is that the Yellowjackets ate him, which would explain why modern-day Travis seemed to have no one but Nat in his life (and barely that). But will the show actually go there and have a pre-teen found in the woods, only to be devoured by his friends?

Who wrote Jackie’s diaries, the ones that list Titanic, American Beauty, and Bring It On — movies that came out after she died?

This is a bit of a niche mystery, largely confined to Reddit, but showrunner Jonathan Lisco told Variety this was not an oversight, so the answer could be juicy.

What is Elijah Wood up to?

We know that his character is connected to Misty and her online community of amateur detectives so hopefully, a delightfully twisted romance is in the mix for the beloved curly-haired blonde. Wood has idiosyncratic taste in his roles, and if he’s showing up in Season 2, he could very well be following in Ricci’s footsteps and flexing his more unhinged acting muscles.

Why is this all happening now?

After what seems to have been a reasonably quiet 25 years since being rescued, dealing with the broader mundanities of PTSD, what is it that is bringing all these past horrors to the fore again? Why after all these years are the ghosts of the past rearing their ugly heads? While the Yellowjackets in the past are trapped, starving, and facing grim realities or survival at any cost, the present looks equally bleak in Season 2. It seems no matter how far they get from the wilderness, what haunts the Yellowjackets is as violent, uncaring, and inescapable.

New episodes of Yellowjackets stream on the Showtime app Fridays at 12:00 AM ET beginning March 24, and air Sundays at 9:00 PM ET on Showtime beginning March 26. Join the discussion about the show in our forums. 

Leila Latif is Contributing Editor to Total Film, the host of Truth & Movies: A Little White Lies Podcast and a regular at Sight and Sound, Indiewire, The Guardian, The BBC and others. Follow her on twitter @Leila_Latif.