Season 1 of ‘Yellowjackets’ has ended and what a journey this splendid survival drama and mystery box from Showtime (which we can see on Movistar+) has given us.
A series that has been quite a phenomenon in these months since it has given us back the emotion of living week after week a good mystery box in two time lines as we try to figure out what the hell happened in those months of being lost in the depths of the forest.
From here on, spoiler alert..
This season finale episode has brought us some important revelation, a great tragedy, has given us some answers and planted seeds for the next episodes that we will see, probably, at the end of the year.
An ending outlined from the beginning
“A lot of it was predetermined very early in the process. I would say that, of all the episodes, the ending [es el que] it came closer to our original plan so it was really satisfying for us.” Says Ashley Lyle, co-creator of the series, when talking about the end of season 1 of ‘Yellowjackets’
Among those things was ending with the 25th anniversary class reunion or resolving Jackie’s death, which was in the pitch series original. A death explained by what it represents thematically in ‘Yellowjackets’ (both series and team):
“There’s a certain symbolic aspect to what Jackie definitely represents, the social structures that they’ve become accustomed to, that they’ve socialized with out there in the ‘civilized’ world, really dissipating is going to mean a lot to these characters. On both a personal and emotional level there is a certain amount of complicity not only in Shauna but in the entire team, in her death, in this inevitable tragedy.
What it means to our characters, how they feel it and how they process their involvement in their death is something that seems important to us in terms of evolution and devolution, depending on how you look at it, over the course of their time in the wild.”
About Jackie’s fate as food, this has been one thing that they have been careful not to rush. Although it draws attention, cannibalism has always been the least important both for the audience and for the series in this season 1. In fact, Jonathan Lisco, co-showrunner of fiction, it is clear:
“Definitely, the series does not revolve around Yes cannibalism, it’s about why cannibalism and What cannibalism. And also about this group of people, young women in their mid-90s, who are suddenly—ironically—more alive than they’ve ever felt in their lives. Because there is a certain rhapsodic freedom where they are stranded.”
We are also confirmed that there is a sixth survivor (remember that at the beginning of the series there are six cannibals) and this is Lottie. The character played by Courtney Eaton it is revealed that it is still hanging around in the present while, in the past, we see her take a leading role in what happens in the wilds. Also, you won’t be the only one.
Lottie is a delicate character, because we know that she is taking antipsychotics and throughout the series we see her having different premonitions and leading a tribal ritual. In the words of Bart Nickerson, the other co-creator of the series:
“One of the things we wanted to explore is the idea of the supernatural, spiritual, or things that are beyond our understanding. What are those things, what do they indicate or what would it mean for them if they were real.
Like a person who is possessed, there is a specific phenomenon and there are many people who have experienced the same thing and there is an overlap in this type of phenomenon. The subjective experience of it is, in a sense, objectively real. (…) Regardless of their origin, these things have a life of their own. Much of the supernatural, which can be interpreted. To be frank, in the writers’ room we have this debate about what these things are or could be and I think there are different interpretations and I think the audience will have their different interpretations.”