‘Yellowjackets’ Season 2, Episode 2 Recap: Dig In

This week, the Yellowjackets may have bitten off a little more than they can chew — in one sense anyway.

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By Esther Zuckerman

“She wants us to.”

Who is Shauna referring to when she invites her teammates to gnaw on Jackie’s corpse, now cooked to a crisp by the bonfire that was meant to cremate her? The “she” is ostensibly Jackie, but is it? How could Shauna know what Jackie would have wanted? The Jackie we met in Season 1 was vain and selfish when it came to survival. It seems unlikely that she would have offered up her body, even in death.

It’s more likely that “she” is the Jackie with whom Shauna has been spending time in that meat shed, the Jackie who is an invention of her psyche, who can absolve her guilt and ease her hunger. When Shauna ignites the branches that will essentially cook Jackie for the Yellowjackets’ consumption, she says, “I don’t even know where you end and I begin.” The bratty Jackie of real life is gone. Only the one who exists in Shauna’s head remains.

Or perhaps “she” is someone else. Maybe it’s Shauna’s unborn child who wants them to eat. After all, Shauna clutches her swelling belly before digging in. Is Shauna just a starving pregnant woman talking?

Whoever is speaking to Shauna, what results is one of the most delirious and disturbing moments of “Yellowjackets” so far.

It also answered a question that had been lingering over the series for its entire run: When would the cannibalism start in earnest? The consumption of human flesh was teased in the opening moments of the pilot — in which an unknown girl runs through the woods and falls into a trap — but the showrunners resisted for the entire first season. Last week’s episode gave us a taste, with the snack Shauna made of Jackie’s ear. Now the feast truly begins, and it really is a feast.

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