Yellowjackets: 10 Ways The Show Foreshadowed [SPOILER]’s Death In The Season Finale

Spoiler Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Yellowjackets.

There’s a reason why Yellowjackets wasn’t called Bumblebees. Yellowjackets are predatory wasps that adhere to a specific social hierarchy, echoing the way the Yellowjackets soccer team regroups after crashing into the Ontario wilderness. Lottie slowly takes over the group of survivors as the new leader, usurping Coach Ben’s power, and casting Jackie, former Homecoming Queen and Yellowjackets team captain, out of the cabin to her death. Every hive can only have one queen, forcing any other queens to leave the nest and build their own elsewhere before winter — except that Jackie never made it.

Like the insects that gave them their name, the Yellowjackets grow more aggressive and angry as they begin to starve, making them more amenable to casting out any member that isn’t a productive part of their survival method. In a final decisive blow, even Jackie’s best friend Shauna turns against her. But there were signs even at the beginning of the series that pointed to Jackie’s death in the season finale.

Pit Girl’s Necklace

One of the most shocking events of Yellowjackets season 1 happens in the first few minutes when an anonymous girl runs through the snow pursued by figures carrying spears and covered in furs, howling and screeching like a pack of animals. The girl tumbles into a pit where she is impaled by wooden spikes, her body silhouetted by blood and snow.

While it’s clear by the final episode of Season 1 that “pit girl” isn’t Jackie, that ferocious opening seen does indicate that winter has come along with a serious descent into a feral state of mind for the girls. That the unknown girl should be wearing Jackie’s gold heart necklace, and that Jackie should die because the first snow has fallen, is not only apropos but neatly poetic storytelling.

Yellowjackets’ Opening Credits

The opening credits of the series play out like a late-night ’90s MTV fever dream, with an amalgamation of static, hazy images, and footage of the girls both before and after their harrowing crash. One image, in particular, stands out as a sign of tragedy to come; Jackie pantomiming slitting her own throat with her finger.

The image depicts Jackie on the soccer field surrounded by her teammates, clearly during happier times when her biggest concerns were the upcoming nationals and her boyfriend Jeff. She could never have known the grisly and callous end that awaited her just months later.

Jackie Approved Culling The Weakest Link

Ally was one member of the team who didn’t get to take the flight to nationals because a serious injury at the hands of Taissa put her in the hospital instead of on the plane. While Shauna challenged Taissa for getting rid of a “liability” to the team, Jackie quickly smoothed over tempers with an encouraging pep talk that inspired the girls to move on.

As their leader, Jackie unknowingly gave her team the justification it needed to cull the weakest member from the team, so when it came time to cast Jackie out, there was no one to stand up for her.

Jackie Had No Survival Skills

None of the girls could have been prepared for what happened to them in the wilderness, but after the crash, they all pitched in any way they knew how. Because of her experience around firearms, however tragic, Natalie became the resident hunter, while other girls who didn’t have that skill busied themselves foraging or collecting water to make potable.

Jackie not only had no survival skills, but she also didn’t seem particularly eager to acquire any. Even Shauna became handy with a hunting knife without any previous knowledge of how to bleed out a fresh kill. Jackie’s continuous refusal to learn ways of fending for herself meant that it was only a matter of time before she died as the environment became increasingly inhospitable.

Jackie Wasn’t A Team Player

As team captain, Jackie was certainly capable of giving rousing pep talks, whether it was at practice or a party. Back home, the Yellowjackets listened to her without question, but once they found themselves forced to survive in the wilderness where all bets were off, they started to find Jackie’s assistance in adhering to society’s rules aggravating and unhelpful.

Jackie continued to have an individualistic attitude with the other girls even as they were becoming a closer tribe. Jackie wasn’t pulling her weight and relied on everyone else to provide for her.

Every Suggestion Jackie Had Further Divided The Group

Jackie’s contribution to the group after the crash was to suggest two significant social events: a seance and a Homecoming (Doomcoming) party. Both of these functions ended in complete chaos, with the rest of the group bonding and becoming more alienated from Jackie.

Jackie came to represent their old lives, and as each week went by without rescue, they rejected the parameters of an existence that no longer seemed to matter. Jackie’s morale-boosting exercises did anything but their intended purpose, didn’t turn her into a more likable character in Yellowjackets, and only served to ostracize her.

Jackie Stopped Eating

About halfway through the series, Jackie suspiciously stopped eating. The group needed to ration their supplies, but there was more than enough for Jackie to have her share, but she didn’t seem interested in nourishing herself. She was acting the way a person and animal often does when they know they’re going to die soon.

By not having any of the soup Mari made, Jackie never got a dose of Misty’s magic mushrooms and was the only person thinking clearly while the rest of the girls went into a fugue state and, believing him to be a stag, nearly killed Travis.

Jackie Knew Everyone Was Going To End Up Dead

One of the worst things that Jackie did was sleep with Travis despite knowing his feelings for Natalie and how much it would upset her. Jackie specifically told Travis that “love didn’t matter” and it was a pretense used to prevent everyone from knowing the truth; that they were all going to become a dried-up corpse just like Cabin Guy.

Once the rest of the Yellowjackets found out what Jackie had done, they descended on her like an angry swarm and locked her in the cupboard.  After seeing what nearly happened to Travis, it’s not hard to imagine what her fate would have been when they were done with him, but he had already given up hope of rescue and seemed to be resigned to whatever happened to her.

Shauna Hallucinated Her

While visiting Jackie’s parents and reminiscing on what would have been Jackie’s birthday if she’d survived, Shauna decided to visit Jackie’s old room. Since it looked exactly the same as when the girls were teenagers, it brought back a flood of memories from when they had one of the best relationships in Yellowjackets. The memories also triggered a hallucination of Jackie wearing her old Yellowjackets uniform.

Jackie sounded very accusatory when she spoke, implying that whatever happened to her, Shauna had a hand in it. Later, flashbacks revealed that Shauna’s explosive fight with Jackie contributed to her leaving the cabin, and the fact that she didn’t go to check on her doomed her to freezing to death.

Shauna’s Daughter As A Dead Soccer Player In Jackie’s Old Uniform

Throughout the series adult Shauna was cold, calculating, and remorseless. She was obviously traumatized from her experiences in the wild, but clearly, Jackie’s was a significant death that weighed heavily on her shoulders. By Jackie not making it back alive, Shauna led the life she might have had with Jeff if circumstances had been different.

Whenever Shauna looked at Jeff, she was reminded of Jackie, but no more so than when her daughter wore Jackie’s old uniform to a Halloween party. Shauna was shocked to run into her daughter at the same event she was attending with Adam, but doubly so when her daughter was made up to look like Jackie as a corpse.