Upon its premiere in November of 2021, Yellowjackets instantly proved itself as one of the most exciting new shows on television. It nicely captures the human-based drama behind Lord of the Flies and combines it with the mystery-tinged, time-hopping fun of Lost.
The show is also very bold in its storytelling, and as such, has generated a number of very interesting and shocking developments. These events are also nicely spaced throughout the first season, ensuring that the show had a solid pace. These shocking developments are sure to be discussed for a while.
Misty Reveals Herself As A Cannibal
This show was strongly marketed as an even more extreme version of Lord of the Flies, and that was proven in the very first episode. It begins with a young woman falling into a pit of spikes, and it only gets worse from there. The woman is eventually bled and butchered, and a group of creepy, masked people sit around a fire and consume her flesh.
In the end, it is revealed that Misty is one of the cannibals. By the end of the first season, she is still the only confirmed cannibal of the group.
Misty Smashes The Flight Recorder
Yellowjackets needed a way to keep its women in the wilderness, and the solution came through none other than Misty. Misty excels at helping the survivors of the crash, and she is subsequently heralded as a hero. She overhears a small group of survivors giving her praise, so she decides to smash the flight recorder, destroying their best chance of being rescued.
It was a moment of extreme narcissism. Misty will do anything to remain popular, liked, and needed, even if it means damning everyone else to torturous survival conditions and potential death.
Natalie’s Father Dies
Lost had a thing for depicting the worst fathers of all time, and Yellowjackets seems to be continuing its theme. Natalie’s father is depicted verbally and physically abusing both his wife and daughter. At one point, he flies off the handle because Natalie has a boy in her bedroom.
In response, Natalie points a loaded gun at her father and even tries to shoot him, but she is prevented by the safety mechanism. Watching Natalie try to kill her own father was a shocking development. Even more shocking was how he tripped while holding the gun and inadvertently killed himself.
Shauna Realizes She’s Pregnant
One of the most important story elements of the season is introduced in the first episode, when Shauna sleeps with her best friend Jackie’s boyfriend, Jeff. While this betrayal likely would have complicated Shauna and Jackie’s friendship no matter what, it was made even more complicated by the plane crash.
While the Yellowjackets are stranded in the wilderness, Shauna misses her period when everyone else’s syncs, and it’s then that both she and viewers learn that she is pregnant. It’s a huge development both in terms of character and the plot, and that part of the whole ordeal is yet to be resolved.
Laura Lee Blows Up
Laura Lee was the first major character to die, and her death was a nice mixture of predictable and shocking. Of course, any death of a major character is guaranteed to elicit a shocked response from dedicated viewers. But this death was telegraphed from a mile away.
Not only was Laura Lee horrifically unprepared for her flight (having only read the plane’s owner’s manual), but the aircraft had been sitting unattended in the wilderness for decades. It’s no surprise that it blew up within seconds.
Misty Poisons Jessica
Misty is the Yellowjackets character most likely to win the Squid Games. Not only is she completely remorseless, but she also has intelligence and forethought. In the season finale, Misty steals Jessica’s cigarettes on the pretense of forcing her to quit. However, it was actually so she could inject them with poison.
Misty knows that Jessica will talk, so she kills her to guarantee her silence. The death itself wasn’t the shocking part — everyone knew that Jessica was a goner — but it was the sneaky method in which Misty orchestrated the death that took viewers by surprise.
Natalie Is Kidnapped
The season ends with quite an unpredictable event. Natalie finally concedes that Travis took his own life, and realizing that she is no longer living for anything, attempts to take her own life in response.
But before she can pull the trigger, she is kidnapped by mysterious people who it is strongly suggested are working under the orders of Lottie. This event raises a ton of questions, chief among them where Lottie is and what she’s doing, that season two of Yellowjackets desperately needs to answer.
Shauna Kills Adam
Shauna’s marriage to Jeff is clearly on the rocks. She believes that Jeff is having an affair, so she begins one of her own with the man she rear-ended. However, this all comes to a violent head inside his studio apartment.
Having come to believe via circumstantial evidence that Adam is the one blackmailing her and her friends, and perhaps triggered by post-traumatic stress, Shauna kills Adam by stabbing him in the gut. It is easily one of the most shocking developments of the season, and it confirms that Shauna is still extremely unstable.
Taissa’s Shrine Is Revealed
For most of season one, viewers were led to believe that Taissa was relatively stable. Yes, she clearly still had some issues (like sleepwalking and spying on her son from a tree), but she was successful, had a family and was running a political campaign. However, this was all a clever misdirect.
It turns out that Taissa is just as messed up as the rest of them, which viewers learn in the season finale when her wife discovers a horrific shrine behind their basement wall that includes their missing dog’s heart and severed head.
Jackie Freezes To Death
The biggest question of the first season was easily, “What happened to Jackie?” Jackie was not in the “present” storyline, so fans feverishly discussed theories about her fate. Was she dead? Was she imprisoned? In an institution? Maybe still in the wilderness, leading some kind of remote life?
But no, the answer really was as simple as, “She’s dead.” Following an intense argument with Shauna, Jackie is exiled to sleep outside. But she is unable to start a campfire for herself, and it snows overnight. Jackie ends up freezing to death in her sleep. It’s no wonder Shauna doesn’t want to talk about her death even 25 years later.
