WARNING: The following contains SPOILERS for Yellowjackets season 1.
The ending of hosts a knockout cast headed by Melanie Lynskey, Tawny Cypress, Juliette Lewis, and Christina Ricci.
Yellowjackets season 1, episode 1 opens with an unidentifiable girl running through a remote, snowy wilderness until she suddenly drops into a death trap. Following the brutal scene, the show splits its time between the teenage lives of a girls’ soccer team headed to the National Championship in 1996, and the women they become after surviving a plane crash and 19 months stranded in the wilderness. Two of the significant characters in the story are the team captain, Jackie, played by Sweetbitter actress Ella Purnell, who is the quintessential “golden girl,” and her best friend, Shauna (Sophie Nélisse), who is secretly sleeping with Jackie’s boyfriend, Jeff (Jack DePew).
Throughout Yellowjackets season 1, episode 1, there are several scenes of the girls, a few months after the crash, covered in furs (obscuring their identities) and performing some sort of ceremony. The girls string up another by her ankles and slit her throat. Later, large pieces of meat are shown cooking over a spit. This leads to the Yellowjackets cannibalism scene, which shows the teen girls carving meat and eating it. This heavily suggests that the girls have murdered one of their own and are consuming human flesh in an effort to survive.
Yellowjackets Writer & Star Confirm Cannibalism
Ella Purnell gave a vague comment in an interview that suggested that the Yellowjackets cannibalism scene foreshadows what's coming in the future. However, Yellowjackets showrunner Jonathan Lisco made a more explicit statement about cannibalism, saying, "the show is not about if cannibalism, it's about why cannibalism and how cannibalism." This makes it clear that, yes, eventually, the survivors do become cannibals, as many people in the show's version of 2021 already assume. Yet Yellowjackets season 1 leaves the question unanswered, only hinting at cannibalism. There are several true story instances of similar tragedies in which the survivors had to eat human flesh to avoid starvation. As was the case in the real-life Andes plane crash in 1972, with no vegetation or animals for meat, the frozen bodies of the dead engers were the only food source.
Why The Yellowjackets Are Cannibals
One of the things that came out of Jonathan Lisco's interview was that he fronted the idea that the survivors don't resort to cannibalism out of a need for food. In Yellowjackets season 1, Lottie predicts that they will not hunger much longer, and shortly afterward kills a bear that walks up to the cabin, providing food for all. This suggests that, to an extent, the forest might provide without them resorting to cannibalism. Lisco instead suggests that the Yellowjackets' cannibalism might be tied to some of the new social dynamics that spring up in the group in the wilderness, and is based more on psychological states than physical needs. This lines up with the events of Yellowjackets episode 9, "Doomcoming," in which the team hunt Travis through the woods and almost slits his throat while high on shrooms.
Does Jackie Get Eaten in Yellowjackets?
The Taissa's altar, she may also be the culprit.
The probable course of events going into season 2 will involve the girls figuring out what to do with Jackie's body. Shauna will likely want to bury her in the makeshift graveyard that houses the other deceased engers. However, the girls are going to run out of food at a certain point, and there's no real clue as to when the events of episode 1 occur in the wider narrative. They could run out of food shortly after Jackie's death, as they've had a rough go at finding anything throughout the series. This could lead to the inevitable and foreshadowed first cannibal act. However, who will be the first to take a bite is anyone's guess.
They don't immediately need food, but there is a social dynamic evolving that will become more fleshed out in Yellowjackets season 2. With Jackie dead at the end of Yellowjackets season 1, the character who still tried to be a captain in the wilderness has been removed, and the remaining survivors have a fresh hierarchy to establish that will likely lead to the storylines for Yellowjackets cannibalism.
