Yellowjackets Season 3 Somehow Finds Something More Disturbing Than Cannibalism

This article contains spoilers for "Yellowjackets" season 3 episode 7, "Croak."

Season 3 of "Yellowjackets" spent the first four episodes laying the groundwork for some massive moments of payoff, but episode 5 kicked things into high gear and the season has thrown some meaty stories to the cannibalistic fandom hungering for more. Since the very beginning, fans have known that the surviving Wiskayok High School Yellowjackets soccer team players have been terrified of the general public knowing about "what happened in the woods," but it was assumed that they were afraid the public would find out about their survival cannibalism, or perhaps even their ritualistic ways of determining who would be sacrificed for meat. In season 1, when Taissa Turner (Tawny Cypress) is campaigning for state senator of New Jersey, her opponent Phil Bathurst releases an attack ad depicting her as "cannibalizing your tax dollars," complete with a photo of her eating barbecue to reference her rumored past of eating people.

Taissa is also revealed to have been the one who hired private investigator Jessica Roberts to make sure none of the other survivors were going to talk about their time in the wilderness and hurt her political chances. But it always seemed to be a little shortsighted to believe the survivors' biggest fears were people finding out that they cannibalized each other to stay alive. For instance, it's well documented that the survivors of the real-life Andes Flight Disaster that partially inspired the show (and has been the subject of many adaptations including the phenomenal Netflix original, "Society of the Snow"), resorted to cannibalism for survival, and it's understood that it was out of necessity. It's grotesque and nightmarish to imagine people pushed to that limit and we've already seen how post-cannibalism clarity has irreparably changed them, but there's been a nagging thought that something else happened in the wilderness that they're afraid of people learning about.

Season 3 episode 7, "Croak," has given us the answer. There are things more disturbing than cannibalism — like slamming an axe through the head of a researcher who happens upon your survivor's compound in the middle of a cannibalistic feast.

After the devastating mercy killing of Coach Ben Scott in episode 6, "Thanksgiving (Canada)," the survivors decide to "honor" him (aka punish Sophie Thatcher's Natalie for killing him without asking the rest of the team) by conducting a feast. His body is butchered and prepared to be consumed, while his head is presented on a tree stump, not unlike the traditional Boar's Head Feast. As they quietly consume their fallen former leader, Lottie (Courtney Eaton) encourages them to sing, dance, and celebrate. The sounds they're making are picked up by frog researchers a few miles away, who follow the sound and come upon their little commune. "Every time they've eaten somebody before, it could be explained away if they were to get rescued," Coach Ben actor Steven Krueger told The Hollywood Reporter. "Here, they straight up killed somebody and are now making a ceremony out of eating that person. We see the floodgates open. You start to see why they got to the place they got to, and we finally get that connection to what we saw [in the pilot]." Ben's death marks a huge shift in the humanity of the survivors, but even still, it's not the worst thing they've done. Oh no, it gets even worse.

After the research group arrives, some of the girls are elated because these strangers are a shot at survival, but all of that goes to hell when Lottie, apropos of nothing, slams an axe into the head of one of the researchers, Edwin (Nelson Franklin). The remaining researcher, Hannah (Ashley Sutton), and the researcher's guide Kodi (Joel McHale) rightfully take off running, with the survivors splitting factions to track them down. Some of them want to catch them to keep them from telling anyone what they saw, while others want their help getting back home.

Regardless, this is some serious "Lord of the Flies" behavior from some of the girls, but none more than Lottie Matthews. "They don't belong, it doesn't want them here," she exclaims, before taking Edwin's blood and brain matter and slathering it over her face and mouth while muttering, "You'll see. I promise you'll see."

And to make matters worse, the researchers got it all on tape. No amount of sticking to the story can save them on this one.

As of episode 7, we know for sure that Edwin is dead and that Hannah will be dead soon enough, as adult Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) looks up her obituary online and the photo used is one from the 1990s. It's assumed that Kodi is also dead because when referring to what happened out there, adult Van (Lauren Ambrose) declares the only people who know about it "are us or dead." But what we still don't know is how they will die. This reveal adds a new, fascinating layer to "Yellowjackets," because it forces the audience to juggle with their own sense of morality.

On paper, "killing and cannibalizing someone" sounds far worse than just "murdering someone," but in the case of the two most recent episodes of "Yellowjackets," we know that isn't the case. Coach Ben was essentially euthanized as a kindness by Natalie to end his suffering, and while it could be argued that he was only consumed because teen Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) was on a powertrip to make Natalie feel terrible, the survivors do treat cannibalism as a ritualistic honoring of the person they're eating. Whereas the murder of Edwin was completely unprovoked, and now that the survivors have to face reality head-on, Lottie's outburst is even more grim.

The last three seasons have been debating whether or not Lottie was truly schizophrenic (as indicated by the medication she took and ran out of shortly after the plane crash) or if she was in tune with a supernatural presence in the wilderness, but it's starting to crystalize that Lottie isn't clairvoyant, and is in fact a deeply unwell woman in need of help, care, understanding, and yes, medication. But it isn't all on Lottie, all of the survivors are complicit in the deaths of the researchers, and they know it. 

And that's precisely what makes it worse than the cannibalism — they know.