One thing that critics and fans alike have noticed about the first few episodes of Yellowjackets Season 3 is that the wilderness is no longer an active threat to the stranded teenagers. In the previous two seasons, the wilderness was an enemy that forced the teens to either get on its side or die. The wilderness provides when it’s given a sacrifice. It seems like in Season 3, the wilderness was given a sacrifice of some sort, but not one that the teenagers are fully aware of.

Now that winter is gone, and the weather has warmed up, the teenagers have created their own society to survive their dire situation. Courtesy of a recap by Van, viewers know that in the time between the Season 2 finale and the Season 3 premiere, the group has built huts, expanded hunting responsibilities and grown ducks for food. Most graciously, they haven’t indulged in their cannibalistic habits since Javi. The set-up is truly impressive, despite the evident cultish imagery that indicates their growing reliance on the wilderness as a spiritual guide. But it also seems to be a little too impressive, given the circumstances that they’re living in.

The Yellowjackets Camp Is a Little Too Good to Be True

The Amount the Teens Have Accomplished Exceeds Even Normal Expectations

Compared to the dusty, easily flammable, cramped cabin the teens were living in between Seasons 1 and 2, their current home is a safe haven. In a matter of months, the group has built sturdy huts designed to imitate the wilderness symbol coined by Lottie and sewn matching cult headdresses and attire. They have so much material left over that they can decorate the dinner table like a bohemian wedding dream and make paper lamps to set loose in the sky.

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For two seasons, the teens and Coach Ben were so understandably ill-prepared for their situation that the majority had to resort to cannibalism to survive. The show tries to explain why the teens are suddenly masters of the nomadic lifestyle by honing in on a book titled Art and Architecture of the Ancient World, conveniently giving them a guide to building structures in the middle of nowhere. Yellowjackets also implies that the cabin burning down was a wake-up call for the group, forcing them to act on their survival instead of always relying on the wilderness to provide for them.

It’s reasonable to suspend belief a little bit on account of the fact that, in worst-case scenarios, people can truly accomplish something like this. After all, the Yellowjackets have all the time in the world to be making huts and catching ducks. But what’s most mind-boggling about their camp isn’t the sound infrastructure and semi-stable government. It’s the fact that this was considered a peaceful time during the Yellowjackets’ stay in the woods, one that the present-day survivors have never brought up in the two seasons of reminiscing about the horrors of the woods.

Are the Yellowjackets Hallucinating Their Safe Haven?

The Teens Might Be Pretending Things are Better Than What They Are

The camp in Yellowjackets Season 3 might actually not be real at all. The teens have hallucinated together before in what some might consider events of shared psychosis. Doom coming was the first example of the teens experiencing the same delusions, and the most recent incident was in Season 3, Episode 3, “Them’s the Brakes,” when Shauna, Akilah and Van see the same vision.

What viewers are seeing on-screen is possibly a glorified picture of what’s really happening behind-the-scenes. The new yellowish green filter over the teens’ storyline makes everything appear more majestic and fairytale-like. Van has romanticized the journey the group has endured getting to this point. Lottie has been experimenting with natural hallucinogens to get in touch with the wilderness. Nothing has ever been normal on Yellowjackets, but this is beyond comprehensible. The teens are so traumatized that they can’t accept the reality they’re living in, and thus have possibly made up a glamorized one they wished to be true.

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There’s one scene in particular that breaks this immersion, and it’s one that’s not even in Season 3. If viewers recall, the opening scene of the series was of the teenagers feasting on Pit Girl after luring her into a trap. They were dressed in full cult attire that covered their faces, with the Antler Queen sitting in the middle. This is presumably rock bottom for the teens, and it’s yet to be shown on Yellowjackets. What if, at some point in Season 3, the false reality breaks and the teens finally realize they’ve already reached an all-time low, and it’s worse than what they expected?

New episodes of Yellowjackets premiere every Friday on Paramount+ with Showtime.

Yellowjackets

Release Date

November 14, 2021

Network

Showtime, Paramount+ with Showtime

Showrunner

Ashley Lyle, Bart Nickerson, Jonathan Lisco

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  Melanie Lynskey

  Shauna Sadecki

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  Tawny Cypress

  Taissa Turner