Note: This story contains spoilers from the “Yellowjackets” Season 2 finale.
We knew Season 2 of “Yellowjackets” was building up to something big, but the finale of the addictive Showtime drama left us speechless.
Besides another cannibal feast, “Storytelling” featured Teen Van (Liv Hewson) spinning a fairy tale about the wilderness, Walter (Elijah Wood) crafting a narrative to get Misty (Christina Ricci) and Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) off the hook with the police — and a whole lot of heartache.
Here, in chronological order, are the most shocking things that happened in the final episode of Season 2:
Shauna carved up Javi’s body
We already knew that the wilderness had “chosen” Javi (Luciano Leroux) instead of Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) in the previous episode, but we still experienced the trauma of watching Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) carve up his dead body for the rest to feed on. While everyone shared in the grief, and the gruesome meal, it was Shauna alone who butchered her friend.
Travis took the first bite of Javi’s heart
Travis (Kevin Alves) was heartbroken to see that instead of Natalie, whom he helped escape from her murderous fellow survivors, the wilderness had claimed Javi. After being left alone to grieve with the body, he passively went along with the cannibalization of his little brother. He was offered the first bite of Javi’s (raw!) heart and he took a bite, signaling to the others that they had his approval to proceed.
Walter killed Kevyn Tam
In the previous ep, Walter contacted the police to say he had information about the death of Adam (Peter Gadiot), but it was all part of his elaborate plan to pin the murder of Shauna’s lover on someone else. In a bizarrely shocking moment, Walter — having already traveled to Lottie’s compound, slipped Officer Kevyn Tam (Alex Wyndham) a sedative-laced drink and deposited him in the trunk of his own car — gleefully shot Kevyn dead in front of his appalled partner, Matt Saracusa (John Reynolds). He gave Matt two choices: Go along with his carefully orchestrated narrative that Kevyn killed both Peter and Jessica, or enter the frame himself. A stunned Matt appeared to go along with Walter’s ultimatum, leaving both Shauna and Walter’s beloved Misty in the clear.
The hunt is on… again
In the previous episode, a rattled Lottie (Simone Kessell) said that the entity from the wilderness demanded another sacrifice and offered her fellow Yellowjackets drinks, one of which held a fatal dose of phenobarbital. To buy time, Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) insisted that they settle things the way they used to, by drawing cards and hunting whoever chose the Queen of Hearts. Shauna was expecting the EMTs who were called earlier to intervene, not realizing that Van (Lauren Ambrose) and Taissa (Tawny Cypress) had called to tell them not to come.
After making masks like they wore in the wilderness, the women built a fire and draw cards, with Shauna drawing the doomed Queen. She couldn’t believe they were really going to hunt her, but she ran and they gave chase, knives in hand.
Callie shot Lottie to save her mom
Callie (Sarah Desjardins) and her dad Jeff (Warren Kole) rushed to Lottie’s retreat to come to Shauna’s aid. Callie, who commandeered the gun Shauna took from the carjacker, first came across Matt and seemed seconds away from shooting the man who was so intent on putting her mother in jail. But instead, she came to her mother’s rescue, shooting Lottie in the arm to save Shauna from the hunt. As Desjardins previously told TheWrap, Callie and her mom are “cut from the same cloth” and we wouldn’t knowingly mess with either one of them.
Lottie named Natalie as the new leader
In the past, Lottie (played as a teen by Courtney Eaton), was still recovering from Shauna’s brutal beating when her fellow survivors decided to kill and eat a new victim. Natalie drew the unlucky card and was hunted by her starving former friends. But it was Javi who died and was eaten in her place.
When the others turned to a newly strengthened Lottie to lead them once again, she instead named Natalie as her successor. A shellshocked Nat went from being hunted by the group to becoming its honored leader in just a few hours.
Natalie dies
While we could have predicted some of the mayhem in the finale, we could not have foreseen that we’d lose one of the key cast members of the present timeline.
In a jaw-dropping turn of events, a shotgun-wielding Lisa (Nicole Maines) came across the remains of the hunt and demanded to know what was going on. Natalie (Juliette Lewis) tried to get Lisa to calm down, but not before Misty (Christina Ricci) surged towards Lisa with a hypo full of fentanyl. In a split second, we saw Nat reliving the guilt of having Javi die in her place and she stepped in between Misty and Lisa. Misty sobbed inconsolably when she realized she’d accidentally killed her best friend. When Tai asked if there was something they could do, Misty replied, “Nothing. It’s too late.” Like Misty, we were not OK after seeing Nat’s body being taken away in an ambulance.
Lottie is re-committed
Adult Lottie was already spiraling this season as her disturbing visions returned. But when she insisted that the survivors return to their sacrificial practices, her friends secretly called a psych team. When the team finally arrived, Lottie went with them and we have no idea how long she’ll be away this time.
Coach Ben burns down the cabin
Ben was the only one who didn’t participate in eating Jackie’s body and his disgust with his fellow survivors nearly broke his mind. He began having dissociative episodes in which he thought he was back home with his ex-boyfriend.
When the women brought Javi’s body back to the cabin, a shaken Natalie told him that she was the worst of them all and that he didn’t belong with them.
He planned on surviving in the undergound cave where Javi had spent his missing months, but couldn’t light a fire. He returned to the cabin for some firewood and saw the women kneeling and bowing before Natalie. Repulsed by what he saw, that night he set fire to the piles of logs stacked up outside the building. Everyone was asleep but Shauna, who woke up the others. They grabbed what they could and made a mad rush for the door, watching in horror as their only shelter went up in flames.
