We're three episodes into Yellowjackets season 3 and I think it's finally safe to say that the "pomegranate theory" is dead. Of course, I could be proven wrong by the time the season ends, but thus far this season, at least one character (possibly two) were shown eating food in a dream space, and neither has died yet.
For those unfamiliar, the pomegranate theory is a term coined by fans about a particular theory that when any of the survivors in Yellowjackets are on the verge of death and enter the liminal space between life and death, they're given a choice to eat food—Jackie had hot chocolate, Lottie dreamed of a mall food court, etc., and if they consume the food, they die. If they don't, then they survive.
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The term comes from the Greek myth about Hades and Persephone. In the myth, Hades abducts Persephone and takes her to the underworld where he tricks her into consuming six pomegranate seeds. Because she tasted food from the underworld, Persephone becomes bound to return there for at least six months every year. So the idea is that, in Yellowjackets, the girls who eat the dream food permanently die, whereas if they avoid eating the food they can leave and return to the real world.
Evidence supporting the pomegranate theory is as follows:
- When Jackie was freezing to death, she imagined being with all of the other girls and they offer her hot chocolate. She drinks it and then dies in real life.
- Lottie almost freezes to death when she passes out in the snow in season 2. She hallucinates that she is in a food court at the mall with everyone eating together. She reaches for a carton of Chinese food, but her vision of Laura Lee prevents her from actually eating it. Lottie survives.
- Another more subtle example is when Shauna's baby breastfeeds from her in her dream, potentially leading the child to die in real life. I'm not sure if this one would really apply though, since he was stillborn.
Akilah eats the dream blackberries and survives
But in Yellowjackets season 3, episode 3, Akilah is shown dreaming/hallucinating due to the poisonous gas inside the cave. She, along with Shauna and Van, succumb to the gas and have a shared dream. During Akilah's portion of the dream, she stumbles upon a bunch of blackberry bushes and eats them by the handful.
However, at the end of the episode, Akilah wakes up with the others after Ben saves them. Of course, Akilah could suddenly die in the next episode, but I think that's really unlikely to happen. So her survival shows that eating in a dream does not immediately equal a death sentence.
There was also an instance of Mari drinking hot chocolate given to her by Ben. He supposedly found hot chocolate in the cases of food he dug up. People thought there might have been a parallel there between Mari and Jackie, signaling Mari's death. But as of episode 3, she's still alive and kicking.
It's possible the writers might have intentionally made Akilah eat the blackberries in her dream to debunk this theory moving forward.
New episodes of Yellowjackets stream on Fridays on Paramount+ with Showtime.