Spoilers for Yellowjackets season 2 episode 1, "Friends, Romans, Countrymen"
With Yellowjackets finally returning for its third season this month, now seems like a fitting time to revisit the second season. While season 2 was somewhat polarizing among fans and critics, it gave us plenty of new mysteries, theories, and developments to ponder during the gap between seasons. Better to have everything fresh in our minds as we head into season 3, debuting with two episodes on Feb. 14 exclusively on Showtime (or Paramount+ with Showtime).
The season 2 premiere, "Friends, Romans, Countrymen," picks up two months after Jackie's (Ella Purnell) tragic death. Since her passing, Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) has been keeping Jackie's corpse in a nearby shack, letting her body sit there like a talking dummy as she imagines that she is speaking to the real Jackie. Everyone thinks it's creepy, and some are concerned that Shauna might be losing it or going full "Norman Bates." At one point, she accidentally takes Jackie's ear, pockets it, and later eats it like a midnight snack.
Among the other survivors, Misty (Samantha Hanratty) has been ostracized more than usual ever since the mushroom fiasco, and a few newcomers randomly turn up (not really, they're meant to be ascended extras from season 1, but their arrival feels a little sudden). Among the "newer" Yellowjackets, theater nerd Crystal (Nuha Jes Izman) appears to be the most important. She's the only one who isn't pissed at Misty and offers to teach her how to sing. The show seems to be setting up a friendship between them moving forward.
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Van (Liv Hewson) and Tai (Jasmin Savoy Brown) have devised a new plan to prevent Tai's weird nighttime wanderings. They've been sleeping away from the others with their wrists tied together. So far, it seems to be working, but not without Van taking a little bit of a beating, what with rope burn and whatnot. Tai worries that this will end badly, but Van is determined. They confess their love for each other.
Then there's Nat (Sophie Thatcher) and Travis (Kevin Alves), who are still the primary hunters of the group. Except because it's winter, the game has been sparse or nonexistent. It doesn't help that Javi is still missing, and Travis keeps "seeing" him everywhere they go, slowing down the hunts when Nat has to pull him back together. There's no way Javi could still be alive out there, could he? Lottie (Courtney Eaton) thinks so. Conflict is brewing between Lottie, Nat, and Travis, as Lottie is the only one who can calm Travis down from a panic attack and tells him his brother is alive.
In the interval between 1996 and the present-day storyline, the Yellowjackets premiere pauses to take us to 1998, post-rescue. The girls, including an especially disturbed Lottie, are shown being escorted to a plane. We learn that after returning home, Lottie went mute. Desperate to "fix" her, Lottie's parents checked her into a psychiatric ward where she underwent electroshock treatments.
Present-day troubles
Showing the growing tension between Lottie and Nat in the past is a good setup for the present, as we learn that Lottie's weird self-help cult is responsible for kidnapping Nat (Juliette Lewis). The cult members keep her strapped to a bed until Nat eventually attacks her attendant and escapes. But she doesn't get far into the surrounding woods when she stumbles upon a strange ritual involving cult members wearing animal masks burying a man (alive?) in the middle of the forest.
Adult Lottie (Simone Kessell) steps out of the shadows, overseeing the entire thing and Nat asks why she shouldn't bash her head in right there, to which Lottie replies that she has a message for Nat...from Travis (who is dead in the present).
While Nat is in captivity, Misty (Christina Ricci) has been doing her best to follow any lead to find her "best friend." She figures out that Nat was taken from her motel room. Apart from Nat, Misty has been trying to help Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) manage the fallout regarding Adam's murder. Remember, Shauna—thinking Adam (Peter Gadiot) was the blackmailer—stabbed him at the end of season 1.
Though Shauna claims she got rid of everything that could connect her to Adam, Misty is less confident. She digs around in an online sleuthing subreddit and discovers a user who theorizes the mystery woman in Adam's life could be behind his disappearance.
And Misty isn't wrong to be concerned as Shauna learns that Adam had an art studio nearby. She and Jeff pay it a visit, stumbling across dozens of paintings depicting Shauna. They use turpentine to mess them up, smearing her face and destroying them to the best of their ability. Jeff and Shauna's relationship has veered into complicated territory, with Shauna admitting she used to like the idea of seeing him with someone else. Their conversation turns erotic. They have sex on top of the Shauna paintings.
Back at home, Jeff and Shauna burn the last remnants of Adam, including his keys, ID, journals, and more. But they don't do a good enough job because a piece of Adam's license with his picture clear as day remains among the charcoal. Callie (Sarah Desjardins), who has been suspicious of her mother for a while now, digs through it and finds it, indicating she will learn the truth about what Shauna did to Adam soon—or likely already suspects it.
Finally, there's Taissa (Tawny Cypress). After her "other" self murdered the family dog, Biscuit, and stuck his head on the weird, bloody basement, she's forced to go buy a new puppy. This one named Steve. As a newly-elected senator, Taissa already has her hands full when she's confronted by a very angry Simone (Rukiya Bernard) at their son Sammy's school.
Simone is the one who found the altar at the end of season 1. Since Taissa isn't aware of what her darker half gets up to, she has no clue what Simone is talking about. But Simone says if Taissa doesn't get help ASAP, she will take Sammy away from her forever and go to the press. That night, Taissa ventures into the basement to see for herself what she's gotten up to at night lately, getting a good look at the altar featuring Biscuit's head, the Sammy lookalike doll, and a heart.
Yellowjackets season 3 premieres on Feb. 14 on Paramount+ with Showtime.