Spoilers ahead for Yellowjackets season 2 episode 2, "Edible Complex"
The second episode of Yellowjackets season 2 might also be the show's darkest yet, or at least one of them. This is the episode where the girls finally start eating people, specifically Jackie. The episode title, "Edible Complex," is a play on the term "Oedipal Complex," obviously a cheeky reference to what eventually happens to Jackie during the 1996 segment.
In the present, Shauna finds herself at the center of the investigation into Adam's disappearance and things take a dark turn for Taissa and Simone. Plus, Natalie learns the truth about what happened to Travis.
The wilderness
Things go from weird to weirder with Shauna, as her delusions regarding Jackie manifest in her doing Jackie's makeup and braiding her hair to hide her missing ear (that Shauna ate). When Taissa discovers what Shauna has been getting up to in the shed, she puts her foot down. Enough is enough. It's time to dispose of Jackie's body once and for all. Since the ground is frozen during the winter, Tai recommends that they cremate her and give her a final sendoff.
Nat chooses to fake Javi's death to try and help Travis come to terms with the inevitability and get him focused back on the here and now. She takes an item of his clothing with her on their regular hunt and agrees to split up during their search. Once alone, Nat cuts herself and smears blood on Javi's clothes. She then takes it back to Travis and pretends to have found it nearby.
Tai has another nighttime wandering incident and almost falls off a cliff as a result. If it weren't for Van waking up and realizing Tai was gone, she'd likely have died. But Van finds her just in time. She notices that mysterious symbol we keep seeing carved into a tree near where Tai almost took her fatal tumble.
Come time for the cremation of Jackie, Travis also places Javi's clothes in the fire, seemingly accepting his brother's fate. Lottie tries to convince him that finding the clothing doesn't mean anything. She knows that Javi is still alive. Natalie snaps at her, telling Lottie to stop with all her premonitions and supernatural stuff. That night, while everyone sleeps, Nat and Travis have sex, but Travis can't stop thinking about Lottie while they're doing it.
Afterward, Nat smells something cooking. Everyone does. They all wake up and go outside to find Jackie's perfectly cooked body left behind on the pyre. Shauna, who is eating for two now, tells them all that it's okay, Jackie would want them to do it. And with that, the Yellowjackets finally devolve into cannibalism, feating on Jackie's flesh. All except Coach Ben, who can't stomach what's happening outside, retreats into the cabin.
Present-day
The present-day storyline picks up at Lottie's cult, sorry, "wellness" group, or whatever she's calling it now. Lottie tries to assure Natalie that the commune is a safe place, that they're not doing anything malicious. The guy they were burying alive? All part of some therapeutic practics. As for why they kidnapped Nat, well, Lottie says it was actually a favor, if anything. She had some of her people keeping an eye on Nat. They were forced to intervene when she went to kill herself. At any rate, Natalie is no longer a prisoner and remains with Lottie, at least for now.
Regarding Travis, we see via flashback that he believed he was being called back to the forest, or that a presence was haunting him. Lottie told him dying, or coming close to it, would help him return to normal. They orchestrated a plan for Travis to temporarily hang himself from a garage door, with Lottie intending to bring him down within seconds. But Lottie claims the buttons on the remote got stuck and she couldn't save Travis in time. In the flashback, we also see Lottie visited by a demonic version of Laura Lee (Jane Widdop). Is Lottie telling the truth? Can we believe what we see in the flashback? Is that really how Travis died? It all sounds sketchy and Natalie agrees.
Misty's storyline starts to veer off in a different direction, isolating her from the rest of the girls as she continues looking for Natalie. She crosses paths with a fellow citizen detective, Walter (Elijah Wood) after messaging him on the online forum. He finds her in real life and leaves her a message, inviting her to help him with an investigation.
Pivoting to Shauna, she's become a person of interest in Adam's disappearance. Shauna's former classmate, Kevyn Tan (Alex Wyndham) is the investigator on the case. He questions her about Adam. Shauna lies, claiming she didn't know him beyond their fender bender. Despite her own suspicions, Callie overhears the questioning and intervenes, offering Shauna an out.
The problem is, these detectives aren't going to give up so easily. Kevyn's partner is a man named Jay (John Reynolds), who deliberately flirts with Callie at a bar, nudging her toward the truth and getting her to discuss her mother's affair. Armed with that knowledge, Jay tells Kevyn what he learned, but Kevyn isn't ready to move forward just yet. Jay questions if Kevyn might be too close to this case, having known Shauna in high school.
Then there's Taissa, who escalates things to an aggressive level with Simone in this episode. After finding the basement altar, Tai has been trying her best to stop sleepwalking. Avoiding sleep altogether in some cases or working herself to the point of exhaustion. Sammy makes a surprise appearance at her house. Not wanting to cause more problems with Simone, Tai calls her to let her know where he is and Simone rushes over. When she arrives, we see Tai passed out at the table. Sammy is nowhere to be found. Did she do something to him while asleep?
Panicked, Simone and Tai get in the car to look for him and receive a call from Sammy's school. He's been there the entire time, waiting for someone to pick him up, indicating that the "Sammy" Tai saw at home was a hallucination. Simone starts going off on Tai, telling her she needs to drop everything immediately and get help, as she's clearly very sick. Something dark comes over Tai and she revs the engine, deliberately crashing their car.
Yellowjackets season 3 premieres on Friday, Feb. 14 on Paramount+ with Showtime.