'Yellowjackets' Episodes 5-6 Deep Dive
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Yada. That's wireless without the gotcha. Stop by your neighborhood Metro store or visit mbytmo.com slash stores and find out about their amazing offers. This episode is brought to you by Lincoln. There's something buzzy in the air. Spring is coming. The mood is shifting and new journeys are beginning. Say goodbye to the winter blues and experience the revitalizing qualities of driving a Lincoln. Everything about a Lincoln is designed to invigorate our senses. In the Lincoln Spring Sales Event, it's happening.

right now. Step outside and visit your local Lincoln retailer or lincoln.com to find some seriously mood enhancing offers on current and past Lincoln models. Learn more at lincoln.com. It's buzz, baby. It's house of R. I'm Joanna Robinson. That's Mally Rubin. And we're here today to talk to you about not one.

But two episodes of Yellow Jackets. We're catching up. It's five and six. Safe to say some major developments out in the wilderness. How are you doing, Mallory Rubin? I'm doing great. I took an oath and vacation days at work, just like Misty. I am here. Citizen detective cap on. Yeah. Ready.

to crack the case. Earlier today, you just like casually flipped my bike over. That's right. In a menacing fashion. I told John and Steve and Arjuna that I needed to run some wires for the Wi-Fi, you know, really clear the space. Yeah, yeah, listen. Walter's back. Are you thrilled? Delighted. Also, shout out to my people at St. Patrick's Day. Shout out to the Irish out there. And we're here to celebrate not with corned beef and cabbage, but with a little bit on the barbie.

Spoilers for the Yellow Jackets. Yeah. Coach Ben has finally met his end and it is on a dinner plate. So before we get into that, quick programming reminders, okay? Mallory and I are covering both Daredevil and Yellow Jackets on a weekly basis.

We're recording this on a Monday. Yellow Jackets will now be recorded on Mondays for the rest of the season is the plan until we change it again. But for right now, Yellow Jackets Monday. So if you're like, where's TikTok? Where's the Yellow Jackets episode? They will drop on Mondays for the most part going forward. We're also doing, of course, Daredevil later in the week. Our deep dives on Daredevil. This week, however, Molly Rubin is going to be out of office. So I have assembled a group of people to talk about...

about superheroes, like superhero stories and what we want from them is sort of what we're doing this week on The Old House of R. The Midnight Boys, pew pew, will have a more standard sort of instant reaction to Daredevil episode four on that feed. And then next week, Yes. the Ring of Earth feed is just bumping with like, there's a mint edition, there's a button mash, there's all sorts of stuff. So Mallory Rubin, Yes. how can folks keep track of all the things we've got going on on our various feeds? Simple. Follow the pod.

Okay. Follow House of R, follow The Ringerverse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can watch full video episodes of House of R and Midnight Boys Pew Pew on Spotify. You can also watch on The Ringerverse YouTube channel. So subscribe to that as well. While you're at it, you're at your computer, your phone's in your hand. Follow The Ringerverse on the social media platform if you're choosing whatever that might be these days. And then...

Send us an email. The inbox is open. Hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. Send us your Yellowjackets thoughts. Send us your Daredevil thoughts. It's not too early to start sending us your Last of Us thoughts, your Andor thoughts. Those are just mere weeks away at this point. I just rewatched like four episodes of Andor season one last week. Yiped. So excited. Can't wait. So excited. Can't wait.

Episode five is titled Did Ty Do That? Written by Sarah L. Thompson and Elise Brown, directed by Jeffrey Byrd. And episode six is titled Thanksgiving Parentheses Canada, written by my pals Libby Hill and Emily St. James and directed by Pete Chapman. I want to talk about Did Ty Do That? really quickly. Were you a Family Matters watcher? Oh my God. Yeah. Absolutely. Every week. Yeah. When you see it written out like this, do you hear it said...

Did Ty do that? Long before, yes, long before we knew that there would be a Steve Urkel and Stefan Urkel actual bit of commentary inside of the episode. So wonderful stuff. So for the zygotes who are listening to this podcast who did not watch Family Matters, and I know you exist.

And you got a little Steve Urkel conversation between Van and Ty inside of this episode. Did I do that was, of course, Steve Urkel's catchphrase. Did Ty do that is like maybe one of the best titles of television I've ever seen in my life. Great stuff. Great stuff.

We're going to do like, we're not going to do because we're doing two episodes today. Yes. We're not going sort of beat by beat. We're doing some bigger picture buckets of like character check-ins and stuff like that. Yes. We are going to do our usual unreliable narrator slash hallucinator slash dreamer counter. I think I have a very incomplete list, so you let me know what I missed. I've got Akilah and her gas fume dreams. Yeah. Dark tie question mark? Mm-hmm. Lottie as ever.

Mr. Matthews. Yes, very sad. Very sad. We also got... Could be a van. We don't know if what's happening with the phone and the box is truly supernatural or... Cancer stuff. Something going on in the van. You know, Travis, how much of the mushroom tea plus the proximity to the gas... Really, honestly, I think everybody at this point is...

Either actually channeling some sort of alter ego, absorbing some sort of noxious fume, or engaging in a collective fever dream that makes us unable to trust their experience in full. If it were me, I simply would not go into the cave with gas. That's just like, that's where I draw the line. Eat a friend, maybe, if needs must. But go into a cave with noxious gas that gives you creepy dreams? It's a no for me. No. Also, we should know it on the mushroom front. Mm-hmm.

On the beautiful Ben's spread that they were all enjoying, there were clearly mushrooms on the plate. Let me tell you something. Yeah. That looked great. It looked delicious. We should all be so lucky, honestly. The mise en place of it, the greens and all sorts of stuff. Yeah, all the extra malts and just the fish looked, frankly, impeccably prepared. Oh, yeah. Really, Ben wasted that. Speaking of, what's on the menu? A.K.A. Would you rather eat? Mm-hmm.

Some Lottie Pops. Yep, charming. Misty's chocolate roogla that she uses. I honestly love a chocolate roogla. I pretty routinely get chocolate roogla. However, I am accepting zero. No treats from Misty. Comestibles from Misty Quigley. Canonically established the fentanyl injector in candies and other things. Cigarettes, candies. It's a no for me. Jeff's Jolly Hitcher snacks.

You know, as often as the case, I'm confronting that the character I'm most similar to on Yellow Jackets is in fact Jeff. This is just my like basically afternoon snack habit. Lots of bags of Cheetos. I thought this looked great. Would you, you know, let's pause here and say, would you accept an orange cracker peanut butter snack from Shauna? I thought Shauna was appropriately ashamed. Banished from snack retrieval. To know what she would have selected from the vending machine.

Ty's room service order, which is, among other things, filet mignon, two Maine lobsters, burgers. Drawn butter and all. Rare. You know, it sounded great, honestly. Two Maine lobsters. There's a lot going on in that hotel suite, really living in the luxury. Great.

Lottie's Chinese takeout. Lottie's poorly reviewed, no vegetarian options Chinese takeout. It's a no for me. A 2.5 is an absolute hard, easy pass. What if Lisa's delivering and you have a chance to sort of resolve some long simmering tensions and guilts? I'm content to just hand her $50,000 without consuming the food. Okay, great. Yeah.

Ben's last supper, which, as you mentioned, fish, greens. Yep, looked wonderful. Before his other last suppers, which were worse and worse and worse. Yeah. Last but not least on the menu today, we have Ben himself. I'm going to pass. That's a no for Ben. I'm going to pass. Of all those options, though, what are we most drawn to? Probably the Cheetos, if I'm being honest. Sounds right. Simple minds, simple pleasures. What can I say? Okay, big picture check-in. Uh-huh.

Like I said, we're going to do all the present day stuff. Then we're going to go into the past and talk about all the past stuff. And we're going to do it in sort of character buckets. Kind of like how we usually do, but a little bit more focused. Big picture check-in. This is a very divisive season in the fandom, is what I've been noting. There are some people who are like...

Yellow Jackets is as good as it ever was, or a lot of people seem to really, really like episode six. So they're sort of like, we're back, baby, sort of thing is a vibe. And so as we hit the halfway mark, how are you, Mallory, feeling about the season? And did these two episodes change your mind one way or another? I really enjoyed the start of the season, as I think we both did. Four was my least favorite, and five I started to wonder if we were dipping a bit. Yeah.

But the end of six, and also I would say six more broadly, not just because of the arrival of new characters, the others are here, as we have long suspected, as we've tracked lost clues across every single episode. Ben's death, it just feels like a moment of transition inside of the show. So I'm eager to see where the rest of the season goes, and I have a high...

level of hope that the rest of the season will be very active. I would say that, like, I am not vibing with the past timeline this season nearly as much as I have in prior seasons, whereas I think the present day has returned to form a little bit this season compared to last year. So those have flipped for me. Yeah, yeah. In season three compared to season two. Overall, I remain, like, very eager to see where this goes and hopeful that a lot of interesting things will happen, but also slightly trepidatious that maybe too many things will happen.

and that we are accelerating, especially again in the past where it feels like simultaneously very, like too much time is passing for how little has happened and characters are in a place that I don't totally understand for all of them. So yeah, it's been a little bit of a mixed bag, but I would say it's mixed positive for me heading into the rest of the season. How about you?

I know it's just going to sound like I'm saying this because my friends wrote the episode, but I really do think Six was, like, the strongest the season has been. Yeah, Six was fun. I think it was, like, really fun and really harrowing. Like, everything with Nat. Oh, my God, yeah. Sophie Thatcher's performance. Ben's end. Like, all of that stuff was, like... I'm not just talking about, like, a rump roast. You know what I mean? Like, it was, like... It was, like, really funny, really emotional, really exciting. Obviously, there was just, like...

baked in plot mechanics of the story that are going to make it that way. But I really think that I do think that Emily... I was, like, worried because I was like, what if I don't like this episode and Emily and Libby are pals of mine? Like, what am I going to say? Shauna is a huge problem for me this season and remains so. Shauna in the past. Now, I don't know... And Shauna in the present a little bit, too. But I don't know if Shauna in the past...

if we're going to see something that I more clearly recognize now that she's scrambled her way to the top of the power chain. Obviously, they comment on that. You're right. She is better. You know, like all this other stuff. But like this Shauna, who started the season journaling angrily, is bitter, is spiteful, is like constantly sneering, constantly has this like sour look on her face. In a way that like...

I want to support because I understand why the events of season two, the trauma of season two would put someone in extremely dark mindset, an extremely dark place. There's just something falling flat with the characterization of Shauna. And I don't understand why anyone would, they're trying to sell me a story of like power. Yeah. And even though it's Lottie who confers power on her by putting her in charge and that's, you know, follow the real power sort of thing. Yeah.

I don't understand why anyone would follow Shauna in her current iteration where she's just nasty and unpleasant and angry all the time. I love an angry woman, but this is just a lot, you know? Yeah, I think the question of whether at a certain point, especially right now, confronting the fact that they are about to have to spend yet another winter there,

you would start to gravitate toward that hard edge and your fear like would almost seek out that rigidity and that like complete unflinching, no holds barred, no room for negotiation. I'm going to whip everybody to like follow me in full. But I think then that needs to be a little bit more active text and we should feel some of the ripples and fissures in the group a little bit more, which maybe will come because of course,

We know from prior episodes that Shauna wasn't the only one who was in a, like, how could it not have been me headspace? So was Ty. Ty. So how is Ty going to respond to that? And will those ruptures? I don't understand why Ty isn't the clear candidate here because she is taking the same positions as Shauna in terms of, like, Ben burned down the cabin, so we should get rid of Ben without...

I don't know, personally insulting all the people around her all the time. Do you know? Yeah. Okay. So let's get, we're going to do the breakdown. We're going to start with modern day. We're going to start with Ty and Van and what is going on with them.

And this is sort of like, I think, confirmed question mark. I guess if you put a question mark behind it, you can't say confirmed. Potentially confirmed in this episode that we are dealing with dark tie in this episode. And then the question is, for how long? Here are the indications that we are right. That Sammy, who has always been the dark tie detector, is like,

I'm taking Steve. I'm going home. I want nothing to do with you. You're not my mom, right? How did we not kick off the pod? Talking about Steve? Yeah. With apologies to Coach Scott. Like, the real big thing that happened in these two episodes, Steve is sweet puppy Steve, confirmed alive and thriving in Sammy's care, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Simone has got it on lock. Okay. So Sammy sniffs out Darktide. Yeah. We get the phone call in episode six from...

real Ty question mark trapped somewhere maybe then there's the sleep talking scene at the close of episode six when it seems like real time like surfaces and says Van please you got to help me right and then we've got all the flashbacks after the did Ty do that plot line of trying to awaken dark Ty in Ty in the past so the question then is

We have to confront is twofold. One, have we been dealing with dark tie all season? Right. Since mid season to season two, like how long has dark tie been driving the car here? Mm hmm.

And then my follow-up question is, what's interesting about that? It's not just like, oh my God, it was dark tie this whole time. What then is that telling us inside of the story that is interesting to us about these two characters? Because I would say Ty and Van, of all the present day stories, Ty and Van has been floundering a little bit inside of this season. So what does this tell you? So to that last point first, actually...

Actually, that makes me want to go back to the Shauna opening note for a second, because I think the other thing on the Shauna in the past front is just like, it's hard. We've been talking about this the whole time we've covered Yellowjackets. When do we understand in full how the character in the past is the same person as the character in the future? Mm-hmm.

A lot of things still have to happen in the wilderness, and then there's a lot of time after. But based on how Shauna is behaving in the past, it's difficult for us to understand, I think, the longer she's like that, how Ty would just, like, go in season one and, like, sit in Callie's bed with her and catch up on life, right? Right, or why Nat would want to see her. You know what I mean? Yeah, so that's, I think, part of what makes it hard to just, like, embrace... I mean, there are things like...

Travis and Nat, who haven't spoken all season until this episode, but we know after, you know, have this like very on again, off again, but like very close relationship. So there's like, yeah, as you say, a lot of social moving and shaking that needs to happen. And that's why, you know, rumor has it. I don't know. I don't think it's been confirmed anywhere that season four is the final season. And if that's the case,

and winter is coming. It's October, right? Like, and if the final season is just like what happened that winter and the rescue, that's interesting to me to see how we slide all these pieces. But yeah, I think for something like, to your point, something like Young Shauna, I feel like we're zagging a bit too hard to ever zig back. Exactly. Like to ever get back to that point. Whereas, I think perhaps

one of the reasons that the modern-day Ty Vann storyline isn't humming as much is because it's actually like, it's so similar that then the fact that it's not as compelling makes us less interested in it. Like, young Ty and young Vann have this irrepressible electric chemistry together, and they're often...

Off on their own. And so like the fact that... Yeah, they are. Well, the two of them and then a very robust tree trunk. And like, so the, you know, the fact that it's also often just the two of them and the present storyline, but it's just not...

You don't have that same spark of that same electricity. It's like impossible not to compare. But the thing that that did do in this episode, as you're noting, I felt that too, is like it was impossible not to think, okay, so we're with dark tie. We're with the other one in the present because we were so actively seeking to summon that presence in the past. And what that did was not only put dark tie top of mind for us, but remind us the sleepwalking

following no eyes, et cetera, like the exact trigger sex, the triggers or the sequencing that tended to in the past lead to one of those episodes. So I guess to your question of like how long, I don't know. I feel like it's something that if we rewatch the season, maybe we'd be able to identify. But because

was invoked again in this episode. It makes me think of, like, the ice cream episode and that whole quest. And, like, also... Or, like, seeing him in the alley after they dine and dash. Yeah, and I mean, that's the beginning of the season, ultimately, and then that's when, like, this idea of, like, offering up these sacrifices for the wilderness became such an active pursuit for Ty. And, like, you know...

Also in the ice cream parlor, that's when they see the coyote with the rabbit in its mouth. And like, we know what it wants, right? It wants more. And then there was the sweet, poor little rabbit and the attempt to sacrifice that life to not only summon Dark Tai, but the magic of the wilderness. So those, all of those things felt very closely linked in this episode. For me, there does seem to be a connection between this like pleasure-seeking Tai and the other one, right? And so like, not that like,

original favorite Ty wasn't living very well when we met her in season one. But this idea of like

where should we eat? What should we eat? This like hunger, this consumption angle, this luxury. Let's pamper ourselves. We've been through a lot. Let's treat ourselves. We deserve this sort of thing. Or this is how I'm coping with the cancer diagnosis. Nat is dead. All these other things are just too, my family's falling apart. My political campaign has fallen apart. Like, you know, all of that sort of stuff. Yeah. And I think it's like the seeking of the pleasure, but also the

There's like a kind of severance-like quality to this, right? Like the, you'll do the thing that I don't want to have to deal with. I, Ty, don't want to pull the trigger with Ben standing there five feet away from me. They said five feet. It looked like a little more. That's fine. It did. I was like, is that five feet?

I'll get the other version of me to do this. And so everything they're doing in the present, it is very kind of like gluttonous and indulgent, but also there is this active pursuit of a horrible thing, which is like, let's offer up blood so that you are okay. And those two things being entwined, the hideous...

And the pleasure that you find in it. I mean, the fact that... That's the thesis of Yellowjacket. Yeah, and the fact that by the time we get to the cannibalistic feast at the end of episode six, it's utterly routine. Like, sure, they put on some of their finery. Yeah, but they're just all sitting there having their little noshes. It's like, we talked about...

feeling like we were heading toward a moment where they ate a person not because they had to but because they wanted to. Right. And they did. But we thought it was just normal. We thought there would be like at least a conversation about it. And they were just sort of like it was just assumed. It's like well Ben's dead and so someone has to dress him and then we'll eat him later. You know what I mean? And that's just like when the pens are brimming with livestock. Yeah. And there's no need whatsoever. Um

I also have to say, I find, and this is not a knock on Lauren Ambrose, an actor I really enjoy. I am finding the distance between adult Van and teen Van so wide in terms of like, the Lauren Ambrose version of Van is so fearful, so passive. Yeah.

And I understand, again, like a cancer diagnosis or a million other things that could have happened that could have beat her down. But I would really like to see at least like flashes of she's still like, you know, gets off rye little one liners every now and then. But I would like young team van is such a firecracker that I don't feel I feel the least amount of connection between those two characters. Yeah. On the phone call front.

Yes. Is there any possible non-supernatural explanation for the phone call scene in episode six where an unplugged phone in a box with a bunch of other equipment, including a thing that can play a dot tape, rings and then Van answers and it's Ty's voice on the other line, even though Ty's in the other room. Right. Right.

If it's not like some sort of like I'm losing grip on reality because of the advancing cancer. Yeah. Is this the most overtly there is no possible explanation for it supernatural moment in the show? Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, not just the fact that the phone rings, it's unplugged, it's in a box, and then she hears Ty, but the fact that it seems to be another version of like a premonition, right? Or just because the language is slightly distinct from what we hear when Ty pops up in bed later. But the sentiment is the same. It's this like, I am trapped inside of myself and I need you to help me. So is that...

consciousness from this other plane actually reaching out to Van in a supernatural form? Is it Van in whatever version of the cave gas or something else from the mushroom tea from the past having a premonition or a vision of this thing that she will then experience directly in the future? I think either of those seems possible. But yeah, it did feel like the show kind of saying, no, yeah, this is like

This is like a ghost story. Like, there's just something happening here and we'll continue to offer up an alternate explanation because the characters engaging with that debate, that there's always another possibility, remains interesting for them on a human level. But the show, I think, has done a lot this season to tell us that it is a supernatural story. It's so funny. I really thought it was going in the opposite direction in terms of, like, plausible deniability for a bunch of stuff that we were seeing. But this is...

This is a wild moment. Okay. My guy, what? My guy, Walter? I'm thrilled for you. Are you ready? I'm just glad you didn't have to wait too much longer. We knew he'd be back, but we didn't know how long it would take for him to return. And he's here in a little outfit.

a little matching outfit. He's gotten multiple outfits. I mean, he has his driving gloves before we get to the... The reflective glasses. The Giga guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What did you make of his... You know, he's like driving a muscle car hysterical. I loved that. What did you think of the little, you know, hula skirt cat on his dash? I mean, just any commentary on Walter's car is just wonderful. It seemed right to me. It all seemed great. Great stuff. Like you in a Jeff scene, this is me with a Walter scene. We love...

Only the men on the show know that's not true. But okay. We hate women. It's just, it comes up a lot. Mystery and Walter and Shauna on the case. Did we have to contort the plot and believability slightly to rope Shauna into these shenanigans? Yes. Worth it? Yes. Worth it, Bob, as they say on Billions? 100% worth it. Quick question for you. Mm-hmm.

Who's worse at their job? The various morticians and lab techs Misty manipulates into doing her bidding. Or Mr. Matthews caregiver slash housekeeper Nora, who just occasionally feels like, Mr. Matthews, you're confused, and then continues to let these people traipse around the penthouse. Yeah, that was tough. Nora. Nora was cute. I got you.

from Nora the vibe that you got from the Joles in the beginning of the season like what is up with Nora is she a plant is she spying like especially because we get some lines from from Mr. Matthews about you know like already at the station and it's like what web is this family still embroiled in like connected to or independent of whatever is going on was going on with Wadi so I have my

I have my eye on Nora. You can't be that bad at your job, can you? I mean, I don't know. I guess you could be. Nora is one to keep an eye on. Artie at the station feels like... Like blaring sirens, right? A big thing for us maybe to look at either this season or next season. Whatever, if we get, however much information we get about what happened when they came back, the cover-up. Yes. It does force us to...

you know, confront. As, of course, did Jeff basically outright invoking this, the loss of hot Kevin Tan, which we just haven't spent enough time this season mourning hot Kevin. You know how Jeff feels about police now? Oh, Jeff. Where do you think nerd whisperer Misty came from? Because when we first met her in season one, she couldn't get a single date. And now there's like legions of nerds like drooling to do her bidding. Okay, so I had kind of like

I really kind of bumped on this. Yeah, me too. I had like two responses to it. There was a part of me that really liked it because like Misty is still, you know, she's walking around. So we have Misty mourning in both timelines right now. Yeah. Right. She has lost people close to her. She's carrying a lot of weight. Do you think she's going to start wearing Ben's leather vajra? I hope not because it is just coated in all sorts of vomit and blood and other bodily fluids and viscera. So, I mean, I guess they could wash it, but I'd prefer she not.

But yeah, like, you know, Misty, one of our first encounters with Misty is that she has to basically, like, blackmail and bribe this dude to, like, go into her house at the beginning of season one. So the fact that everybody in this stretch now is, like, really vibing with Misty and into Misty, it gives me, especially because Misty has become the, like, I'm keeping Walter at arm's length person, this enjoyable and kind of interesting, oh, you want what you can't have. Like, you want to...

coach Scott. And for various reasons, that was never going to happen. What do you mean? He was her first boyfriend and amputation. It's just a kind of line that you would only get on yellow jackets where I was like, are we bad? That was great. But, you know, Missy now walking around like in this cloak of grief with Nat's leather jacket. I do like the idea that she's like absorbed some of that

cool, like I can conquer the world and not give a shit energy. But I was like, wait, was this always here? She just wasn't into these guys or is this just a radical change? It was a little confusing. On one hand, I guess. But on the other hand, like weren't we shown when she first put on the jacket and went to the bar and made the biggest ass of herself that we've ever seen that she can't just like put on this thing. Maybe this is the difference between having all the shots of real whiskey and not having all the shots of real whiskey on the jacket front.

I would have mourned and really lamented it if I had not mentioned that Van was rocking the Carhartt jacket in the present timeline in the stretch. Did you and Nick Nelson feel the same way? Exactly. I really enjoyed that. I love it. I will shout out this one line that made me laugh among many, which is, she's a sister to me in all the ways that matter. Like legally? Very good. Really good.

Very good. Okay, and then Shawna and Walter have this conversation that must have made you feel so good about yourself. Yeah. Right? Because Shawna accuses Walter of having done a murder just to delight and entice and make Misty's toes curl. Yeah. Um...

And this was your theory from, like, episode two or so. You were like, is Walter going to do a murder or something crazy in order to, you know, win Misty back to his side? Yeah. Does this feel less likely now that Shauna has named it? Oh, okay. Yeah, I was, like, glad to have it acknowledged, but...

But first of all, I just think Shauna is, you know, all the way back from our early days of Shauna murdering Adam Martin when she didn't need to. Shauna is somebody who is often swept up in paranoia or following clues to the wrong place and then makes the wrong read and a bad decision as a result. So the fact that she thinks it's Walter makes me less likely to believe that it's him. But also...

He just, this was my moment with Walter, like akin to what we had in season two, where we're like doubting, suspicious, wondering, and then you're kind of like,

No, there's a pureness there. Now, I do think Walter... Is it when he gifted her trash? Bags of trash. He had a limo? Yeah. He had a limo driver? Hot, honestly. Great stuff. But, you know, Shauna, obviously later she'll concede, like, no, I don't actually think Misty is the one doing this. But earlier, when Shauna says, if anyone had a reason to be mad at Lottie, it's Misty because of Nat's death.

And Shauna saw Lottie put the heart necklace on Callie and then let out, even compared to the bird screeches we hear in the past timeline, the loudest, most feral scream we have ever heard. And dumped a delicious meal on the ground. I know. Green beans almondine on the ground? Are you kidding me? What a waste. Yeah.

The only reason I don't think Shauna did the murder, otherwise she'd be, like, a top suspect for me, is that she's, like, leading the charge here and she's such a POV character that, like... Yeah. I don't think she's split that much with reality that she has... Yeah. A theory that I liked that was floating around is that Callie did it and Shauna was covering up for her. But Shauna seems to really be trying to dig into, like, who actually did this. Right. Okay. So...

He looks genuinely crushed when my guy Walter looks genuinely crushed as Misty continues to give him the brush off. And on the one hand, I love Walter so much and I really do think he'd be a great fit for her. But the longer she doesn't want him, the weirder I feel rooting for him. At some point, he's got to take the hint and move on. So I'm just sort of like...

Okay. No means no, my guy. But please find someone else to lavish all this attention and murder on. When he gave her the bags of trash and she literally seemed to just like walk down the nearest alley in order to sort through it. My favorite thing about that is the fact that she had her iconic. Yeah.

pink gloves on which means she carries all of them with her always at the ready it's uh both winning and worrying yep all at once the misty quigley story you cannot deny however that misty on the case yes citizen detective misty is the most compelling version of misty that we get this is the very only murders in the building sort of thing especially as we're at the at the penthouse um

calling Sean an idiot, Walter a fuck face, messing with Lisa's bike. I took an oath on vacation days, the line you cited. And the fact that she always has those gloves on her, it's just like, it thrills me. How did you feel about, let's move into like the who killed Lottie theory. She seems to have died in the basement of this, of her father's very fancy apartment building. Right. Um,

which still seems to be the place from her vision. Like, do you agree? The concrete steps, the candles are both the basement of her father's building and what she saw in her vision. Definitely. And so that means that when she had that vision in season one, she was dreaming of home. Right.

Right. Essentially. A home, but decked in probably more candles than it was at the time. But, like, that's a vision of home, which is, like, what Akilah says she's been having is, like, visions of home. Yeah. And so, like, when we first saw it, we were like, what is this mysterious building? And is this going to be an underground hatch we find somewhere on the island? And it's just the basement of her father's apartment building. How did you feel about that reveal? I liked it because, you know, in that moment that you're citing where Akilah is trying to...

in many sequences, trying to wrap her mind around what she's seeing and what it might mean, but ultimately is reduced to just sort of like listing the things that she'd seen. And Lottie with this longing and also this confidence that it means something, that it has to mean something, that it always has and always will, says like, home. And Ty is like, yeah, but all those things, that's home from before. Like, you know, maybe this is just Akilah and her vision or Lottie in this prior state, but...

their minds searching for that comfort and that belonging and that sense of a place that gave them that before. But of course, we have a lot of canonical evidence that Lottie's, as Travis helpfully recounts in this stretch of episodes, like when Lottie would say a thing,

Then a bear would show up or birds would fall from the sky. Right. She saw a fiery halo around Laura Lee and then the bumblebee blew up. So, you know, and obviously we have even before the plane crash, like the flashback to young Lottie in the car. Right. And the premonition of the accident at the intersection. So.

You know, I still, to me, this still feels like Lottie having foreseen her death. Yeah. And, or foreseen that this would be a place that she needed to return. And then, like, does that mean that she went there thinking something else would happen and died as a result? It's like another version of this idea of Ben is the bridge home. Everybody is so mad at Nat because she took away the bridge. We don't know yet what is going to happen, what the characters will be calling the birders slash the others. But, like,

They think Nat has...

chop that bridge down. Oh, no, he's still the bridge. Yeah, what brought the birders? Because they're eating Ben. Nat feels Ben. They're eating Ben. They're screaming out. That brings this other group of people. It's just a longer bridge than we thought. Yeah. Gotta tie some more ropes around the bridge. It's just a much more complicated bridge. The other thing on the apartment building, though, was just this idea that she had been there four weeks as Cliff at the front desk establishes. So, you know, Shawna, like, reasonably wondering, well, why did she show up at my house and pretend she had nowhere to go if she had this place right here where she could go at any time? But also,

what was she doing there and why? Yeah. On the one hand, yes. And on the other hand... Or what was she doing at the Sedecki home and why? Seeking Callie. Worrying. Well, seeking Callie, but I also kind of believe Walter on this, like, friendship idea. Maybe. Okay.

In terms of like the crumbs that we were going on in terms of the who killed Lottie mystery. Yes. We had the withdrawal of money from the bank. Yes. And we had her practicing an apology to someone. Yes. All of that can be wrapped into the Lisa storyline, right? The I've wronged you, I'm sorry. Here's a bunch of money. Here's 50K in cash as a tip for the shitty food. Seems to be what has happened with Lisa. But Lisa implicates Ty. Correct.

Correct. So tie is implicated. Dark tie, like the other one at the wheel possibly. Walter is discussed above. Jeff, as the Redditors have noticed, has scratches on his hand, which could be from the cat. Yeah. Could be from Lottie, who has DNA under her fingernails.

the Callie theory. Did Callie do it? But like, Callie really seems genuinely distressed when she overhears from her mom that Lottie is dead. Yeah. Did Hilary Swank do it? Yeah. Did the birders do it? Did the birders do it? So on a Jeff front, I will say like, I do not think... A birder murder. A birder murder. When the prince was a muddard. I don't,

think it would make sense for Jeff to do this. Obviously not intentionally. Especially if he's on his karma journey. Exactly. He's seeking the karma points. I thought the way that Jeff responded to Shauna revealing that Lottie had died was so weird. It was so weird. Like, I don't know how to wrap my mind around it unless Jeff did see Lottie and something bad happen, which I don't think would... I don't think it's that and that that would make sense, but I'm like, they want us to think that or wonder, I guess, because he's like, what?

What? His just response. His response is bizarre. The scratches on his hand. It's bizarre. And it would be interesting if like this whole time we're like, Jeff is the normal one and Shauna is the bonkers one. And he's like, guess what? I will also defend my family. You know what I mean? He does insist many times in this stretch that he will do whatever is necessary to keep Kelly safe. So.

So is Jeff top of your list right now? No, I don't think so. I just thought that was so odd, the way he responded. But yeah. He's top of your list. I guess because of the tape, it feels like this is tying into the birders. A birder murder. A birder murder. It certainly seemed like... Obviously, they cut off the tape before we hear the end of it. But...

despite Callie's recording from her phone showing 43 minutes, I'm like, that wasn't enough time to get through the whole dad tape? Okay. But I guess Shauna took some time walking to the parking lot out of the Jolly Hitcher Hotel. Also, I'm sorry, Sudeikis, can we find a better hiding place? But also, follow up, did the Jolly Hitcher get like a major remodel? I thought the Jolly Hitcher was like a drive-in motel. Well, the Jolly Hitchers were the Joles. They're doing their hipster boutique revamp, but that shouldn't have happened yet unless Jeff just definitively didn't get

the business but seems like are there multiple jolly hitchers maybe it's a different wing of the jolly hitcher this is where like jeff and bianca their long shark meetings this is where shauna and adam had their martini and their affair like that all the conversation with the joels we gotta hide out somewhere else and then of course van and ty just like shauna's in the secret room at the jolly hitcher with multiple other hotel room anyway um

You know, I think the fact that we hear what sounds like somebody saying testing, testing, right, getting ready to record this, and then what sounds like the group singing, shrieking cry at the end of episode six makes me think that it is someone in that birder group who has begun to record them and then is going to have evidence of what I assume will be. This is like the... We've talked a lot about like, okay, if the opening sequence of the show is like they're eating people, right?

How do you go down from there? And the difference between we needed to do it to survive versus people came into our camp and then we killed them. We murdered them to protect ourselves and to make sure that they didn't X, Y, and Z. Like they saw Ben's head. That's a leveling up of the horror, certainly. And so if somebody has evidence about that. Putting someone's head out is a leveling up. Sure was.

Sure was. Yeah. No, yeah. If they killed a birder. Yeah. Or all the birders. All the birders. Except that they knew about. It seems like there were three birders. Right. Two that we know who are new cast members. Yeah. Nelson Franklin, who's an actor I love whenever he shows up as Edwin. And Ashley Sutton, someone who I'm less familiar with as Hannah. And it should be noted. Mm-hmm.

I think that we can add Hannah to the like pit girl possibility situation. She is like small of stature with an abundance of brown hair. So like we don't know if the birders are going to be murdered right away. If it's a prolonged birder murder, I don't know. But if this is birder vengeance, that would be interesting. Okay, let's talk about that tape.

I just have to say very, very quickly, weren't you the one with all those porn viruses? Something Shauna said to Misty. Actually, I love when... I love when... So funny. Misty came up with a concrete wall thing and then Shauna knocked on the wall and she's like, oh. Also, I love when Shauna was like, I'm the new sheriff. She's like, it's citizen detective. Idiot. I mean... It's great. It's great stuff. Yeah, that was really fun. Okay. Um...

We already covered a lot about the tape, but here's a huge thing they said. They're listening to the tape. Yeah. And presumably it's the end of episode six. So there's a lot of people there. Yeah. Yes. The only people who know about this are either us or dead. Yeah. So that sounds to me like everyone in that scene...

who we have not seen in present day, they think is dead. Right. Whether or not the person's actually dead. Yes. We don't know. Like, so the bird, not just a bird or murder, but like, but like all the other girls that are out there and perhaps like various rabbits and deer as well. Right. I just hope more and more remains okay. Is this a tough beat for the Hilary Swank is Melissa, Melissa is alive theory or how do you feel about it? So,

I don't know that it is, and I guess I think that's a pretty damning thing for the show. This actually had me thinking back to basically everything that has come before and whether this is one of the downsides of, to use a George R.R. Martinism, being a gardener versus having your story set in advance. Every moment we've been with them in the present, we've thought,

those were the only people who were left, you know? Well, even like the Lottie reveal, we were like, oh, Lottie's here? Lottie's here? Van's here? Yeah. So I'm kind of like, I don't know. How many more can come out of the woodwork? They find a way to like introduce new characters even though there was never a prior accounting in any of the conversations they were having with each other for like, should we check in with that person? Yeah. Which is like... What does Van know about this? Kind of... Yeah. That's not great. It's not great. Honestly. No,

But because that is the established pattern at this point, it doesn't, it actually makes me think that it's entirely possible. They could say, hey, no one else made it out of the wilderness. Everyone is definitely, definitely dead. They could look at the camera and say that. And the next episode, Hillary Swank shows up. She's like, hey, it's me by my backwards baseball cap. You can tell that I'm Melissa. Yeah. And they just need then another version of when they were all like, oh, we really thought that Lottie was like,

at her institution still, so we didn't bother to mention her. Everyone knows about this is either dead or in another continent. Exactly. Melissa's in Canada, so she doesn't count. Their calendar. Okay. All right. Team Sudeikis check-in. We've already covered a lot of this, but I was particularly struck by Jeff was begging Shauna for truth and some trust. She was like, okay. Terrible. And then...

seconds later... This was awful. ...is pulling this, like, low-blood sugar woozy gambit on him. Yeah. And I was just like, shh. There was no air between her saying, okay, and then I'm about, you know, and then later, I was actually really weirded out by later when she comes back to

to Callie and she's like we need to have one of our mother-daughter talks not only like her threatening Callie go now join your father before I do something I regret that was chilling to me but the way that Jeff just left the room she comes back she's like we did one of our mother-daughter talks and Jeff just left the room with no I didn't understand that that was bizarre yeah that actually just felt like something he wouldn't do because he's been so insistent that she share with him and he would be like I just think Jeff's response there is I want to hear this too yeah and

And he would stay. And certainly if he left to humor her, he would then listen, not just turn on the TV, which is what he does. So that was quite odd. Yeah, I thought the blood sugar fake out was honestly deeply nefarious and fucked up. And then, yeah, I thought her the threat against Callie was like, you just have these moments with Shauna. This has been there since the beginning where like.

I don't think that Shauna would harm her daughter, but you wonder what Shauna is capable of pretty routinely. Yes. And we should be. Yeah. And, like, the fact that then the...

The parts of Shauna that other people judge and that she used to fear, that's, like, again in these two episodes, active text, right? Back in the past, Mel and Shauna talk about that. Like, you hate yourself. Yeah. You were a secret. Jackie belittled you and you just let her. Yeah. I like that you're embracing those parts of yourself. Exactly. And then, like, you know, if we think in the present to something like...

Shauna and Jeff going to Adam's art studio and fucking against the turpentined, like, fractured skull wolf paintings of her. And that was where she said, like, you know, I used to...

She was talking about like a sexual desire, but just this like thing inside of her and fearing it. And now she's like, I like who I am. And I remember when we talked about that at the time, and I still feel this way. Like, I think that's something that we celebrate about Shauna. Totally. And so the fact that the show is moving in and out of like, okay, we want Shauna to embrace that these like,

these parts of her that other people maybe would like ridicule or judge, she is able to embrace. And like, if she can move forward with Jeff or whatever the case may be, if other people can see that and accept that, maybe they have the occasional nightmare about her having turkey carver hands. Sure. You know, the subconscious will do what it will. Yeah. He's still like, I have decided that I will live my life with you. Then that's like a beautiful,

But what is... The show never lets us forget that there is actually something lurking inside of Shauna that we are meant to fear and question. But there needs to be a line, and it feels like Callie was always a line, and preferably, hopefully Jeff is also in that circle with her, that, like, her darkness and the threat that is Shauna, because Shauna is a threat, is there in defense of what's hers, and what's hers is Callie and Jeff. So...

What I do like about adult Shauna, and Mellie Malinsky is so good in this role, but when comparing to some of the flatter characters

depictions of the darkness inside of Shauna in the past, calibrating it with these other moments. So the scene with Mr. Matthews, where Mr. Matthews is hallucinating and thinking that Shauna is younger Lottie, and they're just going to go see a Scorsese movie together, right? But like they have this- In order of the Chinese food. In order of the Chinese food. They have this really beautiful conversation. Shauna's giving him a gift in that moment. She's playing along. She's giving him a gift. And then,

as someone who is also a parent now. Yeah. And she says this really beautiful thing. Sometimes it's hard to show the love the way we want to. Like that was a really beautiful scene and that's a really beautiful moment with Ashana that we can then accept her darker stuff too because it's all in the mix of a very complex character. If it's

all dark, violent, sneering nastiness all the time from young Shauna, then where's the actual human inside of that character? Yeah. I liked, too, in that stretch, just the moment, the look on Shauna's face when...

she went into Lottie's room, which is like a bit of a time capsule. Yeah. It reminded me so much of her going into Jackie's room during that still iconic meal with, uh, Jackie's parents. And like, obviously we get some interesting stuff there. Like she's flashing to, uh,

many different young Lottie sequences, including the shot of Lottie with, like, blood smeared on her face. Ooh, very interesting. But just that emotion of, you know... Sorry. Not just the tie with, like, Jackie and Lottie and what was before, but then it makes us think of, like, the opening note of the season where everybody is engaging in the solstice festival and Sean is scrawling in her journal, right? Like, the reality was that even if rescue came... And they can never go home again. Yeah. And then she's confronted with, like,

what it looked like when they did, but also the fact that it was this arrested development, right? The rooms didn't change. Jackie was dead. Lottie was in institutions and all over the world, but, like, pulling Lashana back into that moment before the crash is just always so interesting for her character.

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Let's go into the past. We already mentioned the timeline, but I just want to, like, you know, reaffirm. Thanksgiving, parentheses, Canada means we're in October. We get the... During the Ben Hungerstrike montage, where we hear, eat, eat, eat from Nat, it could be any number of...

weeks that he was in that pen. Right, because Mari has that line about how he'd been hiding at least a week's worth of food that was rotting, but all that does is tell us it's definitely more time than that before the food started rotting and smelling and drawing all the flies. And a reminder that they were rescued the following January, so we've got a lot of meat to get through between October and January. Yeah. I feel they've skipped too much time.

In the past. I don't like how quickly we got back to, like, the brink of cold and we're thatching roofs on our two good shelters to prepare for the... I think if...

They felt like they had all the time in the world. But if they if they have gotten the tip from Showtime that they only have four seasons to do this, then they got to get to the good stuff. They got to go. Thankfully, they still have time in the present for more cut ins to repo divorcees, which honestly is consistently great. The best day of your life is the day you buy a boat and the day you sell a boat. Fantastic stuff.

Okay, we've already talked through my Shauna issues, but genuinely, Mari. It's great. Shauna, get in the pit is how I feel about Shauna right now. Mari saying you want to burn him at the stake like an old-timey witch was just fantastic. While we're still on the Shauna beat, though, we do need to mention, okay, she's got a new girlfriend in Melissa. Yeah. Lottie has put her in charge of the camp. And here are some wonderful things we hear from Van. Mm-hmm.

She does seem better. We've already mentioned. But do you think Mel has to wear Jackie's clothes when they make out? I mean, do you think she makes her call her shipment? That was very funny. Oh, God. The Achilles heel slice.

What are we in? A fucking Saw movie? Now, I don't watch those movies, but I do know that at some point somebody's Achilles tendons are snipped so that they just flop over and can't escape. This was horrifying. This was so cruel. Yeah. Because... He's got one leg. He's got one leg, but also... No, he can't go. What is it that, like, ruined Ben's career? The knee. The knee injury. Yeah. Just, like, completely kneecapping him from whatever. Like...

Shauna and Melissa going out, Shauna making Melissa do it when Melissa didn't want to. Yep. Shauna coming out, not being like, you don't have to look so happy about it. And Shauna's like, you don't have to act like a fucking saint. Yeah.

When she made Melissa do it, like... It's all very dark. Get in the pit, Shauna! And then this is my last, this is my last, like... Because again, the fandom seems very divided on it. Some people are like, yes, go off our angry dark queen. And they love this mode of Shauna. And some people are like, I don't recognize this character. Or how we got here. Or how I can connect this to...

The Shauna, the teen Shauna I knew from previous seasons or the adult Shauna, as you mentioned, that we know now. Yeah, I think what you said a few minutes ago about how like when Shauna does terrible things in the present timeline, it's because whether it's true or it's because what she tells herself to justify her behavior, she's doing it to protect her family. We need the equivalent of that in the past. And it can't just be actual survival. Right. Right. So like.

As we watched her friendship with Jackie crumble, losing that was part of what drove Shauna to a certain place. Then, of course, the baby. And now I don't think, I think the male development has been really interesting, but we've barely seen them, like, interact. So it's not like we can be invested in that relationship. And we don't actually see Shauna anymore.

Like, that was why I was really excited about the idea of Shauna and Misty being in cahoots. And then we just kind of zipped right past that. So I think, and again, that gets back to like, is the allegiance coming from anything other than fear or need in

in terms of the other people aligning around her. So, yeah, I think we need to, like, we need a relationship that we're invested in with Shauna in the past because, like, when Ty and Van do things that we don't like, we sort of are like, well, they did it for each other, you know? Yeah. Thinking back to, like, something like Ty going to the prayer circles last season, which she was so actively opposed to and it didn't feel like a character change because she engaged in it. Or, yeah, or when, like, it comes from, like, Misty has done some fucked up shit

Yeah. Crystal, transponder, all sorts of shit, right? And the thing about Misty is that it comes from such...

a human place of vulnerability that I feel like I can access. Yeah. And I would like to feel like I can access that for Shauna, even though I know you just enumerated all the traumas that she's been through. Yeah. So it actually shouldn't be that hard for me to understand the vulnerable fear and sadness that is driving this anger train. Right. You know what I mean? But I just don't feel like the show is giving that to me. Yeah, when Misty is poisoning Ben, Mm-hmm.

There's not a single moment where we're like, that was the right thing and a cool thing to do. But you never have a moment where you fail to understand why Misty did it or believe that she would have done that. To continue to have that proximity to him, for him to rely on her and need her the way that she had wanted to be needed. Yeah, we're missing a little bit of that with Shauna. I will say. Yeah.

This is my last get in the pit, Shauna. The base hypocrisy from Shauna. Yeah. When she gets what she wants power and she immediately says, Shauna does not believe in the wilderness, capital W, at all. No. And she says, we are still a team. When people die out here, we honor them. We'll give the wilderness what it wants. She is play acting into the Lottie religion.

In order to hang on to her crown, her antler crown. This is also, I think, a performance note where, like, there are plenty of moments in the present where Shauna...

Is play acting in order to manipulate people, but it's like very apparent. It didn't really come off that way there. And I think in general, that performance has been wonderful. Yeah. Young Shauna. But in that moment, like there was actually a ferocity to the zealotry that like made me think that Shauna believed that, which is like not the case. Because she's been chosen now.

It was just an odd performance note. Anything else you want to say? We kind of covered the Vanity stuff. The only thing I will say is I think because you mentioned... I was very sad about the bunny. That was harrowing. It was tough. You mentioned...

Van and Ty as a unit. And what we like to track are the ways in which they are on different pages, even though they're so often on the same page. So in terms of like belief, you mentioned like, you know, Van is a believer and Ty is not or whatever the case may be. Or Ty really is a sporadic believer when, you know, when she needs to be. But this moment they share where Van is anxious about everything.

winter is coming and Ty's like, we're ready. We've got food, furs and fun huts. We're going to be fine. And Van seems not very sure that that's the case. Yeah. And that's, you know, that just feels like trouble for the future. Right. Yeah. I'm kind of wondering if like Ty does decide to challenge Shauna's rule. Like will Van support that or

or will Van choose Shauna and the unity that the group seems to have formed in the way? I think ultimately Shauna's leadership, like the first test is going to be what to do with these burgers. It's very new. Yeah, it's very new. First 100 days. First 100 days, do we do a burger murder? We barely heard a stump speech. What's her policy? I think it's clear. It's going to be, you know, we should burn everybody alive, kill them and eat them. But like,

Is Ty going to want to do that? Is Van going to want to do that? Young Van has been one of the more aggressive and violent characters because she is driven by belief and the idea that the wilderness is, like, justifying their actions. Part of what I haven't loved about the passage of time in the past is that it feels like too many months for this degree of harmony. So I'm...

Now, yes, they had like a trial and everything. It's not like it's been perfect, but I am eager actually for some very active tension and challenges. And like, does that mean we break off into different groups? I mean, one of the things about them going to get Ben, you know, after the like say nothing-esque feeding tube sequence, which was also very disturbing, was that they put on

The masks that we see. I mean, this is like, we're as close as we've been to the kidding out from the opening of the show. I love that you mentioned Say Nothing, which was also in my notes. And this was the second Say Nothing reference of the week because there was definitely a Say Nothing moment on Severance with Chris Walken's characters storyline. Say Nothing, a tremendous show that not enough people watched. Really good. You should watch it. Really good. Let's do, yeah, you mentioned the masks. Let's skip over the mask and talk about them. Yeah.

So we see from the opening pit girl feast scene. Yeah. We see... We had seen pieces of clothing, but this is the first time we see like the bunny mask and all that sort of stuff like that. The...

beautiful Reddit detectives have been like tracking what's going on but what has been clear from the start we've been trying to track clothing and then we watch them swap clothing swap heart necklaces all this sort of stuff like that so you can't be you can't clearly track things but in terms of like a dehumanizing line crossing um

I think tracking over five and six, I'm actually glad we're doing these two episodes together because tracking the face covering between the two is really interesting because at the end of five, when it looks like Ty is going to have to shoot Ben and he's like, fuck you, you have to look at my face. You can't cover my face. And Jen's like, you don't get to actually call those shots. Yeah.

And then inside this episode, when they go in with the masks, either to, when they force feed him, horrifying. Very. Either to distance themselves from what they're doing or because it reeks in there. But like the bunny mask is like,

Do you know what I mean? Like, it's so creepy. Yeah. And then the covering of Ben's face to carve him up. When Nat has to carve him up. But then the displaying of his head during the feast. Yeah, moving in and out of that, like, one veil of separation. Yeah. Fascinating. I was really on...

my Lord of the Flies shit inside of this episode because the way the Lord of the Flies, you know, to skip forward to the birders, like the way that the Lord of the Flies and spoilers for Lord of the Flies is that when the fully feral boys are trying to literally smoke one of the boys out and have like lit the forest on fire and do that, that fire is what finally alerts. And so like, um, one of the boys on the beach and like looks up and there's like a, you know, uh,

officer there. And it's like, civilization has arrived. So, like, the birders show up and it's like, the scientists have arrived. Science is here. You guys are in, like, feral mysticism land and the scientists are here. I'm feeling very vindicated that there are scientists in the woods here. All of the, like, supply drops. I have questions about the noises in the forest. Like, all this sort of stuff. But here's the line from Lord of the Flies, among some other ones that stuck out to me, but...

In terms of the masks, this quote, they understood only too well the liberation into savagery that the concealing paint brought. This idea of like, we can be our truest, freest, most feral, savage, snarling selves when we... And we've seen the girls experiment with this. And I love that it started with...

the doom coming with the sort of pageantry of that. This idea of like, what do these costumes, whether it's at the court trial, what the antler queen brings, like all the sort of stuff like that, like what are these various guises? And...

and things we put on our face, how do they free us into the full expression of our hunger and our anger and all this other stuff like that? I think that it's really, that's a really interesting mine for the show to explore. Yeah, I totally agree. And I love like to, the question of, is it because it smells in there? It's like,

That could be their excuse. Sure. Right? But that's not why they're doing it. Are they putting the furs back on because it's getting cold at night? Sure, but not really. Like, maybe that's literally, that is a life-sustaining benefit of cloaking themselves in the fur of the animals that they have chosen to put on hold for a night while they eat a person. But they're doing it because this is what the ritual is.

demands. And when they put those on, they start to scream into the night in a way that then summons a reminder of how far removed they are from anything actually, despite what they've rebuilt, resembling

a society. I'm excited to see what happens in the next episode. Like, this is the most excited I've been for Yellow Jackets in a while because they have to look around. Yeah, they have. What are they seeing when they look at us? Especially when you cut, like, we come off the heels of Ben's trial, which bothered us for a number of different reasons. But this idea of, like, play-acting civilization under the reign of Antler Queen Natalie is interesting to me. I have two other Lord of the Flies quotes that I pulled. Yeah.

There's this one where they're throwing rocks at a boy. And there's this quote where it says, Yet there was a space around Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, and to which he dare not throw. Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life. Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law. Roger was conditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him and was in ruin. So like this idea of like,

We'll have a trial. Right. Like, there's still a semblance of law. There's still a semblance of decorum. Right. And Shauna, when they're like, we'll have another trial, and Shauna's like, fuck a trial. We don't do trials. Right. That's not what we do here. She's guilty. Yeah, we don't dress up. The other one, this is the key. I mean, I'd be shocked if we haven't already said this on an earlier podcast, but it's always worth revisiting. Yeah.

In terms of like this idea of a beast on the island in Lord of the Flies that is inducing them to do things or not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the quote. Maybe there is a beast.

What I mean is maybe it's only us. Right. Maybe there is a wilderness with a capital W. Maybe there is, like, haunting screams coming from the forest. Or maybe it's just us. Yes. Being our true unfettered selves. Confronting Beelzebub inside. The evil inside. I loved even, too, like, a fun thing in this stretch was, like, when Shauna gets back to...

The Jolly Hitcher sees that Jeff and Callie are playing cards, and you remember that something as routine to everyday life as a deck of playing cards has become...

The death card and like then, you know, this this king of hearts, right? Like the suicide king, the sword into the head and like looking at anything that would have been a tie to humanity, to the life before, to some social norm or like aspect of youthful folly. And it's like, no, that'll be how we decide who dies. Yeah.

That'll be how we decide who pulls the trigger. Do you think when they got back to civilization, they enjoyed the film, the 1997 film Suicide Kings starring Christopher Walken? I'm sure Van did as an avid movie enthusiast. I'm sure she has it at her shop. Anything you want to say about the gas? We've already talked about Akilah's dreams a bit. The bridge, the bear question mark, the girl sort of flitting in and out of existence in the camp question mark. The girl's flitting in and out of existence. What I can say is just sort of like,

It felt very like, and then there were none to me. Just sort of like, these are all girls that will die in the next few months. The bear, I'm not at all sure. I didn't have a terrible time with it, but I don't have... Just an interesting animation style. I just simply would not go into a cave with those gases. Yeah, it was interesting because like the Oracle of Delphi,

And invoking that, it's fun to get simultaneously like in a show we're covering a trip to Greek mythology corner and a trip to nerd culture spin on Greek mythology corner to think about like Percy Jackson and the Oracle of Delphi being deployed in a show we've very recently covered. But yeah, just this idea of like.

Yeah, sure. We're just huffing toxic gas in a cave system, tying ropes around ourselves to make sure we can be pulled out of the abyss in time. And when we hear your body fall... Yeah, we'll come get you. We'll come get you. But what we're going to tell ourselves is we are like the great prophets of old and temples will be built to honor us. And then Lottie, like, seeking... I mean, this was what we talked about last pod or, yeah, two pods ago after they found Ben, like...

Lottie and her interest in Akilah because that is like a one degree away from, one degree of separation from this connection to the wilderness. And she does want Akilah to go and she does want Akilah to have these visions and she does want to see what they can learn and how she can then use it to help guide the group. But that...

really the thing Lottie wanted was like, wait, show me where the gas is so I can try to reestablish my connection to this thing. We have a scene of Lottie pleading with the wilderness to talk to her again. Speak to me again. So that was really interesting. But also what I love about this in terms of like this religion they're establishing here in the wilderness and in terms of like the razor thin edge between civilization and madness that is existing inside of this story is like for someone like

who has a history of mental health issues or possibly clairvoyance, but like how almost whimsical and fragile...

Something like this is, by whimsy, I mean not like the fun, quirky way, but just sort of like on a whim. Like Travis being like, I'm tired of drinking mushroom tea, pointing to Akilah, Lottie focusing all of her attention on Akilah, and then whatever the fuck it is that Akilah sees when she huffs gas, dictating the life and death of a person. That is a critique of...

and religion if I ever heard one. And they're just sort of like, it's all based on what? Right. You know? And they took that character and in the present day before she was pushed downstairs and killed and made her a cult leader, right? Yeah. And when, you know, a character like Lisa is freed of that cult so has the clarity to say like, this person would run

my life, right? That judgment of Lottie has always been, I think, very unyielding. I'm interested in Travis in this Akilah Lottie, Travis triumvirate, because he seemed to me in these two episodes so racked with guilt. And I was curious if you thought that was because he was like, this was true. I saw this thing and it happened and I said it and now look where it's leading. Or if you think that

Like, he lied. He lied. Which is what we thought at the time. And if that still feels like... Oh, I definitely think he just lied. Same. And he's just like, I don't want to deal with this. So I'm going to say she's closer because she's cradling a duck. But then he feels so guilty that he's like, I'm going to go with you guys to the cave. I'm going to make sure nothing bad happens to Akilah just because I'm the one who, like, sort of put Lottie's attention on her. Yeah. And so, like, then I'm wondering when he is going to... Because he has a few moments in these episodes where he's close. He almost confesses. Yeah, he does. And it seems like he's developing...

He and Akilah have a connection, right? Like she says to him, you're the only one I trust, which of course, if he fed her up as bait, which it seems like he did, would make him feel terrible. But also it does seem, and maybe it's just because he now feels a compulsion to protect her from the thing that he incited. But I was like, is there like a little crush here? Like what? There was a certain, I mean, it seems like everything is going to be terrible for everyone, right?

But there was a little bit of a feeling developing, it seemed. Who is Travis going to fuck next in the woods? Is that your question? Well, you know, unless the birders have another young person in the mix, we're light on... We're light on dudes. We're light on dick out there now. It's true. Ben and Nat with a side of Travis. To your point, like, this... Okay. All the stuff with Natalie and Ben actually has always worked for me. Yeah. And was...

Absolutely, I thought incredible. Yeah. In this final episode. It's not my needle drop pick, but when Be There by Lo starts playing and Nat decides what she's going to do and Travis tries to stop her because he knows that if she does this, it could mean her death as well. They will blame her. And then he...

protects her anyway and that old like connection between the two of them that they haven't literally have not spoken all season I'm missing that as well I like really miss them and so like this little connection between them this her Sophie Thatcher scream queen extraordinaire walking out of this pen with like so much dark dark blood on her and then like smearing it on her face and then her just her just

Devastation, shell-shocked reaction, and then knowing, and this is where, like, I really wish Juliette Lewis was still on the show. But nonetheless, knowing that of all the people who came back to Shauna's Diaries point did not really come back. But Nat and Travis perhaps most of all, given their, like, cycle of substance abuse and stuff like that. Yeah.

that you can track, like, especially if we only have one more season of events, like, you could track this thing that Nat does here to her lifelong, just, like, shattered self. Yeah. And not, I mean, she had a bunch of shit before she went into the wilderness that was, like, haunting her, obviously, like, but this seems to have just been, like,

soul crushing definitely to her I thought it was interesting I mean first of all when she and Ben when we're cutting day after day after day meal after meal after meal and he's imploring her she's imploring him to eat and he's imploring her to just

free him from this torment. Yeah. But, like, you know, you take me down to the stream, I could have an accident or you could shoot, you know, the gun. And she's like, what am I going to do? Like, say I tripped and the gun went off, which, of course, like, she wasn't the one who tripped. Her dad was. But that literally was what happened. So it takes us back to that horrific trauma from her past and brings that to the foreground again for us. But, like, I thought it was really interesting and obviously, like, I think deliberate that, well, Nat could...

smother Ben with a pillow and hide the fact that she had done it. But she doesn't do that. She stabs him and then she comes out with the bloody knife and, as you said, the blood all over her because she believed that it was right. She wasn't trying to hide from the group that she had done it because she believed genuinely she was moved to action because she felt she had to. Morally, yeah. Yeah, the fact that that was like a, you know, she knows. I mean, the beginning of the season we were tracking the lies and

and not telling them that she had seen these traps and even about the prior interaction with Ben. Yeah. And so the group was poised to pounce. Like, even as not something this drastic, the group was ready to tear Nat down. And so she knows. She knows, not just because Travis tells her, but because every single thing that has happened leading to this moment makes the outcome certain that they will turn on her. And she does it anyway because she believes that it's the right thing to free him from this pain. I thought, too, just from Ben's perspective, like...

The way that, because he, you know, he hears, like, come home to me, Ben, from an abuse Paul. And, like, you know, thinking back to all of the Paul visions and this, like, imagining of a road not taken and a different life that he could have led. And, like, thinking back to last season in episode seven when we saw Paul answer the phone in the cabin and said, like, he isn't ready. And now Paul being the one who, like, welcomes him home and, like...

who did he tell about Paul first? That. And just, like, the tying together of these people. You know, for a character like Ben, who talked about how his family... It was interesting, actually, in this stretch when he was talking to Akilah to, like, hear him say something really, like, positive about his mother. Fostering kittens. Fostering kittens and this nurturing presence because he's obviously said elsewhere that, like,

He didn't get a lot from his family, you know, and it was like so gut wrenching to hear him say like, it's in the real world. How will he be remembered at all? I mean, that was just so sad and like confronting. How would he be remembered here? And then, oh, what's even worse than being remembered here is the guy who tried to burn down your cabin.

not being remembered at all. Like, not having made an impression and leaving people behind who thought about him. It was just very sad. Stephen Kruger has been giving a bunch of interviews as one does when one exits. Oh, by the way, are you aware of their, like, cast tradition where they throw little funerals for each cast member when they die and they all dress up in black and then, like...

So for Stephen Kruger who plays Ben for his funeral, they had like a big poster of him made that just said like, fuck those kids on it. And they put a little halo on him and they all dress up in black and had a cake and it's very cute. And they did one for Jackie and for Javi and like all this other stuff like that and Laura Lee. But yeah.

I, Stephen Kruger, a couple things. Number one, he talked about how they kind of, they knew this was coming for Ben sort of from the start, obviously. And so knowing that, he said that he put on a bunch of weight in the first season. And then he was like, season two is sort of like my more normal weight. Right. And then this season, like... The cheekbones for Misty to comment on. Yeah.

And he also said that it's his understanding that Ben did, in fact, burn down the cabin. Interesting. That's something he said last season. But, like, I was like, surely in the offseason they've changed their mind. Yeah. But he said his understanding from someone high up in the writing staff or whatever is that Ben did burn down the cabin. And I'm like, I actually don't like that, but okay, you know. I don't think that—I would have been—

to believe that at the end of last season. Right. But this season, it doesn't track. Isn't it better that they are punishing him for something he didn't actually do? And then that they continue to make the same mistakes 25 years later when Shauna kills Adam. Right. Or, like, blames Misty for, like, whatever. Yeah. So I always think it's more interesting, actually, when they're wrong about this stuff and, like, then what do they do because they're so sure they're right. I thought the other thing on the Ben front was...

The, like, slow-mo animated bear that Akilah saw had, like, the third eye. So it put me in a Thrones, the three-eyed raven headspace anyway. But, you know, when Ben was just, like...

begging that to end his life it gave me such uh miri you know look to your call and see what life is worth when all the rest is gone energy because and it's it's you know obviously this is a particular circumstance with with ben and what has happened but it feels very of a piece with what with what you were describing earlier about like what is actually like

proximate to life and like the essence of life and what is it just takes maybe half a footstep to be so far removed from that that it's not recognizable at all like what are they fighting to preserve at this point this is life like this is it's just so I loved that stretch with Nat and Ben even though I felt like we were marching toward the end which we were great stuff from Stephen Kruger all season and just like really really good stuff and a great end for a character um

Let's go back to the feast and then we're going to wrap it all up. The feast happens, as you mentioned. I mean, Nat has to dress the body. Shauna is consulting her. This is like actually there's two moments from Shauna that seemed actually sort of like human and tender. One is when she walks out of the force feeding scenario, pulls the mask off, and she looks like a little rattled and haunted in a way that felt like vulnerable and believable. And then she's like, we'll get better at it. Yeah.

And then here with Nat, teaching her how to do it and sort of like not only covering the face, but just sort of like her demeanor is like a bit, I mean...

The, like, sort of smirky sneer of, like, she's got to do it, this shitty job that I've been having to do this whole time. Yeah. But it didn't seem to me that she was, like, relishing it as, like, a punishment. I thought that she was, and then even she was appalled by that and pulled herself out of it. Like, the glee of...

that edict. Yes. And that would have to do that. And then even the beginning when she's like, I cover my eyes because it makes it easier for me, but I know what I'm doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, you don't, so like, you will have to suffer in full. And then just a drop of humanity. Yeah. And giving that the grace to cover Ben's face. Yeah.

We have some shrooms and we've got some Ben. Ben's head is on. I would love to have heard the conversation about like, we're going to display Ben's head because it really does seem like a step in a new direction. But they're all sitting around. And as you pointed out, it's like very, it's just like Thursday night at the campfire. Just eating in person. We're just eating in person. And then Lottie's like, this is not right.

This should be a moment of ecstasy and liberation and celebration. And so they do this sing-screaming thing, which then bleeds into the soundtrack, and then hark some birders. We get two birders. We already mentioned the new characters, the new actors. There is a third seemingly shadowy figure that we think looks like...

Tall and thin. It could be Joel McHale. Tall and thin. So... Lottie was like Ben, but we were like, Joel McHale? Where are these characters? With your new hair? Where are these people who were cast in this season? Where the fuck is Hilary Swank? Yeah! Like, we're six episodes into a ten-episode season. That fucking better be Joel McHale. And we need to see Hilary Swank soon. It's unbelievable. You know, we...

when we talked about the dat tape earlier too, like part of what triggered Van into immediate action was like, well, who uses dat tapes anymore? A birder. So like, she's like, oh, right. Before we hear what's on the tape, she certainly seems to think it could be those people. She's looking when Ty...

tries to call out in bed. Van's looking on her phone like, how long can a duct tape last outside, outdoors? So this outdoorsy group. Where was that duct tape? Who retrieved it? The birders. Yeah. Do you think the birders... Travis looks so upset. Yeah. As he should, but he's just like, oh...

Yeah. The facial expressions were great. I mean, they go from never thinking they're going to see another person again, you know, the resignation of, yeah, we're going to spend another winter here. We talked at the beginning of the season of like our annual ritual. Annual, right? Or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, they don't want to give up, but also they are sort of like, we live here now. And then there they are, just people standing in front of them, watching them eat another person with a head on a plate. Yeah.

Do you think... I guess that's why the head has to be there. Because otherwise they could just be like... Otherwise you can't turn and be like, what the fuck? Yeah. Or they could just be like, this is some caribou. Would you like some? Secrets in the sauce. Look at all of the animals we keep in our pen. We're eating one of them. Yeah. Do you think that one of these birders is Javi's friend from before? I hope so. Yeah. So then that's a question is if these people have been here for a while.

Why did it take this long for an interaction? Why would they be this surprised? Maybe there are more birders out there. Maybe it's like a vast birder network. But anyway, I definitely think they're related to the supply drop. Yeah. And I'm going to go back to my season-long theory that the noise we're hearing is related to them. Maybe they're trying to call the bird that they want to observe. I think that seems very probable. And then if members of our Yellow Jackets team are moved to murder the birders,

Which seems, I would say, not just likely, but like a lock. Murder, murder imminent. Murder, murder imminent. What does it mean to cut off, to have members of our group cut off a potential line home? Yeah. Like, how do you recover from that? Well, that surely has to produce a schism inside of the camp. Has to. So I'm looking forward to that. Okay, cool.

Let's just wrap up with Best Needle Drop. And I think, you know, we've already mentioned the... Light on needle drops these two episodes. Episode 5 only had one. Yeah. The show has trained us to expect seven per episode. This was wild. They just like binged on their budget. Yeah. They're like, uh-oh.

Here are the options. And then there's actually a stealth fifth, which is actually mine, which is Misty singing humming Breakfast at Tiffany's. Yeah, that's a good one. Which is when Lottie's like, we can't, we gotta, let's sing not Breakfast at Tiffany's right now. Okay. Rid of Me by PJ Harvey, Fake AF by Bleeding Fingers, Be There by Lo, and Bay Nosey when the birders show up at the end of episode six. What's your pick? I don't know.

I didn't have a strong lean this time like I have in the past. Maybe be there. Yeah. I think that was a really good moment. That was good. That was a really, really good moment. Okay. Out there, Theory Corner. Mm-hmm. Oh, man. Yeah. Um...

Did Akilah miss a rescue? Oh, boy. Because she was in the caves. Passed out or otherwise. Yeah. So she misses the helicopter that comes to pick them up or whatever. Very lost of her. Sure. Yeah. And did she survive somehow, make it back to civilization, and kill Travis and Lottie, who are the two people who've been killed? Yes.

Because she blames them for inducing her into the cave in the first place. Interesting. I'm intrigued. I'm going to say no. Okay. But I find this interesting and I like because you just mentioned Lost.

More broadly, I will say, I am increasingly into the idea that the group we saw make it home. But somebody misses the helicopter. Is not the whole group. And who gets left behind? Are they part of this present day? But no one has said we have to go back yet. We're about to get to the end of season three.

Very true. Okay. That was Yellow Jackets. It was. Five and six. We will do a deep dive into seven when that pops up next week. I'm excited to watch seven. We've got Daredevil later this week, but not really. But I'm really excited for what we're going to do this week. I will miss you dearly. I will miss you too. I'm so sad to miss the superhero crossover event and team up, but I will watch with joy from afar if Frank Castle shows up on Daredevil.

on Daredevil this week. We haven't seen it. We don't know. Yeah. Think of me. Well, I think of you always. I think of you always, too. And we will have we will have Yellow Jackets slightly later than our Monday pledge next week because of my travel schedule. Correct. And then we will be back on a Monday schedule from there. We hope. Maybe. We think. We intend. A lot of things are happening. OK, so thank you to Stephen Allman.

Puppy Steve is alive and our Steve is alive and thriving. John Richter. Yes. Our Gina Rango pal. Show me a dinner on. Yeah. And all of you. We'll see you later in the week. Bye.