'Yellowjackets' Season 3 Episode 3 Deep Dive
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Let's competition.

Hello, welcome back to House of R. I'm Joanna Robinson, and joining me today, wearing the exact same clothes we wore on Monday, who could have guessed? It's Mallory Rubin. Hey, Mal. Joanna, the studio smells like rotten coconuts, but Misty would say that's more of an us problem. Yeah.

Hello. Hello. Welcome back to Yellow Jackets. Season three, episode three. We are, yes, recording this on the same day that we recorded our last podcast. So if we look exactly the same, that is why. There's a lot going on. Yes. That's what's happening. Before we get into season three, episode three of Yellow Jackets, should we talk about some things that are going on elsewhere in various feeds? Let's do it. If you're like, Yellow Jackets? On House of R? I thought that was a prestige feed situation. Yeah.

South Savara this year. That's right. Buzz buzz, bitches. We got it over here. Did you see John Richter's new art for us? This is incredible stuff. This is antler art. We've got like a yellow. Anyway, John's the best. John's spoiling us. John's really coming through with the set deck. So listen, that's what's happening here. Yellow jackets.

Next week, Daredevil. I was like, what's next week? Yeah. Where are we in time? Daredevil. That's right. We're getting ready for the return of Daredevil. So we'll be doing a little Daredevil primer. I'm hyped.

As well as more Yellow Jackets because we're doing this week to week and we're so excited about that. HobbitsandDragons.gmail.com is where you can reach us with your Yellow Jackets thoughts and opinions. Mallory and I are also covering White Lotus over the Prestige TV feed with Bill Simmons. What a blast. Rob Mahoney and I are covering Severance over the Prestige TV feed. It's a lot going on. Yeah. Also, on the Ringerverse. Yeah. I know I just talked about Prestige a lot, but usually we talk about Ringerverse here. That's right.

The Midnight Boys. Pew pew. Pew pew. Have a couple things going on. Uh huh. There's the Blackest Movie Draft. Yes. Incredible stuff. That already happened. By the time you hear this. By the time you hear this. But I just thought people should check it out. Over in the ringerverse. Uh huh. The Mint Edition crew is doing 11 on 11 Marvel vs. DC. Nice. We love a Marvel vs. DC fight. Love. Love.

The Midnight Boys, pew, pew, are doing their own Daredevil primer. I'm very interested to see what they come up with for that. And then how can it already be upon us? Another ring of risk recommends.

Oh, no. Oh, no. My goodness. Well, February is a famously short month. I skipped January and I was like, I'll have plenty of time before February. Okay, I'll figure out something for you guys next week. And then Button Mash is doing something called Franchise Speed Dating, which is very exciting. So that is what is going on. There's a lot. There's Prestige to keep track of, Ring of Verse to keep track of, House of R to keep track of. Mm-hmm.

How can folks keep track of all that stuff? Molly Rubin. Let's keep it simple. Follow the pod. Why not? Follow House of R. Follow the Ringerverse. Follow the Prestige TV podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Guess what? You can watch full video episodes of House of R, Midnight Boys, Prestige TV on Spotify. On the Spotify app. Full video episodes. Incredible. You can also watch our video episodes and other videos on the Ringerverse YouTube channel. So subscribe to that if you haven't yet. And then you can find the Ringerverse on the social media platforms

platform of your choosing, whatever that might be. You can also send us your emails because the inbox is always open. Hobbits and Dragons, no matter what we're covering, hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com.

Thanks so much, Valerie Rubin. Back to you in the studio. Spoiler warning. Season three, episode three of Yellow Jackets. Everything up through season three, episode three of Yellow Jackets. That's all we've watched. That's all we'll be talking about today. Them's the breaks. Them's the breaks. Written by Jonathan Lisko and Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson. Once again, that's the trio of creators of the show and directed by Jonathan Lisko. So this is a creator special. And we'll start as we often do on a Yellow Jackets pod with the

unreliable narrator slash hallucinator slash dreamer counter and this episode ends with what I'm calling gas leak dreams yeah and it's a gas leak is one of my favorite plot devices in genre television yeah Steve will you play this clip

Yes, it was a gas leak, everyone. Just get some air and good night's rest. You know, you'll be fine. These gas things will happen. What was it really? Stick with the gas thing. I'll fill you in tomorrow. Right.

Are you okay? Buffy, I was worried you'd gotten caught in the building. There was a gas leak. Oh, there was that gas leak last year. Oh, don't blame it all on a gas leak year. Sure. This coming from the guy who's had how many psychotic breaks on campus? Are we including the gas leak year? It's a gas leak episode. Great. Great stuff. Poisonous gas. Van, Shauna, Akilah have some wild dreams. Sure do. And then are we counting Van and Ty and the coyote? What do you think?

Do you feel like that really happened? That a coyote with a little bloody rabbit in his mouth wandered past a derelict ice cream shop? Yeah, Ozzy's homemade ice cream parlor. Yeah. I think that that could have happened, certainly. But as we hear from Dream Lottie, you know, it's all one dream. So who even knows? And as we hear from Mari, sudden font of wisdom, just like a dark reality. Yeah.

just on the other side of our real reality. Question for you. Yeah. Did I miss anything? I think the question is, did we, is everything that's ever happened in the show part of this because of the poisonous gas seeping into their terrain, their water, their air? Who can say? I did not, uh,

get this impression, but I was sort of checking in on some of the reviews of the season of people. Most critics, I think, saw one more episode than we've seen. So we've seen ups through three. They sent critics four episodes. And the conclusion that they seem to be drawing is that Yellow Jackets is doing a lot of work this season to give us even more plausible explanations for the supernatural things that we've seen. And this is something we talked about a lot throughout our coverage. It's like,

Is there a plausible explanation for all the birds falling out of the sky, et cetera, et cetera? And so gas leak year, gas leak however many months in the wilderness is quite the possible explanation for what's going on here. This has always been one of the theories, right? Yeah. There were like the minerals. Something in the water. Something in the water or something in the air. So, yeah. Who knows if it's just engaging with that aspect of the fandom. Yeah.

Right. Or if this, like the gas itself, will seep into the story in a bigger way beyond just that one cavern where it made the lantern go boom. I said it. It didn't make the lantern go boom when they were further away from it, though. It's true. So if you're on Lantern Watch. And I always. It was just the real pocket of gas there. I've said this. Who hasn't faced a stubborn pocket of gas? You know? Okay. Is this go back to us talking about what you prefer to take in your coffee? Your at-home answer is different from your out-of-the-public answer.

Molly's like, got it. No more personal information right before we record. Okay, so listen. That's a great transition into the, what would you rather eat? Yeah, what would you rather eat? Yeah. I don't have anything for the metal line counter. Do you have anything that struck you?

I don't think so. Certainly not in comparison to the ample, robust consideration set there off the double premiere. I suppose perhaps Shauna telling Mel not to be boring is one we could consider. Yeah, you're not going to turn out to be boring. Oh, Mel. What's on the menu, aka would you rather eat? Here's our offering in episode three. Yeah.

Ozzy's homemade ice cream. So good, it will make a vagrant-looking man's eyes pop out. Yep. Izzy's cafes to die for scones with verified Vermont berries. Caspian's semi-hard cheeses, and it must be Caspian's. Shauna's pancakes, chocolate chips included. Or Lottie's chicken harissa with green beans almondine. They must be crisp. Yeah, very fussy. Or Coach Ben's juicy roasted cave baguettes.

certainly we can eliminate juicy roasted cave bats juicy not for me I thought that the I like to have dinner when it's right for me not when Lottie insists that it's time for Jeff to come home so that's a no for me also just the dig at Shauna's cooking in the morning leading to the praise of Lottie's cooking at night no but for the same reason I can't possibly pick the pancakes now that I know they suck

So I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. It sounds like we're just like covering up a problem there. Yeah.

You know, I do not want to engage with the No Eyes ice cream shop where the coyote is eating the rabbit through the broken window and a child's bike has remains mysteriously swaying in the breeze. Derelict's tricycle is top of my no list. It's a no for me. It's an absolute no. And so we've worked our way down to either the skulls or the hard cheese to Misty Rex.

Shauna thought the scones were overrated, but it's canon that we can't really take Shauna's culinary opinion seriously. She makes shit pancakes. Shit pancakes. Shit pancakes. And also...

just terrible things happen in her kitchen. Yeah, her phone rang and breakfast went to shit. Misty puked. It smells so bad. She's still cooking food prep happening right there. So I'm going to go with Caspian's semi-hard cheeses. I love a cheese. I love a semi-hard cheese. I love a cheesemonger. And I am inclined to take a Misty rec seriously. Do you have a cheesemonger?

No. And or have- But my friend Steve, other Steve, as you often hear me refer to him, other Steve has a cheese monger and he will bring cheese sometimes from his cheese monger. Do you ever engage with the cheese mongers at Whole Foods? The cheese counter people at Whole Foods? Yes. Yes.

delightful people. Yes. I will ask a question sometimes if I'm searching for a Robusto as my... I can't find the Robusto. What do I do? I'll sometimes ask. Or perhaps you have a recommendation for a cheddar. I love a Manchego. Or a brie. Oh, wonderful. That's a semi-hard cheese. Yeah, that is. That's a great... Look at you. What a wonderful pick for a semi-hard cheese. Great stuff. Let's go to a monger together. Okay.

Let's frequent a monger. Hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com if you have a recommendation for an LA-based cheesemonger. Thanks so much. That tactic worked for Rob when he was looking for a fishmonger in the Bay Area. Our listeners found one for him. Okay, emails.

I did ask someone to write in about the posters in top of, above Misty's bed. Unfortunately, we got a great answer. Unfortunately, the person who wrote in gave it to me a little saltily. So I'm just going to give you the answer, which is that it's Fan of the Opera, as I mentioned. I said Follies. It's not. It was Kajafal. And Wizard of Oz are the three posters. I mean, coming off of Agatha, we love a Wizard of Oz poster in a bedroom. Sure do. Sounds great.

Who's that blonde? Will suggested that perhaps it's Walter in a wig, Steve. Will you wear wigs? What a moment for wig watch that would be. I know. Boy. If Walter just whips off the blonde wig at some point. That would really be something. I would be thrilled.

Older Melissa. Yeah. I asked for people to write in with like 90s actresses who could fit in. If it wasn't, in fact, Hilary Swank, you are still very much Team Swank. Yeah, for now. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Someone who I'm just going to call E because they did not sign it with their real name suggested Robin Tunney, who I think is a great pick from The Craft, Empire Records. I could see it. Strong of Jaw. Yeah. I support it. Yeah.

Allie wrote in with Misha Barton and Evan Rachel Wood, and she admitted in her email, and I just have to agree, that these actresses are too young for what we're looking for here. Though Evan Rachel Wood is a fun—Evan Rachel Wood would kill in a Yellow Jackets role. She'd be great. But not quite the right age. Yeah. This is a really fun game to play. So, hobbitsanddragons.gmail.com if you have other older Melissa who are not Hilary Swank suggestions.

Mallory, do you have anything to say about the emails we got about your thoughts and fears about a dislocated kneecap? You know, as mentioned last week, I was content to not research this further. Oh, so sorry.

Ever so sorry. But I do appreciate all of the personal accounts and hope everybody is feeling okay. How about you? Anything you want to share about what you've learned about dislocated kneecaps? We saw a... I mean, that was a considerable bruise on Mari this week. Horrifying. Ben!

who works in the orthopedic field did say that... Did want to point out that Mari is young and athletic and spry and so that it would be sort of like easier. And the fact that she didn't dislocate the whole knee but just the cap is something that people talked about. But no matter what, it would be extremely painful. Yes. Not completely immobilizing, but I believe it was... You can't avoid all of the ligament damage. Katie, one of our listeners was like...

When it happened to me, someone described it as worse than childbirth. At that point, I had not had children. I have since had children and it is worse than childbirth. So, you know, something to think about. Jeez. Fog raw. So Mari would not be like just casually ripping off tunes and gnawing on a bat and trying to fuck her way out of a cave. She'd be in a little more pain than that. I don't think she's doing anything casually. Her eyes are like tear bright the entire time that she's in there.

Foie gras? Yeah. Let's split the difference. Yeah. Often raw, but can be served seared and warm. Yeah. Love it when we're both right. Wonderful. The greatest possible outcome. Episode breakdown. Let's start with the opening credits. We didn't talk about this last time, but I just want to mention that we've seen a ton of the new images that they've spliced into the opening credits. Yeah. We

We've seen a ton of them already. Van stepping on the glass. Ben finding the pit. Van and Ty making out while glycerine by Bush plays. Misty vomiting up the red. Shauna hauling the dishes off her kitchen island. And burning of the group photo. Those have all happened already in the first three episodes. I might have missed some, but like... I think we got the... Because one of the ones where I was like...

I cannot possibly discern what I'm looking at without being able to freeze frame on this last week was what appeared to be a tiny little white figure in a... Did you hear my shoulder just crack? Yeah. It's like dislocating your kneecap. Oh, man. You'd think I'd have a little more empathy for what Mari's going through. I can't even raise my arm three inches without a joint cracking. I was like, what is that? Is that somebody in outer space? And I think that was Shauna in...

The lake. Oh. Or Gasly Dream. Doing the Alice in Tide Tower bigger bathtub. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As we will be referring to it from here on. Big bathtub. So yeah, we have, it feels like a striking volume of opening credits imagery so far through three episodes compared to how often we're typically waiting deeper into the season to see a lot of those visuals. So you think they'll update them?

Ooh, that's a good idea. I think it's more like the Reddit detectives are too good at their face frame abilities and let's just keep them in the dark about what's happening at the end of the season. But welcome to the opening credits, Kali Sadecki. Kali's here. She's in the main cast this season. She's shoplifting. She's wearing questionable jewelry. She's got a lot going on. So we will talk about all of it. What an episode for Kali. We're going to start with Mari and Ben. In the cave.

Astonishing stuff. This is it. We only get one episode of the Mari and Ben show in the cave, but what an episode it is. This is great. I love this, and I will forever cherish Mari singing. So can we hear this moment too, Steve? Too sexy for this cave. Too sexy for this cave. Too sexy for this cave. I'm too sexy for this room. Too sexy for these rocks. Too sexy to be murdered.

I am a hostage. There's a part of the song by Right Side Fred from 1991 where he goes, I am a model, you know what I mean? She's like, I am a hostage.

Mari. This is inspired. This is so good. This is fantastic. Multiple times in this episode, I thought, wait, is it possible that Mari is not, in fact, the worst, but actually the best? Mari might be the best. Not something I thought I would ever have occasion to think. It only took them three episodes for me to be like, I don't want Mari to go in the pit. What if I want Mari to not go in the pit? She's high comedy. Every Mari scene has been hysterical this season. Exquisite. Too sexy to be murdered.

Ben hobbles in with what he describes as, quote, a Cornish hen had a baby with a demon. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And Mari says it's really juicy. These are the aforementioned cave bats that Ben is roasting. Yeah. Sounded quite crunchy, I have to say. Quite crunchy. Like, chewy. I imagine they would be, like, quite chewy. So,

So Ben, it seems, is very much rationing his Karma University supplies and is not tearing through them. He's just like, ah, cup of hot chocolate. Ah, power bar. Right. Mostly bat stuff. Yes. After he inhaled the entire first peanut butter protein bar in one bite and then wasted a, frankly, too large portion to try to lure a deer, but instead got Mari. Yeah.

Imagine wasting part of your food getting Mari instead of a venison. Absolute fucking calamity. Well, you know, if he wanted to prepare that, he could. Oh, my God. It's true. It's true. Well, but he's, as usual, quite judgmental. You know, Joe, when he says, of course, I guess you're used to better these days, was he talking about that, like, farm fresh? He was talking about Jen and the pheasants. Definitely not homie. That Mari described in detail and not the human flesh that he knows they've been feasting on.

Mari has this, like, we already heard in the opening clip, this transparently awkward attempt to flirt with Ben, which, like, really endeared her to me. It's just genuinely some of the funniest things I've ever seen on this show. I love this. But what it reminded me of, I was looking up when this happened. In 1991, Oprah Winfrey had this episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show. Again, a show that I did not watch that much because it was, like, on Netflix.

I don't know, when we were at school or like right after school. I was too young for it. I didn't watch the Oprah Winfrey show, but I definitely watched this episode where very famously this guy talking about what you do when you're abducted. This expert on her show,

gave the advice of never go to a secondary location, which has become like something that people quote all the time from that episode of the Oprah Winfrey show. But another thing he said that I have remembered my whole life is that if you ever get abducted, so I was like ready. I'm like, if I get abducted, Oprah has taught me what to do. Is you,

Is you share personal information with your kidnapper so that you can humanize yourself to them. So that, you know, they will not dehumanize you, that they will consider that you are human with loved ones or hobbies or whatever it is. Mari, as a Silence of the Lambs fan, would know this, right? It's like, keep repeating the family ties, the name, humanize yourself.

Mari, Mari, Mari. Wow, that really left an impression on you. It really did. And you carried it with you through the years. I think about it all the time. My goodness. Probably Sons of the Lambs helped reinforce it. What were your favorite lines from Mari's failed seduction here? Like, again, we heard a lot of it. I thought underrated, hilarious moment when Mari said, am I flushing? And he said, no. Just the way Ben said, no. And she goes, I'm probably low on blood. And he's like, probably. Yeah, probably.

That just killed me. It was very good. Like, really, really, really funny and great performance from both of them there. And then, you know, we heard it at the top for a reason. Raging gonorrhea is historic in the history of the show. Less competition, barring not missing a beat. No. I was cracking up. She knows how to yes-and improv a scene. Oh, my God. Even when she's dealing with...

The kneecap. Yes. And what must be bat sinew in her teeth. You know what I mean? Tensions and gums. And she's just sliding forward trying to seduce him. Not missing a beat. Mari may be my favorite character on the show now. What a twist. Sorry. What a twist. So good job for Alexa Barajas. Okay. Chekhov's bear mace. You...

outlined what was in the case, even though you did not have access to a freeze frame and you did mention the bear mace, was it gratifying to see it used so quickly? So I would like to say for the record that I have never kept anybody prisoner in a cave. Yet. In any circumstance, including or especially after having been stranded in the wilderness for months on end. Right. However, I would like to think that should I find myself in such a circumstance, I would know not to leave the

The bear spray. Within grasping distance. Within reach. Like a dangling, jangling, tantalizing, shiny ring of keys. Oh, ring of keys? I thought you were going to say something about the Red Hulk. Like a dangling, tantalizing, swinging, shiny. El Hulkito Rojo. Yeah. Tell me. Thank you, Mies.

So, Mari improvising as she owns here quickly, didn't really have a plan, grabbing it, macing Ben in the face. I was like, Mari's trying, and Ben was not prepared for this. Just as he is not prepared shortly after this for Mari to kick him as she escapes. Do the exact same thing to him, you know. Wild stuff. But the extra, this is the chocolate chip on the pancake of Yellow Jackets. It's not just that

It's not that Mari maces Ben and then Ben disarms her and turns around and sprays her in the face. It's in her hand still as he grabs it and they wrestle for it. And she's spraying herself with his hand guiding in the face. I can't believe you maced me. I'm fucking blind. You did this, you fucking idiot. And just the two of them rolling around on the cave floor.

This season has given us Mari in a pit, Mari getting maced in the face by bear spray, Mari getting shoved into a bowl of stew on the ground that Shauna had previously spit in. Shauna saying, I can't believe we didn't eat that bitch first and Ben calling Mari a fucking idiot. We are living. Yeah, we are living. What did he say last week? He was like, shut the fuck up, Mari, or something like that. Like, whatever, she's moaning in the pit and he's like, shut up. Okay. Oh my God.

Ben has this conversation with Mari. Yeah. About how surreal their situation is. Like just reminding all of us, the audience, we might've been in the wilderness with this crew for many years now as this TV show has progressed, but they're mere months away from their more normal lives. And so Ben's like, I'm just a guy from the suburbs who likes frozen burritos from 7-Eleven and goes to see Dave Matthews band, even though I don't like Dave Matthews band that much. Yeah.

Who among us? Relatable. Who among us? And even just like the detail, like learning that he only ended up at the school with his gym teacher job and the soccer coach job because, yeah, he tore up his knee. He had student loans. A lot of foot stuff so far this season and a lot of knee injury stuff, but he's like, I need to pay off my loans. He had student loans.

It's a cogent commentary on America. Indeed. Yeah. Yeah, indeed. The path to the wilderness. But like on the one hand, it's interesting to learn more about him, you know, even though the Paul visions last season ended up being this kind of alternate path.

this choice he didn't make. It's another way for us, for the show to reinforce to us like these little, you know, just the butterfly effect, right? A little thing happens in your life or a big thing if you thought you were going to like play professional soccer or something and you tore up your knee. And I can't speak to Ben's

The prowess as a soccer player, but he certainly seems to think that he had a different path ahead of him, that he not torn his knee up. Yeah. Who can say? And, you know, also like just that I feel, of course, he's taken captive by the whole squad at the end. But whenever we learn more stuff about people like this, I'm always like, you're back on the clock. Yeah.

Like, it just felt like right here before he was taken captive. You're back on the clock. Like, you're reflecting. You're talking about your prior life. Oh, yeah. Well, also, you've been reading a lot of Fourth Wing recently. That's a Rebecca Yarrow special. Okay.

Mari and Ben both right because Mari then talks about watching Eureka's Castle she just said the thing shout out Eureka's Castle we knew we knew we knew she said the Puppets and the Dragons you and I both were like we knew it's Eureka's Castle Eureka's Castle that show had a banging oh yeah theme music oh yeah Eureka's Castle

This is like the perfect show to pull up. Eureka's Castle, in terms of like a show you would watch in the hospital. Because Mari is a little older than I am, but like...

So Eureka's Castle and Maya the Bee and David the Gnome were all shows that I only ever watched if I went to the dentist. Oh, interesting. Because I was not home when they were on. I was in school. But if I was out of school and at the dentist or having a sick day, I got to watch David the Gnome or Maya the Bee or Eureka's Castle. So there you go. Were you a kid who like made an excuse to pretend you were sick to stay home and watch TV? Yeah.

I did this all the time when I was a kid. I don't think when I was that quite that young, but I stopped doing it when I was older. Oh, I started doing it. I've told you this before. I've definitely said this on a pod before, but I would put my I would put the thermometer in my lamp. Like, it should have been clear my fever wasn't that high, but everybody had a lot going on.

So Mari is watching Eureka's Castle with her four-year-old cousin who had brain cancer who died. And then Mari watched the conclusion of the episode in the waiting room while she's waiting for her parents. And she talks about this as like an idea of an inconceivably awful reality waiting just around the corner from our Dave Matthews band frozen burrito normalcy. And she says, quote, I think maybe there are two versions of reality. Most of the time, the other one, the bad one, is just hiding or waiting, but it's all real. Yeah.

This is very Lynchian to me, very Twin Peaks, Black Lodge, very Blue Velvet, Till the Robins Come. Like, very just like the awful truth is just right on the other side of the life that you're living. And at any second, you can be tossed into this awful also reality. Not so reality, but also reality. You know? I put Blue Velvet in there for you. Mommy! Mommy!

I know you're a blue velvet sicko. I am. I really am. This was such a fascinating scene. Very deep from Mari. Yeah. And I thought it was fascinating for both. Party favorite character. What a fucking twist. I know. This is my version of Coach Ben asking how the fuck is any of this real? Is it real? Is us saying we like Mari? Right. Because I skipped over the like eerie, eldish screeching that preceded this. But like,

This is what you can do in a writer's room in the span of three episodes is turn us around entirely on a character. Mari, our most hated. Now, perhaps our most beloved. Protect Mari at all costs. Protect Mari. Keep Mari out of the pit. Jeez. There's a new girl who's very...

pit forward in my view. For sure. I'm not talking about Jen, but you know who I'm talking about. Oh yeah, we even got the like, you, Stan Gard. You, future pit girl, Stan Gard. I mean, it probably will be Mari after all, after all this, but you know. Now I want to, I want to wait for it to be Mari though. It still should eventually be Mari, but I want more time with this like comedy gold. Yeah. Okay, sorry.

So a few thoughts on this stretch from both the Ben and Mari perspectives. I thought from Ben, like right when he's asking, as you're noting that is this real, the sounds kick into play again, not for the last time in this episode, we're going to get them. We'll talk about that later. Mari's nodding. We're waiting for you. Freaky. So that is like a very, anybody would be freaked out. It's very loud. It's very scary. It's a very unsettling situation.

What would it feel like to be hiding in a cave and hearing that? Horrifying. But still, we, of course, should remember that Coach Scott, of all of the... There's always an explanation. It could be coincidence. It's not supernatural. You guys need to look for the logical path here. He was the staunchest. And so even just hearing him...

out loud, is it real? Felt like in a very like losty way, the journey for the man of science archetype. Yeah. It's almost like being in a cave in close proximity to poison gas. Yeah.

will have some impact on you. Yeah, man of size, man of faith journey for Ben. I think that's a great call. Again, I loved what we, the theorizing last week about is somebody playing that, this and the later moment in the episode both felt very targeted and specific and,

is it the wilderness, the supernatural? Is it the cave and the poison gas? And they're having that shared dream and shared hallucination. Who knows? The cue of like, we don't have to do this. And then we hear the screaming. Like pushing them forward, like propelling them forward. Or discouraging, dissuading them. I couldn't tell. Which one was it? Interesting. From Mari's perspective, there was something about her offering this up. And Ben was like, why are you telling me this? Right. And the thing that she's saying is like,

It's not just, here, let me tell you this sad thing that happened to me. It's the... My cousin's heart stopped and I went and watched a television episode instead of telling her parents. Right? There's, like, this admission. And I was thinking back to, like, remember, it's very charming and light and it's, like, an injection of really desperately needed, like, boisterous energy in season one. That scene where they all go around and, like, confess something. That's actually... It was also on my mind in this episode because that's when Lottie's, like, talking about the shoplifting. For matchbox. Yeah.

of DJ bucks. But this felt like an unburdening, like a lot, like a last confession before you think you're going to die. Like that way it had that kind of just heavy, somber energy. And then the description, the thing that she said about two versions of reality and just hiding or waiting, but it's all real. The lynchy, I love that lynchy in framing. That feels really right to me. And like the thing the, um, the, the show is trying to do. I also, of course, couldn't help but think of

This is just really upside down-y and a more like the more literal version of that is very upside down-y. And then what is the upside down and stranger things influenced by? Like there's that great Dustin veil of shadows thing.

D&D, if you haven't yet watched Ring or Quest, by the time you hear this, it's up. It's waiting for you. Check it out. What a time that was. A dimension that is a dark reflection or echo of our world. It is a place of decay and death, a plane out of phase, a place of monsters. It is right next to you. And you do not even see it. Talking about Shadowfell from D&D. So, like, do you think there is a...

version of the show where this is literal? No. Or do you think this is all... I think what... My interpretation is that what she's saying, what they're saying inside of this conversation is like, the version of them that hunt and eat and kill people...

is so much closer than the version of you that just eats microwave burritos and goes to a Dave Matthews fan concert. Than you think, yeah. It's just like right around the corner and it just takes this much to push you over into that, you know? And we all like to think like you, I simply wouldn't. Eat a friend, but like. For me. But what this show presupposes is perhaps you would. What if you would? Yeah, I think so too. And I like the way that

The show in that sense, it fits and feels like a very natural clicking of a puzzle piece with how the show is always engaged with this idea of like,

doubles and pairs and versions of yourself like even just the inherent structure of the show with young you and old you but then you think of like dark tie right this like version of you that is waiting inside and then we have moments with other characters who are like wait are they going to do that with another character right no it's not about like literally are you also a sleepwalker it's like everybody has this thing lurking inside of them waiting to break free again very Lord of the Fliesy right the devil inside of man the the we

We talk about Lost all the time, but I mean, Lord of the Flies is, of course. Incredible. The real inspo for this. You're going on the record. You don't think they're doing the darkest timeline from Community, and that's not why Joel McHale has been cast. No, but they are doing the gas leak here, which is perhaps why Joel McHale has been cast.

All right. Sean and Mel, just really quick interlude. We get Stockmuch, which... Okay, so another critique I saw that I thought was interesting from critical opinions of this season was that there was too much disconnect between the present-day storyline and the 1997 storyline, whereas in previous seasons, especially... I mean, I think we all agree that season one was perhaps the most successful version of the show. Yeah, definitely. But there was...

As there is in Lost, more story-connected tissue between the flashbacks that you're seeing and the present day that you're seeing. Yeah. I don't feel it's connected because I just feel like I'm always learning more about who these women are and how Shauna became the way she became and all that sort of stuff.

But this is like a really funny actual bridge. Stock much as we're sitting here at home saying like, is that Melissa stalking Shauna in the present day storyline? So do you think this is an actual clue or a misdirect? Where are you right now?

You lean misdirect still? I think it's important that each of us have a different stance. Yeah. So your team, this is it, and I'm team, this is a misdirect. Yeah, but I will not at all be disappointed or surprised if it's a misdirect. Guess what? I like that it feels like it could be either. We like to hold things loosely here on House of R. Hold your theories loosely. Hold your bat demon hands.

Because if you hold it too tightly, it'll just crumble in your hand. Sean tells Melissa that she can stay and then they just have like lingering, prolonged eye contact. This is like...

Fuck me eyes central here. We were robbed. We were robbed of this scene. I'm into this. Oh, yeah. I'm really into this. More of them should be fucking each other, I think, at this point. Absolutely. There's not a lot to do out there. I mean, this was the refrain on Lost. Why are more people fucking on this island, right? Travis has already fucked two. Yeah. But he's got a few more to go. He kissed a bunch of people, and I think there was a little bit of a... There was some...

Orgy-ish shenanigans. Yeah, there were some dick and mouth happening. And Doom come in there as well on the chair. Yeah. If you rewatch that sequence closely. But yeah, he's making his way around, for sure. But we don't need to be heteronormative because, like, yeah.

throupling off. Yeah. Yeah. I mean. Do what moves you. They're relatively speaking right now. What does Ben say? I would rather push something very dull. Through his eye and then he specifies all the way to the back of his skull. Like not just in. Yeah. All the way. Before he touched Mari. Okay. Tough beat there for Mari. Let's go to the Coach Ben hunting party starring Shauna, Van, and Akilah. So Mari returns.

Yeah, real cock block. Back to being out on Mari. Showing on Mel we're ready to fuck. I'm still in on Mari. Is it Misty who says thank God or thank the dirt or whatever? Wonderful stuff. Wonderful. Dude. No. Dude. Shauna's like, where were you when Mari says, I walked back to civilization so I could fuck your dad.

Because Mari's the greatest character. Further proof. I thought I was going to die there like baby Jessica. Baby Jessica didn't die. And that was a well. A well's a hole. She's not wrong. She's not wrong. Baby Jessica for our younger listeners is something that happened in 1987. National news, if not international. Probably just national. Okay.

Mari narks on Ben pretty quickly, but she does seem like she's about to offer some sort of, like, feeble defense of him before she gets cut off. Yeah. She had, like, a moment of, like, he let me go, should I protect him or at least try to spare him? She's like, but... She knew that pretty quickly. Yeah, and then it was, like, Van who was like, this fucker, blah, blah. Okay. So Shauna... Yes.

ever her eye on the prize I believe sees a leadership opportunity she's gonna step right in she's gonna be like I'm gonna hunt this dude right now Nat you got a problem with that why would you have a problem with that Nat seems like you'd want to

to capture Coach Ben. So I had a moment when Mari came back so quickly that I was like, wow, they really teased us with the promise of a young Misty, young Shauna wearing cahoots trying to do a coup on Matt. And then, like, it didn't do it, but it paid off there. And it's actually, like, I mean, it still could be a more active pursuit after they...

tie up in based on how Nat wants to conduct that. Of all the stupid things I said that you've adopted, do a coup is my favorite because I love saying that. It's wonderful. And it also was part of you leading me to the great. Yeah. So a program I'm very fond of. Yeah. And so it really stuck.

It really stuck. But yeah, I liked this actually like subtler impact that Misty had on Shauna. You gave me this little kernel of intel and now I can weaponize it. And Nat is, I mean, boy, Nat is like, you can see and feel and hear the wheels turning in Nat's head over how to play this here at camp when they get to the mouth of the cave, when they get to the fork inside of the cave, when they find Ben. It's like Nat is at war with herself here. This is like...

We don't need... I have a promise from me to you and to the bad babies is I won't spend all season being like, oh, I'm really just so sad we don't have Nat in the modern timeline because I understand. Like, Julia Lewis did not want to be on the show anymore. She's not on the show anymore. Things like this happen. But I really feel like you can... When stuff like this happens and everything that's happened with young Nat, you just... Nat feels like so...

central to the endgame for me in terms of the characters they're most interested in. And it just is a bummer that we're not going to get to see where that went. Should they have sent Juliette Lewis... Like, should they have sent Nat to rehab and just given Juliette Lewis a couple seasons? And then done her... Or just done her, like...

Yeah, you thought it was weird when we recast Akilah and Jen, who had had three lines previously? Well, we recast adult Nat after one of the four most prominent roles in the show. One of the main draws of the original cast is gone. And don't worry. Don't worry about it. Hilary Swank is here. I mean, Sophie is like such an entrenched star now at this point. Do some just do some like old age makeup.

Yeah. Why not? That'll be fine. Everybody else is playing five different performers. That'll be completely fine. No? Okay. After Lottie tries to get Akilah to stay back from the bed hunt, and Akilah's like, no, thank you. So, like, I thought this was really interesting. Did you? Yeah, because, I mean, obviously we talked about the Lottie portion of it last week, but...

So Lottie says, Akilah says, I'm sorry, I'm good. And then Lottie says, after all this, you still don't believe. Which I thought was weird. Because Akilah was like... In the cult. In Team Lottie. And then I was like, well, I wonder how much of this is because...

maybe a questioning or second guessing a need to distance herself from from this experience after like what happened with nugget and like feeling how she had gotten sucked in to just the birthing yes her involvement in that all of that um but then there were a couple of keela things that happened later which i can wait to hit till we get to in in in sequence but like what i ended up feeling at the end of the episode is that she's actually like oh maybe it is me

And she's processing in real time. I mean, you can't ignore the signs when you get a slap bracelet of doom affixed to you by the last previous queen. You know what I mean? If the slap bracelet went on perfectly for you and then sliced through the arm of the person next to you and the throat of the person on the other side of you, you would also leave saying, I have been chosen. Yeah.

Did you like a slap bracelet when you were younger? Loved a slap bracelet. Same. I actually have one still. Of all the things to get in, like, a birthday party gift bag, a slap bracelet is, like, top tier. Wonderful. Yeah. Wonderful stuff. I feel like those and, like, gel pens to... Yes. Had to have them. Did you ever slap bracelet yourself, like, so often that you, like, sort of... Had, like, a welt? Chafed. Yeah. Chafed and bruised your wrist? Oh, yes.

Should we bring, should we get some and bring some in? Yes. I think we should get House of our, we should get our first piece of bad. John, get on it. Our first piece of bad baby merch. They've been clamoring for it. It's going to be slap bracelets.

I feel like people would honestly be thrilled with the House of Mars slap bracelet. It also, now we're, I know we're in a completely different part of the episode now, but the, it's like, what is on that? This is again where we issue the cap. It's the symbol. But it was a little different. It was like the geometry of. I thought it was just like repeated like a piece of wallpaper would be. So, but it reminded me also of, in addition to like the shapes inside of the symbol, it reminded me of Adam's back tattoo. Hmm.

And always on my mind. You're desperate for that back tattoo. Cheese grater or not. You're desperate for that tattoo to matter. Sure. Hold them loosely. You can't cheese grate away that theory. Nope. And also like.

Not for me. The drawings, all of Javi's drawings that Ben found and was like thumbing through, there were a lot of those like triangular and circular shapes. And also some of those, some of that circular imagery made its way into like the drawings on Sammy's window. So like that visual motif repeating. Always fascinating. I really did think we had let Adam's back tattoo go. Absolutely. Come on. Never. He's always on my mind. What I think is interesting is- Would you have gone-

Would you have gone right away? Because Shauna's like, we can't let him move, which is smart. But it is also the dead of night. Would you have gone right away? Let me tell you something that's true about me. Yeah. In most let's go do something, I'll be like, I'll tend the fire until you get back. This is also where I am. Unless they all go and then I'm like, don't leave me alone here with Travis and Lottie.

We're just brewing up more mushroom tea. Travis looks so upset. Don't leave me here. So I would probably be like, I'm fine. And then enough people would go that I'd be like, actually, I'll go.

I can assure you I would not have gone into... I might have accompanied them to the mouth of the cave, but I would not have gone into the cave. Oh, you know I'm not... You're not going into a crevice. You're not going into a crevice. This is one of the worst TV crevice experiences I've ever had. Mirror steps in, you have to crouch, and there's water? No. Okay. The second the flame goes out, you turn around. Absolutely. Skittering, elders screaming, crevices. Yeah, it's a no.

No. Can't have it. Mari-level auditory hallucination dripping. No. No. Potential juicy bats around every corner. No. Absolutely not. No. And poison gas. Right. Poison gas. Absolutely not. Also, as he refers to himself, like a one-legged man waiting in the shadows to potentially bounce and attack.

Or save you. Or save you. While... You can't pounce. Give a break. Or spray. While Misty and Mel team up to invoke Princess Bride. That was really funny. Yeah. Nobody, Joanna. Now, granted, the films have not come out at this point, but, like, do we not read? Nobody invokes Gandalf.

And following your nose. Okay. Follow-up question to you, Mallory Rubin. Yeah. Whom's among the Yellow Jackets in, it's the mid-90s. Yeah. Yes. Who's reading Lord of the Rings? For sure, Shauna. No question. Yes. She's like very studious. Uh-huh. Shauna got into Brown. Yeah. Misty? No. No? No. Not enough musicals? There are original songs. No. Certainly not Jackie. No. Definitely not Jeff. No.

No, I'm kidding. Dude, no Jeff, Randy, or Walter in this episode, I have to say, was a bummer. I'll only like stories about dudes. I'll only like hate women's.

I should be more embarrassed that I'm like, where's Jeff anytime he's not in a Yellow Jackets episode? But guess what? I'm not. My heart calls out for Walter. Yeah. I think maybe Shauna would be the only one and she's not in the mood. She's like, she's a leader. What she does have time for is to give Mari wildly uncharacteristic support. Okay. What did you make of this? I thought this was a leadership bid. So you thought this was pure tactics? Yeah.

Yeah. I think that that's like the cold calculus. I think that's right. I also loved... There's like little moments like this on the show I think do a really good job of reminding us that

And this is actually on my mind in general with what you were saying a few minutes ago about the how often do the two timelines feel like they directly are in conversation with each other. And we've discussed this a lot in season two where I felt like if there were moments where that was not the case, part of what is always happening in this show is that the characters are moving in and out of faith or a detachment from faith. Leadership or following. In and out of, yeah. So like, even if that is like a naked play from Shauna, it still reminds us that the alliances can shift

with the need of the moment. And there is a path where, like, Shauna brings Mari into the fold if it helps her, which seemed impossible. I'm currently covering half an episode ago. Severance White Lotus and Yellow Jackets. A normal headspace to occupy. My noodle is so cooked and I was just like... Because

Because I was just writing some White Lotus notes about shifting alliances and packs and stuff like that. And I'm always talking about lost references on Severance, and here we are. But yeah, this is like a very survivor mentality of like where the alliances are shifting. Yeah. Shift or die, right? Yes, exactly. We talked about this before. Okay. This was also like on the Akilah front. Because Nat tries to like stop them. Like, what did you think we were going to do? And Akilah's like, we got to go. Right. And she's like, oh, like...

I know I'm right. Yeah, not even with any uncertainty. She's just like, we got to go. Yeah. Drinking the Lottie Kool-Aid a little bit. That fucking fern crown, I'm telling you, it was something to be scared of. And then when they say, like, when Nat says about the paths, like, maybe that just collapsed, maybe it wasn't Ben, Akilah's like, I don't think so. Well, I also don't think so because those rocks were in, like, clear formation. And also, did Ben, recently concussed Ben, do that? Yeah.

We don't know how long it took Mari to hobble back to camp. True. True. Yeah. Ben building a rock wall in the mouth of the cave. I mean, he managed to get all of the... Supplies. Yeah, supplies there. Maybe he used his same rope system? I don't know. Stacking rocks with... Yeah. Drag them, stack them, put them in a stew! Pfft.

Oh, God. This is our... That was beautiful. We podcast together a lot. Six podcasts together in four days. Oh, man. All right. So, Keela, Vanna, and Shawna go through a path that is clearly... A path that we would never walk down, and we just want to say that one more time. I would certainly never crawl, nor would I shimmy, nor any. When Vann's like, this is obviously not the way, I'd be like, yep. Actually, I wouldn't say yep, because I wouldn't be there in the first place. I'm standing guard with...

new pit girl outside. I don't even like to go to the front door to pick up the Postmates. I am just fucking not going into the game. There's no chance. We get three individual dreams and then potentially a shared dream. We have yet to sort of assess the shared dream, but each dream is marked by a different element. Van's dream is fire. Yes. So she goes through it. So here's my plausible explanation for what happens. Okay. The three of them go into that

where they're like, oh, and Shauna's lantern's already out. And then Van's lantern goes and then out. But when she's like, Shauna, Akilah. Yeah.

I feel like they're on the ground. That Shauna has dropped. Yes. And Akilah has dropped and Van's the last yellow jacket standing. Yeah. And then she drops. Yes. And then she's walking around and she sees a door in the rock wall. Yeah. Very Alice in Wonderland to me. Certainly had a like, yes, on the are we, is there actually some sort of alternate dimension or like a portal? Yeah. This had a real portal dimension feel to it. It also just reminded me again of a television program that

I don't know. This might actually be the first time we've brought it up when talking about yellow jackets. Lost? Oh. Lost? Of all the Dharma stations, like this had a real...

Ethan, Claire, maternity leave, you know, like... Didn't it, you know, walking and finding and you, oh, here's a thing and what awaits and like... Ethan Rome. Yeah, the Claire Kate Rousseau, like, discovery of what... I don't know, it just had such a secret Dharma station feel to me. The door. She walks into a cabin. Yes. I'm once again going to invoke the Black Lodge from Twin Peaks. The hunting cabin. Mm-hmm.

Coach Ben's hallucinatory cabin. Right. Jacob's cabin from Lost. Yeah. But of all those illusions, the music is very Twin Peaks here. The music cue that hits here is some of the peaksiest stuff we've heard on the show. Wow.

Perhaps not since we saw Misty in the red room last season, essentially, have we hit something like that. She's in a rocking chair. We get the flames in her eyes. And then we're going to cut to other dreams. But eventually the rocking chair becomes a plane seat and we see arms that seemingly belong to Jackie and Shauna based on sleeves. Yeah. And then also there seems to be a man's arm in plaid, which I'm going to say cabin man, perhaps. And then I think Tyrone.

Ty's hand because we get a mitten hand I googled the mittens on the girls and I was really trying to match them and I think it's the first hand around her I think is Ty's um holding her down Shauna and Jackie of course make the most sense because when Van was trapped in the plane and there was a fire the original sin of them not rescuing her um

So originally I was just like, oh, it's just Shauna and Jackie. Right. But then I was like, no, that's a dude's arm. Yeah, it definitely was a guy's arm. And then the mittened arm was like another one entirely. So, yeah. Interesting. I thought, yeah, so the initial escaping from the wreckage after the crash, like, I...

Thinking about Van in that moment, when Jackie, like, leaves her, right? Chooses to save Shauna, pushes Shauna out of the plane, leaving Van to burn alive and die. And Van reminds Jackie of this many times after managing to escape. The first one when she pops out of the plane and she's, like, smoking and she just looks at them.

So good. Oh, Liv Hewson. But that is not the only time that Van nearly burned alive on the show. Like, she was put on her own funeral pyre by Ty and the others when they were trying to look for a way out of this hell because they thought, frankly, reasonably, maybe check for a pulse, but frankly, reasonably, because she had been mauled to death. She had been mauled to death. Yeah.

been mauled by a wolf. It was totally reasonable to think she had died. This isn't like a Denethor situation. This is like a clear mauling has occurred. You can see teeth and bone. And she is there. They light her on fire and then they have to like kick her off and roll her off. And that was one of her like, what are you glimpsing? You know, when you're that close to death moments in the colors and ooh, are we seeing like a shade? Okay. So not only is there this direct association between Van and

and fire and death. We talked about this last week, actually, but, like, Van has invoked this idea directly to Ty on the show. Like...

why did I keep surviving? Yes. Like, what was that for? Right. What is my purpose? And so this is actually actively on her mind, and so I thought this was fascinating to see her in this circumstance. What I love about that with the Van character, because it could apply to all of them, this idea of survivor's guilt. Yeah. Why me and not? Why did I survive the crash and not anyone else in the crash? Why did I survive the wilderness and not anyone else in the wilderness? So that could apply to all of them, to give Van this more extreme, burnt, mauled,

burnt again cancer journey to give her this more extreme why me so I have to make it mean something right it has to mean something that I survived Akilah yes dude this was like real like it's bong once stuff here from Akilah like you get high and then you're just talking to a llama like is it a llama or an alpaca is it an alpaca I think it's an alpaca you get high once and you're just talking to an alpaca

Is it foie gras? I'm not sure. Shoving the blackberries in her mouth. Gorging. Gorging. Yeah. Were you relieved that this was not a talking Mortimer? Or do you feel cheated and wronged because this was not a talking Mortimer? Me too. Also, I didn't get... I did not double check the closing credits, but I'm curious who was voicing this. Oh, interesting. Alpaca, because it's not...

It's not a voice that is recognizable to us, but it was a very like, hey, I'm an alpaca sort of thing. Everything with teeth bites. Everything will defend itself. They're calling you. Seemingly the trees. And those upshot of the trees sort of blowing, that's a classic Twin Peaks visual. Eating fruit in the underworld? No.

I simply wouldn't. Couldn't be me. Not even once. Couldn't be me. Not one kernel of a pomegranate, not one blackberry off the bush. Oh, boy. Okay. Marking Akilah for death or for greatness, queenitude, we shall see. And then we get her sinking down into the ground via these vines. Okay. So interesting question because she is paired here with two people who we know survive.

Yeah. Like the other two people who are having this experience, they make it. Yeah. Does that change? Does that influence what you think about Akilah's likelihood of getting out? I don't know. We should note that an actress, Evans Johnson, has been cast this season in an adult role. She doesn't necessarily, to me, look stunningly like Akilah, but not every adult version does necessarily. But that is a possibility that Akilah is also a survivor. Yeah.

But that would imply something supernatural going on. And I don't know if they're leaning towards just like gas leak here, you know? Shama's dream. Bigger bathtub. Water.

She's dressed like Lottie when Lottie was baptized by Laura Lee in The Lake in season one. She's not wearing what she wore in The Lake. She's wearing what Lottie wore. Yes. And then we got that vision from Lottie when she's like walking through the hallways and then there's all the candles and all of that. Our studio has been modeled after. John has recreated it. Just such a chill, calm moment. Yeah.

And she's swimming and she's swimming and she can't get to her son. Dude. This blondie looks like Aaron from Lost, a boy on the shore. This was...

crushing this was heavy and really hard dream logic like a talking alpaca is one thing and a chair that turns into a plane seat where arms are holding you down you burn that's all this was like you're swimming and you're swimming and you're swimming and you're going nowhere was such good yeah horrible horrifying dream logic i really loved uh this yeah and also like

Van's circumstances are about escaping something. And Akilah's was there was this like harbinger where kind of like be on guard, but also be prepared to like open yourself to a possibility, right? It can be easier. It can be hard, but either way, it's going to get what it wants.

Shauna's was that stuck in place and then pulled under idea. She is looking towards something impossible. She's the only one who's looking towards something impossible. Something that she cannot have, which is the child she has already lost, who in this version that she's seeing and hearing is older than he would have been if he had survived. Like it was just so heartbreaking. And like blonde like Jeff. Blonde like Jeff. Yeah. Really, really, really devastating. This was sad. Then we get the communal dream question mark.

I mean, even when you're in the fucking wilderness and you're eating your friends. You're going to have a school dream. You're having a dream about class. You're having Rob Mahoney's anxiety dream. This is like Rob's worst fucking nightmare. Even when actual horrors are unfolding around you, you can't escape the question of whether you're prepared for your next dream.

Tonnage of emails we got. This is a severance podcast reference. A sheer tonnage of emails we got from people being like, I've had that exact dream that Rob had is like incredible. Okay. So does the door look like it belongs in Lottie's baptism vision, like the concrete walls, or is it just meant to invoke classroom? Yeah.

This is just generic classroom. That's a good question. Okay. I don't know, because the... It's certainly when Lottie was walking through the hallway and the candles, like, it definitely felt like they were in their school. Oh, is that what it felt like to you? Yeah, it did. Especially because, like, that was near the... That's because when Lottie was walking... Moving toward the reunion stretch, so, like, the... When Lottie was walking through...

From my memory is that that was our earliest, like, is there an underground bunker on this not island? Yeah. Because it seems... It always looked like a school to me. Oh, okay. Interesting. Okay, so Lottie shows up... Lottie's always in the school or in the mall. Lottie shows up as the teacher. She's written a quote on the board of All the Ways to Lose a Person. Death is the Kindest. This is a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote. Yeah.

And then Akilah asks if she's in Van and Shauna's dream or if they're in hers. And there's only one dream as the fucking Aussie ice cream guy wheels an airplane snack cart past the doorway. So, like, if we are trying to encourage a version of this story where there's a plausible explanation for things. And the reason that Ty saw the, and we're going to get to this fucking Aussie ice cream mascot as if.

I know why Aussies went out of business. It's because an eyeless man was their mascot. But anyway. Though, I mean, unless there's just absolutely like no market for that plot of land, it seems like it, I mean, it's pretty picked. I guess if they went out of business long enough ago to be a complete...

hellscape for a horror movie but also not so long ago that wouldn't have been bulldozed by now I don't know nobody came and claimed that haunted trike I mean it's possible that let's say Akilah's dreaming here yeah

If we want to go like plausible explanation, because I'm going to be curious if Shauna and Van say, I had that dream too. Right. We don't know if it's everyone's dream or if it's just Akilah's dream. Let's say it's Akilah's dream because it seems the most from her point of view. Oh, interesting. She could also, oh, did it not seem like the most from her point of view? I feel like if I had to pick...

Yeah, that's a really good question. I wasn't thinking about that. Like, I definitely feel while I'm watching in real time, it's this person. But now thinking back, like, who wakes up from it? Shauna, right? And just Jackie's role in it just makes me feel like a Shauna. A little snacky. I was delighted to see her. Snacky! I love Jackie. I want Jackie to remain on the show in some form. And like, this is like the perfect kind of sprinkling. Those little Jackie sprinkles. Whatever's left. Yeah.

A little cheese grating and a little parm. A little parm grate of Jackie to season the plate. This was great. Jackie, great stuff. Slap bracelet, as we already mentioned, great stuff. But let's say plausible explanation. Let's say it's Shauna's dream. Yeah. Any of them could have seen the same commercial when they were kids. Exactly. Shauna may also have watched Pee Wee's Playhouse and watched the Aussie commercials as a kid. Lottie tells Akilah to help Shauna. You have to or she'll die. Or she'll die. We'll all die. That's why it feels like it's Akilah's dream to me.

But then Shauna seems like she wakes up from it. Ben has rescued the three girls from the gas. He deserves to die. Sorry. Let them rot. He deserves to die. I don't want him to, but he has. You want to let them rot?

If it were me, I would have let them out. No, like he just, he was so sure that it was the second that Mari fell into his pit that he could not allow her to escape and go back and tell them where he was because he knew what they would do to him. And guess what? He thought that for a reason. Yeah. And he let her go anyway. And he's too soft to live. He's too soft to survive. Yeah.

He is! Question. The opening credits, which there are images we have not seen. And the...

of the cure cold Mallory I really like he's actually one of my favorite characters so I yeah I think I think the performance is fantastic and I I hope he I hope he survives this and somehow manages to make it out and stays on the show but this is a this is a miscalculation he knew his enemy and he fell into quite literally fell into their trap anyway because he has a heart and empathy and is still a nurturing person can't allow yourself to make that mistake if you want to survive sorry

I'm sorry. Mylar, do you feel like you're the kind of person who would have broken Allie's leg on the field in the first episode? I did send a girl to the hospital once playing indoor soccer. Not on purpose, though. I did kick her in the face and she had to go to the hospital. But I felt bad about it. Not bad enough to check in after I'm realizing right now. What's her name? Pfft.

no idea she wasn't on my team the other team um did you go home and watch Eureka's Cat honestly yeah I was like um you know I I should not be allowed as you know to engage in competitive pursuits by competitive pursuits you mean surviving in the wilderness I think it's more like that I was just pretty bad at soccer and accidentally kick someone in the face and hurt them than that I meant to let's go with that um

Opening credits. We see a lot of like upside down. And I will have to look back, but like screaming man face, dangling man. We also see this overhead shot of the plank of the planks. Are they making a coffin to like, are they going to like burn him or just like keep him in there alive? Like in a coffin, like in a crate.

Or what if they put it in the coffin and they burn it because they're like, this is what it was like for us trapped in that house. Cool story. All right. And then they eat him even though they don't have to because they have food. Oh, they're definitely going to eat him. Yeah. That roast. Mad flesh. Oh, my God. Do you ever do things and think about how they'll be on the internet and you regret them? Okay, Misty and Shauna in the present day. Misty and Shauna in the present day. An incredible as ever sequence of Misty's late patient abuse during the phone call. Dude.

Something we like were deprived of in season two is Misty at work because it's always a delight. Okay. Obviously nothing can ever quite match the highs of Misty and Gloria. And the morphine.

Just like you're like, we're dealing with a deranged person as Sean Hovell shortly invoked. But the little touches here, just like, you know, you got your air pods in and you're walking around at your job having this conversation right away. Just shocking stuff. The...

Missy could not give less of a shit whether they take their medicine. The way that she's just putting the pills down on the rocking, swaying armchair, not stopping to see if they're taken, not stopping to see if they fall over. But stopping. Yeah. To make sure to end the chess game. Checkmate. Yeah. Checkmate, bitches. All right. So they have this whole conversation. She baboozles Shauna into scones.

feeds her a bunch of bullshit about how she had to handle the situation at the sleepover i didn't screw up i was being strategic oh by losing consciousness this is a very like she's trying to prove walter wrong i do have a connection with shauna shauna is my friend we can have scones she does want me to follow her on all of her errands to get gift baskets and go to the podiatrist etc she doesn't she doesn't okay but here's my here's my question yes

Sean is like, oh, I can't hang out with you. I got to go get gift baskets for the, quote, fancy idiots. The Joles. The Joles. Yeah. The fact that they're still in the conversation. Yeah.

lends more credence, I think, to the idea that one of them, Nathan, not Joel, has like a bigger role to play. Or is this plot line just here to drive a wedge between Jeff and Shauna? Because Jeff is like still salty about the Joels. Why not both? Why not both? Why not both? That Nathan guy just like gave me... You're on to him. Yeah. I don't know if I'm on to him. Who was Tyler? They got up. Joel and Nathan got up. Oh, Tyler. Exactly. Who the fuck is Tyler? Who the fuck is Tyler?

Fuck you, Tyler. But also, why were they interrogating her about the phone the way that they were? And what happened in the bathroom? Yeah. Like, where were you? Not just like that she was using her phone. What happened in there? What happened up there? What were you doing to the bartender? It's like, what happened in there? I broke my rule and had heavy whipping cream instead of oat milk out in the wild. That's what happened in there, Joel. Never interrogate anyone, let alone a woman, about why she took so long in the bathroom. Because I put heavy whipped cream in my coffee. Okay.

Okay. You know, that's actually gentler on the stomach than half and half. Fun fact. My stepmom put me onto that. That is a fun fact. I don't know if it's true. This is a hard one. Family headcanon. I don't know if it's a true fact, but it is a fun fact. And that's all you promised. Okay, Mallory. If you went to a tapas dinner with someone and they absolutely eviscerated you, emasculated you in every sense possible. Yeah. Like, reduced you to rubble.

What kind of gift basket would it take to get you back on board? What a great question. I have a pitch. Hit me. More candy than you think it's conceivable that a human adult could eat. But here's the thing. You can buy your own candy. I have it already. Yeah. Definitely not the giant jar of bubble gum because you've got to have the pleasure slash deep misfortune of...

Being on a text thread with me where we mostly send each other pictures of our cats. I would say it's like 80% that and then 20% me texting you guys about the candy I bought.

No, no, no, no. It's 10% the candy. And then the other 10% is when you DoorDash McDonald's and you plate it. It's like 7% that, 3% the home state pictures that we send each other. Oh, yeah, the home state pictures. We do always send each other home state orders. No free hats. No, but if they want to get in and sponsor the podcast, we are prepared to tell you our exact orders. And we do have those committed to memory. Don't mess with Texas. Queso. Queso.

A little guac. Yeah, I'm like, my first thought was some Sour Patch Watermelon, some Funyuns, some Flamin' Hot Cheetos, but that's just what's in my kitchen right now. Yeah. Okay, so maybe it would need to be like...

from around the world. What if someone sent you like a Maryland basket? Yeah. Stuff you can't easily... I know you can go belly things, but stuff that you can't like easily get. Yeah. Some Utz crab chips. Yeah. Some Otterbein cookies. Yeah. Some burger cookies. Yeah. Yeah. I'm into this. Okay. I'm into this. I don't know if I want to associate my favorite foods with Joel and Nathan. But...

Would semi-hard cheeses? I do love a cheese. Well, it's not a Joel and Nathan. It's a Shauna. It's a Shauna needing to ply you with a gift basket. I wouldn't need anything Shauna gave me. Not even with chocolate chips? No, certainly not. Okay. Certainly not. What about you? What would you need to receive to be wooed? Oh, God. What a great question. I don't have a great answer. Let's see. Plums with which you can make a barbecue sauce. Oh, that's it. Okay. Don't send me plums.

You can send me tequila and Granny Smith apples. Oh, you love a mead? I do love a mead. No, I'm not going to encourage people to get you Granny Smith apples. No. Come on. Okay. Misty and Shauna are not, alas, the one Luis, even though Misty would like them to be as they're driving around. Do you think Misty has seen the movie and knows how it ends? 100%. She's into it. It's disturbing. The brakes don't work on the minivan. Yeah. Yep. To the tune of Nookie by Limp Bizkit. What?

Hustling needle drops in the history of the show. From 1999, not even our sweet spot of early mid-90s, we get Nookie by Limp Bizkit plays as the minivan goes careening up a grassy knoll. Right. Um...

Did this give Dharma Van vibes to you? Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll talk about that a little later. Okay. Now, listen, we know that Misty has done something very similar to Nat's car. Pulled those wires right out of the Porsche. Just to force proximity and friendship and stuff like that. But this is tough from Shauna. Shauna just like rips in to Misty.

She blames Misty for the breaks, the phone in the bathroom, etc., etc., all the stuff that we don't think Misty has done before listing a number of things that Misty did do, including, most horribly, quote, why carry around syringes of fatal fucking drugs. Which, listen, Shauna, if I've killed a guy in season one, back tattoo or no, and Misty helped me get rid of the body,

She did. Wasn't her fault that Nat didn't dig a deep enough grave. I would personally not throw stones inside of this breakless minivan at Misty. Calling her a psychopath, all this sort of stuff like that. Verified psycho, insane. The syringe, given that we saw Misty in episode one, you know, seven shots of real whiskey into her night,

sobbing in Walter's arms talking about how it's her fault that Nat's dead. This is particularly horrible from Shauna. Yeah. And I think even then, Misty is like, well, wait. And it's only when Shauna's like, get out.

that Misty finally says, like, you're not what I deserve. Which is... And basically says what Walter was saying to her last week. I know. I was so proud of her. I was really proud of her, too. But it did feel like invoking the syringe and what Misty had done to Nat and this thing that is causing her such severe pain. Yeah. That was when Misty could no longer deny the truth, right? That Sean sucks. Sure.

Shauna doesn't care about you at all. I love Shauna and she sucks. Does not care about you at all. Uses you and has never even had the decency to say thank you. Misty calls Shauna by her maiden name. Shipman. Shipman, which we should note is also what it said on the envelope left on her door. That's right. Yeah, that's right. You know, on the Walter front,

Walter in a blonde wig on the Walter in a blonde wig friend. You know, one thing that do you think Walter Cutler breaks? I think he yes, I think I have two two leading theories and that's one of them.

I like this idea because we talked about this last week. Like, was Walter going to try to bring Misty into a perilous situation so that they could have the trauma bond that Misty is so attached to with Shauna and the others? Or was he, would he just try to eliminate Shauna? Um,

both seem totally plausible to me as something that Walter would do. So this being a way that he would like try to eliminate Shauna, not realizing that Misty would end up in the van with her, feels totally imbalanced. And it's like, Misty's signature move? But when would he have cut the brakes? Because he would have to do it while they were eating the scones. Because, you know, Shauna drove and presumably hit the brakes when she parked at the scone shop. I don't know. Maybe there's a way to compromise brakes where it's like a... Slowly? Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know. If anyone knows how to do that is Walter. Slow drip of acid on the... Yeah, he would know. He would definitely know. Yeah, okay.

Walter using Misty's signature move, if it is in fact him, it's one more like... MFEO? Made for each other? Yeah. And just like when we were talking last week about... Wait, you didn't expect me to say yes? Yes. Yes. Has, like, were they giving us the Walter that we wanted to see or had expected to see? The thing that did feel really right to me about where we found Walter last week...

And this would fit into that. It's like, he's just too, he is misty. Like, he's too misty now what misty is to everybody else. And that feels really appropriate and like an interesting thing for her to have to confront and reckon with. The other theory other than Walter would be, obviously, whoever is watching Shauna leaving envelopes at her house and putting phones in the toilet next to her. Mel Hiller-Swank, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. Our last candidate, Lottie.

Lonnie who's trying to sort of work her way into the affections of Callie. Boy. We'll get back to that in a second. Yeah. Missy not only slips on her Crocs, which is very sad. She didn't put them in sport mode. It was tough. I love a Croc. Very comfortable. She burns the group photo of the yellow jacket that she had on her mantle. Scream to the small child. Let's not. Let's not. Let's scream to the small child. Full among us.

In public. Burns the group photo of the yellow jackets. Yell at Caligula. Also yells at Caligula. But don't you think she looked at Caligula's cage and was like, on Wednesdays we clean it together? Okay. Let's talk about Lottie and the Sudeikis. Oh, man. No, Jeff. Sad. Quite sad. Okay. We already talked about the pancake thing. Lottie says, quote, the 13th floor is a euphemism for the psych ward. And as far as I could tell from Googling, that is not usually the case. Hmm.

I found a Reddit thread where, like, because actually what's usually often the case in hospitals similar to hotels is they don't even have a 13th floor. Oh, yeah. Or they don't even have, like, a 13th room on a given floor because of the superstition thing. So...

I did find a Reddit thread where some people were like, in my hospital, the 13th floor is a psych ward. But it was only just like a few people. And it didn't seem to be a widespread sort of thing. So Lottie claims the 13th floor is a euphemism for the psych ward. Again, not as far as I can tell from a light Google. But it is the name of a 1999 film about virtual reality. And not knowing what level of reality you're in and stuff like that. So, you know, something to think about.

She also taps her third eye when she's talking about a reset. I need to reset. High comedy from Lottie in the stretch. Great Lottie stuff. Yeah, the way that she entered the kitchen. First of all, we got to speak of the devil. Lottie appears. We got a scones are to die for from Misty. Like, you know, I was tracking that kind of language. But,

Just the way that Lottie's like championing her merits as a house guest because she announced herself instead of eavesdropping, which I just thought this was all really entertaining. And I also was quite amused by Shauna extending the olive branch of like, do you want to get lunch? And Lottie's like, the Google Cal is full.

And Sean was like, wait a minute. Mere hours ago, you showed up on my doorstep and told me you had nowhere to go and no one to turn to. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now, of course, she is obscuring the truth, which is that she is going shoplifting with Shauna's daughter, Callie. So I get why she withheld that. But this is just a fascinating dynamic playing out in this scene. I really liked this. I love the shoplifting interaction because not only is that callback to Lottie and the TJ Bucks, great stuff. And Lottie, we should note from the start,

was the richest of the girls on the plane. So like of all the people who don't have to shoplift, it was certainly Lottie. Her dad is the one who got the private plane for them in the first place, right? Great work. Thanks, Mr. Matthews. Okay, so... And then also that's where the mall is the setting of her hallucination. Yes. Yeah, when she went through the hatch and found the other girls at the table and the food cart. The Alice in Wonderland tea parties or anything. So she takes Callie shoplifting and...

And it reminded me a lot of the conversations we had in season one about when Shauna and Adam were, like, drinking and having sex in the car and stuff like that. This very, like, arrested development juvenile behavior from Shauna. Yeah. Trying to recapture the use of the mess. Van and Ty, you know, dining and dashing and, like, running down the streets to...

I think we're alone now, this like very teeny boppy mall based sort of song. So this idea of these like women who are forced to grow up way too fast and how they're stuck in this like teenage space. I love that. So Lottie in the shoplifting in Cali, this bonding, this $1,500 little red number. Yeah.

And then here it is. Here we are. The most bonkers needle drop. More bonkers than Nookie, we should mention. Nookie by Limp Bizkit is nothing compared to what is playing in the Sedecki kitchen. Mallory Rubin, what is playing in the Sedecki kitchen? Okay, so I paused the episode watching it for the first time and I said, and did Joanna and I actually say on the first Yellow Jackets pod, well, at least it didn't

own kind of music when listing all of the Lost references? Or like, did I just think we did that? Yeah. Because we literally just talked about it. Did we literally say that? I think so. If not, we were definitely thinking it. I think we literally just talked about this. I don't remember if we did it on mic or off mic, but like, this is astonishing. I mean, this is one of my favorite Needle... This was in Lost, like one of my favorite Needle drops in the history of television. Like, I would put this in...

I would put this in my top three needle drops of all time up there with like, heaven is placed on earth and San Junipero and I would have to think of the third. But this is like, you texted me this before I watched the episode and you were like, holy fucking shit. They put Make Your Own Kind of Music by Cass Elliott from 1969 in the show.

Lottie and Callie are singing as they're making Harissa chicken. It's not just playing. They're like, yeah, they're singing it. They're singing it. They're engaging with it. Rocking out in the kitchen. Dude. I know that we talk about Lost a lot on this Yellow Jackets coverage. Probably too much for some people's tastes. They want us to. They're just doing it now. And something that I wrote back to you when you wrote that to me is like something that I...

hadn't really put two and two together is that my friend Emily St. James, who used to be a great TV critic, now a TV writer, published, is in the Yellow Jackets writers room and published a lost book, a book about lost critical essays about lost. Yes. Last year. Um,

And Emily and her wife Libby are credited on an upcoming episode. I'm really excited to, like, see that episode that Emily and Libby have written that's coming later this season. But, like...

They were already doing that in the writers room. Emily and Libby joined the writers room, I believe, in season two of Yellow Jackets. And so they were already doing it. But I feel like the ramp up is like not just like winking at the audience how you and I lost our minds when we saw the very Dharma Initiative coded supply drop last week. But this is just astonishing. A lot. I mean, it's the Desmond House.

It's like we go down into the hatch and we're with Desmond in his routine and he's making his smoothies and he's riding his exercise bike. Like this is like, this is iconic. Invoking this is so deliberate and intentional and trying to take us to a certain headspace that we were in when the world of Lost opened up for us. Like that is a really meaningful thing to do. Who would you rather see on an exercise bike? Desmond Hume or Thunderbolt Ross as played by Harrison Ford? Why not both? Okay, great. Why not both?

Bonnie and Callie are having a classic, like, sort of practical magic girls movie sing-along in the kitchen moment. Callie is thrilled. She's having the time. We've never seen her so happy on this show. And she thinks the food tastes great, which is just an extra little knife in the rim. Fuck you, Shana. Mom, you have to taste this. I just told you six hours ago your pancakes suck. But this harissa chicken is delish. And also, she's wearing...

Jackie's fucking necklace. No! My elbow cracked that time. Falling apart. On camera in front of everyone. Lottie, this is an insane move from Lottie. Okay, so let's just track that heart necklace, shall we? Just as a recap for folks. In season one, episode one, Jackie gave the heart necklace to Shauna when she was nervous to fly on the plane. And she said, quote, here is a good luck charm. Now nothing can touch you.

In season one, episode five, Shauna puts it back on Jackie when Jackie is struggling in the new wilderness dynamic. Jackie dies wearing it. Yeah. Shauna puts it on Natalie at the end of season two right before she was meant to slit her throat. Right. The hunt. Yeah. And then we have, of course, seen it on...

Pit girl, Mari, Jen, another girl. In the opening chase of the snowy woods, pit girl dies wearing it. So it becomes this talisman of like, you're next. You're marked. You're marked. Yeah, you're the target. I don't know what the fuck Lottie thought was going to happen, but what she says to Shauna when Shauna justifiably loses her shit over this. Okay, the mistake Lottie made was doing this at all.

I don't know what she thought was going to happen. Or maybe she was trying to provoke her. Yeah, I think we have to consider that. But she says it never meant what you thought it meant is what Lottie says. Yeah. The mistake Shauna makes is not explaining to her daughter who already knows a lot of this. Yeah. This is my dead friend's necklace and we used to put it on, you know, like how much does Kelly know at this point? She knows...

Good amount. Yeah. Like, she could just explain it rather than ripping it off her throat and throwing a tantrum that Callie is surely going to, you know, misunderstand. And I think particularly so because, like, in season one, one of the actual emotional breakthroughs that they had, that was a very tumultuous, rocky stretch for their relationship, was when at the Halloween party, Sean and Adam had...

happened upon Callie in Jackie's jersey and Callie had made the mistake of thinking that was her mom's jersey. And when Shauna explained to her it was Jackie's and Callie's like, fuck, like you saw me. It's not that you found me at a party high on Molly. It's that I'm wearing your dead best friend's jersey. Right, so she's just been like, that's Jackie's necklace. I think Callie had been like, wow, that was fucked up, Lottie. But she doesn't. And it's also, I mean, I think Shauna's obviously very

It's interesting because on the one hand, Shauna is encouraging and enabling Callie. Like she last week was like, play the video again. Like you rule. Show me how you poured the Swifties guts that Randy brought you all over them. But...

And, you know, when Jeff is like, Shauna, like, we have to consider the possibility that our daughter is not okay and then moves on to asking why they don't close the pantry cabinets anymore. Were you smoking chronic? Are you smoking chronic? Shauna's like, this is kind of fine when it's her decision to expose Callie to the truth about the blackmail, the truth about the murder. It's fine. But Lottie is an element that Shauna...

It's dangerous. Finds dangerous and alarming and does not want certainly to expose to Callie in a way she can't continue, but also Callie's interest in this. I think it's not just the what will Callie learn and what will she be exposed to and what is Lottie's agenda. There's like that extra very human element of, wait, I'm bringing you into this. Oh, yeah, yeah. Not her. This is my daughter. Yeah, very, very sad and intense. I think like,

Lottie taking Callie... Because Lottie's like, why are we here? Making it seem like it was, like, Callie's idea to go do all this. But obviously every choice that Lottie makes there is hers, the shoplifting. But even just, like, the idea of being at the mall, like, because of that scene we saw, the Alice tea party scene, like...

The necklace, Lottie is putting her in the position of one of the girls on the team. Yeah. Right? She is moving her into the physical settings, into the dressings and the garb of the people who were out in the wilderness and were a part of this thing. And, like, when she says to Callie...

See, I think that you, unlike most, have the capacity to answer that question. That is, if you choose to. Callie seemed so titillated by it. And it struck me as like, okay, we talked last week about, you know, not only the thinking about and tracking how Lottie talked about the baby, you know, you're going to change everything. And now she's like, okay.

I wasn't wrong. I just had the wrong kid. Callie's the Shauna kid who's going to change everything. But also, like, how does this compare what we're watching with Lottie and Callie to what we're seeing in the earlier timeline between Lottie and Travis or Lottie and Akilah? The way that she is trying to coax somebody into opting into belief. How she's grooming them. Grooming is the perfect word. It's really disturbing. It's so gross. Yeah. And so, of course,

poor Shauna freaked the fuck out. That's what you wear when you mark people to be killed and hunted. That's what my best friend wore. I'm 100% on Shauna's side. Get the fuck out. Yeah.

I just would have taken a moment to tell Callie what's going on. For sure. Because I don't think this is going to go the way that... No, certainly not. ...Shawna wants it to go. What do you think Lottie thinks... Like, what does Lottie mean when she says it never meant what you thought it meant? It means you're chosen. Or just sort of like that maybe the act of dying for the wilderness doesn't mean what you think it means. Right. It's an honor to...

To sacrifice yourself. Yeah. For the greater good. The thing that Lottie says, Dream Lottie says to Akilah, right? You have to do it or she'll die, we'll all die. It's an honor to sacrifice yourself to the it. And that quote on the blackboard that we already shared, like of all the ways to lose a person, death is the kindest. For that to be the message behind Lottie,

there's the like justification of the things that they do. Okay. So speaking of justification, let's wrap it up with Van and Ty. Our listener, Julian called this perfectly man that Van would get a diagnosis that her cancer was in remission and that this then would mean to them that the waiter dying, that's the price and the gift is Van's cancer in remission. And, um,

Van seems quite dubious and skeptical and frustrated, except by the time they get to Ozzy's, she seems like she's bought in. I didn't mind this. I like this sort of like Pee Wee's Playhouse tape, discover the locally, the local commercial. I think that's really funny. I think they could have done better.

The juxtaposition of a bubblegum pink sort of ice cream parlor and the no-eyed man is funny. I'm just like, there's just no... What ice cream parlor would make this man their mascot? It's horrifying. You're selling a product to children. It's horrifying. Absolutely terrifying. Yeah. What did she think about the...

This again connects to what we've discussed a couple times today about how where we find them in the past connects to where we find them in the present. There's like a little bit of a, it's not linear. Everybody moves in and out. But there is an inversion of where we kind of, I think our primary associations with them, which is like the Van was a believer and Ty was a... Circumstantial believer. Yeah.

Ty would buy in when circumstance pushed her to that. Yeah, Ty, like, was such a... I mean, Ty was like a wither. She would, like, make Van feel like shit about her belief initially. And then she starts going to the Lottie's prayer circle and she's like,

Well, I'm only going to go. We couldn't really say that she adopted him, but then it was like when she found herself in a moment of... That's what I'm saying. Yeah, need. Circumstantial. I thought you were saying that about Van. You're saying that about Ty. Oh, no, no, no. Ty. Yes, yes, exactly. So, yeah, like, speaks to the wilderness when she and Sean are trying to survive the storm. Yeah. So, we have seen Ty move into belief in the past. And then, of course, in the present...

Van cut her own dog's head off to make an offering. Ty cut her own. Ty cut her dog's head off to Sweet Biscuit. Still wondering what's up with Sweet Steve. Hope he's okay. To make an offering in the very creepy cavernous space in her basement. Van...

Quick to belief, also as recently as the premiere of this season, is the one at the Solstice Festival talking about sacrifices and miracles. And so we would expect Van to be like... Yes, but... So we don't have the full tracking of it. We have more information we need to learn in terms of what happened to them after they got back. Yeah. But the idea that, like, Ty leaves her... Mm-hmm.

and then she gets a cancer prognosis, terminal prognosis, would that not be enough to make anyone a non-believer? Well, that's my question. Is that when Van lost her family? I mean, that's 25 years. That's the question. I don't know. Is it when Ty left her? Is it when she got the cancer prognosis? Or does something happen in the wilderness that swings Van to the other side, which I think would be like, I'd be really interested in that, actually, in seeing that. And I think even though with Ty...

Even though we have now in both timelines seen her opt in and partake in these rituals, I still think she's the most effective character because of how vocal younger Ty was in rejecting this idea of the supernatural for so long. She's the most effective character for giving us that sense of, like, the power of the wilderness to pull them back under its sway at any point. Well, and it's sort of like when there's something you need. Yeah.

You can save the one you love. In this circumstantial thing, when she and Sean are lost in the storm, it's like life or death. Yes. Yeah. Your true colors come through. Or if it means she gets more time with Van. Right. Yeah. Then she believes. Right. If it means she gets to be a state senator and then quit her job. Okay. On the VHS tape, right before we got the creepy commercial, there was an ad for The Land of Make-Believe off Exit 12.

We've talked about the creepy bike, the derelict ice cream shop. Yeah. They spot a coyote with a dead rabbit in its jaws. At first I was like, oh, is it a wolf because of the wolf mauling? And also Ty was always seeing wolves in season one. I'm pretty sure it's a coyote though, right? But it definitely looked like a coyote, yeah. Um...

I put in the notes coyote question mark, but I Google image search coyote as I was like, I think that's a coyote. It looks like a coyote. Van is the one who's the closing line here. It's the closed captioning capitalizes it. Yeah. We know what it wants. It wants more. So Van and Ty murder spree.

I mean, we've had a lot of death already. So I guess the question is how much more? Because like, you know, it's not just the waiter and Biscuit and Jessica Roberts. It's like Matt in the woods, Adam, Travis. I mean, the body count is like...

Happening again 25 years later. It's all happening again. Okay. Theory ramification quarter. Yeah. Do you want to talk about this cabin daddy daughter theory really quickly? Hit me. Yeah. Okay. So last year. Yeah. There was tease that there was a bonus episode of Yellow Jackets. It never aired.

The showrunners confirmed that they did in fact shoot an extra episode. And at some point they said, we'll air it before season three. Right. And then it never aired. So like a euphoria-esque interstitial episode. Right, right, right. Ashley Lyle told Entertainment Weekly right when they got the first look at season three, quote, the truth is that there is a bonus episode, but we may need to wait a bit longer for it. Fans think that this is because it could...

Either air between season two and three or anywhere. Fans think this is like a standalone sort of... If you are a Lost fan... It's beyond the sea. Across the sea. Across the sea. If you're a Lost fan, across the sea. Yeah. Standalone flashback episode of Lore. Oh, man. And this would explain why Jason Ritter, Melanie Linsky's husband, who was supposed to be in the last season...

Wasn't in the last season because he might be the person that fans like to call cabin daddy. Yeah.

In a flashback episode, there is a behind-the-scenes photo of him in the Cabin Daddy jacket with a baby. And so fans are wondering if this is an origin story of the Cabin Daddy as played by Jason Ritter. We did get another actor playing Cabin Daddy, but Yellow Jackets loves a recast. They love a recast. Okay? It might be Joel McHale this season. Who's to say? So there's a missing episode that is Jason Ritter as the Cabin Daddy wearing

With, we think, a daughter. And if that daughter grew up to be Javi's friend who lives in the caves under the trees. I love it. Okay.

I love it. When will we get this, though? I don't know. They might never air it. Because what if they've now decided instead of it being like a Rousseau-esque figure from Lost who's just been in the trees, now we've got supply dumps. Now we've got some sort of organization involved. That makes me nervous. Like they don't know what the story is. Uh-huh. Oh, no. Well, no matter what.

Jason Ritter is not only on Matlock, which I have not watched, but making fantastic TikToks and Instagram reels about his cat, Donut, which I have watched all of and fallen in their grave. Oh, Jason Ritter has been the king of TikTok and Twitter for so long. Great videos. And he follows me on Twitter as well. Never leave Twitter, Jason Ritter, you're the best. I love him. I've loved him since Joan of Arcadia. Okay, so the next episode is called 12 Angry Girls and One Drunk Travis. Uh...

Can we assume that this is the trial of Coach Ben?

I think that's a great assumption. It is an update on, you know, preseason when the four episode titles dropped because people got their screeners. I just assumed this was a sequel to the Doom Come to Orgy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alas. Trial, frankly, I think is the best that Coach Ben can hope for. Well, let's talk about who would be sympathetic to him. Mari, potentially, if she decides to not be an asshole. Yeah. Nat. She owes him something. Yeah. That's certainly true. Nat. Yeah, she's, yeah.

Misty, who seemed kind of excited when she was like, Coach Ben's alive. Yeah. Van, Akilah, or Shauna, whom he saved from the aforementioned poison gas. Yeah. Though, I mean, how grateful will they be? Van and Shauna were like, let's go kill this fucker. That's six, though. It could be a hung jury if it's six. Oh, boy. And that's a lot of named ones because rando girls who we don't know.

Do they even get to participate? I'm not sure all these girls. I feel like somebody has to advocate for Ben if it's going to be a trial. And 12 angry girls invoking 12 angry men, like that's a jury debate. So to have them debate over maybe not just his guilt. Did he burn down the cabin? Right. But also what's the punishment for that? Right.

Yeah. And will they actually be able to in the process of fact finding and debating and presenting the arguments for the prosecution of the defense?

Will they be able to remain open-minded enough to follow what everybody is saying to a potential path of insight about what maybe actually did happen? Or is everybody going to be so guided and blinded by their rage that there's no room? I feel pretty strongly that it's going to be an upsetting groupthink moment. And also just like an upsettingly watching – even watching the girls like Nat who might want something different for Coach Ben. Yeah.

go with a popular opinion because I've been watching Traitors on Peacock and this happens in every Traitors vote where it's just like, no matter what you think, you want to vote with a group or else you've put a target on your own back. Yeah. I think for Nat, that's the most... I mean, that would be an interesting dynamic for any of the characters. Ultimately, I think Misty's probably the only one who would be like, I don't really care what you think of me. I'm going to say something unpopular, but like... I mean, she does care, obviously, deeply. Nat has something to protect now. You know? Nat is...

was already lying. And now that will surely come off. It was already kind of alluded to as we talked about here. So will Nat feel like she can't maybe do the thing that she wants to do and believe is right because she has to protect her position of power, a position she didn't even want. That would be, I think, a really interesting moment of like corruption for Nat. I don't want it. And guilt that she will carry for betraying Ben in this moment. Okay. Best needle drop.

Make your own kind of music. Okay. And then the last references we've already gone through. I continue to feel like the sound of the woods is very Smoke Monster-esque. Make your own kind of music. Sean's minivan doing the Dharma van journey of the grassy knoll. If you've never seen Lost, one of my favorite episodes, top five episode, Trisha Tanaka is dead. There's a very famous sequence where they're driving a VW van around a grassy knoll to the tune of Shambhala. So if you hear...

Downtown by Petrilla Clark or Shambhala by Three Dog Night, you'll know they're doing another Lost reference. And that's something we could possibly look forward to. Anything else we missed? I don't think so. I mean, probably. But that's what next week's for. Hobbitsanddragonsgmail.com. We enjoyed your foie gras and dislocated kneecap emails. Thank you.

To Steve Allman. Thank you, Steve. Thank you to John Richter. Thanks, John. Thanks to Arjuna Rangapal. Thanks, Arjuna. And thanks to Jemmy Adinaran. Thanks, Jem. What a crew. I know. What a crew we have out here in the wilderness with us. The best. We'll be back next week with some Daredevil. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And more Yellow Jackets. Can't wait. See you soon. Bye.