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10 Burning Questions After the ‘Yellowjackets’ Season 2 Finale

The season may have ended, but “Yellowjackets” isn’t done with winter. After devising their own methods for ritual sacrifice and eating their own to survive, the stranded teens just lost their home and are in for many more grueling months in the wilderness — to say nothing of the inner turmoil they’ll carry as adults. The adult Yellowjackets may have just escaped criminal charges, but they’re not out of the woods either, and down a Natalie (Juliette Lewis) moving forward.

Buckle in, “Yellowjackets” fans, because it’s going to be a while before these characters return. Until then, here are 10 burning questions after the “Yellowjackets” Season 2 finale that we hope to see answered in Season 3.

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1. Who and what is the Antler Queen?

Looking back, the main reason anyone believed that Lottie (Courtney Eaton) was the Antler Queen was because the “Yellowjackets” audience expected Season 1 to answer that question. Lottie was undoubtedly a prime candidate with her wilderness connection and uncanny visions, but we all know what happens when we collectively assume.

The Season 2 finale positions Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) as Antler Queen, but we’re all a little older and wiser now — Nat taking over as leader doesn’t remotely guarantee that she’s the one behind the chain mail in Season 1, Episode 1. Theories have circulated that the Antler Queen rotates with each ritual, that this person is theoretically an exception to the hunt when it’s their turn. The Antler Queen also gives the others permission to eat, but because Travis (Kevin Alves) did this “Storytelling” fans have also suggested that the Antler Queen is the person closest to whoever was sacrificed (similarly, Shauna’s “She wants us to” in Season 2, Episode 2 is what invited the others to eat Jackie).

2. What changed everyone’s minds?

This is a minor qualm and one that will probably not be answered because it can be chalked up to trauma and starvation, but Season 2 did see quite an ideological leap from Shauna (Sophie Nélisse), Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown), and Natalie in particular. They’ve also still got that team mindset where everyone is part of a whole, and that teen mindset which is encourages fitting in more than standing out. It’s not hard to understand their change of heart, but worth hearing more about it — or seeing them experience doubt in Season 3.

3. Will Shauna snap?

A teen girl bundled up in layered clothing, writing in a journal by candlelight; still from "Yellowjackets"
Sophie Nélisse as Teen Shauna in “Yellowjackets”Kimberley French/SHOWTIME

The bigger question here is when. It has become nigh impossible to ignore that Shauna Shipman (and Sadecki, in the other timeline) is a certified psycho — well, not certified, like Lottie, which makes it even harder to pinpoint and scarier that she simply walks among us. As the only one handy with a knife (can someone else not learn this??), she’s grown familiar with blood, guts, and gore, her role as Javi’s (Luciano Leroux) butcher not just entrusted but assumed — taken for granted. Before the fire, Shauna was writing in her journal that “I was the only one willing to do what it took to keep us all fed,” (again, what she is talking about here is dismembering the corpse of a child they all watched drown) as justification that the wilderness should have chosen her and not Natalie.

Everyone has suffered in the wilderness, but few if any surviving Yellowjackets would disagree that Shauna has borne the worst of it, from Jackie’s death (Ella Purnell) to losing her baby, all while consistently helping keep everyone fed. She’s not wrong to think it should have been her — and to feel the old Jackie insecurities triggered — but to what fresh heights will this take her madness?

4. How the heck are they going to survive?

Obviously they will, and obviously the food part will be taken care of by those survivors unaccounted for in the present timeline, but let’s not undersell the importance of heat and shelter here. “Yellowjackets” Season 2 hammered home the ferocity of winter — heck, Season 1 gave an early warning when Jackie froze to death in her sleep. They are going to need 24/7 fires (The thing that destroyed their home! What could possibly be triggering about that?) and sentinels (in case Steven Kreuger’s Coach Scott shows up to finish the job). They may or may not have cooking utensils, mugs, or buckets anymore, and to whoever grabbed that deck of cards instead of any of these essentials… I’m watching you.

5. What’s next for Ben?

A man in a yellow and navy blue athletic jacket and backward baseball cap, crying as he stands on a crutch outside in the snow; still from "Yellowjackets"
Just a sad boi who tried to murder 10 children (Steven Kreuger as Ben Scott in “Yellowjackets”)Kailey Schwerman/SHOWTIME

This man more than likely tried to burn a bunch of children alive — although there’s a teeny, tiny chance that he accidentally dropped a lit match, or started the fire and immediately regretted it but it was too late to put it out. I do think he went to the cabin solely intending to steal matches and firewood, but that seeing Nat crowned leader made him act. She’s supposed to be the rational one, the one he wanted to save, and if she’s gone he doesn’t want to save any of them — he wants the opposite, and he wanted it over with.

With that, Coach Scott has officially tendered his resignation, but he hasn’t been killed or eaten — kudos to him for surviving way longer than I expected, but I fear that how long Ben survives is directly correlated with how horrifically he will die. Will he try to kill the kids again? Will he have a change of heart during winter and return to them, or will the girls and Travis independently decide to hunt this man who already abandoned them? Will Misty finally eat this man’s high-calorie butt meat and savor every bite??

6. What happens when you refuse to pick a card?

Adult Lottie (Simone Kessell) hinted at this in the finale; does refusal automatically make one the sacrifice? Or does it create some added responsibility — something so uninviting that risking death is the preferable option? (I do think it’s the first one and that basically the choice is between certain death and potential death. Fun!)

7. What’s the story in the present?

Not the actual story but the story these characters will have to tell themselves and the authorities. A lot of violence and crime just converged at Lottie’s compound, which is definitely a cult and which Misty pointed out probably doesn’t pay taxes. Natalie’s death, Lottie’s gunshot, and the body of Kevyn Tan (Alex Wyndham) don’t actually have anything to do with each other — except the Yellowjackets link. If I am a reporter in the “Yellowjackets” universe — heck, even if I’m one of those EMTs — every cell in my body is screaming suspicion. And who’s this rando with Misty Quigley, and why are Shauna’s husband and daughter here (one or both of whose finger prints are on the gun that shot Lottie)?

8. Will Saracusa want revenge?

A mustached man in a plaid shirt and jacket, looking worried; still from "Yellowjackets"
John Reynolds in “Yellowjackets”Kimberley French/SHOWTIME

His hands are tied with the Adam Martin (Peter Gadiot) investigation and fear that he’ll end up like his partner, but I also can’t imagine that the man who sniffed a condom just to prove that he was right won’t do something brash and headstrong when he forgets that tiny Walter Tattersall (Elijah Wood) can kill him and put him in a car trunk. And I welcome it!

9. What happens in summer?

The “Yellowjackets” audience knows these kids are in for a second winter, but they don’t. In Season 1, summer was a time of plentiful food supply, of swimming in the lake and journaling by the river and the scent of optimism in the air.

That’s going to look different after this particular winter.

Second summer will carry the weight of everything that happened during first winter, things which will seem so unimaginable during the warm months that characters will undoubtedly repress if not fully forget as much as they can. Second summer will be pragmatic and survivalist; it’s a chance to once again look for rescue, or at the very least to gather animal pelts and fur to stock up on for the cold’s dreaded return.

10. Who’s next?

We know who it’s not — or do we? Natalie drew the queen in the very first ritual, but the wilderness “chose” Javi. When Shauna drew it in the present, Natalie ended up dead. Part of the hunt’s purpose is to reveal its true target, and that may or may not be the person who picked the card.

But Akilah (Nia Sondaya), Melissa (Jenna Burgess), and Gen (Mya Lowe) are toast.

“Yellowjackets” is now streaming on Showtime and with the Showtime add-on to Hulu, Prime Video, and Paramount+.

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