Yellowjackets’ 10 biggest shockers

Legbreakers, Doomscoming, “Snackie”, flight fireball, RIP Biscuit and more – we count down Yellowjackets’ most gag-worthy moments. 

Yellowjackets isn’t just a show, it’s an addiction. This tale of a teenage soccer team going feral in the Canadian wilderness in the 19 months following a plane crash – and the impact on the survivors back home 25 years later – has the four C’s that make for compulsive viewing: Cannibalism, Cults, Clues, and Comedy!  

Watch the trailer for Yellowjackets Season 2

As the second season continues with new episodes each Tuesday, Citizen Detectives the world over are scouring every scene to explore the show’s mysteries. Who came back alive and who got eaten? What happened to the Wilderness Baby? What does The Symbol mean? How did they get home? Who took care of Javi for two months? What’s out there in the woods and what did they bring back with them? And in the words of Misty Quiggly, “Was it a girl poo, or a boy one?” 

Even if you aren’t playing detective, Yellowjackets is gripping TV. Here are 10 of the most shocking scenes that had us rewinding and rewatching… 

SPOILER ALERT 

This article covers Yellowjackets up to season 2, episode 5. 

Break a leg, Taissa! (Season 1, episode 1) 

Taissa identifies Allie as the weakest member of the team and ambushes her on the soccer pitch, accidentally breaking her leg in a gnarly compound fracture (whoops). Well, at least she can’t let down the rest of the team at the National Championships. It’s a hint that Taissa has a vicious survivor inside her even before the crash and cannibalism. Series creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson have talked about his moment being a tone defining scene for the series, foreshadowing just how vicious it’s going to get and how fragile the human body is. 

Crashed, crushed & chopped (Season 1, episode 2)

Yellowjackets’ crash scene delivers pure terror, chaos and confusion in a seven-layer trauma cake: Javi and Travis get to see their father Coach Martinez fall out of the tree that he was impaled on after getting sucked out of the plane, one of the crew runs around burning and screaming, a metal beam pins Yellowjackets team member Rachel to her seat through her neck, Jackie drags Shauna out of the plane while she’s trying to stop Van, who’s trapped in her seat, from burning to death, and the wing crushes Coach Ben’s leg till it looks a half-chewed gummy worm. Then Misty strides up and amputates Ben’s leg with an axe. And from there, it just gets worse… 

Lunch with Satan (Season 1, episode 6) 

Jackie’s grieving parents have been inviting Shauna and her husband Jeff to birthday lunches in memory of their dead daughter every year since the Yellowjackets returned. Touching… if you enjoy passive aggressive putdowns over tuna quiche. Every word from Jackie’s mom Mrs Taylor drops a heap of trash on Shauna like: 

“We’re reading Elena Ferrante in our book club, and it reminds me so much of you girls. It can’t always have been easy for you, Shauna. Jackie was just so gifted. I can’t imagine how exhausting it must’ve been, always comparing yourself to someone so beautiful and smart.” (If you want to explore just how insulting this is, watch My Brilliant Friend on Showmax). It looks like someone really wants to be chased into a pit filled with sticks! Finally, though, Jeff cracks and announces that he was cheating on Jackie with Shauna and that he married Shauna because she’s extraordinary. Jeff, we might even forgive you for being the guy whose wife has to clean skid marks out of his underwear in episode one.  

InVancible! (Season 1, episode 7/8) 

Van reluctantly follows Taissa on a mission to find a way back to civilization that seems doomed to fail even before it crosses the “river of blood”. The girls have heard wolves in the woods and Taissa is meant to be taking first watch, but she dissociates and her sleepwalking, dirt devouring alter-ego is crouching in a tree when she wakes to the sound of wolves attacking the camp and the girls screaming. Taissa beats the wolf attacking Van into a paste, but not before it tears open Van’s cheek – the one that was burned in the plane crash – exposing her teeth. Thinking Van to be dead, the girls set her on a funeral pyre in episode 8 only to have her wake up, and wryly ask them, “Fire? Really?” Later she has to live through Akilah stitching her face back together without anaesthetic. PS: a stunt double was playing Van during the attack because they used real wolves – who kept wagging their tails because they were doing such a good job!  

Flight fireball (Season 1 episode 8) 

As autumn sets in, the Yellowjackets find a small plane in working condition near the cabin they’re sheltering in. And when sweet, churchgoing Laura Lee finds the manual, she swots up on piloting the plane. Determined to go for help, she persuades her teammates to help cut a runway through the brush, and against all expectations, she makes it into the air. But as the team is running with joy through the woods to watch her, the plane catches fire under the passenger seat, fills with smoke and explodes in a fireball over the lake in front of them. Did the woods not want her to leave, or should the Yellowjackets have picked up the maintenance manual first? 

Doomscoming Bacchanal (Season 1, episode 9) 

Misty was just trying to get Coach Ben high on mushrooms so he’d let go of his “inhibitions” and let her explore his no-no zone. She didn’t mean to start a blood orgy, guys!  

The girls fall in with Jackie’s suggestion that they throw their own prom, nicknamed Doomscoming, and everyone whips out the fancy dresses from their luggage and they go to town adding twig, bone and rag decor for this year’s Blair Witch-core theme. But when they eat the mushroom stew, and Jackie sneaks off to lose her virginity with Travis, the girls go on an absolute rager. Dripping gory trails of crushed berry alcohol from their mouths like maenads, they all kiss and sexually assault Travis before stripping him and chasing him through the woods like a stag, screaming and baying for his blood. Shauna’s about to sacrifice Travis – who has a pinecone shoved in his mouth like a piggy – by slitting his throat when Natalie intervenes.  

Fentanyl farewell (Season 1, episode 10)  

During her campaign for senate Taissa secretly hires fixer Jessica Roberts to test whether any of her fellow Yellowjackets are going to talk to the press about their secret rituals in the woods. But wires get crossed and Misty Quiggly becomes convinced that Jessica is the person blackmailing the Yellowjackets. After keeping Jessica chained to a bed in her basement for a few days, Misty lets Jessica believe that she’s talked Misty into turning on the Yellowjackets and sharing her story. Psych! Fresh from dismembering the corpse of Shauna’s murdered lover Adam (YOLO), Misty sets Jennifer free and tricks her into taking the remains of her pack of cigarettes, which Misty has laced with fentanyl. Jennifer is just congratulating herself on her own cunning when she lights up, but a few puffs later she realises that she has been outwitted, and she dies at the side of the road a few kilometres from Misty’s house.  

All dogs go to heaven (Season 1, episode 10) 

Adult Taissa seems to have it all – a loving wife, adorable son, beautiful house, a killer wardrobe, and a thriving political career. But she’s secretly cracking under the strain as her opponent runs a vicious campaign filled with insinuations about her time in the wilderness. Taissa’s son Sammy seems troubled and talks about a woman watching him from the tree outside his room, and calls her “the bad one” – which turns out to be the “bad” version of Taissa. And that’s bad news when the family dog Biscuit goes missing. In this episode Taissa’s wife Simone finds her hidden altar behind a grating in the basement. Bad Taissa has beheaded Biscuit and plopped his head on her altar under The Symbol, with candles, a heart and Sammy’s mutilated doll, which Taissa confiscated from him as a punishment for his defiance. Biscuit’s rotting, shaggy head will haunt us.  

“Snackie” (Season 2, episode 2) 

Jackie freezes to death overnight while she’s sulking outside the cabin, and the girls have to keep her corpse in the cabin’s meat storage locker because you can’t dig a grave in frozen ground. Over 2 months Shauna visits Jackie daily for ghost conversations, and even does her makeup (terribly), and pockets a frozen ear after it falls off. She’s starting to take little secret nibbles of the corpse before Taissa demands that they burn it. But thanks to either eerily perfect weather conditions, or supernatural meddling, instead of going up in flames, Jackie slowly cooks to perfection in a long, slow barbecue that wafts a delicious scent into the cabin that wakes the starving, sleeping girls. As Coach Ben watches in horror, they surround Jackie’s corpse and after a few tentative prods, tear into the flesh with teeth and claws. While Ben sees the feasting, crouching beasts in rags, in some of the girls’ minds, they’re around a banquet table dressed in togas with golden wreaths.  

PS: The crew spread Jackie “meat” made of jackfruit over a dummy and covered it in rice paper soaked in barbeque sauce and crisped in an air fryer for the skin. It was a strange two days of filming. 

Two truths & a die (Season 2, episode 5)  

Crystal might be Misty’s first-ever true friend. But as they’re swapping secrets while out in the woods doing chores, Misty overshares and reveals that she broke the plane’s emergency transmitter after the crash. This is not like revealing that you saw your parents having sex and weren’t grossed out. When Crystal turns on her, Misty warns her that if she tells anyone, Misty will kill her. Her face backs up the threat so terrifyingly that Crystal accidentally steps back off the edge of the cliff they’re throwing their waste over. Bye bye, bestie! But also, look out, Walter. Misty’s modern-day Citizen Detective partner seems to have no idea what he’s digging up when he tries to bond with Misty over truth sharing games…until he tells her that he is just fine with the idea of her being a serial killer.  

No, truly. 

Is there any line that Yellowjackets won’t cross? Maybe. At SCADTV Fest actress Melanie Lynsky, who plays Shauna insisted that she’d quit the show if the girls eat her character Shauna’s baby – but we do see Shauna dream about birthing and eating a roast chicken. Bon appetit. 

Watch Yellowjackets season 1 and season 2 on Showmax now 

Read more about the Yellowjackets cast and storyline here (Season 1) and here (Season 2).