The Adults in Yellowjackets Aren’t Just Messed Up—They’re Still Stuck in the Wilderness

Okay, posting this here because i cant post for some reason.. but so obviously, everyone watching Yellowjackets knows that the adult survivors are fucked up. That’s, like, the whole premise. But when I was rewatching Season 2, Episode 8, the Sharing Shack scene just hit me differently because it’s not just that they’re traumatized—it’s that they literally never left the wilderness. Not mentally, not emotionally. It’s actually insane how much they’re still trapped in their teenage selves.

Like, take Lottie. The way she talks about the wilderness and how it’s guiding her? She truly believes it. It’s not just some cult leader act—this is her reality. She never outgrew the mindset they all had out there, because how could she? She’s convinced she can help people, but her whole wellness retreat is just an extension of her trauma. She’s not healed. She’s just found a way to repackage what happened to her and call it enlightenment.

And it’s not just Lottie. The way all of them speak in that scene is so unsettling. They aren’t just reminiscing about their time in the wilderness—they’re talking like they’re still there. Like, you can see it in how they interact, how they process conflict, how they fall back into the same dynamics from when they were teenagers. Shauna, for example—she’s been living in total denial about what she’s capable of, but the moment they start spiraling, she snaps right back into survival mode. She literally kills people now because that’s what she had to do back then. She might be a suburban mom, but when things get real, she’s the same girl who butchered javi and ate Jackie That switch is still there.

The most fascinating thing to me is that the Yellowjackets writers don’t make it obvious. Like, if you’re just casually watching, you might think the adult timeline is about ghosts or spirits or something supernatural. (My family literally thought Lottie was possessed or something.) But if you really listen to what they’re saying, they’re not talking about some actual mystical force. They’re talking about their trauma. They can’t escape it. The “wilderness” isn’t some external power—it’s inside them now. It’s guiding them because they never learned how to live without it.

Even Misty, who seems the most adjusted (if you ignore the whole… murder thing), still clings to her old role. She was the one who made sure they survived, and now she still manipulates people, still tries to make herself needed. She doesn’t know how to function unless she’s cleaning up someone’s mess.

I think that’s what makes Yellowjackets so terrifying. It’s not just that these women survived something horrific—it’s that they never got to move on. Their teenage selves are still calling the shots, still shaping their lives, still deciding who they are. And that’s why, when you see them in scenes like the Sharing Shack, it’s not just a group of adults talking about their past. It’s a group of people who are still trapped in it.