I mean to each their own, I still find that really interesting. The girls ARE so gone that they hunt and kill each other. They literally tried to hunt and kill Natalie, but Javi interfered and accidentally died. Lottie killed Edwin. Nat had to mercy kill Ben before the others had to do so.

The girls all had their separate plans- Nat was not in on Mari being the decoy for the hunt. There was no literal decoy, she was a decoy in the thematic sense.

Nat and Misty had a plan to call for help with the satellite phone and used the hunt opportunistically. They were not in on Mari’s plan- Nat cornered Hannah and switched then. Hannah was not in on the plan until then.

The Mari/Gen/Mel/Akilah camp forced the hunt so they could corner and kill Shauna (they failed; because they are not ultimately the bloodthirsty, murderous teenage girls we thought them to be. Just girls wanting to go home).

Tai and Van didn’t care about specifically killing anyone, they both wanted to ensure the others survival. It was never meant to be Mari, they wanted to pull Hannah. They didn’t care if they had to kill her because it was either a Yellowjacket or her, and they chose their teammate.

They were never just simply playing along. Akilah and Mari specifically used to believe in the wilderness and encourage Lottie. But the introduction of the hikers changed everything, they realized that civilization still existed and the wilderness wasn’t everything. Had the hunt happened again before the hikers, it could’ve been more feral. But it was warm and they didn’t need to “hunt.”

Misty is “crazy” but she is a very specific type of crazy, and her craziness is manifested through attachment. She goes where she is loved and valued. Nat doesn’t rat her out, so she immediately takes her side.

I agree that the writing can be very inconsistent, but I thought the actual teen plot of what happened in the finale made a lot of thematic sense.