‘Yellowjackets’ Supernatural Events Explained

One of the most divisive questions you can ask a Yellowjackets fan is whether the events in the show are supernatural or have a logical basis behind them. The longer the show goes on, the more supernatural the events appear—and yet, many of these seemingly inexplicable occurrences have already been given an explanation.

The screams are frogs. The Man With No Eyes came from a commercial. The list goes on and on. In truth, for every seemingly supernatural event in Yellowjackets there’s a far more realistic alternative. From other strange noises to the groups’ hallucinations and drawings, here’s what we think is really going on.

10

Lottie and the Bear

One of the strangest things to happen during season 1 involved Lottie Matthews (Courtney Eaton) and a bear. At the height of the girls’ starvation, the bear made its way to their cabin, where it promptly lay down in front of Lottie and allowed her to slaughter it. The girls took this as a gift from the Wilderness, and at first glance, it’s hard to argue otherwise. However, a second glance reveals an equally likely (and perhaps equally strange) answer to the bear’s behavior.

Bear With Us…

While it’s possible that the Wilderness offered the girls the bear, it’s just as likely (if not more likely) that it was simply disoriented. More specifically, it’s possible that the bear ate some of the shrooms that Misty used on the others, or it could have been exposed to the gases in the cave that the girls found in Season 3. In both cases, this would have caused the bear to act strangely, possibly leading it to find the girls and fall down before them. Certainly, a bear getting high and essentially serving itself up as lunch was a fortunate coincidence for the girls, but it still seems the more realistic option.

9

Mari and the Dripping Sound

During Season 2 of Yellowjackets, the girls’ starvation worsened, and their sanity slipped along with it. Several times, Mari mentioned hearing a dripping sound that, at first, none of the other girls could hear. Toward the end of the season, a few of the others began to hear it as well, before Mari suffered a horrifying vision. To a Wilderness believer, this vision seemed to portend a terrible fate to come, but what if the reasoning behind the dripping was something much simpler?

Auditory Hallucinations

Much like Akilah who thought her dead rat was alive, we assume Mari was hallucinating due to hunger. Auditory hallucinations can be just as convincing as visual ones, and once Mari mentioned the dripping enough times, it’s possible the other girls convinced themselves they heard it, too. It’s also possible that the dripping sound stemmed from something real, but not dangerous, such as the snow melting around them. In both cases, Mari’s vision simply reinforces the idea that she was hallucinating the noise in some manner, since said vision could have resulted from her hunger as well.

8

The Symbol

From trees to the cabin floor to Taissa’s shrine, the symbol of the Wilderness is everywhere. A triangle body with a circle on top, multiple lines extending on each side, and a hook-like shape at the bottom, it’s hard to understand what the symbol is trying to depict. However, just because a symbol is difficult to understand doesn’t make it supernatural. Additionally, viewers haven’t been shown who drew the symbols, but that doesn’t mean that the Wilderness had a hand in creating them.

Other Symbolic Answers

We already know that someone was living in the Wilderness before the girls (the fan-named “Cabin Daddy”), so it’s entirely possible he drew the symbols. It’s also possible that Kodiak was responsible, since we see him walking past a tree with one. In this case, it’s likely that they serve as a way for him to navigate the woods. In fact, there are so many other things the symbol can stand for and so many other ways it could have gotten there. Regardless of whether it’s a hobo symbol or an underground map, it doesn’t seem supernatural, just mysterious.

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7

The Drawings

Throughout the series, several characters have been shown drawing dark and disturbing images, including Javi, Travis, and Sammy. Many of the other characters have assumed these drawings are omens of sinister things to come. However, as of now, the drawings haven’t really predicted much of anything. Additionally, anything they did predict (or perhaps will predict) could be easily explained.

Retroactive Prophecies

It’s easy to apply meaning to something retroactively. In the case of Travis’ drawing of four figures, fans have speculated that it’s meant to depict Ben’s body and the three frog scientists. However, it could also represent four other people in a myriad of different situations—the image is simply being applied to Ben and the scientists because they fit the pattern.

Relatedly, Javi’s drawings seemed to depict things he saw while he was alone in the Wilderness, and Sammy’s might relate to things he saw from his mother’s alter ego. In other words, no one has said, “this image means x will happen” before that event occurred—it’s always been tied back after the fact, revealing simple pattern recognition, not something supernatural.

6

Akilah’s Visions

Throughout Season 3, Akilah has had several visions, including one in which Ben was the girls’ bridge back to civilization and another featuring a terrifying three-eyed bear. After Ben was killed, the girls were found by Kodiak and the frog scientists, which seemed to imply that his death was the answer to them going home. However, in the most literal sense, Ben didn’t need to die for the scientists to find them. In fact, his death might be the exact reason why their stay in the Wilderness becomes prolonged.

Multiple Interpretations

The simple fact is that Akilah’s visions haven’t really been proven true yet, or even fully dissected. In the case of the bear, it’s hard to determine what the vision “predicts,” and when it comes to Ben being the bridge, it’s possible Akilah felt guilty about condemning Ben and was now trying to subconsciously find a way for him to survive. Plus, Travis outright said that the Wilderness didn’t choose Akilah, he was simply trying to get Lottie to stop harassing him by saying it had. It’s not Akilah’s fault that Travis made her believe in her visions, but now that he’s given her reason not to, we have reason as well.

5

Lottie’s Visions and Possession

More than any other character, Lottie appears to believe in and worship the Wilderness. Several times, she’s claimed to hear it speaking to her, most noticeably in the cabin when it seemingly possessed her. During this moment, she began saying horrifying things in French, a language she apparently didn’t really know. At the same time, the window flew open, and the candles went out, all which seemed to imply something supernatural—or once again, coincidental.

Mental Illness and Unfortunate Timing

Toward the end of Season 1, Lottie speaks in French yet again, suggesting that her knowledge of the language might be better than Jackie suspected. Additionally, it’s shown that the weather is pretty intense, which easily explains the window flying open, and in turn, the candles being blown out. Plus, we’re aware that Lottie takes Loxipene, which seems to be a play on a medication for schizophrenia, Loxapine. To summarize, Lottie likely believes she’s hearing the Wilderness, but this is likely due to her not taking her medication, not because she actually is.

It should also be noted that Lottie seemingly foresaw her own death after Laura Lee baptized her. Specifically, she saw a stairway littered with candles, similar to where she actually died. However, other elements of her vision—such as the stag—are nowhere to be seen, while others, like the stairs themselves, are by no means unusual or uncommon. Additionally, it’s possible Lottie was trying to recreate the vision herself as opposed to having stumbled upon it, meaning that, once again, her visions weren’t supernatural, only tragic.

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4

Dead Birds

During Season 2, episode 3, the girls leave the cabin only to find dozens of dead birds. They’re not sure how they got there, but Lottie suggests they collect them as “blessings.” If that weren’t creepy enough, simultaneously, Shauna gets a nose bleed. Together, this seems to suggest something dark is at hard—or possibly, something scientific.

Sad, but not Supernatural

Given the other toxic fumes on the island, it’s possible the birds were simply poisoned, which caused them to fall mid-flight. Similarly, Misty suggests that the iron in the ground could have thrown off their sense of navigation, leading to the same fate. As for Shauna’s nose bleed, it could have been triggered by stress, hormones, or whatever caused the birds to die. Like many other items on this list, dead birds are a scary sight, but that doesn’t make them a supernatural one.

3

Tai’s Sleepwalking and Dark Tai

Since Season 1, Tai’s sleepwalking has been one of the central mysteries of Yellowjackets. It’s led her to kiss Van, kill her dog, and nearly stumble off a cliff, among other things. Additionally, while she sleepwalks, it appears that Tai is being controlled by someone else, a darker version of herself. This all leads to the questions of what/who is controlling Tai, why, and importantly, how.

Stress and Trauma

In many ways, the appearance of Dark Tai is one of the harder events in the show to logically explain. Potentially, Tai could have Dissociative Identity Disorder, but actress Tawny Cypress has confirmed this wasn’t the intent. However, it’s still possible that her stress has led her to develop a temporary fugue state where she’s acting on her darker impulses. This version of her might even be a “realer” version that she’s tried to suppress, but can no longer control.

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2

Van’s Phone Call

Van and Taissa’s relationship is one of the most important in all of Yellowjackets. And yet, things haven’t exactly been paradise in Season 3. Between Van’s cancer and the resurgence of Dark Tai, the two are on shaky ground—which might explain the bizarre phone call Van seemingly receives from “real Tai.”

Van’s Cancer

Admittedly, the scene in which Tai calls Van on an unplugged landline is one of the stranger events in the show. How did the phone work and how did Van hear “real Tai” when she didn’t yet know Dark Tai had taken over? Simply, and tragically, this incident might be a sign that Van’s cancer is spreading throughout her brain. Hallucinations wouldn’t be anything new for this show, and medical-induced ones, like with Tai’s grandmother, also seem fairly common. Plus, there’s every reason to suspect that Van did know Tai was being controlled by Dark Tai and that this was her subconscious’ was of making her confront the truth.

1

Shared Hallucination in the Cave

During Season 3, the girls wander into a cave in search of Coach Ben. Three of them—Shauna, Akilah, and Van—accidentally inhale gas and wind up hallucinating. While the individual hallucinations make sense, what’s harder to explain is the shared vision they have soon after, one involving Jackie, a teacherly Lottie, and a painful, potentially deadly slap bracelet.

It Was Always Us

At first, the idea of the three girls sharing a hallucination seems bizarre, but it’s not as farfetched as you might think. Maybe the shared portion occurred as Ben was pulling them to safety, at which point they heard one another’s mumblings and had similar visions. It’s also possible that the visions had some overlap but were fairly distinct, but the girls are focusing on the parts that were the same. They might even be convincing each other that they all saw the same thing, much the same way they’ve convinced each other that everything else is supernatural.

In the end, it’s possible that some of the events going on are supernatural. It’s also possible that, as Shauna said, “there was no ‘it’ (the Wilderness). It was always us.” If that’s the case, then the girls are blaming the supernatural as a way to cope with what they did—and with the appearance of Hilary Swank’s character, audiences might finally learn whether the Wilderness was real after all, and more importantly, whether it can ever be truly escaped.