Yellowjackets “Sic Transit Gloria Mundi”

Can I just take a moment to say that this has been one damn fine first season of television?  Because it is.

To be clear, let’s just start off by saying it’s a damn good thing Showtime renewed this one for another season because there are far more questions than answers after all this.  Yeah, there are some reveals, particularly in the present.  Taissa’s wife Simone learns Taissa is far more messed up than I suspect either of them thought.  Misty let the reporter go only to have Jessica dying later from what looked like a poisoned cigarette because Misty ain’t that stupid when it comes to manipulation.  Shauna and Jeff probably have far more secrets than any of the others, and Shauna managed to successfully keep a lot of it from the other women even at a class reunion.

And yeah, it looks like as of right now that most of the girls didn’t come back from that trip.  The opening scenes from the pilot did suggest at some point they started to kill each other as part of some sort of cannibal cult thing, but the reunion only shows Shauna, Natalie, Taissa, and Misty are present.  One other woman is there, but that’s Allie, the girl whose leg was broken by particularly aggressive play in the pilot and didn’t make the trip.  I know Travis made it back even if he didn’t make it much past the second episode in the present, and a last second reveal shows that Lottie is apparently out there somewhere.

In the past, Lottie kills a bear that wandered into their camp without trying too hard, and she starts a cult with Misty and Van.

Then again, the only person anyone might listen to that was calling out Lottie on what sounded like BS was Jackie, and she’s dead by the episode’s end after a particularly brutal argument with Shauna led her to try and spend the night outside.  She freezes to death, but despite the fact I am adoring pretty much everything Christina RIcci is doing in this, the scenes in the past where Shauna and Jackie finally tell each other what they really think of their friendship (sort of, looks like it was more of a moment of anger that neither girl really meant given how the episode plays out) and Jackie’s death scene as she sees everyone being her friend until she spots the late Laura Lee in the crowd telling her death ain’t so bad really hits hard.

Oh, and since Lottie is still alive somewhere, it looks like she still has a cult, may have been behind the death of Travis, and she had Natalie kidnapped.

Would this show kill off Juliette Lewis in season two?  I doubt it, but I’ll have to wait and find out.  In the meantime, this was a fantastic diversion as I waited for other Tuesday shows to come back.

And which show would that be?  Well, I write these in advance, and neither of them are out just yet, but it looks like The Umbrella Academy and Only Murders in the Building will both return before this goes live.  However, Umbrella Academy comes first, and I won’t be surprised if it’s the last season mostly because I am surprised Netflix gave it a third.  They’re kinda like that over there.

Besides, I am mostly curious to see how the series handles Eliot Page’s transition.  As much as I like both shows, that’s what I want to see a bit more.  I suspect it’ll be both weird and appropriate, so I’m up for that.