Yellowjackets Ending: Final Plot Twist Explained

The psychological drama series Yellowjackets has recently been released on Sky Now, which sees a New Jersey high school girls football team who were involved in a plane crash in Canada try to survive in the wilderness against all odds, navigating hunting, foraging, and eventually, cannibalism. 

The series follows four surviving team members: Shauna, Taissa, Natalie and Misty, 25 years on from the fateful crash, and flits between flashbacks from their 1996 incident. Think Lost meets Supernatural vibes. 

Fans of the dark series have binged-watched the show, and have undoubtedly reached the show’s ambiguous ending, so what exactly happened in the finale?

Warning: Spoilers for Yellowjackets in the rest of this article.

Is Lottie the Antler Queen in Yellowjackets?

If you stayed tuned for the Yellowjackets finale, Lottie’s storyline is perhaps the biggest plot twist of the show. 

At the end, it turns out that Lottie might still be alive, and fans are convinced that she’s the Antler Queen, the leader of a cult.

If it just so happens that Lottie isn’t the Antler Queen, it’s still predicted that the cult appeared as a consequence of Lottie’s behaviour in the woods.

Is Jackie dead in Yellowjackets?

It’s kind of obvious that Jackie is dead, given that she doesn’t make up one of the four surviving members in the present-day storyline. Plus, Shauna was also seen to attend some kind of birthday-party-turned-memorial with Jackie’s parents. 

We then find out for sure that Jackie died in the Canadian woods. Jackie and Shauna had a disagreement in the cabin, where the other girls eventually locked Jackie out. Jackie then had to sleep in the cold outside, where the snow fell on her, and she soon froze to death. Brutal.

Who died in Yellowjackets?

The only character officially known to have died on the show is the Yellowjackets team captain Jackie, following her snow-fallen tragic fate. We also know that she was not one of the characters to have been eaten in Yellowjackets (phew!). 

However, there are many other characters whose fates have yet to be confirmed being eaten, or otherwise killed in Yellowjackets.

After the drug-induced happenings at the girls’ Doomcoming party, Travis’ brother Javi vanished into thin air. It was also revealed that Lottie stole all of Travis’ money, meaning she could be responsible for his death. 

Natalie, was on the brink of suicide, but was kidnapped by the mysterious cult members before she could kill herself.

Misty was also seen to free Jessica, the journalist who she kidnapped in her basement. However, Misty drugged her cigarette with what can only be predicted as a lethal dose of fentanyl. The reporter then overdoses and drives her car into a rubbish bin as she attempts to get away, but viewers don’t yet know for sure if she died from the concoction. 

What happened to Shauna’s baby in Yellowjackets?

In one of the flashbacks, Shauna is revealed to be pregnant, and in the present day she has a daughter, Callie. Could Callie be the baby from the past? Well, the timings don’t really work for that theory to pan out. 

So, Callie isn’t Shauna’s baby from the past, did they eat it? We’re pretty certain they wouldn’t have eaten the baby. That’s too dark even for Yellowjackets.

We do think there could be a possibility that Shauna miscarries the baby, especially given their highly-strung environment. We’ll have to wait and see how this storyline plays out in season two.

Who is Adam in Yellowjackets?

At first-glance, Adam seemed to be a Yellowjackets fan-boy who had an intense love for Shauna, who ended up brutally stabbing him to death. So who is he, really?

Some fans have predicted that Adam is Javi, Coach Martinez’s younger son who was on board the plane during that fateful crash, and eventually disappeared. Only time will tell if this is the case.

Why does Taissa have a shrine in Yellowjackets?

This might be the craziest plot twist in the show, discovering that Taissa has a shrine under her house. The ex-high school football player’s dog went missing, but in reality she cut the poor dog’s head off and used it to create a shrine under her house. You couldn’t make this stuff up.

If Taissa wasn’t responsible for brutally killing her own family’s dog, it’s believed that Van or a different member of the cult is responsible. 

Fans also think she made the shrine to win the election, but honestly, who knows?

Featured Image Credit: Kailey Schwerman / Showtime

Topics: HBO, TV and Film