How the ‘Yellowjackets’ Production Designer Built Lottie’s Wellness Center With [SPOILER] in Mind
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SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from “Qui,” the sixth episode of “Yellowjackets” Season 2, now streaming on Showtime.
This week’s episode of Showtime’s “Yellowjackets” answers one of the show’s biggest questions, which is: What happened to Teen Shauna’s (Sophie Nélisse) baby? Unfortunately, as we learn, it died in childbirth.
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Meanwhile, in the adult Yellowjackets world, Shauna (Melanie Lynskey), Van (Lauren Ambrose), Tai (Tawny Cypress) and Misty (Christina Ricci) converge on Lottie’s (Simone Kessell) “wellness compound” in their efforts to rescue Nat (Juliette Lewis). Toward the end of the episode, a drone shot pulls up to reveal the layout of Lottie’s compound is the mysterious stick-figure symbol.
Director Liz Garbus, who helmed the episode, told Variety that she has no idea what the figure means, which viewers have seen in the wilderness throughout the series. “I have some thoughts,” Garbus said. “It’s nothing that I could explain. Even if I was allowed to explain it as something, I don’t think I could even explain enough to make sense to myself.”
According to Kessell, “I think we’re all meant to be confused by it.”
While audiences remain mystified, “Yellowjackets” production designer Margot Ready planned the layout with the symbol reveal in mind. In an interview with Variety, Ready says knowing the stick-figure symbol was going to be a big part of Lottie’s wellness center drove her design.
“I believe she thinks that she’s doing good for people. But is she? That’s the question,” Ready says of Lottie’s motivations.
Ready found a location in North Vancouver, where the series shoots, with a large lawn that overlooked the water. “It’s a big green open space, and we wanted to make it a gathering courtyard with an amphitheater for a stage.”
She put the symbol on a plan, and began to build.
“We put the stage against the cliff so Lottie could stand with this beautiful scenery behind her, and we built the amphitheater from chunky wood pieces, which in my mind, were leftover from the previous camp.”
And that was the round part of the symbol.
Ready also needed a reason to place things where they were, so she plays with the idea of putting in a chicken coop and the walkway that would show the “daily life of how this cult works.”
Says Ready, “The long slash worked perfectly to walk from the main building to where Nat’s cabin was, and on the little arms were the planters for their planting.”
And as the drone shot reveals, the walkways form the triangle of the symbol. “You don’t notice it at all —until you do,” says Ready.
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