That 'Yellowjackets' Season 1 Finale, Explained
The following story contains spoilers for the Yellowjackets Season 1 finale.
The Season 1 finale of Yellowjackets did exactly what you'd expect the first season finale of a big, expansive mystery show to do: tie up a few unanswered questions, while introducing so, so many more. They already have us on the hook—they need to keep us there without letting us get too frustrated, right? And that's a problem Yellowjackets doesn't have to worry about, as its brilliantly paced and utterly compelling Season 1 comes to a close. We know enough about our main characters—Shauna, Taissa, Misty, and Natalie—to be firmly on the hook, but clearly there's a whole world here—and a potential main villain in Lottie—that we're only just beginning to explore.
Yellowjackets is only touching the tip of the iceberg so far. But still, the finale answered enough questions to keep us satisfied, but still wondering. Jackie is absolutely dead, but not for the reasons we anticipated (she's not the girl running in the nightgown, but was basically exiled out by the group before freezing to death). Our present-day women seem to have (at least for now) successfully gotten rid of Adam's body, but Shauna's daughter Callie is suspicious, and while Taissa surprisingly won her state senate race, her soon-to-be-ex-wife found a secret room filled with a severed dog head, a voodoo doll, and a heart. Not good!
Misty also seemingly committed a murder (killing Jessica with a Fentanyl-laced cigarette), but that's par for the course at this point. The biggest mystery—and cliffhanger—of our Season 1 finale comes around Natalie, who had reached her all-time low after further thinking and discussing Travis' death. Luckily, the show didn't let Nat's story end there; it's great for story reasons, yes, but also because Juliette Lewis is a joy to watch in this role.
And, oh yeah! They went to a 25-year high school reunion. Fun!
So, while Season 1 of Yellowjackets has come to a close, we have a lot to think about before Season 2 (and at least we can keep jamming out to that soundtrack). But first let's talk about all those questions from the cliffhanger ending:
Who is Lottie Matthews? But, like, who is Lottie Matthews?
Obviously, anyone who watched Yellowjackets knows who Lottie Matthews of 1996 is. She was the mysteriously-medicated member of the team before the crash—who may or may not have the power of precognition, as she at least once in her youth prevented her parents from getting into what would have been a fatal car accident—who, basically, became one-with-the-wild out in the woods as soon as the team's plane crashed and she ran out of her medication. Laura Lee bonded with Lottie before her plane crash, and Lottie seems to be the new de facto leader of the Yellowjackets, particularly after Jackie falling out of favor and eventually freezing to death; many of the girls seem drawn to her confidence in talking about their new scenario. She gave a very confident prayer for their bear feast after she killed it with a knife herself. You've heard the term "survival of the fittest"; Lottie, so far, seems to be the fittest of the fit when it comes to our Yellowjackets in the woods.
So, we know who Lottie Matthews is in Yellowjackets in 1996. But we certainly don't know who she is in the present-day, where we now know she's very much alive, and likely has very much to do with Travis' death.
And while we don't have any idea what present day Lottie is up to (though I will campaign heavily for Uma Thurman to play her), we do have an idea of where she's headed. Episode 9 of Yellowjackets seemed to just about confirm that Lottie is our "Antler Queen" from the first episode of Yellowjackets, as she donned the Antler crown on her head as all the girls ganged up on Jackie. We also saw those final shots of the season—Lottie is leading a (now small) faction of girls who are giving sacrificial organs to some sort of god of the woods, with Van and Misty in tow behind her. It's very easy to see how this could become the cult of sorts wrapped in furs that we saw in the first episode.
So, again, the question we're wondering: who is Lottie Matthews in present day? We can just go off the evidence we now have. Nat's digging with Suzie has gotten her in some trouble. Just before she was about to follow in Travis' footsteps (so she's told) to the great beyond, Nat's room is broken into by people with clothes bearing that same symbol we've been seeing all season long (and that was at the location where Travis' body was found). Simultaneously, we hear Suzie's voicemail telling Nat that she feels like she's being followed by someone, and that she doesn't appreciate being brought into whatever the hell all this is. Who the hell is Lottie Matthews? We know who she was, and in Season 2, we're going to find out who she's become.
Who is Suzie again?
Suzie, you may remember, is an acquaintance who Natalie met with back in Episode 8. She works in a bank, and, after Misty let Nat know that whoever killed Travis likely is the one who emptied his accounts, Nat hit Suzie up for help. Suzie didn't want to help, but then Nat blackmailed her, and, well, that's how she gets her way sometimes.
At the end of the Season 1 finale, we get our answer: Lottie emptied Travis' account. And it seems like Lottie is the person responsible for what happened to Travis. Our Antler Queen of 1996 is still causing trouble in present day—and that's trouble that we don't even quite know the scope of just yet.
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