“Yellowjackets” Season 3 Episode 8 review

After the whirlwind of craziness that was episode seven, “Yellowjackets” Season 3 Episode 8 was a bit of a disappointment.

This post contains spoilers for all three seasons of “Yellowjackets.”

The episode opened in the present day, following Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) as she arrives at the house of Hannah’s (Ashley Sutton) daughter.

Shauna breaks in and ends up hiding in the closet, wielding a knife and to her surprise, is found by a certain someone wearing a backwards baseball hat.

The rumors were true; Hilary Swank is adult Melissa.

Melissa has been known to the fandom as “backwards hat girl,” and hasn’t had a major part in the show until season three. To have adult Melissa still wearing the backwards hat was a bit of an insult to the viewers’ intelligence.

It was too comical to take her seriously.

Fans of “Yellowjackets” have developed a theory that there are only eight total survivors who make it out of the wilderness. Though this theory has never been confirmed by the show, it has become a well-believed opinion.

To be honest, making Melissa the eighth survivor is a bit of a disappointment as her storyline feels completely irrelevant due to her character not having any substance until season three.

Viewers are now hopeful that the eighth survivor theory ends up being inaccurate because there are other characters such as Mari (Alexa Barajas) or even Akilah (Nia Sondaya) that are more developed within the story.

In the wilderness, the girls grill Hannah with questions about life outside the woods and disappointingly discover that people stopped looking for them.

The girls eventually find Kodiak (Joel McHale), Travis (Kevin Alves) and Akilah, who were off on their own. Once both Kodiak and Hannah were held captive back at camp, the team began to fantasize about life post-rescue.

It was a silly montage, but it was also quite sad. Knowing that the girls suffer through at least one more snowfall made viewers feel sorry for the ones who so badly want to be rescued.

Just as they begin to leave for their trip to the rescue point, Lottie (Courtney Eaton) ruins everything. Again.

Lottie claims that the wilderness is where she belongs and feels strongly about staying. Eventually, Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) agree with Lottie and both claim they “have a bad feeling” and also want to stay.

Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) and the rest of the girls call out their insanity and tell them that the team will just leave without them.

Of course, the episode, in the 1996-1997 timeline, ends at that.

Back in the present day, Shauna and Melissa are talking with one another about the DAT tape that Melissa reveals she sent.

Shauna brings up all of the other sketchy things that have happened to her over the past couple of weeks and Melissa looks at her in disbelief, claiming that she had nothing to do with any of it.

Melissa just wants to live a normal life and put her haunting past behind her, unlike the other survivors.

Still, however, Shauna doesn’t believe her and ends up tackling her to the floor. She then takes a literal bite out of Melissa’s arm and tries to force her to eat her own flesh.

Shauna is certainly too far gone after that one.

The other scenes in the present-day are boring: Tai (Tawny Cypress) has a hallucination with “Other Tai” and thinks about sacrificing another patient to save Van (Lauren Ambrose) while Jeff (Warren Cole) and Callie (Sarah Desjardins) are crashing out over Shauna’s craziness.

These scenes fell a little flat and were nothing to write home about. That statement goes for the entire episode. Compared to episode seven, episode eight was just meh.

Hopefully, with two episodes left, “Yellowjackets” turns up the heat again before the season finale.

Rating: 3/5

Sarah Gavlak is a third-year majoring in telecommunications. To contact her, please email sng5393@psu.edu.