Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 8 Review: It Chooses
Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 8,” It Chooses,” is another gripping hour of television that continues to push the series’ limits and up the stakes.
Like most others, the penultimate episode of the season is enthralling enough to keep us on the edge of our seats. It features moments of endearment, heartache, disgust, terror, and pure befuddlement.
With the hunger growing more excruciating daily and Lottie not getting any better, the teens are forced to take matters into their own hands. It’s almost relieving for them to come to the decision-making process as a last resort rather than what I was imagining.
While still thrilling, it’s a much tamer moment than anticipated. My wildest fantasies took me to a more brutal, raw scenario where the girls act on a whim due to a delusion, inadvertently causing them to spiral into their sacrificial moments of survival.
It’s a haunting scenario nonetheless, but much more mature, humanistic, and less ravenous, which I enjoy. That said, it’s still a heart-racing, exhilarating sequence of events, even with knowing Natalie lives in the present timeline.
That’s partly due to Sophie Thatcher’s portrayal of the character and her ability to evoke those emotions from the audience.
It’s truly a daunting and rather unfortunate moment for Javi to finally speak after his return to the camp, only for it to be his downfall. However, I am aware the first death to come from their hands had to be impactful.
Their resorting to hunting one another would have been a little less impactful had it been someone like Gen or Melissa to draw the queen card. Not that the audience doesn’t care for the two characters, but we’ve had zero time to bond with them genuinely.
Yellowjackets throwing the audience a nice twist is always an enjoyable moment to keep us on our toes. The parallels between the penultimate episode in Season 1 and now are also satisfying.
On Yellowjackets Season 1 Episode 9, “Doomcoming,” we see Shauna yell for Javi to run and protect himself and Natalie save Travis from being sacrificed.
On “It Chooses,” we see Travis save Natalie, using the same force behind the word “run” that Shauna does in Season 1. Plus, instead of being saved, Javi does the saving, which, unfortunately, leads to his death.
Javi’s death is brutal and undeserved, especially considering he only tried to help Natalie.
All that said, “It Chooses” still struggles due to the amount of material crammed into a fifty-minute episode.
With Shauna exposed for keeping Jeff’s secret, Misty admitting to killing Jessica Roberts, Taissa exposed for hiring Roberts, the murder investigation ramping up, and Lottie insinuating they sacrifice one of themselves, a lot is going on.
Outside of the revelations amongst the adults, one of the more standout moments of “It Chooses” is Jeff and Callie’s heart-to-heart. Until just recently in the series, the relationship between Shauna and Callie has been rocky, to say the least.
Now, it feels as if Yellowjackets is setting the scene for Season 3 and their relationship to be stronger than ever. Callie has always known that Shauna had endured something traumatic but could never grasp the extent of it until Jeff informed her.
It feels like a foreshadowing of what’s to come, and even with Callie being a teenager, I’m open to her being Shauna’s partner in crime next season. All she has to do is survive the finale.
Stray Thoughts:
- It’s such a boss move when Van chunks Shauna’s keys into the woods, demanding answers. After all, she was drug into the middle of nowhere and is technically involved in a murder investigation by association.
- I love how we finally get a sly mention of Simone after having zero updates about her condition after Taissa almost killed her.
- Ben is incredibly moronic to leave one crutch outside the entrance to a secret hideaway in the middle of the woods. All it’ll take is one of them to spot it and investigate before finding the cave.
What did you think of this episode of Yellowjackets? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Yellowjackets airs Sundays at 9/8c on Showtime.
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Cade Taylor
Cade Taylor is a television and film critic living in St. Louis, Missouri. He is a Senior Writer for Tell-Tale TV. His love for television developed at a young age, with a concentration on queer stories, sitcoms, teen dramas, and science fiction thrillers. In addition, he works full-time as a news producer, telling the stories of Missourians and helming "Produced in the Bi-State," a segment spotlighting actors, musicians, and entertainers from the St. Louis area. He can be reached by email at cade@telltaletv.com.
One thought on “Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 8 Review: It Chooses”
This episode was frustrating. The girls suddenly turning into a pack of feral, howling hunters chasing a terrified Natalie was too rushed and too jarring. Even though they’re starving to the point of hallucinating, the decision to sacrifice one of their own simply because they didn’t want it to be Lottie felt contrived. I would’ve liked to have seen more deliberation, with at least someone pointing out that Natalie’s hunting skills should grant her immunity just as Lottie’s mysticism did. It would’ve felt less contrived if we saw some resistance by certain group members, and/or a scene or two that would provide some assurance that the group had exhausted all other possibilities — i.e. more attempts to hunt, leaving traps, ice fishing, foraging — before resorting to active cannibalism and human sacrifice.
Adult Lottie’s plan that one of the group members poison themselves also felt contrived and rushed. The other women’s reactions were far too tame given the insanity of what adult Lottie was proposing. Does adult Lottie still hold that much power over the group that they’d opt for suicide as opposed to processing their trauma in a more healthy way?
And wow, younger Van and younger Shauna have both turned into awful people. They both seem more driven by their violent streaks, with their hunger only as a secondary motive that they use to justify their actions. Van says, “It has chosen” when poor Javi dies — girl, GFY!
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