Characters / Yellowjackets: Crash Survivors

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The Plane Crash Survivors

In 1996, the WHS Yellowjackets boarded the flight that would take them to nationals. The plane crashed, leaving the survivors stranded in the wilderness.

Main Survivors

In General

From "Pilot"; team at pep rally

Members of the Wiskayok High School's girls soccer team and others who get the most focus.

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• Ambiguously Evil: In Season 1, three of the four survivors seen in the present day are hiding something, but it's unclear how malicious they're really capable of being: they might be trauma victims desperate to survive whatever they did in the wilderness to survive, or they might have done something unreasonable and truly unforgivable. And then there's Misty, who we already know sabotaged the flight recorder, menaced Coach Scott, poisoned her fellow survivors with magic mushrooms, and who is still off her rocker in the present day.
• Animal Motif: Of the survivors, Taissa has wolves (and dogs), Jackie/Shauna have rabbits, Misty has cats and birds, and Natalie's seems to be the White Moose. It's gradually revealed throughout Season 1 that Lottie has deer.
• Band of Brothers: A heavily deconstructed version. While all of the living adult survivors all seem to understand each other's pain and trauma and are unquestionably loyal to each other, they also have a strong pack mentality that prevents them from trusting outside parties, including their own family members, and leaves them codependent on each other for trauma responses (for example, Taissa, at a loss for how to deal with her sleepwalking and unwilling to go to therapy, abandons her family to visit Van, who helped her cope with it when they were teenagers). The group as a whole, because of their reluctance to go into therapy or reach out for fear of exposing their secrets, unintentionally enable each other's worst habits. For example, when adult Lottie calls for a sacrifice in the present, the adult survivors automatically lapse into their old ways out of instinct to kill Shauna, and only stop when Callie shows up.
• Berserk Button: Any attempts to make them reveal exactly what they did to survive in the wilderness for 19 months beyond foraging.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: In 1996, the girls' soccer team is undefeated and on their way to compete at the national level. Yet a local business puts up a sign congratulating the boys' baseball team. A disgusted Jackie yells at them while driving past, pointing out the boys' lackluster record.
• Fake Guest Star: In Season 1, Van, Laura Lee, and Lottie are billed as guest stars rather than part of the main cast, even though they appear in every episode (except Laura Lee, who is killed in episode 8) and are all major characters in the 1996 storyline, being the ones responsible for driving the cult storyline forward. This is remedied in Season 2, where Van and Lottie are both billed in the main cast.
• Meaningful Name: The Yellowjackets are named after the yellowjacket wasp. These wasps are aggressive if threatened. Each one is capable of stinging multiple times (honeybees can only sting once). And they don’t need to be provoked.
• Murder by Inaction: The group commits this with Javi Martinez by letting him drown while he tries to help the unlucky winner of a Lottery of Doom.
• No Party Like a Donner Party: This much is at least confirmed in the pilot episode: the survivors made it through the winter by eating at least one other Yellowjacket… and the dinner did not die of starvation first but in a pit trap. Much of the tension is about whether or not it may have progressed to I'm a Humanitarian levels of cannibalism.
• Secret-Keeper: All of those who survived both the crash and the 19 months that followed refuse to reveal how they managed.
• Survivor Guilt: They all have it. In Natalie's words: "We saw so much... we did so much fucked-up shit out there. And, yeah, maybe it was to survive. Maybe. But I don't think we deserved to."
• Took a Level in Badass: The girls hunt and forage for food, build fires, and manage in a cabin without running water or electricity.
• With Friends Like These...: The Yellowjackets each have their own individual mental issues, and none of them want any outside help for these issues. However, because all of the survivors are adamant about not sharing their secrets, this results in several mentally unwell individuals inadvertently harming each other and not practicing healthy boundaries because of their own personal issues and shared trauma. This can be partially justified given the potentially magical nature of their situation, but still.
• Villain Protagonist: Let's just say that, in the present, the four main survivors aren't the most scrupulous or selfless individuals, whose reactions to blackmail get two people killed on top of a plethora of lesser crimes. Natalie is the least malicious towards innocent and uninvolved people, and she's an Addled Addict and The Unfettered in tracking down leads, even willing to (grudgingly) team with Misty.

Jackie

Jackie Taylor

1996 Jackie

Portrayed By: Ella Purnell

"Why am I the only one not getting off on this boring back-to-the-land bullshit?"

The team's captain.

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• Accidental Suicide: Zig-Zagged. Jackie had no way of knowing there would be a deadly cold snap when she chose to sleep outside instead of asking to be let back into the cabin. However, the fact that she spent her last few days refusing food and crossing items off her bucket list suggests that she had given up hope of surviving, so it's possible the risk of freezing to death did occur to her and she simply didn't care.
• Broken Ace: Team captain Jackie is a nice girl who does most of the work in reconciling the Yellowjackets and is also in a relationship with popular guy Jeff. In an ironic turnaround, she's also shown to be the member who most struggles to adjust in the wilderness, is a major cause of conflict, and finally learns that Shauna is pregnant by Jeff himself.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: While Jackie's corpse doesn't look pleasant, it's noticeably far more intact than the other injuries shown so far.
• Cheated Death, Died Anyway: She survived the plane crash in the woods and numerous other hair-raising incidents while there... only to freeze to death after getting thrown out of the cabin in a moment of sulking weakness.
• Dying Alone: Jackie dies alone in the snow, though she sees Laura Lee and the man in the cabin in her dream. It's possible they're really there in some capacity.
• Dying Dream: As she freezes to death, she has a vision of warm fires, drinking hot chocolate and reassurances that it isn't so bad.
• Everyone Has Standards: The day after Doomcoming, she's not just annoyed at being attacked and locked in the closet; she's disgusted by how the girls treated Travis.
• Future Loser: Invoked. Shauna tells Jackie that high school is the best her life is ever going to get. It's also literally true, because Jackie dies mere hours later.
• Ironic Death: In the pilot, she was known as The Heart of the team, to the point that Taissa's plan to "freeze out" their underperforming teammate Allie was deliberately kept from her. In the Season 1 finale, her newfound antagonism to the other girls, and refusal to chip in by learning useful survival skills gets her literally frozen out when she is kicked out of the cabin and dies from hypothermia.
• Kill It with Ice: After getting herself kicked out of the cabin, she freezes to death when a cold snap breaks overnight.
• The Leader: Deconstructed. Jackie is The Captain pre-plane crash, and praised by the coach for her excellent leadership skills. She then more or less completely abandons this role after the plane crash. After all, her leadership works in a school environment, not out in the wilderness.
• Lovable Alpha Bitch: At first. Jackie is somewhat petty and very controlling, but she's also a generally kind-hearted person, getting numerous Pet the Dog moments. She becomes more of a general Alpha Bitch in the wilderness, before zigzagging back before her death.
• The Load: Unlike the other survivors, she lacks and refuses to learn any useful survival skills, which causes the team to resent her. Her inability to make a fire even with a lighter and kindling moss leads to her freezing to death.
• Manipulative Bitch: She tells Travis about Natalie's sex life in order to break the two up so she can have sex with him.
• Must Not Die a Virgin: Jackie is obsessed with losing her virginity with Travis after she crashes in the Canadian wilderness. It makes sense, considering that she found out that Shauna and Jeff had sex behind her back.
• Never Speak Ill of the Dead: Jackie's parents seem completely obsessed with protecting Jackie's reputation and talk about her as if she was a saint, with Shauna unable and/or unwilling to contradict them.
• Not So Above It All: Jackie jokes about the girls being desperate when they say Travis isn't bad looking. Then she herself ends up sleeping with him (admittedly because he's the only age-appropriate man in the vicinity).
• Not Too Dead to Save the Day: The exact circumstances are ambiguous, but when Shauna is unconscious after her very traumatic birth, she hears Jackie saying her name, which wakes her up. It's implied that this is what saves her life from dying like her baby did.
• Pet the Dog: She has a very sweet moment where she does Misty's makeup for her before the Doomcoming dance, sincerely telling her she's pretty.
• Posthumous Character: She's long dead by the time the series starts in 2021, but her memory lives on very strongly.
• The Power of Legacy: Jackie's legacy still hangs heavily over Shauna in the present day.
• Pride Before a Fall: Jackie spends the first episode on top. She's got into Rutgers, she's happy with Jeff, she's made the captain of Yellowjackets, and keeps the group together. Then they crash in the wilderness, and she is completely miserable, has little to no survival skills, finds out that Jeff cheated on her with Shauna and got her pregnant, gradually alienates most of the Yellowjackets, and then dies in the snow alone after a petty argument with Shauna.
• Proud Beauty: She refers to herself as being among "a bunch of babes" at the Doomcoming dance.
  Travis: Do you ever feel that your humility holds you back?
  Jackie: I said babes.
• Sacrificial Lion: Unlike Laura Lee, Jackie dies in relatively stupid and pointless circumstances after making a single impulsive decision that backfires. Her death underscores just how much of a threat the impending winter is—the cold will kill anyone without adequate shelter and warmth in a matter of hours. In "Edible Complex," this goes further as she is the first known victim of the girls' descent into cannibalism.
• Secret Chaser: She can tell Shauna is hiding something from her and confronts her, demanding the truth. Shauna confesses about her secret pregnancy but lies (badly) about who the father is. Jackie finally resorts to snooping in Shauna’s journal and learns it is her boyfriend Jeff.
• Secret-Keeper: Defied. When Laura Lee announces she is flying out to get help, she announces Shauna’s pregnancy to the group.
• Sex Signals Death: Ironically, Jackie is very determined to save her virginity for something special. When they get stranded, she comes to believe she'll die a virgin. So she loses her virginity to Travis, who had initially been about to lose his own virginity to Natalie. Jackie's decision to have sex with Travis alienates her from Natalie, Travis himself, and Lottie (who riles up the other girls against Jackie because "she took something that doesn't belong to her"), and results in her having no-one to back her up when she tries to throw Shauna out of the cabin, and Shauna tells her to leave instead. These two things result, ultimately, in her freezing to death.
• Technical Virgin: With her boyfriend, Jeff. They engage in sex acts other than full intercourse.
• Too Dumb to Live: Justified. While it's true that Jackie lacks much self-preservation and is to a degree responsible for her own death (by turning on Shauna, trying to throw her out of the cabin instead, and storming off in a huff), her death shows how unprepared they are for the cruelties of the Canadian winter wilderness, as nobody (including Jackie) seemed aware of how potentially dire the consequences were. However, Jackie isn't shown to be uniquely dumb in this respect, as it goes for literally every member of the group.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: This is her parents' attitude towards Jackie. Her behavior in the wilderness shows this not to be the case.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Before the plane crash, she helped the rest of the team mend their differences. Afterwards, she hardly contributes to group chores and antagonizes Natalie when she and Travis return empty-handed from their hunt. She gradually becomes even more vindictive.

Shauna

Shauna Sadecki (née Shipman)

1996 Shauna

present Shauna

Portrayed By: Melanie Lynskey (adult), Sophie Nélisse (teen)

"The plane crashed. A bunch of my friends died, and the rest of us starved and scavenged and prayed for 19 months until they finally found us."

Before the plane crash, Shauna Shipman was both a straight-A student and an elite soccer player with the Yellowjackets. Now, in 2021 and married to the former prom king, Shauna is one of a handful of survivors of the plane crash. She's on a mission to reclaim her agency – and her life – while doing everything in her power to keep her darkest secrets safe.

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• Abusive Parents: Downplayed, but when Callie discovers her affair with Adam and threatens to tell Jeff, Shauna calmly manipulates her own daughter with a worst case scenario of how a divorce would go. She also tries Gaslighting Callie when the latter starts to figure out that she's responsible for Adam's murder.
• Academic Athlete: In addition to playing for an elite soccer team, Shauna had gained early admission to Brown University.
• Accidental Murder: Convinced that Adam is the one blackmailing the Yellowjackets, Shauna confronts him at his apartment until it escalates to the point where she threatens him with a knife and accidentally stabs him to death.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: Shauna Shipman became Shauna Sadecki on her marriage.
• Alliterative Name: Both her married and maiden names are alliterative.
• All Just a Dream: After delivering her baby boy in the wilderness, she struggles but manages to nurse him, only to find that her fellow survivors have eaten the baby. Sadly, after she wakes up, they tell her the baby did not make it.
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: She's a pretty gloomy, largely introverted brunette. This is more pronounced in 1996.
• Always Second Best: Jackie's parents seem to think this was the case, and that Shauna was always in Jackie's shadow. Jeff refutes this, reminding them that Shauna got accepted into Brown and was just as brilliant as Jackie was.
• Animal Motif: Rabbits. She has a collection of rabbit figurines around her kitchen and also wears pajamas with a rabbit design on them. Rabbits are often depicted as tricksters and associated with sex. On the surface, Shauna comes across as a shy Academic Athlete (1996) or another suburban housewife (2021). After the crash, she is the one to slash the throat of the deer Natalie and Travis shot. In the present day Shauna brutally kills the rabbits menacing her garden and cheats on her husband, Jeff. She also was sneaking around with Jeff at the same time that Jackie was seeing him and was pregnant with his baby as a teen.
• Awful Wedded Life: In 2021, she's stuck in an unhappy marriage to Jeff. They're uncommunicative and have clearly outgrown whatever they had as teenagers. At least, at first.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Despite their marital problems and Shauna's affair, both she and Jeff still love one another, to the point where the latter is fully willing to protect his wife by turning himself in for Adam's accidental death.
• Bad Liar: Oh boy. For someone with as many secrets as her, she's stunningly bad at convincing coverups. At best, her tone of voice make it painfully clear she's making things up. At worst, her lies are blatantly implausible. According to Jackie, this trait was present when they were children. As an adult, she still clearly hasn't improved much.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Despite her charade as a pleasant doormat of a housewife, she shows herself to be more comfortable with heinous acts than any of the other survivors bar Misty.
• Big Beautiful Woman: Downplayed, but she's much larger in 2021 than she was in high school, and Adam is instantly attracted to her, with Jeff likewise being utterly devoted to her once everything comes out. Melanie Lynskey even refuted suggestions that she "get a trainer", wanting to show that a larger woman could still be seen as beautiful and desirable.
• The Chosen Wannabe: In "Storytelling", Lottie announces that the Wilderness has chosen someone to be her successor and serve as leader: Natalie. She pays tribute to the chosen but later stays up writing about her feelings. Some snippets: "How could it not have been me?" and "I used to think it was Jackie who made me feel invisible but..."
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: While "moron" might be unfair, Shauna is underestimated by everyone except the other survivors. Callie constantly disrespects her, and Adam rushes her. She nevertheless shows herself to be extremely dangerous and capable.
• Dirty Coward: She'll stop at nothing to avoid consequences for her actions, manipulating the other survivors into helping her cover up Adam's murder; lying that he was their blackmailer and hiding that she killed him over a misunderstanding. And when the time comes to sacrifice Natalie, the latter has to tell her to "look me in the fucking eye".
• First Girl Wins: Invoked and deconstructed. Shauna ends up in a pretty disappointing marriage to the first guy she ever had sex with—Jeff. Although they do genuinely love each other, their marriage seems to have been built on mutual Survivor's Guilt and plain old guilt over going behind Jackie's back.
• Freudian Excuse:
  • For her combative relationship with Callie. First, it’s hinted Shauna got along poorly with her own parents: They divorced when she was young, she speaks dismissively of her mother, and they seemingly have no presence in her adult life (assuming they’re still alive). Then there’s Shauna’s experiences in the wilderness. She realized she was pregnant a few months in and couldn't bring herself to follow through on an abortion which likely could've killed her. The rest of the pregnancy was defined by a mix of guilt (over the baby being the result of her sleeping with her best friend's boyfriend) and fear for her life and the life of her baby (due to increasingly dire conditions as winter arrived and because none of the survivors had any experience with delivering a baby). Then Shauna's worst fears came true: The discovery of the baby's paternity caused a fight with Jackie, which in turn lead to her accidental death. The actual delivery was as harrowing as feared, with Shauna and the baby barely surviving. Only afterwards did Shauna finally let herself embrace the love she felt for her son…just in time for her fellow survivors to steal and apparently eat her child… and then she learned the whole thing was a dream and that the baby was stillborn. While Shauna only had Callie to save her marriage, she does love her, despite herself. However, as Shauna tearfully confesses to adult Lottie, the trauma she faced holds her back from developing anything resembling a healthy relationship with her daughter.
  Shauna: …I’ve always kept my daughter, you know, Callie, like, at arm's length. I think just out of fear. That she would die, I guess. Or — maybe that she was never even real to begin with. I don’t know. And now I try to tell myself: it’s okay. That I’m safe to… to think of her as-as mine, you know, and to just be her mom, but I think something is broken, Lottie. I just can’t do it.
  • Likewise, the series draws a direct line from said stillbirth to Shauna finally embracing her violent side and taking out her anger by beating Lottie nearly to death, which in turn led to the Yellowjackets first performing ritualistic sacrifice to save Lottie and themselves.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Shauna is very driven by envy, sleeping with her best friend's boyfriend, and resenting always being seen as Jackie's Beta Bitch. Her envy continues into the present day.
• Housewife: Shauna is the only Yellowjacket who doesn't have a career of her own and is married to a man (Jeff).
• Howl of Sorrow: Her reaction to finding Jackie's body.
• Hypocrite: Shauna cheated on Jeff, and previously slept with him while he was in a relationship with Jackie. She's also furious at the thought of Jeff cheating on her.
• I Am Not Pretty: Despite the fact Jeff has always been attracted to her, Randy finds her very attractive, and Adam is into her, Shauna is very insecure about her appearance and finds herself unattractive.
• I Coulda Been a Contender!: Shauna was a brilliant athlete who had been admitted to Brown. In 2021, she's a stay-at-home mom and housewife who hates her own daughter, and clearly feels that she has wasted decades of her life.
• Insecure Love Interest: While there are other problems in their relationship, it seems Shauna is quick to believe Jeff’s cheating (and to have an affair with Adam in turn) because she thinks Jeff only married her because he can’t be with Jackie. Tellingly, when Callie raises suspicions about Adam, Shauna defensively declares that "I know that that is impossible for you to understand, but I am what he wants" (even though Callie’s problem was with Adam’s secrecy, not with the idea that someone could be attracted to her mother). It takes Jeff revealing that he never had an affair, knew all the secrets in her diaries, and that he's willing to go to jail to protect Callie and her (despite learning about Adam) for it to sink in for Shauna that her husband truly loves her.
• Imperiled in Pregnancy: Shauna is days pregnant when she crashes into the wilderness, and it only gets worse from there over the next nine months, with illness, starvation, and violence running rampant.
• It's All About Me: While she claims that this is Jackie's attitude, Shauna demonstrates plenty of this herself. She redirects everything back to her, and even rants in her journal about the other girls choosing Natalie as their Antler Queen instead of her. And when Jackie confronts her about sleeping with Jeff, Shauna tries to make the issue that Jackie read her journal.
• Karma Houdini: She has affairs in both timelines, setting up the idea that she'll face serious consequences when each are discovered.
  • In the past, it is a Karma Houdini Warranty. When Jackie finds out about Shauna's affair, it destroys their friendship and it leads indirectly to Jackie's death. And Shauna's pregnancy ends in a stillbirth. Those events have left Shauna seriously traumatized in the present.
  • In the present timeline, she's also responsible for a murder, involving teammates and Jeff in covering it up. Except Callie figures it out, with a season's arc building to it being near-impossible for her to escape justice for. By the end of Season 2, she remains unpunished.
• Lack of Empathy: She's more subtle about it than someone like Misty, but Shauna has very little regard for anyone's feelings but her own. When she's confronted about sleeping with her best friend's boyfriend, she responds that it's Jackie's own fault, and makes her out to be the bad guy in the situation. She's also content to let an innocent 12-year-old drown so she can carve him up for food, manipulate her own daughter into keeping an affair secret - an affair that she only started to stick it to her husband when she believed he was cheating. She shows no remorse for killing an innocent man once she gets away with it, and has no problem dragging her husband and daughter into her misadventures.
• Madness-Induced Omnivore: Unlike Tai, who eats dirt, Shauna is shown to be the first girl who commits cannibalism— by eating Jackie's ear while starving and slipping into madness.
• Manipulative Bitch: She's more subtle about it but she was already very manipulative in 1996, willingly sleeping with her best friend's boyfriend, and her reaction to being called on it is to blame Jackie herself for it. When she's busted having an affair by Callie, she manipulates her into keeping quiet with horror stories of what having divorced parents might be like for her. She also lies to Taissa, Misty and Natalie that Adam was the blackmailer to get them to help her cover up his murder.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Her reaction to discovering Jackie's corpse. She more or less still hasn't recovered, even two decades later.
• My Secret Pregnancy: Shauna is pregnant in 1996, and is keeping it a secret (however Taissa finds out, though she doesn't tell). This is because she's pregnant from Jeff, boyfriend of her best friend Jackie. Sadly, in Ep. 2.06, "Qui". Shauna goes unconscious during delivery and hallucinates a tragic few days with her baby before he is cannibalized. When she wakes up, she finds out it was All Just a Dream and her baby was stillborn.
• Parting-Words Regret: She tells Jackie that she peaked in high school and is always going to be looking back on those days with wistfulness, moments before kicking Jackie out of the cabin and getting her killed.
• Secretly Selfish: Shauna has a serious selfish streak both in the present and the past, all while presenting herself as a loyal person, whether to her best friend or her husband. In reality, she tends to give into her own impulses and any sense of guilt does nothing to stop her from betraying those closest to her. According to Adam, Shauna just wants to blow stuff up and see what happens.
• Talking to the Dead: Shauna starts talking to Jackie's corpse shortly after Jackie's death, pretending that she's still alive. Even back in New Jersey in the present day, she regularly sees Jackie.
• Teen Pregnancy: Shauna is 17 in 1996 and pregnant from her tryst with Jeff.
• Took a Level in Kindness/Took a Level in Jerkass: Done simultaneously; in 2021, she's more outwardly pleasant and mild-mannered as opposed to the snarky, gloomy presence she was in 1996. However, she's actually become more ruthless.
• Tragic Stillbirth: The fate of Shauna and Jeff's first child. Shauna gives birth but, after months of starvation and stress (and with only her panicking teammates to help), the baby is either born dead or dies shortly after birth. Taissa tells Shauna that the baby was born dead, which implies that he was stillborn, despite Shauna having a vision of him still alive.
• Two-Timing with the Bestie: In the 1990s, Shauna was sleeping with her best friend Jackie's boyfriend Jeff, and got pregnant by him, which becomes a major issue when they crash in the Canadian wilderness.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: She got Jackie essentially killed by telling Jackie to leave the cabin. It wasn't intentional, but we already see the decision weighing on her when she realizes what horrific consequences it had.
• Womanchild: In the present timeline, she tries to have a second childhood and while she talks a big game about taking responsibility, avoids it like the plague much like her actual teenage daughter.
• You Hate What You Are: Shauna admits to disliking her and Jeff's daughter, Callie. Throughout Season 2, it becomes increasingly clear that Callie is a lot like Shauna (both of them are clever, ruthless, and determined).

Natalie

Natalie Scatorccio

1996 Natalie

present Natalie

Portrayed By: Juliette Lewis (adult), Sophie Thatcher (teen)

"After they rescued us, I... I lost my purpose. I finally know how to get it back."

In 1996, despite her natural talent, Natalie's punk rock spirit and habit of finding trouble made her the unlikeliest member of the team. In 2021 and fresh out of rehab, Natalie is still haunted by her time in the wilderness.

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• Abusive Parents: Natalie's father was both physically and verbally abusive towards her and her mother. When he catches her with Kevyn, he very nearly gets violent with Kevyn as well. When Natalie's mother tries to stop him from abusing her, he turns his focus on her instead. Natalie goes and gets a gun, but forgets to take the safety off and he takes it from her, saying that she's even more useless than her mother. When she shouts that he's the useless one, he turns on her and ends up blowing his head off by accident.
• Action Girl: Natalie is likely the most action-oriented of the girls. She's not only stood up to her abusive father using a gun, but then hunts with Travis in the wilderness to provide for everyone.
• Addled Addict: In 2021, she is just about to leave rehab, and not for the first time (as discussed by Taissa and Shauna when they meet). Later, when Nat calls Taissa to bail her out after her arrest, Taissa mentions that she already paid for the rehab. She relapses —snorting cocaine that fell on the carpet— in Episode 1.8 "Flight of the Bumblebee".
• Age-Inappropriate Dress: A subtle version, but Natalie's dress sense hasn't changed from her high school years. She still dresses more or less the same, favoring slogan tees, shorts, and short skirts with fishnet tights.
• At Least I Admit It: When Taissa and Shauna get a little too self-righteous in present day, she lets them have it for being just as fucked up as she is, they're just better at lying to themselves.
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Natalie has gone back to her natural black hair in 2021, which has also marked her shift towards being very icy and distanced from others in general.
• Big Sister Instinct: She shows herself to be especially protective of the other girls.
• Black Bra and Panties: Whenever Natalie is shown undressed in the present day, she is clothed like this. It emphasizes her dark and edgy nature.
• Cheated Death, Died Anyway: Natalie survives 18 months in the Canadian wilderness, multiple addictions and near-death experiences, and then finally dies by being stabbed with a needle by Misty at the end of Season 2.
• Cool Car: Present-day Natalie drives a vintage mid-90s Porsche 911, though she later sells it off to raise blackmail money.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Natalie has dark hair and prefers dark clothes, as well as liking more traditional rebellious culture. However, she's also presented as the more moral of the survivors (all of whom are dressed much more lightly), such as saving Travis from the other Yellowjackets.
• Death by Irony: Natalie, a longterm addict, dies by a lethal injection administered accidentally by Misty.
• invokedDye Hard: Downplayed. Natalie bleached her hair blonde as a teenager, though she has returned to her natural brunette in the present day. As time passes in the wilderness, her dark roots become more visible.
• Foil: With Misty.
  • Both are among the most capable survivors in the forest, have romantic desires towards a male survivor, act as The Unfettered in their own ways, and are outsiders to the main friendship group.
  • But in contrast, Natalie is an Action Girl to Misty’s Evil Genius, Natalie protects Travis while Misty tortures Coach Scott, and Natalie became a good hunter and ends up being a respected hero to the group while Misty sabotaged their survival so she would remain important to them, and is still disliked.
  • Natalie is also a Jerk with a Heart of Gold (see below), while Misty has a very sweet, harmless exterior, but is actually an extremely vicious, sadistic, and amoral person.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: The tough-as-nails Natalie is shown in both timelines wearing leather jackets.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Misty is trying to kill Lisa with the needle, making her the Lottery of Doom victim. Natalie prevents this from happening by getting killed in Lisa's place.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Natalie let Javi die in her place during the first hunt (though she does try to save him before Misty stops her. She clearly feels a great deal of guilt and responsibility for it, and it ultimately leads to her refusing to let the same thing happen to Lisa.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: This most easily applies to Natalie. She's tough, still bruised from her long addiction, and snarky, but she also shows herself to be one of the kindest and, paradoxically, most grounded of the Yellowjackets survivors. The same woman who attacked Lisa, a cult acolyte, with a fork in order to escape her captivity is later shown taking her side when she is browbeat by her controlling mother, and even smuggles out Lisa's pet goldfish in her mouth.
• Makeup Is Evil: Downplayed, as she is more "dark" than "evil". Natalie is rarely seen without heavy, messy eyeliner as a teen and as an adult, while all of the other Yellowjackets prefer light (or no) makeup.
• No Place for a Warrior: Of all the survivors, Natalie seems to have been the most capable in their dire straits, but the least adjusted to the modern world they returned to. She vocalizes horror and terror at her experience, like the rest, but also that she lost her "purpose" upon returning. This almost makes her a case of Driven to Suicide after she finds Travis's body… but she stops right before she can go through with it once invaders bust into her room intent on taking her prisoner, and starts fighting back instead of pulling the trigger.
• One of the Boys: Natalie is the only Yellowjacket whose main friends weren't in the squad pre-crash, she actually had a male best friend (Kevyn), and she's also closest to Travis of all the girls. As a result, she's more stereotypically tomboyish than butch.
• Perpetual Frowner: Natalie is not a happy person in the present day, and rarely cracks so much as a smile.
• Properly Paranoid: Natalie has learned as an adult not to offer Misty any more trust than can be assured through either threats of violence or mutual self-interest, and to always suspect any coincidences around her - such as her car not working…
• Rambunctious Italian: Natalie's last name implies she's of Italian descent, and she's a very Hot-Blooded, intense, and generally fiery person.
• Rape as Backstory: Implied. She tells Travis that she lost her virginity to an older guy in "not great" circumstances a couple of years previously at a concert.
• Redemption Equals Death: Decides to take a lethal injection in Lisa's place to atone for what she did in the wilderness.
• Riot Grrrl: A tough, aggressive punk spirit both in the 1990s and present, but her clothing (leather jacket, rock band t-shirts, fishnet stockings), appearance, and personality are all heavily inspired by this subculture throughout.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Underneath her scowl, Natalie hides a lot of damage. Some of the pain surfaces when she breaks down at finding Travis's body.
• Token Good Teammate: While the show is heavily into Grey-and-Gray Morality and while Natalie is a mess in the present, she's notably the least malicious and least disturbing survivor, rescuing Travis from the other girls trying to kill him in Doomcoming and being the only one of the modern day survivors to not kill either another person or a dog.
• Tomboyish Voice: Even as a teenage girl, she has a low and husky voice. She is the most action-oriented, aggressive and outwardly hard edged of the cast, certainly a tomboy.
• Trashy Trailer Home: Natalie is the only character in the story who lives in a trailer home, and her father was an abusive alcoholic.
• Troubled Teen: Even before the plane crash, Natalie had a traumatic life, with her abusive father dying in front of her. She was even bringing alcohol with her on the trip to Nationals.
• The Unfettered: Threaten to set a stranger's crotch on fire? Blackmail a bank employee with informing her employer about her selling confidential information? Shatter the glass of a vending machine that wouldn't dispense her snack?^note But only take the snack she paid for. That’s Natalie.

Taissa

Taissa Turner

1996 Taissa

present Taissa

Portrayed By: Tawny Cypress (adult), Jasmin Savoy Brown (teen)

"In life, sometimes we encounter obstacles that are so enormous we can only face them with the help of our community. And that's as true today in New Jersey as it was out there."

In her youth, Taissa was the star player on the Yellowjackets squad whose competitiveness could push her to extremes. Now, 25 years later, with a wife and son, her political ambitions threaten to derail the survivors’ pact of secrecy.

---

• Academic Athlete: After surviving both the plane crash and the time in the woods, Taissa went to Howard, a prestigious HBCU^note Historically Black Colleges and Universities; Title III of the Higher Education Act of 1965 by Congress officially defined an HBCU as a school of higher learning that was accredited and established before 1964, and whose main mission was the education of African-Americans for pre-law with a double major in history and philosophy. She made first string on their soccer team, graduating first in her class. She then went to Columbia Law and landed an internship in one of the biggest firms in the city.
• Action Politician: Invoked, although not at the same time. She was a fierce sportswoman who got stranded in a physically brutal environment and fought for survival, a fact that she underlines now that she's running for political office.
• Affectionate Nickname: She was called "Tai" sometimes by her friends and her girlfriend.
• Alliterative Name: Taissa Turner.
• Animal Motifs:
  • Wolves. In the present, she is haunted by visions of wolves: when she makes shadow puppets to entertain Sammy, at the party where she hopes to meet donors, and just before she finds her front door vandalized. Back in the woods, she beat a wolf to death after said wolf mauled her girlfriend, Van.
  • To a lesser degree, dogs (both dogs and wolves descend from the now extinct gray wolf and share 98 percent DNA). When she poses for a family portrait with Simone and Sammy, Biscuit is included as part of the family, and she kills him as a sacrifice.
• Fire-Forged Friends: She and Shauna were not friends before the crash, with Shauna even insinuating that she injured Allie deliberately. Discovering Shauna's pregnancy and trying to help her through it made them closer.
• Hypocrite: She's obsessed with the Yellowjackets' secrets not coming out (even hiring Jessica to make sure), but her political ambitions and public profile are what makes them far more likely to be exposed.
• Important Haircut: While stuck in the woods with her teammates, Taissa eventually cuts her hair short so it's more manageable, as she can't wash there, while she'd been keeping it under a scarf prior. This indicates she's accepted the situation they face and is willing to alter things (she has it always long otherwise).
• The Insomniac: Present-day Taissa is afraid to go to sleep because of her sleepwalking and the bad things that can happen because of it, so she spends the night pounding espressos simply to avoid falling asleep.
  Taissa: I just need some fucking sleep.
• It's All About Me: She transfers her son to a public school, not for his benefit, but to show her support for public education. She's also very self-involved, neglecting both Simone and Sammy for her own benefit.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Deconstructed. The tough Taissa appears to be a straight example, as she is outwardly very steely and no-nonsense, but she has a softer side that she shows to Van, and she bankrolls Natalie as a show of immense gratitude for what she did in the wilderness. However, her sleepwalking self is shown to be dangerously selfish, as reflected when she sleepwalks and takes Van's protection charm, which may or may not result in Van being gored and nearly killed by wolves.
• The Leader: When Jackie falls apart mentally and emotionally, Taissa takes over as the most together person in the team, She's also still the de facto leader of the survivors in the present day, with it being her job to keep Natalie in rehab.
• Lesbian Jock: Taissa is a lesbian and a soccer player.
• Madness-Induced Omnivore: Taissa is a sleepwalker, and at one point she eats dirt from her garden. This is strongly implied to be a regression to her past time in the wilderness, where she was starving to death.
• The Mirror Shows Your True Self: At least twice, Taissa's reflection is shown moving differently from her, indicating another self. At one point, Taissa even tries to talk to Mirror!Taissa to find out what she wants. "It Chooses" has teenage Taissa see both her regular reflection and her alter ego's.
• Meaningful Name: Taissa Turner has two distinct sides to her personality, one of which comes out when she's sleepwalking, and killed her dog as a blood sacrifice.
• Passionate Sports Girl: All the Yellowjackets (except Shauna) are this to one extent or another, but Taissa is especially competitive and intense.
• Secret-Keeper: Not only to the secret all present day survivors are holding onto, but to Shauna's pregnancy in 1996.
• Sleepwalking: She has a history with this and bad things happen when she does. In the woods in 1996, she fell asleep and climbed in a tree in sleep while she was supposed to be on watch, resulting in Van getting badly mauled by a wolf. In 2021, she has started doing so again, causing Sammy to see a "Lady in the Tree" and the "bad one" and quite likely causing the family dog Biscuit to run off when she left a gate open, or worse, chopping off the dog's head and creating a shrine with the head at the center of it.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Her attitude about the other girls deciding to hold a séance and later refusing to sleep in the attic, and that none of the others seem to want to go look for help.
• The Team Benefactor: Taissa recognizes that they never would've left the wilderness without Natalie's help, so she's paid for multiple expensive stints in rehab that have saved Nat's life. It's also implied that her contact at John Hopkins will find a cure for Van's cancer.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: Between Season 1 and 2. It's unclear if it's because "Other Tai" is influencing her actions but she becomes much more impulsive and led by others, as shown by her going back to Van and agreeing with Van to call off the emergency check on Charlotte, which would have saved Natalie's life.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Taissa becomes more callous as she gives into "Other Tai" at the end of Season 1 and throughout Season 2.
• Twofer Token Minority: She's black and a lesbian.

Lottie

Charlotte "Lottie" Matthews

1996 Lottie

Present Lottie

Portrayed By: Simone Kessell (adult); Courtney Eaton (teen)

"I just have a bad feeling about this place."

A team member. Her father has chartered the plane the team takes to Nationals.

---

• Animal Motifs: Deer, befitting the one-time Antler Queen. Lottie sees deer in her visions, is framed by deer antlers in the cabin, and then fashions herself a headdress of deer antlers at Doomcoming, which eventually all come together to be her costume as the head of the cult.
• Big Bad: As the leader of the cult, she gradually becomes this in the past, a danger to many. It seems to be subverted for the past in "Storytelling," when she is horrified to learn that the other girls let Javi drown and had been intending to sacrifice Natalie, and willingly lets Natalie be the new Antler Queen. In the present day, she's still running a cult but one that seems to be relatively granola rather than murderous....until Travis dies and she relapses, becoming convinced that "it" had followed them back and they need to appease it with another Human Sacrifice.
• Consistent Clothing Style: Adult Lottie (Charlotte) is almost always shown wearing long, flowing silk dresses, usually in a kimono style when she's at her commune. That she dresses more simply when not there indicates that she's acting at least a little in her role.
• Corrupted Character Copy: She bears a striking resemblance to Simon, the epileptic visionary in Lord of the Flies, though his quasi-religious experiences work against the forming cult, rather than start it. Simon is the closest thing to a Big Good, while Lottie is implied to be a Big Bad, and takes elements not only of Simon, but also of Jack as the leader of the killers.
• Cult: Lottie is witnessed starting one in the forest at the end of Season One with Van and Misty. Season 2 reveals that she's leading a different cult in the present, one more focused on intentional living rather than the Wilderness.
• Inexplicable Language Fluency: She, and by extension others in the Antler Queen cult she forms, randomly speak French on occasion, which Lottie at least is not fluent in, indicating mental instability.
• Insane Equals Violent: Downplayed. Lottie is mentally ill (she's implied to have severe schizophrenia) and she's shown escalating the violence inside the camp from unpleasant but necessary (killing animals to survive) to dangerous (she leads the charge to chase Travis down and starts assaulting him while high on shrooms). Ironically, she is not the one who started the cannibal hunt...she actually wanted them to eat her instead, and the girls decided to hunt someone else to save her.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Lottie still feels a lot of guilt from ignoring the visions that were telling her that Laura Lee's plane would blow up, and it's implied to be one of the main reasons she still sees Laura Lee in the present day and is much more ardent about her visions.
• Insistent Terminology: In the present, Charlotte hates being called Lottie and insists on her full name.
• Large and in Charge: Lottie is easily the tallest member of the Yellowjackets, and she's also the leader of the wilderness cult.
• Lonely Rich Kid: The morning before the flight, she's all by her lonesome at home when she's served her breakfast, only briefly joined by a maid who brings her some pills. She later quips that spending lots of money (for the private plane) is the only parenting her father ever does.
• Martyr Without a Cause: In Season 2, Lottie's belief in the Wilderness leads to her trying to sacrifice herself to it multiple times to save the rest. She lets Shauna beat her nearly to death to let out her anger, and then tells Misty to let her die so the others can eat her. In the present, she still believes that "it" followed them back home and sets up a Russian Roulette with poisoned drinks to try and appease "it", with the clear hope that it'll choose her and leave the rest alone. The others barely stop her from drinking.
• Meaningful Rename: Lottie has gone from being Only Known by Their Nickname in 1996 to only being called by her full name, Charlotte, in the present day.
• Medicate the Medium: Lottie had a premonition of danger as a child that saved her life along with both her parents'. Her dad didn't believe it however, sending Lottie to a psychiatrist, and she was on medication until her meds ran out following the crash.
• Mentally Unwell, Special Senses: Lottie is heavily implied to be schizophrenic, suffering from hallucinations and visions. Her visions are at times uncomfortably accurate, and when she and her teammates crash-land in the wilderness, she is able to harness whatever forces there are out there, to the point of becoming a makeshift cult leader.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: In 1996, Lottie is only known by a shortened form of her given name (Charlotte).
• Rage Against the Heavens: Lottie's reaction to Laura Lee's death.
• Sanity Slippage: After the crash when her prescription of anti-psychotics runs low, her mental health takes a serious toll. She also experiences one in the present.
• Same Character, But Different: Season 1 seems to set Lottie up as an altogether more fierce presence. She kidnaps Natalie, and is shown in the 1990s donning the veil that marks her as the Antler Queen after nearly getting Travis sexually assaulted and killed during Doomcoming. By Season 2, she's been Easily Forgiven by Travis and is calmly helping the others through guided meditation. The same season then reveals that in the past, it was Van who triggered the first hunt while Lottie was incapacitated. When Lottie awoke, she was so horrified that she declared Natalie their new leader, with the implication that she was the first Antler Queen.
• Seers: Lottie has precognitive abilities, first having a premonition as a little girl in the car with her parents of upcoming danger. Her screaming caused her dad to stop the car rather than go ahead— right before a truck hits the car ahead of them, saving their lives. Afterward her dad refuses to believe it though, and she's still troubled with visions as a teenager after she runs out of her medication.
• Sticky Fingers: Lottie has the habit of stealing awful clothes from T.J. Maxx and then returning them all for credit she never uses.
  "I have thousands of dollars in T.J. bucks."
• Token Rich Student: The other Yellowjackets are lower-class (Natalie, Van), working-class (Shauna), or, at most, middle-class (Jackie). Lottie's father is so wealthy he can charter a private plane and she has staff waiting on her.
• Troubled Teen: She's seen taking a Bland-Name Product version of a medication prescribed in real life as an antipsychotic. After the crash, she has enough meds for only a few days.
• Twofer Token Minority: Lottie is a biracial girl, with a white father and East Asian mother as shown in her flashbacks. She also has precognitive abilities and implied schizophrenia.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Lottie never wanted the other girls to hunt each other. But her culty leadership of the other girls leads them to be convinced she can't die, and to choose someone else in her place, resulting in Javi's death.
• The Worf Effect: Lottie kills a bear with ease in the Season 1 finale, marking herself as a badass cult leader. She also possibly causes a flock of birds to fall out of the sky.

Van

Vanessa "Van" Palmer

1996

present

Portrayed By: Lauren Ambrose (adult); Liv Hewson (teen)

"We might be stuck in the middle of nowhere, but hey, at least there is porn."

The goalie for the Yellowjackets.

---

• Ambiguously Absent Parent: Van has to wake up her mom in the pilot so she can have a ride. Her dad is not seen, and it seems implied that he's not in her life.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished:
  • She has a large chunk of her face torn off by wolves, but the scars she later bears are extremely mild compared to her initial injuries. Especially when you consider the only medical attention she received was some rudimentary stitching by Akilah.
  • In the present day, she also looks very normal despite her implied pill addiction and the fact that she's apparently terminally ill.
• Big Fun: She's quite stocky compared to the other girls, but the quickest with a joke or deadpan comment.
• Butch Lesbian: Van wears pretty masculine clothing (for Doomcoming, she wears trousers and a vest when all other girls are in dresses) and has a tomboy air. Her style's more of a soft butch, though, as this isn't too pronounced and she still wears her hair fairly long. She's dating Taissa, another girl, in 1996.
• The Chew Toy: While all of the Yellowjackets have an extremely tough time, Van's begins before she even gets on the plane, and continues after it. Her mother is a neglectful addict whom Van needs to slap to wake up. Then she gets in a plane crash (her oxygen mask being the only one to not descend) and sees multiple people burn alive, only surviving because she cut herself out of the plane seat. She has to work with Jackie knowing that Jackie ran away in fear and left her to burn alive in the plane. And then her girlfriend Taissa falls asleep on first watch, so she gets mauled by wolves and horrifically maimed, is mistaken for dead, and thus nearly burned alive again on a funeral pyre. Meanwhile, her adult self is offhandedly mentioned to have struggled with a difficult relationship with her now-deceased mother, owns a struggling video store, and has terminal cancer.
• Deadpan Snarker: She has a pretty sharp tongue, regardless of the situation.
  • When the subject of rationing the food comes up, "Oh, so you want to save the CornNuts?"
  • After being left to die when others pull a Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: "You're on fire today. Oh wait, that was supposed to be me!"
  • When the girls in the expedition try to give her a Viking funeral and she wakes up at the last minute, she snarks, "Fire? Really?"
• Death Glare: When Jackie leaves her to die in favor of rescuing Shauna, this becomes her default expression whenever she's around them.
• Fan of the Past: In the present, she runs a 90s-style video rental store, explaining to the local teens what VHSes are, and even renting out VCRs along with the tapes to keep the medium alive.
• Face–Heel Turn: Season 2 sees her leaping into villain territory with how she spearheads the hunt to kill Natalie for food, and in the present seems willing to let one of the others be sacrificed to cure her cancer.
• Fiery Redhead: She's the only redhead on the team, and she is noticeably the snarkiest and sharpest.
• Girliness Upgrade: Downplayed. Her adult hairstyle is a more femininely curled variant of her 1996 one.
• Hairstyle Inertia: She has the same long red hair as an adult, although styled slightly neater. Justified since her character is said to be stuck in the past.
• Lesbian Jock: She's a lesbian who plays as the soccer team's goalie.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Van is almost never called her full name Vanessa.
• Parental Neglect: Her mother doesn't appear to be the most responsible parent; the morning of the flight, Van finds her mother completely out of it on the couch and has to slap her awake to get a ride. She does this pretty casually, too, so it seems like it's hardly the first time.
• Promotion to Parent: Van is shown to look after herself while her mother is passed out on the couch.
• Secret Relationship: In 1996, she's secretly seeing Taissa. The pair of them eventually come out and reveal their relationship at the "Doomcoming" the girls put on.
• Secretly Dying: When Taissa comes back into her life, Van doesn't tell her that she's dying until the night of the ritual.
• Tomboyish Name: Van (full name Vanessa) is a soft butch lesbian soccer goalie.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: She's almost been burned alive twice. Van seems to think that once is too many times.

Misty

Misty Quigley

1996 Misty

present Misty

Portrayed By: Christina Ricci (adult), Samantha Hanratty (teen)

"I know you don't see someone that you should be afraid of, but you're wrong."

In 1996, Misty was the Yellowjackets' equipment manager, with an abundance of team spirit hiding a dark side. In 2021, that hidden dark side led her to work as a caregiver in a nursing home.

---

• Abhorrent Admirer: Misty has a crush on Coach Scott in 1996, and quickly becomes his primary caretaker in his diminished state. She doesn't hesitate to start crossing boundaries, either.
• Affably Evil: Misty is actually a genuinely "nice" person, friendly and kind. It's not an act - but she's also perfectly willing to do just about anything to get what she wants.
• Age-Inappropriate Dress: Misty tends to dress more conservatively and as older than her actual age, both as a teen and an adult in sharp contrast to other survivors who have a far more casual style of dress.
• All for Nothing: Overhearing how grateful the Yellowjackets were for her resourcefulness during the crash, Misty destroys the blackbox in secret not wanting to lose that appreciation as it was her first taste of it. But through her own actions, the Yellowjackets lose respect for her anyway without even finding out she destroyed the box.
• Amateur Sleuth: She fancies herself as this, and is part of an online "citizen detective" community. However, when she tails Natalie to her meeting with Kevyn Tan, Natalie tells her to go away, saying that they're not "Rizzoli & Isles."
• Animal Motifs:
  • Cats. Her clothes (both as a teen and as an adult) often feature cats. It can be considered part of her Bitch in Sheep's Clothing persona: she is harmless as a fluffy little cat unless provoked; and cats are known for playing with their prey before getting around to the killing blow. Additionally, when choosing showtunes to play on her trip with Natalie, her first choice is "Magical Mister Mistoffelees" from Cats.
  • Birds: She has an African grey parrot named Caligula. Later she brings a diffuser to Natalie for her hotel room in the shape of an owl. Season 2 features her having a vision of a singing and dancing Caligula who has encouraging words for her.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: One of the reasons the surviving Yellowjackets put up with her is that Misty gets stuff done. Against her own instinct, Natalie gets Misty involved in the cover-up over Adam's death, young Misty saved Natalie's life by being the person who held her back while Javi drowned; Misty intended to sacrifice Lisa to save the others and was ultimately the character who killed Natalie. However, Misty also defends her selfish actions (like killing Jessica) by invoking this trope, a trait that the others aren't pleased by.
• Battleaxe Nurse: The year 2021 finds Misty working at a nursing home. When one of her patients ticks her off, she deprives the poor woman of her morphine, gleefully speculating the medication must be upsetting her stomach.
• Beauty Inversion: Christina Ricci is very attractive, so Misty's unflattering wardrobe and hair are used to hide her looks and combine with her off-putting personality to explain her difficulty in finding partners. Ditto with Samantha Hanratty as teen Misty, who wears Pubescent Braces when portraying 13-year-old Misty in a flashback.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Her cutesy Genki Girl demeanor and stereotypically nerdy appearance belies a terrifyingly obsessive, callous, and homicidal aspect.
• Bladder of Steel: Claims to have one in "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" when threatening a surly motel clerk so he gives her info about Natalie's whereabouts.
• Closest Thing We Got: Her Red Cross training makes the rest of the team appoint her as their medic, as even her scant training is more than anyone else has. Reality hits hard when Shauna goes into labor, and she breaks down upon realizing how in over her head she is.
• Crazy-Prepared: After the crash, she proudly brags that she "took the Red Cross babysitter training class. Twice."
• Curly Hair Is Ugly: At least, helpful for Beauty Inversion. Both young Misty and older Misty have tight curls, and both are unpopular with everyone around them, both male and female. Jessica tells the adult Misty that her haircut is unflattering and Natalie refers to her as a "conniving, poodle-haired, fucking freak!"
• Desperately Craves Affection: Misty will do anything to be part of the group or get the attention of others, and because she's The Unfettered, she's willing to do some truly horrible things to get the affection she craves.
• Disposing of a Body: Adult Misty proves disconcertingly resourceful in collecting supplies without leaving a paper trail, cleaning a murder scene, and destroying the pieces by which the remains could be identified.
• Diving Save: Older Misty dives on Natalie's stash of coke and snorts it to save her from relapsing. She presents it as Taking the Bullet since, if it hadn't been coke, she would've been dead.
• Entitled Bitch: In the present day, whenever her fellow survivors call her out on something she did that violates their trust or privacy, she is quick to rant about how “ungrateful” they are to everything she has done for them.
• Foil: With Natalie.
  • Both are among the most capable survivors in the forest, have romantic desires towards a male survivor, and are outsiders to the main friendship group.
  • But in contrast, Natalie is an Action Girl to Misty's Evil Genius, Natalie protects Travis while Misty tortures Coach Scott, and Natalie became a good hunter and ends up being a respected hero to the group while Misty sabotaged their survival so she would remain important to them, and is still disliked.
  • Natalie also has a tough, prickly, and bitchy exterior. Misty has a sugary-sweet and soft-spoken exterior, but while Natalie shows herself to be one of the most moral and grounded Yellowjackets (however awful their circumstances), Misty is a psychopath who commits most of the premeditated evil shown on screen.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Misty is the only member of the team who wears glasses, and she's a seriously twisted person.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Nobody really cares for Misty, either in 1996 or the present day, due to her off-putting and over-enthusiastic nature. Mrs. Singh, one of her patients, sums it up nicely:
  Mrs. Singh: You remind me of my granddaughter. Nobody really likes her either.
• I Did What I Had to Do: When her teammates react in shock to her more extreme actions, Misty simply asserts that it was necessary for everyone's good. They usually don't have a good counterargument until Season 2’s penultimate episodes where Lottie states that most of her actions throughout the series only served to make things more complicated and dire than they needed to be.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Played for Horror. Because she Desperately Craves Affection, Misty's biggest goal is to have friends. She's even willing to strand the whole team in the wilderness in hopes of winning over her teammates.
• Insane Troll Logic: Misty doesn't think she bears any responsibility for everybody losing their minds because of the shrooms because she was only trying to poison Coach Scott in the first place, and it was Mari that actually put the mushrooms in the food. In even then, she asserts that none of it would have happened in the first place if Coach Scott hadn't "tricked" her into falling in love with him.
• It's All About Me: Good lord. She destroyed the emergency broadcast transmitter; which could have saved her fellow survivors a year and a half of pure torment. Why? Because that would have stopped everyone from perceiving her as useful and valuable; and she wanted to bask in that feeling for much longer.
• Kick the Dog: Jackie comforts Misty and genuinely tells her she's pretty before the Doomcoming dance. How does Misty, who's Hated by All, repay her? She further alienates Jackie from the rest of the group by announcing that she didn't thank the wilderness for their food, which deepens the schism that leads to Jackie's death.
• Lack of Empathy: Zigzagged. There are moments that indicate she can sympathize with what other people are feeling. However, most of the time, she seems incapable of reading a room, acknowledging someone’s discomfort at her forceful attempts at romance or friendship, or fathoming that friendships are slowly earned through patience and built on trust. And that’s not even getting into her role in condemning the other survivors to an agonizing year and a half for an extremely selfish and trivial reason.
• Loners Are Freaks: She has no strong ties to the group pre-crash, and no friends or partners in the present day, and she's pretty demented. Her attempts to win over friends usually come across as creepy rather than endearing.
• The Medic: In terms of Closest Thing We Got, Misty has the most knowledge of medicine (she took the Red Cross training course twice). This is also why she destroyed the black box; because her medical knowledge meant that she was needed by the others. However, for all Misty's Determinator tendencies, her medical knowledge fails her when she needs it mot, when Shauna is in labor.
• Nothing Nice About Sugar and Spice: Misty wears candy-bright knitwear, loves animals, and is a perky nurse with quirky hobbies. She's also The Unfettered, who will commit murder as casually as baking cookies if she feels she needs to.
• Obviously Evil: This is what separates her from the other Yellowjackets. Misty is the only one who's unable to blend in with normal life even post-rescue. Even with people who have no idea what she's capable of, they're all wary of her and aware that she is "different" in a bad way.
• Pet the Dog: As creepy and ruthless as Misty is, she really does just want to have friends, so she has a few moments throughout the series to go out of her way to help people she cares for. This is perhaps most striking when she tearfully begs Ben not to kill himself, saving his life.
• Pubescent Braces: Worn by 13-year-old Misty in a flashback where she gets a prank call, to increase her awkwardness quotient.
• Quirky Curls: Misty has an extremely bright, affable demeanour underneath...everything else, and while older Natalie also has wavy hair, it's far less dense than Misty's curls.
• Stalker without a Crush: Misty craves attention and companionship, but her stalking of the Yellowjackets, especially Natalie, is at least not sexual in nature.
• Token Evil Teammate: Reconstructed. Misty is the most obviously ruthless of the present Yellowjackets, capable of kidnapping, torture, and at least threats of murder, but these are also the traits that make her a highly competent survivor in the past, and the fact that she has embraced her dark side puts her in direct contrast to the others, who are no less ruthless but much more subtle about it.
• The Unfettered: If not for her almost pathological desire to make friends and earn affection, Misty would come across as a complete sociopath. There's basically nothing she's unwilling to do to get what she wants, from destroying the plane's homing beacon to drugging her crush to outright murdering anyone who gets in the way of her or her teammates.
• Unwanted Assistance: Misty is a walking example of this from her first appearance. She is constantly getting in the way, whether it be trying to aid teammates, help Coach Scott, or assist in the investigation, and is frequently pushed away or told to knock it off.
• Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: Misty is sincerely friendly, even overly friendly, but that doesn't mean she's a good person at her core. She's sadistic, petty, vindictive and self-obsessed. And ultimately responsible for the Yellowjackets being abandoned in the wilderness.
• Yandere: Although, in Misty's case, it's less "love" and more "anyone who shows her any affection". She has a crush on Coach Scott and completely devotes herself to looking after him and the rest of the Yellowjackets...but she also trips and physically hurts him if he doesn't pay enough attention to her, and she's mostly responsible for the Yellowjackets' stranding.

Travis

Travis Martinez

1996 Travis

present Travis

Portrayed By: Kevin Alves (teen), Andres Soto

"Dad was a dick, Javi. All right? He's the whole reason we're in this hell, and now he's dead. Don't you understand? Dad is fucking dead!"

The son of Coach Martinez, he and his younger brother Javi join the team on the flight to Nationals. He survives both the crash itself and the 19 months in the wilderness. The present finds him staying out of sight and dealing with his own demons.

---

• Accidental Suicide: According to Lottie, Travis died this way, intending to only hang himself until he lost consciousness so he could encounter something he could only experience if he was near death, but the mechanism was broken and Lottie was unable to free him.
• Big Brother Instinct: Zigzagged regarding Javi, as it befits a Jerk with a Heart of Gold. Right after the crash, Natalie has to nag him into watching out for Javi. He finally forces Javi to throw out the gum he’d been chewing out for days just because their dad gave it to him. But he also retrieves his late dad's ring so that Javi can have a keepsake. In the season 1 finale, he is frantically searching for his brother, and in Season 2 is still combing the wilderness for him.
• Butt-Monkey: The girls are especially mean to him right after the crash, Lottie having to be reminded that his father just died after she insults him for taking extra food for his little brother, and Mari mocking his looks when comparing him to the man in a porn magazine. Then in "Doomcoming", he ends up a victim of grey rape by Jackie and is then tied to a tree and nearly killed by the drugged out girls.
• Cheated Death, Died Anyway: Travis is counted among the survivors of the hellish isolation in Canada, but his body is discovered in the present, with the other survivors suspecting foul play.
• Embarrassing Nickname: He had back surgery at 12, and another boy at school saw the scar. The boy said Travis had had a rib removed so that he'd be flexible enough to suck his own dick. That got him the nickname Flex, which stuck. Doubles as an Ironic Nickname since spinal fusion typically makes a person less flexible.
• Foe Cooties: Travis gets very angry with Natalie and breaks up with her after finding out that she slept with Bobby Farleigh, who gave Travis the cruel nickname "Flex". He sleeps with Jackie as a result.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Travis is surly when he hasn't been through a horrific trauma, and after the crash he's no prince: he's irritable, aggressive, selfish and prone to misogynistic remarks. However, his behavior improves as he warms up to Natalie and he begins to show that beneath all the insecurity, he's a good person. In fact, he risks the wrath of everyone else to save Natalie from being sacrificed.
• Morality Pet: Both Natalie and Javi are his.
• Never Suicide: Natalie refuses to believe he killed himself in the present… and considering the Arc Symbol of the Antler Queen Cult was made in candles near his body she’s probably right. Ultimately it turns out that he died trying to choke himself into passing out so that he could confront the "darkness." Lottie ended up being the one who controlled the remote for the crane rig tied around his neck. She claims that the remote failed, but a flashback shows that she was distracted by visions of Laura Lee.
• The One Guy: Travis is the most prominent male survivor in the series.
• Slut-Shaming: Travis has problems with jibes about Natalie's promiscuity, although it's also hinted that, since he's a virgin, he's worried about not being good enough for her; when he asks what number he would be, he sounds very nervous, as though he's trying to find out if she's experienced enough to know if he isn't good.
• Speak Ill of the Dead: The quote above is from when he forces Javi to throw away the gum their dad gave him before the flight. When he goes off to hunt with Natalie, he shares that his father didn't like him.
• Took a Level in Kindness: By Season 2, he is much softer spoken and less prone to snapping at the girls. He even shockingly accepts their murder of Javi as the wilderness choosing.
• Troubled Teen: Between the Embarrassing Nickname and feeling his father didn't like him.
• Twofer Token Minority: He's a Latino boy in a group of mostly white teen girls.

Laura Lee

Laura Lee

Portrayed By: Jane Widdop

"Let's join hands. We'll pray for them. Rachel, you just moved up from JV, so we didn't really know you. But, in Trig, you never confused your secants and your cosecants."

A deeply religious teammate.

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• Age-Inappropriate Dress: Downplayed example. Her clothes (see the Mary Jane shoes and ruffled ankle socks in the image above) make her look much younger than her likely age of 15-17.
• Cheated Death, Died Anyway: Twice! She cracked her skull on a swimming pool floor and nearly drowned, then she survived the plane crash. Then she died when the possible rescue plane blew up.
• Death by Flashback: The opening of "Flight of the Bumblebee" gives us a scene of Laura Lee's time at Bible camp. She went for a dive into the shallow end of a pool, cracked her head and nearly drowned. That is the only major backstory we have been given about the character. At the end of the episode, she sets off in a Cessna plane, which explodes.
• Determinator: She studies flight manuals as she is intent in flying out the cabin's ancient plane and getting help. She refuses to listen to anyone who tells her it cannot be done. When the coach tries to assert his authority as the only adult, she asks him how is he going to stop her.
• Establishing Character Moment: While Laura Lee is seen in the background of several scenes with the rest of the team, her first actual line of dialogue in the show is asking an incredulous Coach Ben to let her say a prayer before soccer practice.
• Expy: To Simon in Lord of the Flies. Both are kind, gentle, religious characters who die, which makes Laura Lee, like Simon, something of a Jesus figure.
• Felony Misdemeanor: She believes that the crash is divine punishment for thinking (not even saying) her piano teacher is a cunt.
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Sweet, pious Laura Lee is the only girl seen with a teddy bear, Leonard, and she is very happy to find him in her suitcase. Later she brings him with her when she takes Cabin Guy's plane to look for help, and is devastated to see him go up in flames when the engine fails.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Laura Lee is blonde, naïve, and likable.
• Morality Chain: Just when Lottie starts having visions or premonitions she doesn't understand, Laura Lee is there to provide comfort and support. It is telling that Lottie doesn't start her darker journey until after Laura is killed.
• Morality Pet: Posthumously. She's no longer a Morality Chain for Lottie, but Lottie is still obviously very attached to her.
• Nice Girl: Laura Lee might be deeply religious, but she's not some judgmental fanatic; she's sweet, considerate and naïve.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Laura Lee was only trying to help, but her baptism of Lottie and encouraging her to have faith in her visions are the two main actions that lead to the formation of Lottie's cult, with herself as the head.
• Not Too Dead to Save the Day: It's implied that Lottie is having a Dying Dream when she sees Laura Lee in a ghostly mall, and Lottie seems to have given up completely. Laura Lee warns her of her fate and appears to send her back to the real world. Apparently inverted with Travis's death, where Lottie's vision of Laura Lee stops her from doing more to rescue Travis.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: One of her defining moments is worrying she caused the crash by cursing in her head. After the expedition fails and she makes up her mind to try to use the plane to get help, she tells Coach that if she doesn't, they're "all going to fucking starve," shocking her audience and underscoring how dire the situation is, and how serious she is about the plan.
• Posthumous Character: Laura Lee dies in a plane explosion in the eighth episode of Season 1. She nevertheless appears in Lottie's visions frequently after this point, and is clearly still a huge Morality Pet for Lottie.
• Sacrificial Lion: Laura Lee's death in the middle of Season 1 is a turning point beyond which the wilderness experience gets a lot darker, in part because Lottie has previously leaned on Laura Lee to give her faith.
• Token Religious Teammate: Laura Lee leads the team in prayer before practice, and later for those lost in the crash. She's the only one who seems to really be religious, talking of her faith a lot, but unlike some other examples of the trope, her teammates are generally accepting and supportive of her faith and willingly join her in prayer regardless of their own beliefs. Her faith plays an important role in inspiring Lottie to see her hallucinations as divine prophecy. She conveniently dies before Lottie's role in the group becomes overtly heretical.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: One of the only teammates with no real hang-ups, internal or external conflicts, or drama with anyone else on the team. Moreover, she's universally liked and is friendly with the rest of the team, and risks her life to try to save them. Simply put, she wasn't meant for the Crapsack World the characters currently live in.
• Took a Level in Badass: She's brave enough to put her crazy plan into action, even directly challenging Coach Scott when he tries to talk her out of it. If the plane had been just a little more air-ready, she might have made it.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: She encourages Lottie to see her visions as something divine, instead of dangerous or embarrassing, even baptizing her to let her accept God into her heart and become something of a prophet. It's all well-meaning on her part, and she couldn't have possible predicted where it would go.

Other Survivors

Coach Scott

Coach Ben Scott

1996

Portrayed By: Steven Krueger

"Wolves can kill anything if the pack's big enough."

In 1996, he was the team's assistant coach. He survives the plane crash but suffers major injuries.

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• Adults Are Useless: In the beginning it is zigzagged: while losing his leg makes him much more dependent on the girls, he still tries (and even succeeds) on maintaining some semblance of authority. However, as the series goes on, it's played pretty straight:
  • He can't stop Laura Lee from trying to fly off using the discovered plane or Jackie from being exiled from the cabin, resulting in both their deaths. Laura Lee even lampshades it, asking him how he's going to stop her, to which he has no response.
  • In Season 2, when he sees the girls frenzily cannibalizing Jackie's roasted corpse he just flees in fear from the situation. The same happens when Shauna goes into labor, despite teaching health class.
• An Arm and a Leg: His leg is crushed during the crash and has to be amputated.
• The Chew Toy: Nothing goes right for this poor bastard. Following a traumatic plane crash, he not only needs to have his leg amputated in amateur fashion (which must hurt all the more considering he's a clear sportsman) but he's poisoned by Misty, who's dangerously obsessed with him. By the first season's end, he has lost all authority over the girls.
• Closet Gay: Natalie guesses in "Flight of the Bumblebee" that he's gay, based on the fact that he never seems to look at any of the Yellowjackets girls' breasts. She's cool with it, but he asks her not to tell anyone else, for fear of it getting out; a reasonable fear given that it's 1996.
• Creepy Gym Coach: Invoked and inverted. Natalie says that she figured out Coach was gay because he never looked at the girls' breasts. Also, Misty behaves far more inappropriately towards him and sexually harasses him, rather than vice versa.
• Demoted to Dragon: By the end of season one, Coach Scott has lost any ability to control the team, and is silenced without complaint.
• Despair Event Horizon: Hits it very early on, but he manages to rally himself with time and do whatever he can to help the kids survive.
  • Hits it again in season 2, when he witnesses the group eating Jackie. This, combined with his own starvation (since he doesn't join them) causes him to become delirious and despairing, vividly hallucinating about his time with his ex-boyfriend. This culminates in him attempting to commit suicide but Misty manages to talk him out of it. It happens yet again in the season 2 finale, when he witnesses Javi being cannibalised, and Natalie being crowned the new leader of the group. Coach responds by setting fire to the cabin while everyone is sleeping.
• Distressed Dude: Downplayed. The loss of his leg makes him initially unable to walk, and the girls have to carry him when they hike away from the crash site. However, he regains most of his mobility with the help of crutches, and he still has enough mental strength and wherewithal to help the kids, albeit not as much as if he had both legs.
• Forced Out of the Closet: Coach Scott twice ends up revealing his sexuality, despite intending to keep it a secret. The first time happens when Natalie asks him if he's gay, noting that he never looks at any of the Yellowjacket girls' breasts. She says she's cool with it, so he admits as much, getting her to promise she won't tell anyone. Later, he reveals it to Misty when he's pushed past his Rage Breaking Point by her clumsy attempts to get him to reciprocate her feelings. Misty later threatens to out him to the world to talk him out of killing himself but at this point, he just dares her to do it.
• Hidden Depths: His past experience in hunting with his dad. While he cannot go out himself, he sets up the contest to determine who are the best suited to go out and hunt. He also shows himself to be a pretty good manipulator, pretending to return Misty's feelings so as not to lose her help or cause tension, but framing it in such a way that she won't bother him romantically. It doesn't work in the long-term, but it gets her off his back for a little while.
• Hot Teacher: Misty has a very obvious crush on him, which isn't surprising considering he's a good-looking young man. Too bad for her that he's gay, albeit hiding it. He finally breaks in "Doomcoming" and reveals it to her after she tries again to make a move on him. Needless to say, she doesn't take it well.
• Kill It with Fire: He's heavily implied to be the one who burns down the cabin with everyone inside at the end of "Storytelling".
• Manly Gay: He is conventionally attractive, well-built and sporty, and is into things like hunting. He is also secretly gay, at least until he reveals his secret in the woods.
• Only Sane Man: He's understandably horrified to witness the group eating Jackie's corpse and is the only one who doesn't partake, even at the expense of his own physical well-being. Likewise, he refuses to participate in eating Javi, and subsequently deserts the group for good.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: He deserts the group in "Storytelling" to live in the cave that Javi found.
• Survivor Guilt: It doesn't help that A) he is incapacitated from his injury and B) Coach Martinez's sons did survive the crash, but Martinez did not.
• Token Good Teammate: In so far as he's the only survivor who doesn't descend into cannibalism. This is muddied by the second season finale, however, given his (apparent) decision to burn down the cabin with all the kids inside.
• Twofer Token Minority: He's a gay man in a group of (mostly) teenage girls. He can even be considered as a "threefer" considering that he's the only surviving adult in a group of teens.
• Uncertain Doom: He is not seen or alluded to in the present day, making it unlikely that he survived the 19 months in the wilderness. However, if he did die, the circumstances of his death have yet to be revealed.
• Worf Had the Flu: He's the only surviving adult (and an athletic young man to boot), but he's also missing a leg that makes him unable to hunt himself.

Mari

Mari

1996

Portrayed By: Alexa Barajas (teen)

One of the Yellowjackets who survives the crash.

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• The Bully: Zigzagged. Her only meaningful interaction is with her equally Out of Focus teammate Akilah, rudely telling her that she hasn't earned the right to sit with the rest of the team on the plane, only to burst out laughing and admit that she's just kidding, then offer Akilah some snacks. She is shown being cutting to her other teammates, especially Misty, but most of it is provoked for good reason (like Misty blaming her for putting shrooms in the soup, when Mari didn't know they were shrooms). She actually shows herself to be this in season 2, trying to bully people into believing in Lottie because that’s what she believes, getting confrontational with Ben, and most pointedly bullying Crystal, who she enjoys watching draw the worst chore, despite Crystal doing nothing to anyone.
• The Cassandra: In Season 2, she begins having visions of blood pouring down the cabin walls, but no one believes her.
• The Ditz: An old boyfriend dumped her for his cousin, and she seems to think that it being a second cousin makes a difference.
• Egocentrically Religious: Mari seems to be becoming more of a believer in Lottie than Lottie herself — which means she peer-pressures the other girls into letting Lottie go outside in the snow to try and hunt game without a gun, claiming she doesn't need one.
• Everyone Has Standards: She's a grade A mean girl but even she looks saddened and horrified by Shauna's Tragic Still Birth.
• No Sympathy: She's happy to say mean things to and about Travis literal days after his father was killed trying to save them.
• Out of Focus: She receives little characterization and few lines. We don't even know her last name.
• Pet the Dog: One of her only humanizing moments comes in the penultimate episode of Season 2 when she collapses crying after she drops Lottie's bed pan by accident and spills the contents all over the floor.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Her first appearance is joking around with Akilah, but by the end of Season 1 she almost only appears to cause an argument or put down Jackie or Misty. She is the first one to accuse the Coach of stealing meat in "Old Wounds" even though as he himself points out, he is in no physical condition to do so.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: At least through her "faith" in Lottie. Mari insists that Lottie can find them food without a gun, nearly getting her killed in the process.
• Uncertain Doom: She doesn't seem to be alive in the present day, and she's the only crash survivor who resembles the girl murdered and cannibalized in the first season's opening scene, leading many to speculate that she's the victim.

Akilah

Akilah

1996 (Season 1)

1996 (Season 2)

Portrayed By: Keeya King (Season 1); Nia Sondaya (Season 2)

An African-American member of the Yellowjackets who survives the crash. She is a junior at the time it happens.

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• Animal Lover: She finds a mouse in the pantry and instead of shrieking in fear/disgust or considering it a source of food, she coos at it and later names him Nugget.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Her hair changing from box braids to being worn up and plain signals how much time has passed.
• Hidden Depths: In "Digestif" she advises another girl on the gift she is making for Shauna's baby. She is knowledgeable about babies because she has a nephew who was four-months-old when they flew out and laments missing him getting bigger. "Old Wounds" show her studying for the SAT.
• The Medic: In terms of Closest Thing We Got, Akilah shares this role with Misty, stitching up Van's face and helping to deliver Shauna's baby.
• Morality Pet: Akilah bonds quickly with a mouse that has been living in the Yellowjackets' pantry. Which takes a dark turn, when it's revealed that the mouse was Dead All Along.
• Out of Focus: She receives almost no characterization and few lines in Season 1. All we know is that her time in the Girl Scouts has enabled her to recognize poisonous berries, making her the only Yellowjacket with any official wilderness survival training. She gets a more prominent role in Season 2.
• Uncertain Doom: Akilah is not shown to have survived in the present day, and is not referenced. It's likely that she died, though how and when is left ambiguous.

Gen

Gen

1996

Portrayed By: Mya Lowe (teen)

One of the Yellowjackets who survives the crash.

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• Ascended Extra: During all of Season 1 she remains in the background and stays even more Out of Focus than Mari or Akilah, not even getting a name (the actress was credited as "Yellowjackets #1") or any memorable lines. She is finally given a name in Season 2.
• Establishing Character Moment: She remains in the background until "Friends, Romans, Countrymen", when she snaps at Crystal to stop singing/humming.
• Uncertain Doom: By the end of Season 2, out of the crash survivors, only Laura Lee, Jackie, Crystal, and Javi are confirmed as dead. This leaves the fate of anybody who did not appear in 2021 a mystery.

Crystal

Crystal

1996

Portrayed By: Nuha Jes Izman (teen)

"I actually absorbed my identical twin in the womb."

A team member and a theater club kid. Her actual name is Kristen.

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• Accidental Misnaming: Her name is actually Kristen. A teammate called her Crystal the Pistol on her first day and she just went with it since she'd never had a nickname before.
• Cloudcuckoolander: In "Digestif" she claims to have absorbed her identical twin in the womb, and to channel her sister whenever she is onstage.
• The Confidant: She and Misty become this for each other due to their similar Friendless Background, sharing all their darkest secrets. Until Misty confesses to being the reason they were never rescued.
• Establishing Character Moment: In "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" Gen snaps at Crystal to stop singing. Instead of stopping her behavior or clapping back, Crystal clarifies she was humming.
• Motor Mouth: She encounters Misty when the latter heads out for water and can't stop chattering about singing "The Glory of Love" and getting it stuck on her head.
• Out of Focus: At least Gen appears in the background of Season 1, even if she is not given a name. Crystal is not even seen for the first time until Episode 2.01, even though she presumably has been there in the wilderness with the others all this time.
• Performance Artist: Turns out to be a huge theatre kid. She talks to her new bestie Misty about almost nothing but theatre and performance.
• The Pollyanna: Crystal has been in the wilderness with the other Yellowjackets for months, close to starvation, and witnessing the deaths of Laura Lee and Jackie. Despite all of that, she remains almost creepily cheerful.
• The Precarious Ledge: Falls to her death after her "bestie" Misty threatens to kill her and scares her into taking a step backwards from said ledge.
• Remember the New Guy?: She appears for the first time in Season 2, being treated as though she were there since the crash.

Melissa

Melissa

1996

Portrayed By: Jenna Burgess (teen)

A team member.

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• Out of Focus: Melissa does not appear until Episode 2.01, even though she presumably has been there in the wilderness with the others all this time.
• Signature Headgear: Her pink baseball cap, sometimes worn backwards.
• Uncertain Doom: Again, Melissa isn't shown or discussed at all in the present day, suggesting that she died in the wilderness without clarifying how, when, or why she died.

Javi

Javi Martinez

1996

Portrayed By: Luciano Leroux

"Are we all going to die out here?"

Javi and his older brother Travis join their father, Coach Martinez, on the flight to Nationals. The boys survive the crash but their father doesn't.

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• Accident, Not Murder: Though it's a pretty technical distinction in these circumstances. Natalie is the one who's chosen, but Javi tries to help her and falls through the ice and drowns. The other Yellowjackets still let him die, though.
• The Baby of the Bunch: He's the youngest survivor.
• Cheated Death, Died Anyway: Survived both a plane crash and several months in the winter wilderness alone, living in a tunnel and eating birds. When he returns to the girls, he tries to save Natalie from the Hunt, and falls into a frozen lake. The girls let him drown, proclaim that the wilderness chose its sacrifice, and eat him.
• Children Are Innocent: Javi understandably has a lot of trouble processing his father's death, in addition to being stranded in the wilderness.
• Improbable Infant Survival: Played straight at least once - Javi goes missing for weeks in the freezing cold winter and the Canadian wilderness. Taissa and Van find him again weeks later, and he appears physically fine, albeit very traumatized. Then it is averted in "It Chooses", as Javi does die in the wilderness.
• Ring on a Necklace: Travis digs up his father's grave so he can retrieve Coach Martinez's ring. Later he gives Javi the ring, which Javi wears around his neck, likely because his hand is too small.
• Tragic Keepsake: Three days after the crash he is still chewing on gum his father gave him before the crash, which Travis has to force him to throw away.
• Twofer Token Minority: He's a Latino boy in a group of mostly white teen girls.