Recap / Yellowjackets S 1 E 9 Doomcoming

Recap pages are Spoilers Off per policy and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned

1996

It's colder and with nothing to hunt, the girls dig up worms to eat. Shauna tries to get a gloomy Jackie to eat, but Jackie figures they are going to starve anyway. Mari brings up that she'd been saving some berries, but they have fermented into booze, and she is willing to share, since nobody cares too much if they are safe. Jackie perks up for a second and proposes they have a party the next day, when there will be a full moon and close to Homecoming. They can dress up, decorate, and drink Mari's booze "to celebrate our impending death" or Doomcoming.

Misty guilt-trips Coach Ben to attend Doomcoming with her: "I've just never been... asked to one before, and I just... I thought that this could be my one chance. I'm sorry. It was dumb. Uh... I know I'm not pretty." He agrees, but only on the condition that their "boundaries" remain firmly in place. She is jubilant, he is resigned.

Jackie tells Shauna that she cannot stop thinking about how their lives would be had the crash not happened: they would be attending lots of parties at Rutgers. Shauna does not think about that topic too often.

Jackie: What if this is it, Shauna? Everything we did... Uh, everything we didn't do. All the mistakes that we made, it's, like, permanent.
Shauna: (Scoffs softly) What mistakes did you make? Everybody loved you.

Jackie is making plans to lose her virginity with Travis. Shauna reminds Jackie about Natalie. Jackie points out that Natalie and Travis are not on speaking terms. Shauna continues to object until Jackie asks her if she wants Travis for herself. "'Cause, I mean, God knows I would never want us competing for the same guy.."

Van does not want to attend Doomcoming; she feels too self-conscious about how her face (covered in bandages at the moment) looks. She changes her mind when Taissa shows her the matching face coverings she made for them to wear. Misty sneaks off to collect "special mushrooms" for the Coach. Back at the cabin, she goes off to help Shauna zip up her dress (which has grown tight over her pregnant belly), leaving her mushrooms right where Mari is preparing that evening's meal. She comes back to find them gone. Mari tells her the mushrooms are in the stew. Misty does not tell Mari about the mushrooms being special.

In the evening, everybody has dressed up. Most girls have adorned themselves with headdresses made from leaves, branches, and other found materials. Van and Taissa wear their matching face masks and kiss right in front of everyone. (Mari: "Are they... ?" Akilah: "Duh.") The others applaud. As the stew is distributed, Shauna begs Jackie once again to eat. Jackie dumps out her portion while everybody else partakes of the "magic" stew. While Travis is talking to Nat, Jackie calls him over. Ben announces that while as their coach, he can't exactly "condone underage drinking", still, he offers a toast and congratulates Van and Taissa. The group has a moment of silence for their teammate, Laura Lee. Misty proposes they start with a slow dance, making Ben squirm. Lottie starts singing Seal's "Kiss from a Rose". The others join in.

The coach manages to deflect Misty's invitation to dance by sending her off to Javi. Natalie proposes to the Coach that they get out of there since she has real booze. The Coach cannot say yes fast enough.

Travis and Jackie are hanging out. Apparently, he'd never gone on a high school dance before; they did not seem fun and his opinion remains the same. After joking about how he's living every guy's dream of being stranded with a bunch of babes (Travis: "You ever feel like your humility holds you back?"), she invites him to join her for a walk.

While hanging out with the Coach, Nat pulls out the liquor she found under the porch weeks ago and asks him point-blank how much longer is he going to keep his "secret boyfriend act" with Misty. In return, he asks Natalie what is going between her and Travis. Natalie: "It's pretty obvious that he wanted me to be a completely different kind of girl." Coach Ben tries to respond, but he realizes that he's been poisoned again, and not just him, but everybody. Natalie (having had some experience with psychedelics) doesn't think it is going to be lethal, but she warns him to "Buckle in."

Outside the cabin, the main group of girls is lying on the floor and they are TRIPPING. Van tells Taissa that she looks like a tree, "like a really hot tree. Guys, doesn't Tai look like a tree right now?" Somebody wonders if it is the other way around and the trees look like Taissa. Lottie announces that she feels some energy coming from the ground. "Something's coming. We won't be hungry much longer."

Inside the cabin, Jackie makes her intentions crystal clear to Travis. He tells Jackie that he thinks he is in love with Natalie. Jackie laughs: "You are so sweet and naïve and dumb." He is confused but Jackie goes on to tell her that it's fine: "I used to be dumb, too. I used to actually think it mattered who your first was. I used to think a lot of shit mattered. I barely slept the night before we left because I cared that much about a fucking soccer game." She reveals that Shauna, her best friend, was having sex her boyfriend behind her back. She rejects his attempt at sympathy.

Jackie: It's funny, I used to pretend I didn't know if I loved Jeff, when the truth is, I didn't even like him that much. And I was so mad at Shauna, but now I realize she's right. Friendship doesn't matter. Love doesn't matter. They're just things that we use to pretend we aren't gonna end up like dead cabin guy; like rotted-out husks in some bullshit attic. But of course that's how it ends. That's all we are the whole time. It doesn't matter. We're just shells with nothing inside.

She propositions him. "I'm not asking again. The choice is yours." He says yes, and they start kissing.

Misty is out there looking for Ben. The main group of girls, still in an altered state, notice that Nat and Coach are hanging out, knowing that Misty won't like that. It is then that they realize that Misty is gone, and that Jackie and Travis left together. Taissa deems this very typical of Jackie. Shauna brings up that Jackie is not doing anything wrong. An angry Lottie doesn't agree: "He doesn't belong to her." They go off to find Jackie and Travis.

In the attic, Jackie and Travis are having sex. Outside, on their way to the cabin, the girls hear howling, and they respond with howling and other animal noises.

When Jackie and Travis are done with having sex, a disoriented Travis, who is feeling the Magic Mushroom, thinks they disappeared and wonders out loud if he is there. Jackie tells him to get dressed. The girls bust in the cabin and Lottie demands to know what the two of them were doing. Jackie tells them it's none of their business and accuses Shauna of blabbing on her. The girls move in a predatory fashion, Lottie still indignant that Jackie had sex with Travis. She and Shauna kiss Travis. Travis is too high to do anything when Jackie asks him for help.

Lottie: You took something that doesn't belong to you.
Jackie: Oh, what, like the fucking spirits give a shit that Nat called dibs on Travis? This has nothing to do with her.
Lottie: (snarling) Don't you understand? You don't matter anymore.

And with that, Lottie shoves Jackie into the pantry and locks her in.

The girls start pawing at Travis and staring at him hungrily. Travis hallucinates for a second that they are pulling his flesh with their teeth. He runs out in fear. Lottie tells the group that they have to catch "the stag" and they run after him. Shauna goes out, finds Javi, and tells him to run.

On their own, Van and Taissa are just about to make love, when Taissa begs Van to take off her face covering, "Please. I need to see you." With some reluctance, Van takes off the mask, showing the scars from the wolf attack. Taissa calls her "so fucking beautiful."

Natalie is lamenting to the coach about how stupid it is to be sitting around crying about a boy when they are about to starve. Inspired by the mushrooms, he tells her it's not stupid, that love is everything and "the whole reason that we're here." He tells her to go find Travis and tell him how she feels. "It can save us all. Go." Unfortunately for coach Ben, Misty overheard him. Once Natalie is gone, Misty tells him he is right and pounces on him for a kiss. She tells him not to fight it and repeats his own words: "Love is the reason that we're here." He puts the "secret boyfriend" charade to rest:

Coach Ben: (pushing Misty away): Oh, Misty, just stop! I don't love you. I love Paul!
Misty: What? Who's Paul?
Coach Ben: He's my boyfriend, Misty. I'm gay. (Misty just gapes at him) Yeah, that's right, you heard me. Gay. I'm gay, gay, gay. (laughing, then yelling skyward) Did you hear that, Mom? Dad? God? All my furry forest friends? I'm gay.

Inside the pantry, Jackie is screaming for help. Natalie hears her and lets her out. After hunting down Travis, the girls catch him. They tie him to a tree and gag him with a pine cone. Lottie, who is wearing a set of antlers like a crown, orders Shauna to slash his throat: "It's okay. It wants us to." Natalie and Jackie arrive just in time to stop Shauna from killing Travis. Lottie announces that "It's in all of us, you know. Even him. Even you." Natalie tells her to stop the nonsense but Lottie just giggles.

Present

The action starts where the previous episode ended, with Shauna yelling "Who the fuck are you?" at Adam. She accuses him of being her blackmailer. At first he thinks she is doing role-play scenario until he realizes she is dead serious. He has no idea what she is talking about. Shauna starts going through Adam's things in search of her journals while ranting about being dumb enough to trust him and even letting him into her home. She even accuses him of breaking into her safe while he was in the closet. She finally finds books about the crash and the wilderness. Adam admits to googling her and being curious as to what happened. He even swears that he would never do anything to hurt her. Shauna experiences flashbacks and grabs a knife. They struggle and she stabs him, killing him.

Back home, Shauna checks her safe and sees her journals are back in. While Jeff is trying to figure out if he should wear a necktie to the reunion, she demands an explanation for the glitter she found on the closet. He confesses to being the blackmailer. His store is losing business to a much bigger store, FurnitureFam.com. To save his store, Jeff took a loan from "bad guys… really bad, scary guys". To pay them back, he blackmailed the Yellowjackets, thinking maybe Taissa or Natalie would have the cash. Now that the loan shark guys are paid off, he says, they can just forget what happened and move on. But Shauna tells him they can't. Shocked, he listens to Shauna admit to killing the guy she thought was blackmailing them, the same guy she rear-ended earlier on. He is surprised to learn that Shauna kept seeing him and that they had drinks at the hotel. Jeff asks Shauna why she was at the hotel. Shauna tells him she was following him: "We both know that you were having an affair, too. I saw you there with Bianca." Jeff denies cheating with Bianca; the woman was affiliated with "the bad loan people". Then Jeff realizes what Shauna's accusation of him having an affair too means. Shauna ends up having to admit to her affair with Adam; she can't believe Jeff thought her lame book club meetings were real.

Jeff: What? There's no book club!?

In the end, Jeff refers Shauna to the guy who handles finances for the store because he can help her sell off the store inventory if she needs money. His plan is to go to the police and claim that he went over to confront his wife's lover and killed him by accident. Shauna is touched that he wants to take the heat for her, but points out the cops are likely to find out about blackmailing the Yellowjackets. What they did in the wilderness would come out too, ruining everybody's lives including Callie's. While thinking up what to do, they reflect on the secrets they kept from each other: his troubles with the store, her safe with the secret journals.

Shauna: When did we become these people who lie and cheat and do awful things and... just... stay together because...
Jeff: 'Cause why? Shauna, we've always been these people. Secrets have always been a part of... us.

Jessica, who remains shackled to her bed, has spent hours sharing stories from her line of work with Misty, who finds them fascinating. Jessica brings up that Misty herself must have plenty of stories, in an attempt to convince her to share her tale of survival:

Jessica: You survived a plane crash. Then spent a year and a half in the wilderness with... a bunch of fucking teenage girls. (deep breath) I honestly don't know what sounds scarier.
Misty: Aw. It wasn't so bad. I mean, we were all friends.
Jessica: So... Misty, they've been in touch with each other for the last 25 years. Did they ever reach out to you? Ask you how you're doing? Hey, I wasn't there. I don't know. But if it were me... I'd feel left out.

From her car, a depressed-looking Taissa and her campaign manager are watching people vote, or as the manager puts it, "Smiling for the cameras as you participate in the democratic process." Taissa does not feel like smiling. Simone and Sammy moved out of their home: "I took a 15-year marriage and set it on fire, for what? Zoning reform?" The manager tries to comfort her by pointing out how stressful campaigns can be on even the best marriages, and that Simone will come back. Taissa does not like that answer:

Taissa: You don't know that. You don't know anything about me.

Shauna is surprised to learn Jeff read Shauna's journals years earlier, in an attempt to understand what happened to her and the other Yellowjackets. She is even more surprised that even though he knows everything, and the affair and murder on top, he still loves her. He affirms his love for her. He suggests that since she once believed that Adam was blackmailing them, her teammates could believe it.

Shauna calls Taissa and Natalie and tells them to meet her at Adam's because she found the blackmailer!The two arrive to find Shauna standing over Adam's body and ask who is the stiff. Shauna tells them about meeting Adam a few months earlier when she rear-ended his car and then sleeping with him. Taissa realizes that this is the guy Shauna had told her earlier on. Shauna lies about finding her journals in his place and realizing he was the blackmailer "He came back and he saw me with it, and, you know, he realized that I must know what he did, so he attacked me. And I, um, you know, I had no choice." In answer to their questions, Shauna tells them that she does not know where Natalie's money and that he must have learned about the Arc Symbol from the journal he stole from her safe. Natalie is angry at Shauna for killing the guy, because now she cannot find out if he was involved in Travis's death.

Shauna: He was lying to me. He was going to hurt me. I thought that he loved me. I trusted him.
Natalie: Well, I needed answers! So, fuck, Shauna!
Shauna: So, now what?
Taissa: Well, obviously, we can't leave him here.
Shauna: Well, we can't exactly Weekend at Bernie's him out the door, either.

Taissa points out that in addition to having to deal with the body, Shauna has left a trail a mile wide for the police to find her, between her DNA all over the apartment and the texts she sent him. Taissa's legal expertise is not criminal law and much less "covering up a murder." Natalie, who has been quiet, has an idea on how to solve their problems.

Misty's basement again! She tries out a bold reddish lipstick ("You know, my whole life I thought I was a spring, but maybe I'm a winter") for Jessica's consideration. Jessica compliments her but advises a shade that is "a little more... innocent librarian", since it would be good to start crafting her image for the cameras. Misty is appreciative of Jessica's guidance: "Gosh. That's really smart. I'm so glad I kidnapped you before the reunion." This makes them both laugh.Jessica offers to make some phone calls on Misty's behalf to get her a PR team so she can tell her story.

Jessica: I mean... so you guys ate each other. I mean, that is what happened, right? My point is that they're not gonna blame you. They're gonna feel sorry for you, just like they did with those guys who crashed in the Andes. You were just trying to survive. And you know who they're gonna sympathize with the most? The first person to break the 25-year silence.
Misty: (as if reading from a script) "I just couldn't live with it a minute longer."
Jessica: You needed to unburden your soul.
Misty: "No one should have to go through what we went through, and... (sigh) and we were just kids. I mean, innocents. And, of course, when we came back, we couldn't get help. We couldn't betray the team. But it's time to face the truth, no matter how much it hurts, so that everyone can begin to heal."

Just then, the doorbell rings. Misty answers the door and finds Natalie, who compliments her appearance. Misty dismisses Natalie's compliments:

Misty: You can save the flattery. I have nothing to say to you.
Natalie: Why did you open the door, then?
Misty: Because I just had to say that.

Natalie takes it in stride and apologizes. This makes Misty think that Natalie must be making fun of her, given that she never apologizes. Natalie admits that she needs something from Misty.

Misty: You need me? Like you need a ride home? Or you need me to get a hacker to help you...
Natalie: No. Well, yeah, kind of. No. I mean, that's not the only reason I would come here. Okay. I've been... an asshole. I've been mean, and you don't deserve that. You've been here for me in a way that, uh, no one has. You've been a real friend. So... I... I'm sorry, and you're just really good at things.

Misty accepts the apology. When she learns Natalie needs help to get rid of a body, Misty is thrilled to no end.

Tropes appearing in this specific episode:

• Amateur Sleuth: Misty's hobby is going to come in handy for Natalie and the other two.

Natalie: Well, Citizen Detective, we need you to get rid of a body.

• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Jeff learns that Shauna was having an affair with Adam, stabbed him thinking he had stolen her journals, and made up a book club as a cover story.
• Big Damn Kiss: Van and Taissa kiss in front of their classmates, also coming out.
• Call-Back: In the "Pilot" episode, Jackie is tolerating Jeff's fumbling clumsily inside her pajama bottoms. Here, she is more in control of what's happening and enjoying herself with Travis.
• Clothing Reflects Personality: The girls' clothes for Doomcoming. Most are in party dresses. Van is wearing trousers, a coordinating vest, and a button-down shirt. Lottie's pastel flower print dress is a plainer choice compared to the other girls, but she has the tallest headdress, with the branches resembling horns... or antlers.
• Crowd Song: The Yellowjackets sing "Kiss from a Rose" by Seal at Doomcoming.
• Despair Speech: The speech Jackie gives Travis before they have sex, about how friendship and love don't matter, since it's all a distraction as to how they all are going to die.
• Everybody Must Get Stoned: Mari adds Misty's mushrooms to the stew, unaware that Misty deliberately picked up the hallucinogenic variety with the intent to poison Coach. At the Doomcoming feast, everybody (except Jackie) eats the soup. The group is affected in various degrees. Natalie and the Coach remain relatively lucid (she has experience with psychedelic drugs; he is a large, athletic, full-grown male, so perhaps the dose he received was relatively smaller), but most of the girls are tripping.
• Mistaken for Betrayal: Shauna bursts into Adam's apartment, convinced he was the one blackmailing her and her friends. The books on the plane crash affirm this impression.
• Must Not Die a Virgin: Jackie resolves to have sex with Travis as she doesn't see the point on maintaining her virginity if she is just going to starve to death in a few weeks.
• Portmanteau: The feast's original name "moon homecoming" changes to "doom homecoming", Doomcoming for short.
• Stupid Crooks: The protagonist of one of Jessica's stories: "Oh, a little free advice: maybe don't use the in-vehicle navigation for your trans-European drug run."
• Taking the Heat: Jeff almost does this. He is ready to turn himself for killing Adam and gives her a the name of someone who handles the finances of the store so she will be taken care of. Shauna dissuades him by reminding him that if he does that, things will be ruined for Callie.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: A convoluted example. Misty collects mushrooms to poison the Coach again, but she leaves them right at the table where Mari is chopping vegetables. Mari sees the harmless-looking mushrooms and adds them to the stew she is making for dinner. Everybody except Jackie eats, so she remains sober when the rest go on a Mushroom Samba.
• Was It Really Worth It?: Taissa ran for office for issues she believes in, including zoning reform, but regrets the destructive effect the campaign had on her relation with Simone and Sammy.