Cannibalism has been on the menu for Yellowjackets since its very first episode, but the show has always been fairly coy about how the cannibalism started — and who was the first person to be eaten. Now, in Season 2's second episode, titled "Edible Complex," we finally get answers to both those questions.
In a move that shocks no one (but that we've all been dreading), the Yellowjackets' first taste of human flesh is none other than the frozen, two-month-old body of former team captain Jackie (Ella Purnell). The writing has been on the wall for Jackie's corpse since the Season 2 premiere, but the way in which Yellowjackets depicts the cannibalism is a bit more surprising. Instead of focusing solely on the Yellowjackets' flesh-tearing frenzy, the show cuts between the team's harsh winter reality and a Greek goddess-inspired fantasy — a tactic that is stylistically and thematically intriguing, but that doesn't completely work in the broader context of Yellowjackets.
Why does Yellowjackets link cannibalism to a Greek feast?
The Greek feast imagery functions as a major contrast to the Yellowjackets' lived experience. In the former, the team is dirty and clothed in makeshift winter wear. In the latter, they are pristinely groomed, with white robes and elaborate hairstyles that evoke wealth and divinity. The divine Yellowjackets behold a sumptuous feast of wine and delicacies, while their real-life counterparts devour the barbecued corpse of their late friend — although the characters in both scenes relish their food with the same amounts of zeal.
Despite the visual dissonance between the two feast scenes, Yellowjackets uses the Greek banquet as a thematic parallel to what the cannibalism will come to mean for the Yellowjackets. Cannibalism plays a major role in Greek mythology: the titan Kronos eats his children, and in two separate myths, the kings Tantalus and Lycaon try to trick the gods into eating human flesh, with disastrous consequences. (To further the Greek connection: Even the episode title, "Edible Complex," plays on the Greek myth of Oedipus.)
The Yellowjackets' feast itself recalls bacchanalia: frenzied celebrations of the Greek god Dionysus, or his Roman counterpart Bacchus. What starts as the Yellowjackets tentatively nibbling the fruits before them quickly descends into wine-splattered revelry. Throughout, they appear to experience the same bliss as those who worship Dionysus, himself the god of ecstasy.
Women who followed Dionysus were known as maenads, or "raving women," and there is precedent for maenads tearing victims apart in much the same way the Yellowjackets fall upon Jackie's corpse. In the myth of Pentheus, depicted in The Bacchae by Greek playwright Euripides and the Metamorphoses of Roman poet Ovid, Dionysus leads his cousin Pentheus to the maenads. The maenads proceed to rend him limb from limb in an act of sparagmos, tearing a live victim apart, which in bacchanalia was often followed by the act of omophagia, the consumption of raw flesh. In some versions of the tale, the maenads in their madness believe Pentheus to be a wild animal, similarly to the Yellowjackets' drug-induced hallucinations in Season 1's "Doomcoming" episode that led them to think that Travis (Kevin Alves) was an animal and almost sacrifice him.
So, Yellowjackets is drawing parallels between its characters and participants in ancient (and violent) Dionysian bacchanalia — but why? These comparisons serve to complicate the Yellowjackets' cannibalism beyond a gross taboo, weaving it into a greater look at their belief system while stranded in the wilderness.
As we know from the very first episode of Yellowjackets, the team develops a ritual around its cannibalism. They chase a victim into a pit, prepare the meat, and eat it around a fire alongside Antler Queen Lottie (Courtney Eaton). The imagery of the Greek feast in the team's very first moment of cannibalism sets this idea of ritual in motion, and adds a layer of religion to it. To the Yellowjackets, this act signals an escalation of their new wilderness-centric faith. After all, we've seen how Lottie wards the team for protection in the wilderness. Their bacchanal-inspired cannibalism may come to serve as an extreme way to appease the strange forces at work in the wild. It's not just a transgression of social norms: It's a show of faith.
Does the Greek feast imagery actually work?
The references to Greek myth and ritual sacrifice come through loud and clear in this initial cannibalism sequence, yet they are at odds with the rest of the show.
Yellowjackets traffics in departures from reality. Take Lottie's premonitions, Taissa's (Jasmin Savoy Brown) visions of the man with no eyes, and Jackie's pre-death fantasy of a happy reunion with her teammates. Importantly, all those departures are anchored in one character's point of view. Take when adult Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) kills Adam (Peter Gadiot) in Season 1. There, the show flashes between her and young Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) holding the murder weapon, and we understand that this is adult Shauna recalling her past trauma and experiences with murder.
Unlike these instances of departure, the Greek feast doesn't have a similar anchor. Could the fantasy be Shauna's way of processing her consumption of Jackie, or is it a shared team delusion? It doesn't feel like either. Instead, it reads more like the show omnisciently framing the cannibalism as a religious act. And that's where the scene falters: Prior fantasies and visions have all been explicitly character-driven. The bacchanalia floats in the ether as something the writers want us to know is important, but it isn't tied to anything — or anyone — in particular.
The Greek allusion is especially jarring given that the show steers clear of such explicit references, although as Sakhi Thirani writes for JStor Daily, the presence of Dionysus is felt throughout. Nowhere is this clearer than during their so-called Doomcoming, which sees the girls on the team dress up and hunt Travis in a fit of bacchanalian madness. Even then, the allusion isn't quite as glaringly obvious as it is in "Edible Complex." This fantasy is entirely new to the show, and as such jars us out of a pivotal moment.
Of course, there's a high likelihood that the jarring nature of the Greek feast is intentional. We're watching cannibalism unfold; this is no time to be comfortable! Yet I am rarely comfortable watching Yellowjackets anyway: The show does a wonderful job building suspense and creating squirm-worthy moments, all while keeping me immersed. The Greek fantasy being intercut with the actual scene of cannibalism broke that immersion and removed me entirely from the show. Yes, I found myself drawing connections to ancient Greek mythology and religion, but if that comes at the expense of the emotional intensity of Yellowjackets, can that really be a good thing?
Yellowjackets Season 2 is streaming on Showtime, with new episodes streaming weekly on Fridays. Episodes also air every Sunday on Showtime at 9 p.m. ET.
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