What That Shocking Episode 9 Doomcoming Means For All Those Yellowjackets’ Theories

Yellowjackets fever has got me reeling. Episode 9 was shocking and unexpected. It also put everything we thought we knew in question.

If you are like me, you have been consumed with Yellowjackets speculation. The twisty horror series from Showtime caught almost everyone off guard and quickly became the show of the season and the reason to pay for the service. The series told over two different timelines detail what happens to a team of gifted high school soccer players whose plane crashed on the way to nationals.

The teens and their coach spent nineteen long months in the Canadian wilderness. Not all of them made it out alive. But, over the nearly two harrowing years, alliances were formed, boundaries were pushed, and lines were crossed that no one can ever come back from. What happened to them in the woods and who is blackmailing the survivors now are only some of the questions in this intense thriller.

This week’s penultimate episode of Yellowjackets Season 1 gave us more than a little to chew on. So, with theories before and after running wild, here’s the skinny on everything that happened and how it affects all those bonkers Yellowjackets theories.

Adam is Javi

This one is probably busted. Adam can’t be Javi because he’s donezo, and Javi has so much more story to tell. Just because Adam is taking a dirt nap courtesy of Shauna doesn’t mean the mystery of Adam is over, though. There is a reason Adam Martin doesn’t exist online. The tattoo on his back has significance too. He had explanations for everything, but that doesn’t mean those aren’t lies. Adam wasn’t necessarily just a fanboy obsessed with Shauna and the others. He could still be a child of someone already out in the woods the girls came across years ago. One of the more intriguing theories is Adam is related to the original cabin owners. Lastly, he could have known one of the other girls like Misty. We should know next week when Misty has to dispose of his body.

Jeff is the blackmailing the surviving Yellowjackets

Surprise, surprise, Jeff isn’t a skeezy hubby struggling to pay bills and cheating on his wife. He is a blackmailer and massive dope. Considering Shauna was the only one not getting a postcard, this shouldn’t have been a complete surprise. Everyone has tried to guess throughout the season, is he cheating or isn’t he? The glitter bomb in Shauna’s closet made us all start to think there was more to this pretty boy. Despite the occasional kind gesture to Shauna and rebuke of Jackie’s parents, Jeff has been harboring a couple of big secrets.

The first is he is blackmailing the other Yellowjackets. Second, Jeff is in deep with loan sharks, and Bianca is part of their criminal enterprise. He sounds convincingly scared, but Jeff could be lying about some if not all of what he told Shauna. His offer to take the blame for Adam’s murder is sweet but short-sighted. Whatever else he is, he’s not a criminal mastermind. Jeff read all her journals years ago and doesn’t judge her for any of the things they did to survive. He does love her. It’s not all good, though. We know at least one other person knows about the money problems and possibly more. Jeff’s best friend Randy may know more than we want him to. We also know those journals were gone for a while. Did someone other than Jeff take them? Maybe Shauna’s resourceful and sneaky daughter?

All the best remaining Yellowjackets theories and questions

Who Killed Travis and cleared out his bank account?

Who is Travis talking to after Doomcoming? They are all under the influence of some serious hallucinogenics, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something talking to all of them. Many of them appear to be possessed by some evil spirit who encourages them to hunt down and gut Travis. What if Travis survived the woods only to find the thing hunting him followed him home twenty years later. I’m still not convinced someone was left out in the woods and is mad as hell. I also think someone’s brother or sister could want their pound of flesh and start with Travis. What if Javi wasn’t killed but left, and he blames Travis most of all? Javi would be the most likely to know Travis’s personal information.

Is Lottie is the Antler Queen?

The person chased at the beginning of the first episode looks like either Lottie or Jackie. Dissecting pictures of the Antler Queen reveal someone with what looks like short dark hair. There are locks of dark hair that look like Lottie’s attached to the cloak. Is that Lottie’s hair she cut off herself or is someone wearing a cloak with her hair attached? Who is under the mask? Lottie made the crown and put it on for the first time in Yellowjackets Episode 9, but that doesn’t mean she is the Antler Queen. She could be one of several. Lottie may be the first, but she is the last. This wouldn’t be the first time Yellowjackets tricked us.

I think the Antler Queen we see trap the girl in the pit is Jackie or Taissa. All signs point to Lottie, but as with all things Yellowjackets, don’t believe your eyes. Lottie would be too easy an answer. Lottie has gone off the edge, and everything is screaming AQ. When the girls sober up and morning comes, though, no one is going to think what happened the night before was a good idea(except Tai and Van). Jackie is cruel, manipulative, and just as unhinged as Misty, but differently. I would not be surprised to find out she is the Antler Queen to maintain power, and eventually, the others rebelled and killed her or left her before being rescued. The Antler Queen may not be a long-term position.

Wendigo versus Wendigo Psychosis

Whether there is a supernatural element or not, there looks to be a strong case made for the cannibalistic, antler-sporting, monster originating from the First Nations. The mythical creature is voracious, vicious, and unstoppable. Lottie appears to be possessed by the spirit of the Wendigo, or at least communicating with him. Curiously, in the sexual assault scene, Travis also is channeling someone who prompts him to say, “None of us are here, though. Are we?” While everyone is meticulously dissecting Lottie’s words, everyone misses Travis’s. I this the ramblings of a high kid, or could these be a clue? Please don’t let everyone be in purgatory cause I can’t take another one of those letdowns.

These poor kids have been through it. It would be more than plausible that they are all suffering from some form of PTSD. Lottie is off her meds and, after being drugged, dives off the deep end, taking a number of the girls with her. Likely they all aren’t suffering from Wendigo Psychosis right now, but it’s a slippery slope from starving to rationalization of cannabalism. However, the main difference between the studied cases and Lottie is that the suffers normally go through a period where they try to deny their feelings and retreat for fear of hurting anyone. Lottie is hiding from no one.

Why did Laura Lee’s teddy catch fire before the plane crashed?

One of the saddest things that the poor group goes through is the rise and firey fall of Laura Lee. The deeply religious girl studied the flight manual for weeks and had limited flight experience. She nonetheless thought she could defy expectations, common sense, and gravity and fly the abandoned old plane. Then, just when it looked like she had done the impossible as the survivors cheered from below, Laura Lee’s teddy bear caught fire. Why does her bear catch fire before the plane explodes? Nothing else in the aircraft caught fire, including the seat the bear sat on. Is there something in the woods that doesn’t want to let the survivors go? Also, lest we forget, Lottie saw this happen when Laura Lee baptized her. Is Lottie psychic or psycho?

What happened to Taissa’s dog?

Did Taissa kill the family dog in the middle of one of her dirt-eating fugue states? She knows she has a problem. When she turns to Shauna for help in episode 8, she admits she is having episodes again and says, “you know how bad they can get.” It’s quite frankly a horrifying proposition. Is it possible the dirt-eating, tree-sitting incidents are just the tip of what she is capable of? There has been speculation that the wolf attack that injured Van’s face never happened. Some have posited Tai bit Van, and the others hallucinated the wolves. That can be put to rest after Doomcoming.

We still don’t know if some dark-eyed spirit possesses Tai. Her grandmother saw something in the last moments of life that Taissa may also have seen. It’s also distinctly possible she was just a fragile young girl who was deeply disturbed by watching her grandmother take her last breath. Yellowjackets want us to believe some supernatural elements at play in the woods have followed the girls home. There was something weird happening with at least two of the girls before the crash. Lottie may have been clairvoyant, and Tai saw and did strange things from a very young age. We may find other girls had similar experiences. If Tai did something to the dog, could she be capable of doing even worse to a person?

There’s a lot going on in Yellowjackets Episode 9 Doomcoming and most of it is seriously fucked up. Anyone can guess where we go from here, but I can tell you it won’t be in a small prop plane. We only have one week to wait to see where Season 1 ends. One thing is for sure, for every answer we get, there will be at least six more questions introduced. So buckle up. The finale will be wild!