‘Yellowjackets’ Season 1 Recap: Get Ready for Season 2!

Yellowjackets is a mystery thriller series that premiered on Showtime back in 2021. The show follows an all-girl high school soccer team that ends up stranded in the wilderness following a horrific plane accident. During the ordeal, the team reverts to their less civilized nature to stay alive and adapt to the new environment. The first season ended on a shocking cliffhanger that left fans hungry for more, and season 2 promises to deliver even more thrills and suspense.

With the release of the second season of Yellowjackets just a few days away, we’ve decided to jump on the opportunity to present you with a full recap for season 1 and clear up some mysteries we’ve encountered, so without further ado, let’s go. 

Yellowjackets were stranded in the wilderness and some of them lived to tell the tale 

The first character we meet is Shauna (Melanie Lynskey and Sophie Nélisse). Most of the initial flashbacks belong to her. Early on, we learn that Shauna was part of the infamous Yellowjackets soccer team that got into a plane accident and ended up stranded in the wilderness for over a year.

Today, Shauna leads a very boring life, with a teenage daughter who doesn’t respect her and is stuck in a marriage devoid of romance. In several flashbacks, we see that the day before the accident, the team had several hiccups related to the overall camaraderie and team spirit and that things were not going well for the team even before the accident. 

We meet another survivor Taissa (Tawny Cypress and Jasmin Savoy Brown), who is nowadays a successful politician, and, like Shauna, Taissa works very hard to hide what transpired in the wilderness. We also meet Natalie (Juliette Lewis and Sophie Thatcher), whose life took a bad turn after the wilderness. Still, she is on the way to recovering from drug addiction. Misty (Christina Ricci and Sammi Hanratty) likewise survived the ordeal and now works in a retirement home but displays sociopathic tendencies. 

The survivors’ relatively peaceful and quiet lives are interrupted as soon as journalist Jessica Roberts starts digging about their past and sets to uncover what really happened in the forest. We soon discover that all survivors do have something to hide as something terrible happened that claimed the lives of the rest of the group, and the remaining girls are desperate to hide it. We also learn that Jackie (Ella Purnell), Shauna’s best friend, died in the forest, but the circumstances are now unrevealed. 

Shauna’s and Taissa’s carefully crafted world is being threatened. 

Following the accident, several team members died upon the plane’s impact with the ground, and several were horrifically injured. One of the injured people was assistant coach Ben Scott, who was the only grown-up in the group. Misty’s first aid skills saved him, but he ultimately lost his leg. Travis (Kevin Alves) lost his father, who was impaled on a tree branch. Because she has medicinal skills, Misty proves to be an invaluable group member.

She is pleased because of this since, back at home, she was always considered a “loser” and never belonged to a group of popular girls. Because of this, Misty destroyed the emergency locator transmitter when she found it following the plane crash and practically ruined any hopes that the group might be found quickly. The rest of the group did not know that. 

In the present day, we learn that Shauna married Jackie’s high school boyfriend, and things are not going well. She is tempted by a younger stranger named Adam, who she met following a minor car accident. Shauna, Taissa, Natalie, and Misty all receive a mysterious card with a symbol they remember from the forest, and they are concerned that someone is messing with them, trying to blackmail them regarding their past.

The group finds an unlikely shelter in the abandoned cabin 

In the past, we learn that the group has made their way toward an abandoned cabin they had located in the forest, and they even discovered a lake with fresh water. But the cabin is not as empty as they suspect as they find a dead body in a severe composition state. They bury the body, but the overall atmosphere of horror settles upon all of them. Now that shelter and water have been taken care of, the group still faces a food shortage unless they learn to hunt. 

In the present day, Shauna suspects that Jeff is cheating on her. Natali and Misty are trying to locate Travis, who we learn also survived the ordeal. Unfortunately, we also learn simultaneously that he killed himself. Natalie thinks this is suspicious and calls it murder. Taissa’s political opponent meanwhile makes thinly veiled accusations during his campaign that Taissa is a cannibal. 

In the past, we learned that the group had found weapons and ammunition needed to hunt, and each group member was tested to see whose shooting skills were the best. Natalie turns out to have the best aim. We learn later that this is because of her problematic childhood with her dad.

Meanwhile, in the present, Shauna starts an affair with Adam while high ranking politician starts blackmailing Taissa to reveal the secrets from her past to get funding for her campaign. Taissa refuses and makes a scene. Natalie and Misty are trying to get to the bottom of Travis’ supposed murder. They contact Shauna to let her know that somebody killed him. 

Shauna’s stay in the wilderness is complicated by her pregnancy

The group’s dynamic in the forest keeps shifting. Lottie (Simone Kessell and Courtney Eaton) is schizophrenic and has run out of pills, resulting in “supernatural” seances being held at the cabin, and not everyone is on board with this. Misty poisons Ben, whose life she saved at the beginning, and when he figures it out, he lies that he has feelings for her so she could back off for a while, even though he is, in truth, a gay man.

Taissa likewise starts a lesbian relationship with Van. During a touching conversation, Shauna reveals to Taissa that she is pregnant with her best friend’s boyfriend, Jeff. The group finds an aircraft, but its safety is in question, so they don’t even consider it to be an option when it comes to leaving the wilderness. 

In the present, Shauna’s daughter sees her with Adam and decides to blackmail her, this makes Shauna extremely angry, and she decides to blackmail her back. Natalie and Misty discover new things about Travis’ supposed murder as Taissa contemplates dropping out of the senate race completely due to too many people deciding to probe into her private life. Her relationship with her wife gets worse by the day.

The group attempts to brave the wilderness with almost deadly consequences 

In the past, Shauna tried to get an abortion but abandoned the plan at the last minute. Lottie keeps having vivid premonitions, and we learn that she successfully predicted some things in the past. Laura Lee, the most religious of the bunch, decides to baptize Lottie in an attempt to calm her spiritual side down.  

Taissa, Van, Misty, Akilah, and Mari decide to explore the forest to find a way to civilization maybe. Still, they are interrupted by a pack of wolves who severely injure Van, and for a moment, she seems like she is dead. They decide to burn her body until she wakes up at the last moment during the funeral pyre. The fact that Lottie predicted this makes the group convinced even more that Lottie has premonitions. 

Back at the cabin, Jackie figures out that Shauna is pregnant, but only after reading her journal does she find out that the child’s father is Jeff, her boyfriend. This leads to a break in the friendship between Shauna and Jackie, who are growing to resent each other. 

In the present, the girls learn that somebody is blackmailing them. Misty kidnaps the “journalist” from the first episode, Jessica, and we find out she is basically spying on all girls. Shauna, Taissa, Misty, and Natalie decide to pay $50 000 dollars to blackmailers but also plan to uncover who was behind the blackmail.

The perpetrator runs away before the girls manage to catch up to him. Following the night of danger, Shauna seeks shelter in Adam’s embrace and invites him to her house. 

The group is ready to leave the wilderness 

Laura Lee reveals that she might be able to operate the plane they have found, most of the group is skeptical about this, but they will not block the only realistic plan they have of escaping. They know they need to leave the wilderness before the winter sets in, and the effects of it are already visible in nature. Days are getting shorter, and the game is scarcer in the forest. They can’t rely on deer and other game during winter, so they will likely starve. Laura Lee prepares to fly, and the initial ascent goes well until the plane explodes in the air. 

The group is devasted because the prospect of leaving has just worsened and because they lost Laura Lee. The group likewise remembered that currently, if they were back in the civilized world, they would be having a homecoming around these days, and they decided to prepare for the so-called “Doomcoming.” 

Misty provides some mushrooms for the stew that will be served at the party, but she’s not aware that the shrooms are hallucinogenic in nature. The entire group gets high on the shroom except for Jackie, who refuses to eat the stew. 

“Doomcoming” turned darker when the group almost raped Travis and slit his throat. This was something that Lottie initiated as she seemed to be the prime source of paranoia and delusions in the group. 

In the present, Shauna is paranoid that Adam is the one that blackmailed them, as she found glitter on her bedroom door after he left. She goes to his apartment to confront him, but she kills him because he lied about who he is. Meanwhile, Shauna likewise realizes that her husband, Jeff, also has access to the house and has access to the safe where she keeps her journals. She confronts him about it, and he admits he was blackmailing the group because his business was in trouble. 

Shauna comes clean about killing Adam, and they devise a plan to get rid of the body. Instead of knowing that Jeff was, in fact, a blackmailer, Shauna keeps this from the rest of the girls, leading them to believe that by killing Adam, they have resolved their blackmail issues just so they would help her with dealing with the body. Taissa also comes clean to her wife about her dangerous mental problems, and her wife decides to leave for now.

The wilderness takes yet another tribute as the group descends into madness

After the shocking “Doomcoming,” Jackie is pissed at the whole group, especially at Shauna, and she confronts them regarding the attempt on Travis’ life. Jackie likewise reveals to the group that she knows that Shauna’s baby is, in fact, Jeff’s, which leads to the two of them getting into an argument, and Jackie decides to sleep outside next to the campfire.

In the morning, however, the group discovers her dead, frozen to death because the first snow has fallen overnight, which leads to Shauna breaking down mentally. Lottie kills a bear that threatens the group, and the group decides to remove the bear’s heart in order to sacrifice it to the “gods of the forest.” 

In the present day, Natalie, Misty, Shauna, and Taissa get rid of Adam’s body after Natalie learns that someone emptied his bank account just before Travis died. The matter with Adam is additionally complicated when Shauna’s daughter sees on the news that Adam is missing, and she is aware that her mother is involved with this due to being aware of their affair.

Simone, Taissa’s wife, discovers in the basement of their house a seemingly human heart and decapitated dog. The girls attend their high school reunion, and it’s revealed to us that yet another member of the group survived, the schizophrenic Lottie, and she was the one that emptied Travis’ bank account right before he died.