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The title of this week\u2019s episode of \u201cYellowjackets\u201d is a bit goofy, particularly for an installment in which the girls decide to kill Ben by firing squad.<\/p>\n
The episode is called \u201cDid Tai Do That?\u201d \u2014 which you have to say in the voice of Steve Urkel<\/a>, from the \u201990s sitcom \u201cFamily Matters,\u201d for it to make sense. The title is a homage to a reference that Teen Van makes to Teen Tai in the woods. After drawing the King of Hearts from a deck of cards, Tai has been tasked with firing the gun that will kill their coach. Despite believing he is guilty, she is, of course, struggling with this.<\/p>\n Van suggests bringing out the sleepwalking version of Tai, who is haunted by the man with no eyes. The idea is that if Tai became possessed by this mysterious other, she could kill Coach Ben without feeling bad about it. Van compares it to when the dorky Steve Urkel transformed into his suave alter ego, Stefan Urquelle.<\/p>\n The contrast between the darkness of the circumstances and the silliness of the analogy is jarring, but so is the entire episode, which jolts back and forth between horror in the \u201990s and quirky caper in the 2020s. It also reflects the Yellowjackets\u2019 changing attitudes toward death. As teens they still seek ways to manage the deep pain they feel over any decision to take a person\u2019s life. As adults they have become numb.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In the present, they barely seem to have any sorrow over Lottie\u2019s death. They react to the news with a shrug. Her demise is just another mystery for them to solve. In the past, they are agonizing over their decision to murder Ben. Over the years, they have grown so accustomed to \u2014 and traumatized by \u2014 having people they know perish that death has just become a game for them.<\/p>\n That\u2019s at least how both Misty and Shauna seem to treat the news of Lottie\u2019s deadly fall. Misty goes immediately into citizen detective mode, visiting Lottie\u2019s body at the morgue and then gathering her former teammates together to announce that she is launching an investigation. Shauna, still reeling from her own near-death freezer experience, points the finger at Misty, who, in turn, is so offended that she tries to storm out of her own house.<\/p>\n Shauna, suspicious, starts to tail Misty but is followed by a not very incognito Walter, who encourages her to team up with him. Soon enough all three of them end up in the penthouse apartment of Lottie\u2019s addled father (Michael St. John Smith). Walter and Shauna are posing as internet service people. Misty plays a needy neighbor. We don\u2019t end the episode with any big revelations about Lottie\u2019s death. Instead, this all plays out mostly like a charming little adventure, with Misty and Walter sniping at each other.<\/p>\n Shauna is the only one who gets eventually to any place of true remorse, which comes after Lottie\u2019s dad mistakes her for his daughter. Their conversation is tender, even though the older man is at first frustrated with his kid, blaming the \u201ccrazy voices\u201d in her head for her not listening to him.<\/p>\n Shauna\u2019s willingness to play the part of Lottie, easing this grieving father\u2019s pain, stands in stark contrast to Shauna\u2019s behavior in the wilderness. There, she cruelly suggests that an apt punishment for Ben would be burning him at the stake. Her teammates don\u2019t agree to that, but they do decide that Ben should be killed by firing squad, which in this case means one person with a single gun. The task falls to Tai, and even though she furiously prosecuted Ben during his trial, she still doesn\u2019t quite have the nerve to shoot him at close range.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Van encourages her to go to extreme lengths in order to complete the task, even suggesting sex as a way to bring out Tai\u2019s shadow self. It\u2019s an intriguing reversal of their dynamic in the present day, where Tai seems more eager than Van to get in touch with the Wilderness.<\/p>\n As Tai and Van are figuring out just how Tai is going to kill Ben, another group of teens, Travis, Akilah and Lottie, are looking for other answers in the gas-filled caves where their coach once hid. Lottie encourages a wary Akilah to inhale whatever is down there so she can have another vision, and what she sees proves crucial to saving Ben\u2019s life. When under the influence, she imagines herself standing on top of an oversized version of Ben who acts as a bridge back to society. He is breathing so he must be alive.<\/p>\n Tai\u2019s evil self finally emerges just as she is about to pull the trigger. She transforms and becomes self-assured, unemotional, despite Ben\u2019s pleas. Lucky for Ben, Travis pushes him out of the way of the bullet at the last moment. The three true believers have concluded that Ben is their way out. He cannot die.<\/p>\n But that doesn\u2019t mean the Yellowjackets are extending him a lot of grace. Shauna and Melissa take on the task of making sure he doesn\u2019t try to run again. Shauna hands Melissa her knife, pushing her new acolyte-girlfriend to embrace the bad parts of herself and hobble Ben, slashing his one good ankle. Melissa lets the blood flow with glee; Shauna approves.<\/p>\n Ben may be alive, but his free will has been ripped away from him. He\u2019s just a tool the girls hope will lead to their physical salvation. Their spiritual salvation? That\u2019s a different story.<\/p>\n Hello again, Tai\u2019s ex-wife (Rukiya Bernard) and son (Aiden Stoxx). I almost forgot you guys existed. Glad that thread isn\u2019t totally dropped, but the park meeting wasn\u2019t quite enough to grab my full attention.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Misty\u2019s goodbye to Coach Ben was incredibly moving. Sammi Hanratty really sold it.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Walter\u2019s vanity plates? \u201cNOTWLTR.\u201d Very smooth.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n How did Walter get those cute outfits for him and Shauna so quickly? I know he\u2019s rich, but that was fast.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Great P.J. Harvey cue<\/a> as an outro.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nMore to chew on<\/h2>\n
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