“It can be easy or hard. Either way, it gets what it wants?” The grand question residing within ‘Yellowjackets‘ is if all of these horrific things are shared delusions of trauma or if they happened at all. If your plan crashes, you watch a good chunk of your friends die and had to do unspeakable things to survive; that would mess you up. The third episode of season three, “Them’s the Brakes,” is caught in this weird in-between where it’s adding weird layers, having intriguing conversations, injecting (perhaps) some hallucinations, and (maybe) explaining some things with practicality. If it feels like too much within an episode, that feeling is probably correct.
Given the discarded cell phone, “Dislocation” left us on a cliffhanger, and Shauna most likely knew who the person was. Given the wilderness timeline and the budding relationship, the first guess is Melissa. However, it could be any number of people, and Shauna may be holding back on who she thinks it is. That said, it was a little silly for Shauna to blame Misty for 1. leaving the cell phone, 2. cutting her breaks, and 3. anything else under the sun. Through the first two episodes, Shauna has intentionally distanced herself emotionally from all the ruckus happening around the present timeline. But “Them’s the Brakes” is her breaking point. Unfortunately, it came at the expense of Misty. She’s done some wild things, but it was all to keep this supposite sisterhood together. Walter was right – this collection of adults isn’t her friend, and she’s blinded by the traumatic experience of being back on the island. It took Shauna to lack a bit of thankfulness for Misty watching Callie in the first place to hammer this home.
L-R: Simone Kessell as Lottie, Sarah Desjardins as Callie Sadecki, and Melanie Lynskey as Shauna in Yellowjackets, episode 3, season 3, streaming on Paramount+ with SHOWTIME, 2025. Photo Credit: Kailey Schwerman/Paramount+ with SHOWTIME.
I wonder if this changes the directory for the adult version of Misty in a way her younger self could never see. Having Misty work against the group rather than being their lackey would be refreshing. The brakes failing on Shauna felt like an incidental occurrence to keep the “mysterious cell phone” in the mind of audiences without referring to it at all. (fine). The emotional apex of the current timeline is when Shauna blows up on Lottie after seeing Callie wearing Jackie’s heart necklace. We also know the ill-fated “Pit Girl” was we as well. Do I feel Lottie gave it to Callie because she’s a potential sacrifice? Not necessarily.
‘Yellowjackets’ intentionally shows Lottie in the wilderness timeline as she moves from Travis to Akilah because of their supposed connection. The same thing is likely happening with Callie, given that Lottie asks her in the clothing store to reveal her true self “without embarrassment or shame.” “Them’s the Brakes” has pushed me into more of the this isn’t real camp. Lottie has all of her mental health difficulties and needs to make sense of everything that’s happened in her life so far. So why not think a supernatural entity is calling for sacrifices? Shauna’s visceral reaction to the necklace could be interpreted in multiple ways. It’s her deceased best friend’s, which she had to eat and doubles as proof of what they did in the wilderness. The heart necklace could also be a totem that awakens Shauna to the possibility that she can’t protect another one of her children. Or it could not mean anything of the sort, as Lottie noted, “it never meant what you thought it meant.”
The “mystery box” aspect of Yellowjackets has been a substantial part of the show, but it could get a little frustrating because the plot wants to explore every possibility. When it seems like something is disproven, the element will find its way back because the show has to keep a smokescreen up. This week’s Van and Taissa adventure is a great example of this. There’s the question of the waiter and if his heart attack was a sacrifice to the presence (or the Man With No Eyes). He could have just had a bad heart condition, for all we know. However, Van finds out her cancer is in remission. Naturally, Tai thinks this is because of the deaths that occurred (does it take two for this to happen? Natalie and the waiter died). It’s strange, although I’m happy Van is doing better. That night, Tai and Van watched the Ozzy’s Homemade Ice Cream commercial and spotted The Man With No Eyes. Tai was adamant that she had seen this spectacle before her grandmother passed. The show also throws everybody for a loop later in the episode when the Man appears in the shared dream between Shauna, Akliah, and Van.
Brody Romhanyi as No Eyed Man in Yellowjackets, episode 3, season 3, streaming on Paramount+ with SHOWTIME, 2025. Photo Credit: Colin Bentley/Paramount+ with SHOWTIME.
Show co-runner Ashley Lyle has stated that “The Man With No Eyes” is based on Tai’s lived experience and her fear of the unknown. She was probably the most prominent skeptic of the wilderness’s power, but now has given herself to it. The question is, how do the other characters see it? Also, was the coyote with the rabbit Tai and Van saw even real? A mystery on top of a mystery to which we are no closer to a resolution.
I also focused on a specific part of Mari and Ben’s discussion about realities related to the current timeline. You can’t help but feel for Ben because if it weren’t for some medical expenses, he wouldn’t be teaching—let alone surviving a plane crash with one leg and cannibal students. Mari talks about her cousin dying of brain cancer and remembers watching Nickelodeon’s own ‘Eureeka’s Castle’ as the news broke. It’s childhood trauma from an exposure to death where there are two versions of reality. Perhaps once you experience something like that, your timeline changes into something darker forever if you don’t resolve it.
‘Yellowjackets’ Season 3, Episode 2 Review: It Doesn’t Want To Be Governed
This leads into the cave, where the visions of Shauna, Van, and Akilah are separate but together. Shauna is still mourning the death of her baby boy, Van has survivor’s guilt from surviving the fire, and Akilah may be afraid of her connection to the wilderness, complete with a talking llama. The slap bracelet only hurts Van and Shauna in the shared dream with Jackie’s appearance. Dream Lottie beckons Akliah to help Shauna. It made me think about Lottie and Akliah’s brief discussion, in which Lottie speaks about Akliah’s potential connection to whatever force is out in the wilderness. “After all this time, you don’t believe?”
After that ‘Twin Peaks-like sequence, Coach Ben says there’s gas built up within the cave. It’s very likely the girls had a shared hallucination (or possibly one of them). But this questions what’s happening in the wilderness – especially if this gas is abundant everywhere. Maybe that’s why Ben is having talks with an unknown figure. New wrinkles are always a good thing when they work to move the plot forward. That’s where the frustration lies in “Them’s the Brakes.” We are introduced to another enormous element calling into question everything we believe while having many outstanding questions to answer. It disorients the audience rather than keeping the allure of anticipating how the show will reveal secrets.
Where There’s Gas, There’s Fire
- This episode reminded me how catchy the Eureeka’s Castle theme song was.
- Lottie might be the Ethan Hunt of shoplifting. She knew those security guard placements to a tee.
