Ever since the first episode of Yellowjackets, audiences have been treated to all manner of bizarre sequences and encounters, some of them more disturbing than others, with the most recent episode continuing that trend in various ways. One of the more perplexing scenes saw Nat (Sophie Thatcher) and Travis (Kevin Alves) having sex, only for Travis to have visions that he was actually with Lottie (Courtney Eaton). In addition to being visually and thematically confusing, the encounter also resulted in ramifications that could allow the survivors to actually make it out of their situation safely, though co-showrunner Jonathan Lisco shed a bit more light on the sequence. New episodes of Yellowjackets premiere on the Showtime app on Fridays before premiering on Showtime on Sundays.
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“We hope that the audience doesn’t necessarily interpret that, or doesn’t absolutely interpret that, as a love triangle. It’s not just like, Travis is having sex with Natalie but thinking about Lottie. That’s not it at all,” Lisco confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s actually a battle between faith and pragmatism.”
The series has shown that Lottie has become a spiritual leader among the survivors, not only in a figurative sense but also in a more literal way, given that some of her visions have come true. This most recent episode, however, showed Nat faking the discovery of bloody clothes belonging to Travis’ younger brother Javi, hoping to convince Travis that the boy hadn’t survived and that they shouldn’t keep risking their own livelihood to find him. Lottie, though, promised Travis that Javi was safe, with this sex scene showing the struggles Travis was facing about who to put his faith in.
“Natalie loves Travis, so she doesn’t want this faith to become toxic and even more painful for him in believing that Javi is still alive,” Lisco added. “That’s a really beautiful relationship [Natalie and Travis] have. But something in Travis is still responding to faith, and Lottie represents that.”
While the actors themselves all had their own interpretations of that sequence, co-creator of the series Ashley Lyle expressed that their starvation in the wilderness was taking a toll on their mental state, which is another element of how that sequence wasn’t as it seemed.
“They’re getting more delirious. They’re getting hungrier. That has profound neurological effects,” Lyle confirmed to the outlet. “But we’ve always talked from the very beginning about being fascinated by belief and faith and religiosity. We’re sort of very interested in the unexplained. People are constantly trying to find order and meaning in the unexplained. And particularly, when it comes to the bad things that happen to you. And so I think a lot of why this season feels more supernatural is because our girls, and our boys, are finding themselves in increasingly dire circumstances, and they want to find a way to control it — and they can’t. So, they want to find meaning.”
New episodes of Yellowjackets premiere on the Showtime app on Fridays before premiering on Showtime on Sundays.
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