Spoilers forward.
There are some mysteries in it Yellow jackets, and that ominous image is without doubt one of the nice ones. Seemingly depicting an impaled lady with hook-like toes, the road drawing is tied to the crew’s time within the wilderness, although its precise that means and origins stay unknown…for now. The determine seems in each the ’90s and present timelines, that means the grownup survivors of the aircraft crash have not left it behind.
Let’s revisit the appearances of the image to date and take a look at a number of theories about its true that means.
The place has it appeared to date?
Season 1
Not lengthy after the Yellowjackets’ aircraft crashes, the image carved right into a tree seems the place they landed. Later, it seems to be carved into the ground of the attic close to the crew’s cabin.
In 2021, the image seems on postcards that Nat, Taissa and Misty obtain from a mysterious sender. It is also in a textual content they obtain whereas being blackmailed. Nevertheless, the blackmailer seems to be Jeff, Shauna’s husband, who learn her diaries from her time within the wilderness and possibly realized the symbols from there. He focused her classmates to get cash to maintain his sinking furnishings enterprise afloat.
The image additionally appeared on the scene of Travis’ dying. When Misty and Nat acquire police photographs of his suicide, they discover wax marks on the bottom the place he was killed, which when related type the image.
Later within the season, blood is drawn on the shrine in Taissa’s basement, subsequent to her canine’s severed head and her son’s doll. It is usually on a pendant worn by considered one of Natalie’s captors within the sequence finale. They look like associated to Lottie, because the voiceover asks within the ultimate scene, “Who the fuck is Lottie Matthews?”
Season 2
In Season 2 Episode 1, teenage Lottie attracts the image within the fog from the cabin window after sending Travis and Natalie to search out Javi. That is the primary time anybody has drawn the image within the ’96 timeline. Later within the episode, within the current, one of many cult members who cares for Natalie additionally wears the image on her pendant.
In Episode 3, grownup Taissa realizes that somebody (probably herself) drew the image on her spouse Simone’s hand after the automobile accident. She notices whereas Simone is recovering within the hospital. Her youthful self additionally sees the image carved right into a tree within the woods. Throughout teen Shauna’s child bathe, Lottie provides a blanket with the image on it as a present. When Shauna’s nostril bleeds on the image, birds all of a sudden fall useless on the cabin. What might it imply?!
What does the image imply?
That is the place it will get juicy. To date, the present has not supplied any rationalization, merely presenting the image with sinister connotations. In fact, that does not cease the web from figuring it out for itself. Like Misty, followers have channeled their internal citizen detectives and provide you with loads of theories.
“There have been plenty of conjectures in regards to the image,” co-showrunner Ashley Lyle advised me Sensation after the Season 1 finale. “Folks dig up all of the tables of chemical symbols, they dig up Hobo Code, they dig up trigonometry. Simply the truth that they’re all engaged on that stage of element is absolutely thrilling for us.
A typical suspicion is that it’s a image for the cannibalistic ritual of the women within the wilderness. The road throughout the determine’s physique might symbolize one of many spikes within the tiger entice they used to kill their prey, and the hook on the backside might confer with how they hung their victims the other way up to allow them to bleed out earlier than they cooked and consumed. (These practices are proven within the first episode with an as-yet unknown sufferer, just about confirming the women’ cannibalism.)
One other principle makes use of trigonometry, stating that the image is a mathematical equation that, when solved, can reveal the latitude and longitude of their location and act as a map to flee the forest. As a Reddit consumer Like Karan famous, there have been some mentions of trigonometry within the first season, like a math instructor saying the women by no means cared in regards to the topic, or Laura Lee saying in a eulogy that fallen teammate Rachel Goldman was all the time good at trig. May trigonometry be a survival ability for the crew?
As Lyle talked about, different viewers assume the decal is a type of “hobo code,” which resembles a sequence of symbols vacationers depart behind to tell or warn one another about what’s occurring in a selected space. Editor Winter_Yak_9031 posted an summary of what a few of these etchings may imply, corresponding to “halt” for the hook or “man with a gun lives right here” for the triangle.
The Yellow jackets The crew even joined in on the enjoyable themselves and bought the solid to consider among the theories in regards to the image.
As Season 2 unfolds, we’ll should see if any of those theories stick and what new ones will emerge.
Erica Gonzales is the Senior Tradition Editor at ELLE.com, the place she oversees protection throughout TV, films, music, books and extra. She was beforehand an editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com. There is a 75 p.c likelihood she’s listening to Lorde proper now.