[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Yellowjackets, Season 2, Episode 6, “Qui."]
It finally happened; all the surviving Yellowjackets (or at least the ones we currently know about) have reunited. At the end of Yellowjackets Season 2, Episode 6, “Qui,” Shauna (Melanie Lynskey), Taissa (Tawny Cypress), and Van (Lauren Ambrose) join Natalie (Juliette Lewis) and Misty (Christina Ricci) at Lottie’s (Simone Kessell) compound marking the very first time the group’s been together since Lottie was institutionalized in Switzerland.
Reaction shots are vital to all films and shows, but they’re especially important in a mystery like Yellowjackets because they’re often loaded with subtext and clues regarding what’s really going on and how the characters truly feel about each situation — whether they’re willing to admit those feelings to the group of not. Season 2, Episode 6 gives us two particular reaction shots you’ll want to pay close attention to — Lottie seeing the group reunited and Van seeing Lottie for the first time in years.
During the spoiler portion of my Season 2 interviews with Kessell and Ambrose, I got the chance to ask them both about filming that scene and their top priorities when crafting the right reaction.
Kessell noted, “I haven't seen the shot you're talking about,” but also added, “We lived it.” She continued by explaining how their real experience stepping on set for that scene mirrored the characters’ journeys:
“Even when you just said it, I got a little bit of a shiver because it was the first time we were all coming together to work and play it in the world of Lottie. I hadn't worked with Tawny or Lauren or Melanie. Christina and I had done a couple of scenes, and then I'd just been working with Juliette, so there was this moment that — and they had a big crane and there's Lottie and she turns and I see them all, and I get the joy of seeing each individual face for the first time in their characters because we shot that scene first. And I did get shivers, and then I had to walk slowly across and even just seeing Lauren's face — and I felt it. There were all the feelings going on. And it was kind of amazing, and we did it a few times. And just even looking at Tawny because I hadn't seen her character so broken and disheveled as well.”
Kessell capped off her answer by revealing a little tease for what’s to come in the final episodes of the season. “Then from there, the show just goes and goes and goes, and we're all together, and these women actually belong together, and it’s terrifying.”
Someone who’s looking especially terrified during this Episode 6 reunion? Ambrose’s Van. In the 1996 portion of the show, Van (Liv Hewson) is one of the very first Yellowjackets to believe in Lottie’s (Courtney Eaton) teachings. However, if this Episode 6 moment is any indication, the two must have had a rather extreme falling out. Ambrose explained:
“Van was a very early believer and early acolyte into Lottie’s world in the wilderness, into her belief system, and I think adult Van, as a grown-up, she's completely skewed that and thought, ‘That's bullshit,’ and, ‘That's something that happened at a crazy time and I can just put that away,’ and, ‘It wasn't real,’ and being face to face with it again is just shocking and jarring. And something in this character is very much closed down, and that's the very beginning of something cracking open.”
What’ll happen when the floodgates open for Van? And how will Lottie’s agenda shift now that all the Yellowjackets are together at the compound? We’ll find out when the final episodes of the season, “Burial,” “It Chooses,” and “Storytelling,” arrive on May 12th, May 19th, and May 26th respectively.
Eager to hear more from Ambrose and Kessell as well as Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci, Juliette Lewis, and Tawny Cypress? You can find the full spoiler portion of my interview with Ambrose, Lynskey, and Ricci at the top of this article, and the spoiler interview with Kessell, Lewis, and Cypress below: