Natalie Remains The Heart And Soul Of Yellowjackets In Season 2
This post contains spoilers for "Yellowjackets" season 2.
"Yellowjackets," named for the girls' soccer team that get stranded in the wilderness after a plane crash, follows its characters in both adolescence and adulthood with alternating timelines. This enables the show to contrast how they've changed (or haven't). When we meet the original four leads in the series pilot, they mostly seem to have moved on from what happened.
Taissa (Tawny Cypress) is the only one who is "successful" in a stereotypical sense — a well-to-do lawyer now running for New Jersey State Senate. But Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) is a bored housewife and Misty (Christina Ricci) has a stable job as an elder care nurse; there are definitely worse fates considering what they went through. The only exception is Natalie Scatorccio. Played in conjunction by Sophie Thatcher in 1996 and Juliette Lewis in 2021, we first meet her in rehab and it's soon revealed this isn't her first time walking the twelve steps.
Since her life has turned out messier than her former teammates, the audience assumption from the outset is that Natalie is the most scarred of the four. The pilot's introduction of her is even cross-cut with a flashback of the cannibalistic survivors butchering a kill, followed by present-day Natalie saying she "lost her purpose" after being rescued. This is quite ominous and hints that Natalie could have been one of those fur-coated killers. But as we get to know her, it becomes clear that Natalie is really the Yellowjacket with the strongest moral compass, both in the past and the present.
Natalie's story
Teenage Natalie is introduced as a punk-rock goth; she gets along with her preppy teammates, but she doesn't run in the same circles when they're not playing soccer. Season 1, episode 4, "Bear Down," dug into her past and revealed why she puts up walls around her. Raised in a trailer park with an abusive father, Natalie once pointed a shotgun at him during one of his rages — she pulled the trigger but the gun jammed. Her father took the shotgun back, they called each other worthless, then the gun misfired and killed him.
Since Natalie knew how to use a gun, she adapted easiest to life away from civilization, becoming the group's hunter once they find a cabin with a shotgun. As the group's most practical member, she becomes friends with the now one-legged Coach Ben Scott (Steven Krueger). Their friendship isn't overplayed, but it's also quite sweet. Ben even admits to Natalie that he's gay (still a no-no in the 1990s) and she's accepting. In "Doomcoming," when the rest of the group gets violent after ingesting psychedelic mushrooms, the two of them stay sober and have to again be the voices of reason.
Natalie also had a fling with Travis Martinez (Kevin Alves), the son of one of the Yellowjackets' coaches who died in the crash; their mutual survivors' guilt over their dead fathers brought them together. The mutual feelings survived the break-up and that leads to Natalie's storyline in the present. After Natalie receives a postcard bearing the insignia the Yellowjackets discovered in the woods, she tracks down Travis and then finds him dead by hanging on the ranch he worked. To an outsider, it looks a like a suicide, but Natalie senses a ritualistic murder. So for the rest of the season, she investigates Travis' death.
Natalie and Misty sitting in a tree
This is the most selfless goal of the main characters. Shauna and Taissa are more in it for self-preservation, especially once someone starts blackmailing the surviving Yellowjackets. Misty is in it for fun and friendship — which brings us to the best character pairing in the show.
Christina Ricci may find Misty strangely relatable, but none of the other Yellowjackets agree, least of all Natalie. However, Misty has a side hobby as a "citizen detective" who solves true crimes. When Natalie re-enters her life brandishing a shotgun and the mysterious postcard, Misty starts clinging to her like a remora.
Natalie resents the company of "that conniving poodle-haired freak," but they're the most entertaining duo in "Yellowjackets" because of how different they are: one has a hard heart but a good soul, whereas the other is harmless-looking but dangerous on the inside. Both Lewis and Ricci are masters of acting with facial expressions and the former's eyebrow-raised, puckered-lips exasperation is perfectly used against the latter's fast-talking mania.
Now, Misty's definition of friendship is different from most people's. She plants a camera in Natalie's motel room, really to satisfy her nosiness but also to "protect" her bestie. When Natalie buys some coke, the always-watching Misty bursts into the room, knocks Natalie down, and then snorts the drug first to keep Natalie on the wagon ("It burns, is that normal?!").
Unfortunately, Natalie and Misty have been separated for season 2 thus far. At the end of season 1, Natalie considered suicide after concluding that's what Travis' death really was. Before she could pull the trigger, some people dressed in purple burst into her room and abducted her.
Season 2
It turns out these were followers of Lottie Matthews (Courtney Eaton/Simone Kessell), the Yellowjacket who developed seer abilities (or hallucinations) in the woods. Natalie has spent the season thus far in Lottie's hospitality, putting her in a new environment but that one that reaffirms her strengths.
Despite the sinister ending of season 1, it turns out Lottie's "community" isn't the human sacrifice, "Midsommar" kind, but more the spiritualistic self-help kind. Natalie was abducted not because she got too close to the truth about Travis' death, but to stop her from committing suicide.
Lottie does know the truth about Travis' death, but she didn't murder him (or so she claims). Lottie tells Natalie that Travis was having visions of the wilderness, reached out to her for help, and ultimately performed the ritual himself to get close to death and communicate with whatever was haunting him. Then the crane Travis used to hang himself malfunctioned and he actually died, with Lottie to bear witness.
Different types of healing
Natalie is naturally skeptical of Lottie and the flashback storyline shows that is another way she hasn't changed. In the past timeline, most of the Yellowjackets are falling under Lottie's sway, thanks to her coping techniques and seeming ability to communicate with the forest they're trapped in. Past-Natalie and Ben are the only ones who aren't falling for it. After the season 1 finale, Travis' little brother Javi (Luciano Leroux) is missing; Natalie thinks he's dead and wants Travis to accept that while Lottie encourages Travis to keep his hope alive. Lottie encourages people to live with their pain while Natalie thinks you should bury it.
Natalie's backstory means it makes perfect sense why the writers chose her as the one to reconnect with Lottie this season. Lottie's followers are people living with trauma who came under her sway hoping to be the best versions of themselves. Someone who's been in and out of rehab for decades can understand that.
Juliette Lewis has said of Natalie's arc this season: "Somewhere within Natalie, now that she's landed in the care of older Lottie at a compound, she's seeking truth. She's seeking answers to what happened and redemption. She's not medicating, so she's wide open to figuring out life, which is unusual for that type of person."
Old wounds
The most recent episode, "Old Wounds," was a big one for Natalie, both in the past and present.
In 2021, Natalie befriends Lottie's follower Lisa (Nicole Maines). They got off on the wrong foot in the premiere — Natalie stabbed her hand and face with a fork while trying to escape — but Lisa apparently doesn't hold a grudge. While on a ride to the group's farmer's market stand, they stop at Lisa's childhood home.
Lisa's mother doesn't approve of her lifestyle and despite Natalie's own skepticism, she sticks up for Lisa: "You can't let your daughter be happy?!" As another friendly gesture, she smuggles Lisa's pet goldfish out of the house (in her mouth, no less). Afterward, they hit the bar and connect further over their shared history of suicidal ideation.
In 1996, Natalie's conflict with Lottie came to a head when Mari (Alexa Barajas) suggested the group's antler queen could be a better hunter than Natalie. So, they have a hunting contest. Natalie finds a Moose corpse lodged in the surface of a frozen lake and falls in while trying to get it out. Lottie hallucinates the crashed plane that Laura Lee (Jane Widdop) died trying to pilot last season and after a surreal vision, blacks out and nearly freezes.
While they're both recovering with hot baths back in the cabin, they reconnect over their mutual failure. In the present, though, it looks like their conflict is only beginning. Lottie's visions (or hallucinations) from the wilderness are returning, while Natalie swiped the keys to Lottie's office.
What's next for Nat?
Now, despite her good heart, Natalie isn't flawless. In episode 2 of this season, "Edible Complex," she tried to convince Travis of Javi's death by raiding his suitcase and spilling her own blood on a piece of his clothes she "found in the woods." This was underhanded, to put it mildly, especially since "Old Wounds" revealed Javi's actually still alive.
Given her disagreements with Lottie, I was also expecting Natalie to abstain from cannibalism, but in "Edible Complex," she chowed down on the charred Jackie with the rest of the team. At least she had the courtesy to lay what was left of Jackie to rest in the next episode, especially since they hadn't been friendly back in season 1.
Still, does this mean the pilot's visual clues were correct and Natalie will turn out to be one of the hunters who killed the mysterious Pit Girl? Her continuing distrust of Lottie tells me no, but "Yellowjackets" is a dark, weird, and surprising enough television program that is capable of painting its heart and soul black.
New episodes of "Yellowjackets" stream on Showtime every Friday and air on television every Sunday.