Yellowjackets' Horrifying Man With No Eyes Is A Gnarly Practical Effect
This post contains spoilers for "Yellowjackets" season 2.
Everyone always wants to know who the Man With No Eyes is on "Yellowjackets" ... but does anyone ever ask how the Man With No Eyes is on "Yellowjackets"?
In all seriousness, the visually-challenged specter remains one of the biggest mysteries of Showtime's captivating horror/thriller puzzle box series part-way through its second season. Is he merely the psychological manifestation of Taissa's childhood trauma from her grandmother claiming she could see a being with no eyes shortly before her death? This was also the first time Taissa glimpsed him, although we've no idea if her grandmother saw the same individual or someone else. He's continued to haunt Taissa in season 2's '90s flashbacks, seemingly guiding her to trees with that mysterious symbol carved into them. But does he actually exist outside of Taissa's imagination? And if so, what is he ultimately after?
Maybe we're going about this the wrong way. The Man With No Eyes hasn't done anything flat-out evil so far. Okay, he sorta almost led Taissa off a cliff, but it's dark in the Canadian wilderness at night and that could've been an honest mistake. There's no need to go all J. Jonah Jameson on him and declare him a public menace just because he's tall and pale and doesn't emote very much. (Not that I can personally relate or anything.) It's not like he's out here telling children to commit horrific acts of violence against themselves, unlike certain ominous phantoms who shall remain nameless.
For now, "Yellowjackets" fans will simply have to speculate as to whom or what the Man With No Eyes really is and what's he after, if anything specific. We can, however, answer the question of why he looks the way he does, vitamin D deficiency aside.
'It's a lot'
As we all learned in kindergarten, you should never judge a book by its cover. That being said, when the "book" is an eyeless figure who only certain people seem capable of seeing (one who also wears a funeral suit and never speaks), it's not unreasonable to have some questions you'd like to ask them.
Tawny Cypress, who plays Taissa in the present-day on "Yellowjackets," was unsurprisingly tight-lipped about the Man With No Eyes while being interviewed by TVLine. Nevertheless, she confirmed "he's just as scary in real life" as he is on the show thanks to the gnarly practical effects used to bring him to life. Cypress explained:
"Yeah, it's an entire prosthetic that goes over his face and eyes that like, makes that look. Yeah. But it looks really natural. I can't figure out ... I don't know, he says he can see so, I don't know. He's so tall and thin, it's crazy, and he's in that suit, that funeral suit. It's a lot."
Similar to Din Djarin in "The Mandalorian," The Man With No Eyes is portrayed by multiple actors in "Yellowjackets." Brahm Taylor (The Uninvited in "Chilling Adventures of Sabrina") played the character in season 1 prior to Brody Logan Romhanyi (a fellow Archie-verse alum who went uncredited for portraying a demon on "Riverdale") depicting him in season 2. Cypress didn't specify which actor she was referring to during her interview, but it seems they enjoy terrifying their co-stars in-between takes (as they should!).
"He loves it. I was like, 'You need to go to conventions with this look because this is going to get people going.' He loves it," Cypress added.
New episodes of "Yellowjackets" premiere in the Showtime app and on Paramount+ on Fridays and air Sundays at 9/8c on Showtime.