Yellowjackets Costume Designer Dispels A Lottie, Natalie, And Travis Theory
This post contains spoilers for "Yellowjackets" season 2.
Given that the show has "jackets" in the title, how closely have you been paying attention to the wardrobe changes in "Yellowjackets" season 2? Eagle-eyed viewers may have noticed that a certain plaid winter coat has been making the rounds in flashback scenes, going from the back of Travis (figure-skater-turned-actor Kevin Alves) to budding teen cult leader Lottie (Courtney Eaton).
Some fans interpret the coat as a sign of Lottie's ownership, the smoking gun that proves Travis has shifted loyalties away from his first love, Natalie (Sophie Thatcher), as they continue their intermittently cannibalistic survival struggle in the wilderness. It doesn't help that Travis has been known to see visions of Lottie while making love to Sophie, or that the adult Lottie (Simone Kessell) is the person with Travis during his final moments in the present-day storyline of "Yellowjackets."
In the snowy past, we've already seen Natalie and Travis grow apart and become jealous of each other. Though Natalie's adult self, played by Juliette Lewis, will eventually open to the idea of joining Lottie's commune, the young version of Natalie remains steadfast in her skepticism. She's never been keen on Travis throwing in his lot with Lottie, despite Lottie's apparent connection to the dark mystic energies in the forest around their cabin.
Just don't mistake their group dynamic for a love triangle. According to "Yellowjackets" co-showrunner Jonathan Lisco (via The Hollywood Reporter), Lottie, Natalie, and Travis are embroiled in more of "a battle between faith and pragmatism." And according to "Yellowjackets" costume designer Amy Parris, sometimes a coat is just a coat that gets passed around for warmth. There may still be more to this one than meets the eye, however.
'It's a very fun plot reveal'
Ahead of the "Yellowjackets" season 2 finale, the aforementioned Amy Parris spoke to Digital Spy, where she teased that things are about to get "dirty and messy and gross" for the surviving members of the team, both plot-wise and wardrobe-wise. Parris further confirmed that Travis's coat has a hidden meaning, if not necessarily the one fans were expecting:
"[It's] the warmest coat. So, we knew we would want to have a shared item that is our warmest coat. And it's on purpose meant to look super warm and not a part of the suitcases of the Yellowjackets [team members] that flew out there. So this is something the audience will... it'll be revealed to them in future episodes where the origin of this jacket comes from. But the truth is, yeah, it's their warmest coat, so whoever's going outside to get water or hunt or whatever they're doing, it's shared amongst them."
If Travis didn't bring the coat with him, and it wasn't on board in anyone else's suitcase, that suggests he may have found it somewhere nearby after the original plane crash in "Yellowjackets" season 1. He could have even stolen the coat off a skeleton in the woods (or the one in the cabin's attic), but for now, its origin remains as mysterious as the whereabouts of Travis's brother, Javi (Luciano Leroux), before Javi suddenly reappeared this season, alive and unscathed, yet somehow mute.
Parris ended by saying, "It's a very fun plot reveal when we find out where that [coat] comes from," so we'll just have to cling to that, and wait and see where this whole coat subplot is going.
New episodes of "Yellowjackets" stream on Showtime every Friday and air on television every Sunday.