Warning: Contains spoilers for Yellowjackets season 1.
In the Yellowjackets season 1 finale, a vision shows Jackie seeing a strange man in the cabin, but his identity remains a mystery as the season ends. The Yellowjackets season 1 ending asked as many new questions as it answered, continuing the sense of uncertainty that permeates the TV show. However, Yellowjackets will return for season 2 and the creators have a 5-season plan so all will be answered in due time.
In Yellowjackets episode 10, “Sic Transit Gloria Mundi,” the growing tensions between Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) and Jackie (Ella Purnell) finally come to a head. While Jackie tries to flex her power and asks Shauna to leave, she quickly finds that her status as team captain really doesn’t mean anything in the wilderness and the majority of the survivors side with Shauna, leaving Jackie to leave and sleep outside where she struggles to get a fire started. A dream sequence from Jackie’s perspective shows Shauna bringing Jackie back inside where she is surrounded by the survivors, but also Laura Lee (Jane Widdop) who had perished earlier in Yellowjackets season 1. In a doorway at the back of the room, a mysterious man can be seen in shadow and he says, “so glad you’re joining us, we’ve been waiting for you.” After the sequence, Shauna wakes and rushes outside to find that Jackie has frozen to death in the snow.
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The man seen in the cabin doorway in the Yellowjackets finale is not someone who has been seen earlier in the show. However, his identity can be deduced. He only appears after the tone of the vision changes and Laura Lee speaks to Jackie, implying that his presence is also supernatural and that he is also dead. It is highly likely that he is the man who the survivors found dead in the attic when they first discovered the cabin. This is supported by the fact that Yellowjackets season 1 episode 10’s cast list has a new name hidden in it. The role of “Hunter” is played by William Charles Vaughn. Based on the supplies of food and ammunition, the man living in the cabin was certainly either a hunter or a survivalist, so this is likely the identity of the man in Jackie’s vision in the Yellowjackets season 1 finale. The final signal that makes it clear that this man is the dead Hunter is that he appears for a flash in the opening credits sequence, immediately after a shot of the dead body from the cabin’s attic.
Yellowjackets season 1 danced around confirming whether or not the show truly had supernatural elements, often providing possible real-world explanations for the strange events that take place. However, Jackie’s vision, along with other elements in the Yellowjackets season 1 finale, appears to lean the show further towards the realm of the supernatural. Jackie might be imagining seeing the other survivors welcome her back in and it largely seems to be wish-fulfillment, but Laura Lee’s line, “it’s not as bad as you thought, is it?” feels more like a direct communication and combined with the Hunter’s creepy welcome it seems very likely that Jackie is truly talking to ghosts. This in itself is compounded by the fact that Ella Purnell has said in interviews that she would like to return in future seasons of Yellowjackets, either in flashbacks or as a ghost.
One intriguing element about this Yellowjackets season 1 finale scene is that it is not entirely clear who is actually having the vision. While the vision is shown from Jackie’s point of view, the scene cuts to Shauna waking up, implying that she saw it, and it fulfills Shauna’s own wish that she hadn’t let Jackie die. With the supernatural component, there is a real possibility that the vision is intended to be a dream that Shauna and Jackie both share in Jackie’s final moments. This can only be confirmed by how Shauna might talk about the scene in Yellowjackets season 2.
