Season 3, Episode 5: ‘Did Tai Do That?’
The title of this week’s episode of “Yellowjackets” is a bit goofy, particularly for an installment in which the girls decide to kill Ben by firing squad.
The episode is called “Did Tai Do That?” — which you have to say in the voice of Steve Urkel, from the ’90s sitcom “Family Matters,” for it to make sense. The title is a homage to a reference that Teen Van makes to Teen Tai in the woods. After drawing the King of Hearts from a deck of cards, Tai has been tasked with firing the gun that will kill their coach. Despite believing he is guilty, she is, of course, struggling with this.
Van suggests bringing out the sleepwalking version of Tai, who is haunted by the man with no eyes. The idea is that if Tai became possessed by this mysterious other, she could kill Coach Ben without feeling bad about it. Van compares it to when the dorky Steve Urkel transformed into his suave alter ego, Stefan Urquelle.
The contrast between the darkness of the circumstances and the silliness of the analogy is jarring, but so is the entire episode, which jolts back and forth between horror in the ’90s and quirky caper in the 2020s. It also reflects the Yellowjackets’ changing attitudes toward death. As teens they still seek ways to manage the deep pain they feel over any decision to take a person’s life. As adults they have become numb.
In the present, they barely seem to have any sorrow over Lottie’s death. They react to the news with a shrug. Her demise is just another mystery for them to solve. In the past, they are agonizing over their decision to murder Ben. Over the years, they have grown so accustomed to — and traumatized by — having people they know perish that death has just become a game for them.
That’s at least how both Misty and Shauna seem to treat the news of Lottie’s deadly fall. Misty goes immediately into citizen detective mode, visiting Lottie’s body at the morgue and then gathering her former teammates together to announce that she is launching an investigation. Shauna, still reeling from her own near-death freezer experience, points the finger at Misty, who, in turn, is so offended that she tries to storm out of her own house.
Shauna, suspicious, starts to tail Misty but is followed by a not very incognito Walter, who encourages her to team up with him. Soon enough all three of them end up in the penthouse apartment of Lottie’s addled father (Michael St. John Smith). Walter and Shauna are posing as internet service people. Misty plays a needy neighbor. We don’t end the episode with any big revelations about Lottie’s death. Instead, this all plays out mostly like a charming little adventure, with Misty and Walter sniping at each other.
Shauna is the only one who gets eventually to any place of true remorse, which comes after Lottie’s dad mistakes her for his daughter. Their conversation is tender, even though the older man is at first frustrated with his kid, blaming the “crazy voices” in her head for her not listening to him.
Shauna’s willingness to play the part of Lottie, easing this grieving father’s pain, stands in stark contrast to Shauna’s behavior in the wilderness. There, she cruelly suggests that an apt punishment for Ben would be burning him at the stake. Her teammates don’t agree to that, but they do decide that Ben should be killed by firing squad, which in this case means one person with a single gun. The task falls to Tai, and even though she furiously prosecuted Ben during his trial, she still doesn’t quite have the nerve to shoot him at close range.
Van encourages her to go to extreme lengths in order to complete the task, even suggesting sex as a way to bring out Tai’s shadow self. It’s an intriguing reversal of their dynamic in the present day, where Tai seems more eager than Van to get in touch with the Wilderness.
As Tai and Van are figuring out just how Tai is going to kill Ben, another group of teens, Travis, Akilah and Lottie, are looking for other answers in the gas-filled caves where their coach once hid. Lottie encourages a wary Akilah to inhale whatever is down there so she can have another vision, and what she sees proves crucial to saving Ben’s life. When under the influence, she imagines herself standing on top of an oversized version of Ben who acts as a bridge back to society. He is breathing so he must be alive.
Tai’s evil self finally emerges just as she is about to pull the trigger. She transforms and becomes self-assured, unemotional, despite Ben’s pleas. Lucky for Ben, Travis pushes him out of the way of the bullet at the last moment. The three true believers have concluded that Ben is their way out. He cannot die.
But that doesn’t mean the Yellowjackets are extending him a lot of grace. Shauna and Melissa take on the task of making sure he doesn’t try to run again. Shauna hands Melissa her knife, pushing her new acolyte-girlfriend to embrace the bad parts of herself and hobble Ben, slashing his one good ankle. Melissa lets the blood flow with glee; Shauna approves.
Ben may be alive, but his free will has been ripped away from him. He’s just a tool the girls hope will lead to their physical salvation. Their spiritual salvation? That’s a different story.
More to chew on
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Hello again, Tai’s ex-wife (Rukiya Bernard) and son (Aiden Stoxx). I almost forgot you guys existed. Glad that thread isn’t totally dropped, but the park meeting wasn’t quite enough to grab my full attention.
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Misty’s goodbye to Coach Ben was incredibly moving. Sammi Hanratty really sold it.
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Walter’s vanity plates? “NOTWLTR.” Very smooth.
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How did Walter get those cute outfits for him and Shauna so quickly? I know he’s rich, but that was fast.
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Great P.J. Harvey cue as an outro.