Coach Ben lives to fight another day, but the Yellowjackets remain dangerous as ever. The ever-changing alliances are important to remember as the teens continue to fight for survival in the wilderness. Meanwhile, the current day events around the women have put them next to multiple murder investigations. “Thanksgiving (Canada)” brings adds some more nuance to each event. Yellowjackets traditionally ends their episodes on a strong note, and “Thanksgiving (Canada)” is a dozy.
Yellowjackets – “Thanksgiving (Canada)” – The Recap
Adult Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) sits alone in her car. While voices run through her head, she remains frustrated. She walks into the house, and Jeff turns on the lights, asking why Shauna was out until 2 in the morning. She tells him about Lottie, and Callie overhears. She runs to a draw where Callie has hidden the tape left for Shauna. Callie grows scared that she messed up, and Shauna tells her family to pack bags so they can go into hiding. Someone is trying to kill them.
Coach Ben wakes up, his hands still tied to a tree. Nat brings him food and checks on his Achilles, which is not infected. Ben asks her to kill him because he does not want to just suffer endlessly. She refuses and hands him food. Later, he tells her he started the fire. She knows he is lying to get her to kill him, but again, she refuses. When she returns to the group, Nat adds, “Bring Ben food” to the chores list.
Shauna and Melissa are now known as commodities to the rest of the group, causing Van and Tai to gossip about it. They admit the relationship is odd, but Shauna seems happier.
Misty meets with a lab tech, Karl, to hand off the samples she collected from Lottie’s body. Karl seems concerned, but Misty walks away. As she does, Walter texts Misty to tell her Shauna is not responding to his texts. Misty tells him to back off her investigation. Misty receives another text from Walter, who tells her he has a peace offering. Walter sends her a limo driver, who drops off a bag of Lottie’s trash for her to investigate.
Shauna, Jeff, and Callie go into a hotel and pick their rooms. Jeff voices his concerns that it’s connected to the woods and cannot be good if they know where they live. They agree to trust each other when their family is in danger. He goes downstairs to get snacks, and Shauna calls Taissa to speak to Van about the tape dropped off at her house. It’s a unique DAT tape, but Van still has a deck that can play it. Shauna asks Van to bring it to her hotel.
Van and Taissa talk about Shauna and return to their luxurious week in a hotel. Taissa ordered high-end room service (Surf & Turf) while they got massages. Van confronts Tai, telling her that she’s irrationally focused on self-care. Taissa admits she’s struggling to handle all of the stress in her life, and she needs this time with Van. She then asks if anyone even uses DAT tapes anymore, and it triggers Van to act with more urgency.
In the woods, Travis asks Akilah (Nia Sondaya) why she’s still going to the caves with Lottie. Akilah still thinks there are visions they need to see, and Travis expresses concerns. Mari goes to feed the coach and realizes he has not been eating the meals they’ve served. His hunger strike makes them worry about Akilah’s prophecy. He cannot be a bridge if he’s dead. Lottie has an idea.
Teen Misty expresses her concerns for Coach Ben, and Nat asks if they should just kill him. Misty refuses, and Travis expresses worry to Nat about the visions. Perhaps there’s nothing to them, and they’re just random. Nat grows mad, reminding him that he’s the one who backed Lottie and Akilah, but he just walks away.
Adult Van goes through her boxes to find a DAT player. In the same box, a handheld phone begins ringing despite not being plugged in. Van answers the phone and hears Tai on the other side of the phone. She asks for help, but then the static phone goes dead. Tai walks in from the other room, and Van seems disturbed. She tells Tai she has what they need and walks out of the room.
Misty continues to investigate Lottie’s death. She finds a receipt for a Chinese restaurant with no vegetarian options in the bag of trash. She stakes out the restaurant, and eventually, Lisa shows up outside. Misty remains suspicious. Shauna, Jeff, and Callie watch trashy reality TV until Shauna gets a call from Van to listen to the tape. Callie and Jeff want to come with Shauna. When Shauna refuses, Callie shows frustration over being treated like she’s helpless. Shauna tells her they’re trying to be better parents, and they hug before Shauna leaves alone.
Teenage Misty confronts Coach Ben about his hunger strike. When he refuses, they hold Coach Ben down and force-feed him. Nat and Akilah remain further away and feel shaken by the sounds of it. Nat tries to talk to Coach, but he continues to ask her to kill him. Teen Lottie sits alone in the woods, but soon, Akilah arrives to try the cave again.
At present, Shauna meets Van and Taissa. They listen to the tape, and immediately, a woman’s voice comes over the tape. Elsewhere in New York, Misty confronts Lisa about her time with Lottie. Lisa tells Misty she does not know anything about Lottie’s death, but she agrees to speak with her about others who might.
As the tape concludes, we jump back to Shauna, Van, and Tai, where we hear howling and someone screaming. They all recognize this as something dark from their past, but everyone who would know about the tape is dead or in the car. Shauna tells the others about the events that happened to her over the previous weeks and that the tape came to her house specifically. Shauna looks into her bag and sees Callie’s phone recording her conversations. She deletes the ongoing recording and hurries back to confront her daughter.
In the cave, Akilah climbs down into the place where she often has visions. We see a stop-motion bear walking through the camp until it grows a third eye. Lottie pulls Akilah out of the location that causes the visions, and Akilah apologizes for not knowing what she’s seeing. Nat wakes up in the night and walks towards Ben with a knife. Travis intercepts her and tells her that he cannot let her kill him. However, she convinces him to let her go, and Nat continues over to Ben.
Nat sneaks into his lean-to, and he begs for death again. When she decides to finally kill him, Ben thanks her. She stabs him in the chest, and he slowly releases his last breath. When the sun rises, Misty stands outside the tent talking to Travis. She immediately realizes what Nat has done and alerts the other girls. Misty calls Nat a murderer and goes back to Coach Ben. Once there, she tries to arrange him comfortably, strokes his hair, and kisses Ben. She then says goodbye.
The rest of Camp Yellowjackets grow angry with Nat, and they push her on the ground. Shauna tells everyone they do not need to hold a trial for Nat because she’s confessed. Lottie believes Shauna should now be their leader since Nat did not act in their best interests. Shauna accepts the role but strikes a surprisingly moderate position. They will honor Coach Scott with a feast, and when Misty asks if Nat will be punished, Shauna tells the group that Nat will be forced to prepare the feast.
Back at the hotel, Jeff and Callie play cards. Jeff tries to reassure his daughter that everything will be alright. When Shauna returns, she tells Callie they need to speak in private. When Jeff leaves, Shauna confronts Callie about the recording, and her daughter frames her actions to highlight how she wants to help her mother. Shauna tells Callie she’s angry and needs her daughter to leave the room. Callie does and checks her phone. Unbeknownst to Shauna, the recording is not fully deleted, but instead in the “recently deleted” tab.
Nat wears an apron in the woods and approaches Coach Ben’s body. She sees the necklace remains around his neck and goes to remove it. Shauna walks Nat through the process of preparing a body for a meal. She also covers Ben’s face to make it easier on Nat.
At present, Misty and Lisa are discussing what happened in the woods. After they discuss Lottie giving Lisa $50,000, Lisa brings up Natalie’s death. Misty admits she had a difficult relationship with Nat, and Lisa does not know what she’s talking about. She then brings up that Taissa had met with Lottie the day she was murdered.
In their bed, Van looks up the lifespan of DAT tapes. However, she’s startled when Tai seemingly has a nightmare and jumps awake. Tai asks Van to help her but suddenly regains control. She tells Van to go to sleep. Meanwhile, Misty texts Taissa about the meeting with Lottie. She also receives a text from the lab. Unfortunately, she only has a DNA sample, so she messages Walter for help.
In the woods, Mari speaks with Nat about Ben. She does not believe Nat should have killed him, and she struggles to communicate how much she’s hurt. The girls eat Ben as they sit around the campfire. Van tells Tai that Shauna seems better in the leadership role.
As Misty eats, she hums, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” when Lottie suddenly hears voices. She screams, causing the women to freeze, and soon, screams come from the wilderness. Lottie tells everyone to sing, and the singing and chants become a cacophony in the dark. The girls dance around the fire, and suddenly, Lottie sees a figure moving in the darkness. She calls out to it, believing its the Wilderness. However, a man walks into the camp and says hello. He jumps when he sees Ben’s body, and the women go quiet.
Is “Thanksgiving (Canada)” worth watching?
After the death of Coach Ben in “Thanksgiving,” there were many ways the story could have gone. The potential for the girls to be immediately rescued was certainly not the one we thought was on the horizon. The question that will surely come up after “Thanksgiving” is how to deal with the man who walked into the camp. More importantly, are the Yellowjackets going to stay in the woods?
It also makes far more sense that Nat would hold Ben’s death in “Thanksgiving” against herself for years. If this is the moment they’re rescued, she must be more decisive for him for hours. Instead, she did what he asked, but the violent death was not easy. More importantly, she had to carve up his body in “Thanksgiving,” and the girls ate him. That might get messy quickly.
That alone might be why they hunt this man walking into camp. They do not want their secrets to get out, even if they are forced into the wilderness for more time. We know they are guarded about what happened in the woods in the present day, and the voice recording in “Thanksgiving” does not sound like something we’ve seen or heard yet. Do they potentially still have time to go, or is there other events still to come for the Yellowjackets?
The Taissa question is also looming large over the story now. It appears evident that Van is struggling with Taissa’s new attitude. However, we must acknowledge that the “Other Tai” seems to have taken over her body. If that’s the case, it would explain Tai’s unwillingness to care, as it has always been the less empathetic side of her personality. The phone call and the nightmare are highlights of “Thanksgiving” and deliver the scares we always want from Yellowjackets.
Finally, Callie having the recording backed up on her phone is a disaster waiting to happen. Tai, Van, and Shauna had said they were the only ones to live the experience. If Callie mishandles this recording, it could spell death for all three of the women. “Thanksgiving” executes the idea of laying out a new danger for the women (in the form of the tape), then immediately doubles down. Yellowjackets love to do this, and “Thanksgiving” continues the trend.
Yellowjackets airs on Showtime on Sunday nights. It’s available to stream on Showtime or Paramount+ on Fridays. “Thanksgiving” airs on March 14, 2025.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
