‘Yellowjackets’ Season 3, Episode 3 Recap: It Wants More

Season 3, Episode 3: ‘Them’s the Brakes’

In the third episode of this season of “Yellowjackets,” the Wilderness is playing mind games, but so are the girls. Which is worse? The fever dreams involving talking llamas and dangerous slap bracelets? Or the back-stabbing that comes with psychological manipulation? Honestly, it’s a toss up.

This week’s episode highlights what has always been the strong suit of “Yellowjackets” — the ways in which being a teenage girl, or an emotionally stunted grown woman, dovetail with fantastical horror. The fights based on interpersonal drama can feel just as operatic as any hallucinogenic nightmare brought on by a mysterious woodland entity.

Mari, perhaps the nastiest of the current Teen Yellowjackets, sums it up well when she is trapped in the cave with Ben. In Mari’s attempt to escape, they both were sprayed with mace, leaving them equally in pain and defeated. Ben starts lamenting his current situation, explaining how he only started being a high school substitute after tearing his ACL. He’s just a “normal guy” who goes to Dave Matthews Band concerts even though he doesn’t like them very much, he moans. The Wilderness wails.

Mari responds with a story about when, as a 12-year-old, she watched her younger cousin die of cancer. It’s an oddly earnest tale from the usually sarcastic Mari. But she has a point. “I think maybe there are two versions of reality,” she says. “Most of the time the other one, the bad one, is just hiding or waiting, but it’s all real.” For Mari, it’s all one in the same: the supernatural horror they are facing and the cruelty of one another. Perhaps that’s why she herself is so cruel.

Still, after what seems to be a shared moment of tenderness, she convinces Ben to let her go, promising to keep his secret. But Mari can’t discard her cynicism. As soon as she gets back to camp, her story falls apart. The other girls catch her in a lie, and she immediately spills Ben’s whereabouts.

She invites her bad reality back to Ben. Shauna, furious, leads a witch hunt into the woods to find him with Mari as guide. They may as well be carrying torches and pitchforks. They do eventually find Ben, but they also encounter another terror.