‘Yellowjackets’ Season 3, Episode 5 Recap: Taking Aim

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.