【orientalism, eroticism and modern visuality in global cultures】

Amid all the mysteries of Season 2 of Yellowjacketsis a giant question mark pointing right at Javi (Luciano Leroux). 

Despite being stranded alone in the middle of a forest in the freezing winter,orientalism, eroticism and modern visuality in global cultures Javi is somehow still alive. In episode 4 of Season 2, Van(Liv Hewson) and Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown) find him near a tree and bring him back to camp, but Javi is reluctant to share any details about where he's been or how he survived. Javi's whereabouts up to now are even more mysterious considering that the only reason Van and Taissa found him was because they were trying to track the trees with Yellowjackets' notorious symbol(the off-putting triangle they first found in their cabin that's now the sigil of Lottie's (Simone Kessell) cult) that a sleepwalking Taissa kept finding. 

While we don't really know anything about Javi's solo stint in the wilderness, in episode 5 we learn that Javi's been drawing, and there's a big clue hiding in one particular illustration. Coach Ben(Steven Krueger) finds a drawing of a tree, which we can presume to be the one Van and Taissa found him nearby, and within the tree's roots is a silhouette of a woman. Ben asks Javi about the drawing, to which he replies that the woman in the tree is his friend, and she warned him not to come back. Creepy? Very much so. 

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Credit: Screenshot Showtime

Although the actual meaning of Javi's drawing is so far a mystery, we can find some answers hiding all the way back in Season 1 of Yellowjackets. If the drawing of a woman in a tree felt familiar, it's because we've seen something like it before with Sammy (Aiden Stoxx), Taissa's (Tawny Cypress) son. In Season 1, we learned that a woman was watching Sammy sleep at nightby crouching in a tree in front of his window. We also learned that Sammy was drawing the woman, along with other super creepy stuff, and plastering all his drawings on his window to stop the woman from watching him. The catch? The woman in the tree was actually a sleepwalking Taissa. 

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Like the woman in the tree in Sammy's drawing, the woman in Javi's tree could very likely be Taissa. The uncanny parallels between their drawings are too much to ignore, and when we take into account what Javi said about his "friend," it makes a lot of sense for it to be Taissa. With her condition getting worse, sleepwalking Taissa is almost like an alter ego, acting on her own will and making a point to differentiate herself from "awake" Taissa. She could have told Javi that she isn't really Taissa, but another version of her, which is why Javi saw her as a unique friend. 

Sammy and Javi might be drawing the same person. Credit: Kailey Schwerman / Showtime

The sleepwalking Taissa theoryalso makes sense when we remember that Javi mentioned that his friend warned him against going back to the camp. Taissa knows the real tea that's been bubbling at camp Yellowjackets, and her sleepwalking alter ego has been the one partaking in all the fun. To rewind for a little second, awake Taissa didn't remember that the group ate Jackie(Ella Purnell), but as Van aptly pointed out, Taissa ate her face. It's possible that her night self was taking charge at that moment, so it was her night self that was aware enough to warn Javi of what was going on. 

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From the parallels between Sammy and Javi's drawings to the patterns we've been seeing in Taissa's sleepwalking, it's very likely that Javi's tree friend (who was possibly helping him survive) is "night" Taissa. While Yellowjacketsloves to leave its threads unanswered, one thing's for sure: We should all be afraid of sleepwalking Taissa. 

YellowjacketsSeason 2 is now streaming on Showtime.

Topics Yellowjackets