Laura Lee had one of the most shocking deaths on Yellowjackets. What happened, why did the teddy bear catch fire, and what does it all mean?
Showtime’s hit horror series saw the mysterious death of Laura Lee (Jane Widdop) in Yellowjackets and a flaming teddy bear is the only hint at what really happened. Yellowjackets is a survival horror show that premiered in November 2021. The series follows a New Jersey High School soccer team who on a plane ride to Seattle, crash in the Canadian wilderness. Forced to survive, the young girls have to contend with the harsh natural environment and threats from within their own group. Mysticism, cannibalism, and post-traumatic stress are just some of the themes dealt with in this series that flips back and forth from the crash to the present day.
The characters in the two seasons of Yellowjackets are forced to contend with their own personal demons. For Laura Lee that means reconciling her own deeply held religious beliefs with the terrible situation she finds herself in. These beliefs are put to the test against the almost mystical nature of the forest and this war between religion and nature is a theme explored through Laure Lee’s story. Despite her death in season 1, Laura Lee shows up twice before the Yellowjackets season 2 ending. Why this happened, how she died, and the role of her teddy bear all help to round out the deeper meaning of Yellowjackets.
Laura Lee Died In A Plane Crash In Yellowjackets
By Yellowjackets season 1, episode 8, “Flight of the Bumblebee”, the remaining survivors have become desperate for resources, as months have passed since the initial crash. Given that Misty (Sammi Hanratty) destroyed the plane’s black box, the burden of seeking help falls on the group, who take increasingly greater risks as their desperation grows. With winter close and rescue unlikely, Laura Lee decides to take fate into her own hands by piloting the crashed plane. Laura Lee assumes that her close study of the pilot’s manual, childhood experience flying with her grandpa, and faith in God will protect her.
Though Laura Lee does manage to take flight, the rest of the team is forced to look on in horror as the plane eventually explodes, killing Laura Lee and their best hope for survival. Her death spells doom for the survivors, so much so that they even celebrate a grim “Doomcoming”, a sardonic party in preparation for their inevitable deaths. As a firm believer in a higher power, Laura Lee was particularly at odds with the seemingly supernatural forces at work. Wolves, premonitions, and the antler queen are some of the primordial forces the girls face, and Laura Lee’sYellowjackets death is symbolic of how society’s religions and values will not be an escape for them.
The Wilderness Set The Yellowjackets Teddy Bear On Fire
In blurring the lines between reality and the supernatural, Yellowjackets suggests that a more sinister force, now known to be the wilderness and possibly the antler queen, caused Laura Lee’s death when the Yellowjackets teddy bear spontaneously erupted into flame. Laura Lee’s death shows how the pursuit of survival tests the limits to which anyone can be pushed. While a mechanical issue could have caused a fire, the teddy bear alone first catches fire in the passenger seat, far from the engine or other combustible parts of the plane. The surrounding wilderness thus becomes a character of its own that prevents the survivors from escaping.
Prior to the explosion, Lottie (Courtney Eaton) envisions the Yellowjackets Laura Lee death. The wilderness takes on an aggressive quality with other survivors who venture into the woods to seek help; the group that split off was attacked by wolves, injuring Van and causing them to return to the cabin. The severity of Van’s (Liv Hewson) wounds prompts Laura Lee to turn to the plane to find help. Just as the wolves prevented the girls from making progress, the teddy bear’s combustion ensured that Laura Lee would never make contact with anyone who could help. The sense of evil and the wilderness as an entity becomes heavily explored in season 2.
Lottie even predicts Laura Lee’s terrible fate. After experiencing symptoms of schizophrenia without her medication, Lottie turns to Laura Lee’s strong faith. In order to make sense of the world around her, she agrees to be baptized. While submerged underwater, Lottie envisions Laura Lee being consumed by fire. The fact that Laura Lee dies in the same way that Lottie envisioned in Yellowjackets all but proves the wilderness played a role in — if not being entirely responsible for — Laura Lee’s death. The combustion of the teddy bear in the plane aligns with Lottie’s prediction of Laura Lee’s fate.
The deadly forces at play in the wilderness and the antler queen spirit reveal that they will stop at nothing to keep the survivors trapped in the wilderness. Laura Lee’s explosive and dramatic death as well as the teddy bear scene highlights the supernatural elements seemingly at play in Yellowjackets that keep the survivors trapped in their circumstances. The constant stress and desperation to survive bring out the sides of their characters that were previously unimaginable. Yellowjackets’ conclusion of season 1, episode 8, featuring the teddy bear catching fire, foreshadowed the power of the wilderness that managed to follow the survivors into their adult lives.
Adult Lottie Is Still Haunted By Laura Lee’s Death
Laura Lee didn’t share any strong bonds on the Yellowjackets team until she found a kindred spirit in Lottie — and she’s still haunted by her death even to this day. Laura Lee makes two surprising appearances in Yellowjackets season 2, during Lottie’s visions in 1996 and 2021. Adult Lottie’s Yellowjackets season 2 Laura Lee vision saw Lottie on the scene of Travis’ (Andres Soto) suicide. When Lottie tried to get Travis down from hanging himself permanently, the crane remote malfunctioned, and she turned to see a decomposing Laura Lee screaming at her. This speaks to the culpability she feels in Laura Lee’s death.
Since Lottie foresaw her death and did nothing to stop her from flying the plane, she blames herself for her friend’s demise. Teen Lottie encounters the hallucinated plane again while she’s in a hunting competition with Natalie (Sophie Thatcher). She has a vision where she enters the plane and climbs down a hatch to find herself in a mall. She encounters Laura Lee and the remaining survivors in the food court, who proceed to make her feel insecure, foreshadowing her passing the leadership to Natalie in the season 2 finale. Laura Lee remains kind, however, and pushes Lottie out of the vision before she freezes to death.
The Yellowjackets Teddy Bear Scene Almost Didn’t Happen
Audiences would be shocked to find out that Laura Lee technically wasn’t supposed to make it past the Yellowjackets pilot episode. In an interview with Collider, adult Shauna actress Melanie Lynskey opened up about how incredible it was to work with such a talented ensemble cast. Each actor and actress in Yellowjackets, no matter how small their role, manages to make their character completely their own. It was at this point that Lynskey revealed that showrunners originally intended for Laura Lee to die in the plane crash. However, they were so impressed with actor Jane Widdop’s table read, that they decided to give Laura Lee a bigger part.
“It was a little part — and then, I don’t know if this is public knowledge, but they were not supposed to make it past the plane crash and were so impressive in the table read and in the pilot that then they were brought along,” Lynskey stated. Considering how large a role Laura Lee played in the overall Yellowjackets story and Lottie’s descent into supernatural leanings, it’s nearly impossible to imagine how the show would’ve looked without Widdop’s involvement. This means that in the earliest stages of development, the Yellowjackets teddy bear scene wouldn’t have happened, and foreshadowing of the wilderness’ power would’ve had to come later.
