In Yellowjackets, the lines between reality and the supernatural are blurred; when “Il veut du sang” is said, the show turns hard toward the mystical.
“Il veut du sang” is a phrase heard in Yellowjackets that marks a change in the show after it’s uttered. Yellowjackets is a Showtime series that follows a high school girls’ soccer team who are involved in a plane crash deep in the forests of Canada. The story goes back and forth between the time they spend lost in the woods and 25 years later in the present where the now older women are forced to reckon with the ordeal that still affects them. Yellowjackets has elements of horror, thriller, and mystery, and its two timelines create an unsettling juxtaposition between the adult characters and the younger Yellowjackets cast.
The show is primarily a grounded look at what happens when the rules of normal society break down, but there are other times in Yellowjackets when it seems that something supernatural is at work. Mysterious events, dreams, visions, and unaccountable disasters befall the girls and coaches in the wilderness, and it sometimes seems as if the forest itself is attempting to keep the soccer team lost in the woods. Each Yellowjackets episode sees the girls slip further away from societal norms and more into animalistic behavior. “Il veut du sang” marks a moment where the women’s world starts to quickly become tied into the mystical.
“Il Veut Du Sang” Means “He Wants Blood”
Lottie Matthews’ dreams and visions after the plane crash form the basis of the strange beliefs and superstitions the girls develop in the wilderness. In Yellowjackets season 2, episode 3, “Digestif”, adult Lottie, who has been running a cult, opens a beehive at her compound. Inside, she finds a honeycomb covered in blood; as she’s staring, a female voice says, “Il veut du sang” which is French for “He wants blood”. Lottie snaps back to reality to find one of her acolytes asking if she would like lunch, and she sees that there is no blood on the honeycomb.
It is not completely certain Lottie’s Yellowjackets beehive vision means, but in the wilderness, she experienced bloody visions and spoke French when she was seemingly possessed. For Lottie, this vision suggests that whatever entity was shadowing her in Canada may have returned, and that she and her friends are once again in danger. More and more often throughout Yellowjackets season 2, blood is spilled (or given), and some sort of inexplicable, dark reward results.
Yellowjackets Leans Into The Supernatural After The “Il Veut Du Sang” Scene
While there had been some references to supernatural events in Yellowjackets, it is the return of Lottie’s visions that signals the show leaning harder toward these elements. In a flashback in the same episode, Shauna’s nosebleed drips onto the baby blanket Lottie gives her, and moments later, starlings slam into the cabin, killing themselves. Lottie suggests they may be diseased but still insists the birds be gathered, one of the first instances of the girls refusing to eat in deference to some supernatural power. Later in the season, the girls begin selecting members of their group for sacrifice, buying into the idea that blood must be spilled.
“Il veut du sang” comes back all the way around in the Yellowjackets season 2 ending, when the adult survivors plot to interrupt Lottie’s ritual and send her to a psychiatric institute. Instead, Natalie ends up dead and Lottie, while being rolled away, tells the remaining woman how the wilderness is pleased with their blood sacrifice. After “Il veut du sang” the characters in the past and present of Yellowjackets begin to find safety and security in superstition rather than in accepting the reality of their situation.
