I’m Calling It: Misty Is Going To Be ‘Yellowjackets’ Final Girl

Yellowjackets is a show that offers its audience a wealth of thought-provoking content. I’m not above picking my favorite cannibal and rooting for them until the end. I, of course, am an admirer of the most obvious protagonist, a supporter of women’s rights and (very) wrongs: I am drawn to Shauna Shipman (Sophie Nélisse), the newly revealed Antler Queen. Imagine my surprise, my horror, when a quote by Lottie (Simone Kessell) in Season 2, Episode 3, “Digestif” made me realize that Misty (Christina Ricci) — arguably the opposite of Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) — is likely the last one standing.

Lottie explains the nature of queen bees, saying, “In winter, they cluster around the queen, and they vibrate to keep her warm. When a new queen hatches, the first thing she does is sting all the other unborn queens. To death.” There are only three core Yellowjackets left: Shauna, Taissa (Tawny Cypress), and Misty. The show winding down to one survivor makes sense for its current trajectory. While Shauna is the most stab-y of the survivors and is (at least the first) true Antler Queen, and Taissa is no stranger to outright violence and is perhaps the most capable of the survivors, Misty Quigley has her ready-made, fatal stinger in her little syringes.

Misty’s Unhealthy Relationship With Coach Ben Is the Beginning of Her Madness

Misty (Samantha Hanratty) has been dotted with red flags since before the crash. She’s always been positioned as an outsider, as she isn’t even on the Yellowjackets team officially. Instead, she serves as an assistant to Coach Ben Scott (Steven Krueger). Think of Coach Ben as patient zero of Misty’s test run of weaponized Munchausen’s by proxy. Cutting off Ben’s leg saves his life, but for me, Misty’s ability to do it is no less shocking. I couldn’t process her competent amputation skills without remembering the scene where Misty watches a rat drown in her family pool. Her relationship with Ben evolves to reflect the duality of Misty: capable, but overwhelmed with a desperation to be needed.

Their dynamic is an escalation of the “Good Nurse” persona that masks her delusional and violent traits. As Ben adjusts to his new disability, in Season 1, Episode 5, “Blood Hive,” Misty poisons Ben to keep him reliant on her. Ben, realizing that Misty might be the biggest danger to him in the wilderness, lies and says he feels the same, but that they can’t be together because of their age difference. But this isn’t enough for Misty. She plans to drug Ben again and assault him. When Mari (Alexa Barajas) instead puts Misty’s mushroom collection into the stew for their Doomcoming, Misty doesn’t even consider telling Mari the truth and allows the entire group to drug themselves unknowingly. I have no choice but to call a party foul.

Becoming a nurse is a continuation of Misty’s facade. Just as she would retaliate against Ben by kicking out his crutches or drugging him, Misty threatens her patients, takes them off the grounds as cover when she spies, and regularly retaliates against them for disobedience. Misty the Nurse is a persona to escape scrutiny — a kind of ethical stolen valor. It also gives her access to vulnerable people she can easily control, as well as strong pharmaceuticals, which are much more reliable than foraged mushroom teas. All of this is to say: Misty is always thinking at least three steps ahead.

‘Yellowjackets’ Misty Is a Master Manipulator in Both Timelines

What I find most upsetting about Misty’s nurse grift is her disregard for the autonomy of others. It extends to her personal life. Early on, Misty feigns car trouble so a bad date can continue with a ride home. I was already physically and spiritually cringing as Misty tried on her ill-fitting flirtation persona. But, classic Misty, she pushes it further. She manipulates her date into a nightcap with, “It’s because you think I’m ugly… if you thought I was pretty, you’d come inside.” We’ll never know how far Misty would’ve pushed with her date, as Natalie (Juliette Lewis) is waiting for her inside with a gun. Still, the later reveal of Misty’s basement bedroom — kitted out to hold reporter Jessica Roberts (Rekha Sharma) hostage — doesn’t escape me.

When Ben dies, Misty is without purpose. She needs to be needed. When Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) discovers that Misty has had the black box the entire time, she protects Misty because she’s desperate to get home. To Misty, this coercion translates to an unbreakable bond. As adults, and as comedic and ultimately protective as it may seem, Misty’s behavior towards Natalie is violation after violation. There’s nothing Misty won’t do to orchestrate the appearance of friendship: sabotaging vehicles, planting cameras, preemptively killing a journalist. It’s as tragic as it is ironic that Misty kills Natalie with her little stinger, in pursuit of killing Lisa (Nicole Maines), someone who was organically getting close to Natalie.

Misty Is the Ultimate Puppet Master on ‘Yellowjackets’

In Season 2 of Yellowjackets, Kirsten “Crystal” (Nuha Jes Izman) is a potential friend for Misty. They share hobbies and interests. They sing together, and Crystal even offers to be Misty’s acting coach. Misty knows (briefly) what it is to have a best friend. (I would recognize the distinct mania of musical theater twin souls anywhere.) As all best friends do, they share secrets. But Crystal doesn’t respond to Misty’s confession about the transmitter in the way Misty expects. She responds as most of us would: with fear and disgust. Misty threatens to kill Crystal over it, even as Crystal begs for mercy, and offers to do Misty’s chores. Misty continues edging towards Crystal until she falls off the cliff to her death. With snowfall set to cover the body, Misty walks away. Even when her sadistic tendencies get out of her control, she improvises. Instead of Crystal’s death setting Misty on a different path, it emboldens her. Misty lies better — and faster — moving forward. In the adult timeline, she revels in kidnapping, murder, and hiding bodies.

Newly skilled in the art of acting, teen Misty pretends to have lost Crystal in the snowstorm. When some of the girls become increasingly suspicious of Crystal’s disappearance, Misty feigns renewed concern and organizes a fake search and rescue. Her relationship with Crystal bleeds into the adult timeline. With reporter-for-hire Jessica, Misty ricochets between overtly threatening — filling chocolates with a lethal dose of fentanyl to send to Jessica’s father — and the sickly-sweet facade of friendship. She is probably genuinely flattered at the potential of a book deal and fame as an approachable survivor of the plane crash. While her desperate need to be the group’s savior has her kill Jessica, she lets it go on for longer than it needs to, enjoying the attention and validation, even when she knows it’s phoned in.

When a severely injured Lottie (Courtney Eaton) tells Misty they should cannibalize her if she dies, Misty takes it upon herself to make a group announcement, which spirals into a hunt. Misty is the accelerant in the chain reaction that kills Javi (Luciano Leroux). When Natalie tries to save Javi, the other girls run forward to help. It’s Misty who stops Natalie and holds the line. Lottie wants to protest the escalation to hunting but Misty tells Lottie she “better not start making people feel bad about it now.” She lies to the rest of the survivors, “Lottie’s pleased with the Wilderness’s choice. She says Javi will save us.” With falsified authority, she re-confirms cannibalism as a path forward. She even hands Shauna the butchering knife.

Misty Quigley Being an Outsider Will Work to Her Advantage

Past or present, Misty doesn’t recoil at violence or manipulation. As a teenager and adult, Misty enjoys the idea of being a savior for the group. When Taissa’s grief over Van leads her to blame Shauna solely for all their suffering, Misty is happy to agree. With dwindling numbers, keeping one person on her side gives her the control and feigned reliability that she craves. Through Misty’s warped logic, helping the Yellowjackets hunt and even killing one another is the same as belonging. She never needed the wilderness to believe that. Misty is my worst nightmare and she’s thriving. She’s thriving and I, for one, am scared.

Under stress, Taissa fractures, reflected in the existence of Other Tai. Shauna represses until she can’t anymore — a point she seems to have hit in the Season 3 finale — and then becomes violent. In Misty’s desperate attempts to belong, she will likely facilitate the downfall of the more obvious contenders for last Yellowjacket standing. With bitter irony, Misty will remain alone. The girl who never needed the wilderness but desperately wanted validation is set up to trade any potential reflection, healing, and connection for orchestrated praise. With the others gone, Misty could even go forward and position herself as the one true victim of the crash and get the acceptance she craves on a grander scale. The anonymous validation she receives on True Crime message boards, the fame and adoration she imagined with ill-fated reporter Jessica, all of it is within her reach — and Misty never fails to snag what she wants.