You’d be hard-pressed to find a character in Yellowjackets that is a pillar of good morals. Every single character is flawed in one way or another and has their fair share of skeletons in the closet, all of which play into the overarching mystery that is unfolding in both timelines. The show shows both sides of the story, the time in the wilderness and the present day, and in each timeline, we get to watch as huge, life-altering things take place.
One of the biggest twists of Season 1 occurs when adult Natalie (Juliette Lewis) decides to seek out Travis (Andres Soto), only to find him dead by an apparent suicide. Natalie, however, doesn’t believe it was suicide and thinks that he was murdered. Season 2 confirms it was, in fact, suicide, he just never intended to go all the way, and that there was a second person involved, just not in the way Natalie initially believed. Lottie (Simone Kessell) is another survivor of the Yellowjackets crash, and it was she who Travis reached out to the night of his death. She didn’t have a hand in causing his death per se, but as the show goes on, and we see more of her dynamic with him in the wilderness, it does leave one to wonder if maybe Lottie isn’t completely devoid of blame.
Travis Called Lottie the Night He Died in ‘Yellowjackets’ Season 1
After Travis dies in Season 1, Lottie worries that Natalie will do something stupid and get herself hurt, so she sends her patrons from her “intentional community” to watch over her. This ends up being a good thing because they manage to save Natalie from a suicide attempt — albeit, by kidnapping her, but that’s beside the point. Lottie tells Natalie the entire story of the night Travis died to help ease her pain and answer her questions.
The night that Travis died, he called Lottie and told her that the wilderness had come back to taunt him, and that he knew what he had to do. Before she could ask him what he meant, he hung up, and she drove all night until she found him. He was a mess when she finally did, terrified and paranoid, but he had a plan. He told her that he needed to get close to death to let the wilderness in, because when she and Van (Liv Hewson) almost died, they saw something. He said it was the only way to confront the darkness and figure out what it wanted. His plan was to hang himself from a crane just until he lost consciousness, just long enough for him to speak to the wilderness. She was supposed to lower him down as soon as he lost consciousness, but the batteries in the remote failed and Lottie watched in horror as Travis died in front of her — helpless to stop it.
Lottie Has a Lot of Influence on Travis in ‘Yellowjackets’
Technically, it isn’t Lottie’s fault that Travis died. As she tells Natalie, it was a horrific accident. But just because she didn’t physically put the rope around his neck herself doesn’t mean she didn’t play a hand in his death. Season 3 showcases Lottie (Courtney Eaton) and Travis (Kevin Alves) as a huge dynamic, with him as her protege as she teaches him how to speak to the wilderness. Before this, Travis doesn’t really acknowledge Lottie’s preaching about the wilderness. In fact, he and Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) sort of stick to their own separate thing up until Javi (Luciano Leroux) goes missing.
Following Javi’s disappearance, Lottie insists she can feel that he is alive, and Travis, desperate not to lose his brother, believes her. He becomes a full believer when she is proven right and Javi is (initially) found safe and sound. He starts attending her circles, and she takes him under her wing sometime between Season 2 and 3, only he doesn’t seem to be as interested in it now as he was before. It seems as though he’s being pressured into it by her because he’s got nothing else. With Javi gone, and he and Nat on the outs, Travis only has Lottie to put his trust in, and she’s milking it for all that it’s worth.
Lottie Forces Travis to Embrace the Wilderness in ‘Yellowjackets’ Season 3
The first scene we see of Travis and Lottie in Season 3 is her giving him mushroom tea to induce hallucinations and allow him to connect to the wilderness and hear “it.” He panics as it all kicks in and is visibly uncomfortable, but Lottie just tells him to embrace it, and let it in. She tells him he has a gift for being able to hear “it,” and encourages him to dig deeper. She even makes him stay behind while the others go searching for Mari (Alexa Barajas) so that he can help her listen to the voices. At the end of Season 2, Lottie reveals that she is no longer able to hear the voices, so now that Travis can, she is using him as a vessel for her own selfish reasons.
It gets to the point where Travis claims that the wilderness told him it doesn’t want him, which, judging by the look on his face, seems pretty clearly like a lie. However, Lottie has been so persistent that it honestly wouldn’t be surprising if this is where
