In the present, adult Lottie (Simone Kessell) is a serene wellness guru; in the past, a starving teen blessing a cannibalistic feast. Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 2 connects these personas, revealing how wilderness horrors inform her community’s rituals—and her shocking role in Travis’s death (Who Killed Travis Yellowjackets).
Who Killed Travis Yellowjackets: Why Lottie Called Cannibalism a “Gift From the Wilderness”
Faced with an unthinkable choice, Lottie makes eating Jackie sacred. Declaring the snow-cooked body a “gift from the wilderness,” she helps the starving girls survive without seeing themselves as monsters. This magical thinking is a powerful coping mechanism; Lottie reframes the horror as a spiritual ritual, removing their guilt by attributing the act to a higher power that wants them to live. The moment cements her status as their spiritual guide, the one who makes sense of the senseless and turns their worst acts into proof that something is watching over them.
What is Lottie’s Wellness Community?
Twenty-five years later, Lottie’s wilderness role has evolved into a polished business. Her compound is a community for people seeking relief from their inner “darkness,” with followers looking to her for guidance just as the Yellowjackets once did. This explains why she brought Natalie there; from Lottie’s perspective, she didn’t kidnap Nat—she rescued her from a suicide attempt.
Believing she is the only one who can help Nat heal from their shared trauma, Lottie employs a form of therapeutic control. She reframes Nat’s anger and grief as a spiritual wound, telling her a part of her remains “in the darkness.” Lottie positions herself as the only person who understands the wilderness and can provide the cure, turning their shared history into the foundation of her power.
Who Killed Travis Yellowjackets: The Link Between Lottie’s Past and Travis’s Death
So, did Lottie kill Travis? Her confession to Natalie provides the answer. Travis called her in a panic, convinced “the wilderness” had come back for him. Believing his vision, Lottie helped him perform a ritual to understand its message, resulting in his accidental death when a crane control malfunctioned.
This confirms Lottie’s core belief: the force from the woods is an active entity, not just shared trauma. She still sees herself as its messenger, just as she did twenty-five years ago. From her perspective, Travis’s death wasn’t murder but a spiritual session gone wrong—a direct continuation of her wilderness role. This action blurs the line between a healer and a manipulator leading others to destruction.
Healer or Manipulator?
Lottie’s seemingly contradictory actions are driven by a single, powerful idea: turning horror into something meaningful. This impulse is the core of her influence, whether reframing a grim feast as a gift or turning shared trauma into therapy. A thin line between healing and control emerges, posing the central question: Is she a genuine guide or a manipulator? Her relationship with Natalie will be the ultimate test.