What's The Song At The End Of Yellowjackets Season 2 Episode 1?
Contains spoilers for "Yellowjackets" Season 2, Episode 1 — "Friends, Romans, Countrymen"
If there's one big question that's been looming ever since "Yellowjackets" premiered in 2021, it's probably this: when and why do the girls turn to cannibalism? Trapped in the woods with only an abandoned cabin to provide warmth and shelter since their plane crashed in the woods, the New Jersey-based soccer team is faced with constant danger, including starvation... and during Season 1, breadcrumbs were constantly dropped that eating people wasn't off the table.
The premiere of Season 2 — titled "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" — finally tells us the origin of the cannibalism, and it's both shocking and sort of expected. After losing her best friend Jackie (Ella Purnell) when the two fight and Jackie freezes to death outside of the cabin, a young Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) is struck with horrible grief. She then handles that grief in the weirdest possible way: she props Jackie's frozen body up in the shed where the girls keep all their meat, and hangs out with her like Jackie is still alive.
After Shauna accidentally knocks Jackie over, which leads to her ear breaking off, Shauna does another normal thing by keeping Jackie's ear in her pocket, at which point it eventually defrosts. Set to Tori Amos' song "Cornflake Girl," Shauna pops the ear into her mouth at the end of the episode, marking the first moment of cannibalism on "Yellowjackets."
Cornflake Girl scores Yellowjackets' cannibalism in a perfectly twisted way
"Cornflake Girl" is a classic Tori Amos tune released as a single in early 1994, and its deceptively bouncy, happy tone hides a significant darkness — making it ideal for basically any scene from "Yellowjackets," but especially this one. Speaking in extended, fantastical metaphors about "cornflake girls" and "raisin girls" and making herself into the other, Amos follows that up with the pre-chorus, singing, "This is not really, this, a-this/This is not really happening," followed by the chorus, which repeats "you bet your life it is" three times and "peel out the watchword" twice. The latter sentiment refers to a "watchword," or principle you could possibly betray; clearly, Shauna eating her dead best friend's ear would qualify.
Shauna pops the ear into her mouth just as Amos cries that "this is not really happening," and presumably, Shauna feels exactly the same way. The girls, including a very pregnant Shauna, are starving, though — and eventually, it looks like Jackie may serve a greater, albeit sick, purpose.
The second season of "Yellowjackets" airs on Sundays on Showtime.