Yellowjackets Theory: The Antler Queen Isn't Actually A Person
Contains spoilers for "Yellowjackets" Season 2 Episode 5 — "Two Truths and a Lie"
"Yellowjackets" is rife with mysteries, and you might think a big one's been solved already — the "Antler Queen" shown in the series' very first episode is Lottie (Courtney Eaton), who's leading the pack of cannibalistic teenagers stuck in the woods after a plane crash. After the latest episode of "Yellowjackets," though, fans think there might be more to the Antler Queen than they thought.
In a Reddit thread breaking down the second season's fifth episode, "Two Truths and a Lie," some fans are wondering if Lottie is just cosplaying as the Antler Queen and something more sinister and supernatural is going on with the figure. u/carinitubes wrote, "After this episode, I'm beginning to wonder if the Antler Queen even exists as a person. It crossed my mind that there could be another actual person out there that is dressed in this garb and teaches them her rituals but I doubt it. I am really starting to feel like it's an apparition or maybe a mass hallucination, like even just something that they worship." The poster also wondered if perhaps the Antler Queen is a god or a deity to the stranded team, and (correctly) notes that the show is packed full of so many characters hallucinating that it can be hard to pin down what's real and what's not.
Fans think the Antler Queen might not even be a person
In the same thread, u/PuttyRiot brought a piece of classic literature into the mix — specifically, one that served as inspiration for the series as a whole. "The story is supposed to be a sort of homage to Lord of the Flies, and in that book there is a 'beast' that represents the devil but it's really a rotting pig's head on a stake. So this theory would kind of be in line with that," they wrote. This makes perfect sense; showrunners and creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson even told The New York Times that they conceived the series when they saw an article about a potential gender-swapped version of William Golding's classic novel followed by comments that girls would never turn to cannibalism. As Lyle said to those commenters at the time, "You were never a teenage girl, sir."
Aside from chatter about the connections between "Yellowjackets" and "Lord of the Flies," u/Zerometro had another theory. "I saw someone suggest that they take turns as Antler Queen and I'm starting to think that way too," they wrote. "I don't really think that there is one true Antler Queen but it's something like an "idol" that they manifested or found out about and worship as a representation of the wilderness."
Wait, but isn't Lottie the Antler Queen?
This is all a lot to consider, since it seems pretty apparent — from everything we've been told and shown — that Lottie definitely is the Antler Queen. She literally dons the crown in the Season 1 episode "Doomcoming," and in Season 2 we meet Lottie's adult counterpart (played by Simone Kessell), who's still leading acolytes at some sort of commune, albeit without the crown this time. That said, "Two Truths and a Lie" showed us a vision from Natalie's (Juliette Lewis) perspective where she looks like she could possibly be wearing the Antler Queen's crown, which obviously raises some questions.
Things are rarely as they seem on "Yellowjackets," and there's definitely some spooky stuff going on, from Taissa's (Jasmin Savoy-Brown as a teenager and Tawny Cypress as an adult) creepy sleep-walking to the voices Lottie keeps hearing to the mysterious symbol that appears in both timelines. Whether or not the Antler Queen — or possible Antler Queens — factors into those supernatural goings-on remains to be seen, but it's certainly a possibility.
"Yellowjackets" airs new episodes on Showtime's streaming app every Friday, with an encore on the channel itself every Sunday.