Showtime’s buzzworthy survival thriller Yellowjackets has returned with its highly anticipated second season – and the premiere officially puts cannibalism on the menu.

This recap contains spoilers for the first episode of Yellowjackets season 2.

It was the winter of 2021 when a new Showtime drama about a stranded soccer team of teenage girls crash-landed into the world. Given the endless churn (and cancellation) of TV shows, the odds of a Lord of the Flies meets Lost mystery-box series keeping its head above water were decidedly slim. After all, did anyone really want yet another brutal survival thriller at a time when reality was already so bleak?

But woe betide anyone who underestimated the power of Yellowjackets. Alternating between 1996 and the present day as it unravelled the terrible things the teenage champs did to survive in the Canadian wilderness, and the terrible things their adult selves did to keep secrets 25 years later, the show became a word-of-mouth phenomenon, startling everyone with its propulsive narrative, seamless performances and spectacular then-and-now characterisation (take a bow, casting directors). Sure enough, the Emmy nominations came calling, alongside multi-season renewals and an ardent fandom that sent Reddit into overdrive. Trauma, it turned out, was one hell of a drug.

Now, the wait is over, and quite honestly, I’ve rarely looked forward to a second helping of a TV show as much as this, which is saying something considering I rarely ever make it through the first season of anything. How I’ve missed Juliette Lewis snarling WHAT THE FUCK at every opportunity, Christina Ricci adjusting her specs, and Melanie Lynskey drily telling a former high school student that she’ll “gut him like a pig” before taking a tequila shot, which remains one of my favourite lines of 2022. And after showrunner Jonathan Lisco casually teased that cannibalism is merely the “tip of the iceberg” in the second run, it’s time to head back to the wilderness to find out who eats whom, who survived what, and what exactly went on out in the woods 25 years ago. Let’s tuck in to the season premiere, “Friends, Romans, Countrymen.”

We kick things off with our resident Antler Queen, Lottie (Courtney Eaton), who we last saw in the season one finale offering up a bear’s heart to the wilderness and declaring, “Let the darkness set us free.” In the opening scene, she’s returned to civilisation in the aftermath of the girls’ rescue in 1998 and is scaring the hell out of her parents by refusing to eat, drink or utter a single damn word. If you had any concerns whatsoever about how the show would maintain momentum in season two, fear not: within the first couple of minutes, Lottie’s been subjected to a brutal course of electroconvulsive therapy, before we time travel to the present day, where we find newcomer Simone Kessell as adult Lottie, who’s reinvented herself as a new-age cult leader. Standing before a picture-perfect lakeside compound, she preaches to a crowd of purple-clad lost souls that they’re a) responsible for their own suffering, and b) need to unleash their ‘primal elemental self’. Now, where have we heard that before?

Yellowjackets, as any viewer will know, is all about foreshadowing; and Lottie’s personal evolution has been perfectly plotted as we drift back to the wilderness to discover more about her rise as the team’s mystic Queen Bee. Back in the wilderness, it’s two months since Jackie died and full-blown winter has arrived at the creepy cabin. As Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) and Travis (Kevin Alves) prepare to head out on an early morning hunt, jackets stuffed with old porn magazines for extra warmth, Lottie performs a ritual with her own blood. An incredulous Natalie is predictably frustrated with the “wicca bullshit”, but Travis, still clinging on to hope that Javi (Luciano Leroux) is alive, is fully signed up to whatever the hell Lottie is selling – and it’s looking likely that the trio will only become further entwined in weeks to come.

Meanwhile, Shauna, our chief slicer and dicer, has taken to hanging out in the meat shed. Not only is she cutting down the last rations of grizzly bear, but our mum-to-be is also having confessionals with her best friend’s frozen body. In one hallucinatory sequence, a game of M*A*S*H goes awry when Jackie accuses Shauna of making the first move on Jeff, prompting a maddened Shauna to shove the corpse. Not only does our dearly departed’s ear then break off, but Shauna stashes it in her pocket for safe keeping; a grisly talisman that she clings to for the entire episode’s run.

Although the rest of the team are, quite rightly, freaked out by Shauna’s behaviour, there are two people having a jolly gay time of things: Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Van (Liv Hewson), who are young, in love, and tied at the wrists at night in a bid to stop Taissa’s sleepwalking. One night while she’s asleep, Tai violently bites Van’s lip and draws blood. Luckily for her, when she wakes up, her girlfriend proclaims that she isn’t scared of her, and even writes “I [heart] u” in blood on her forearm. Young love, eh?

Back in the present day, there’s business to attend to. We find grown-up Misty (Christina Ricci) helping Shauna cover up the murder of her ex-lover Adam (Peter Gadiot), who, lest we forget, found himself on the end on the wrong end of a sharpened knife after she incorrectly assumed that he was blackmailing the surviving Yellowjackets. The pair practise a police interview, and beady-eyed Misty, armed with a voice changer, really wants to delve deep into the relationship. Was the sex mindblowing? Did Adam fail to “get it up”? Nat and Taissa are also supposed to be there too for the frolics; only unbeknownst to Misty and Shauna, Nat has been tossed into a van by purple-suited hench people, and Taissa is… well, who knows. Eating dirt? Crouched up a tree? Tending to her sacrificial dog altar? 

Taissa’s problems aren’t ostensibly as grave as being kidnapped, but she’s still definitely faring worse than her chirpy teen self. Now single and living without her wife Simone (Rukiya Bernard) or son Sammy, she’s endeavouring to get things back on track since beheading Biscuit by paying a trip to the local dog shelter, and adopting what can only be described as a ‘yappy’ dog called Steve. But after Taissa rocks up to the school gates to introduce Sammy to the new pup, Simone emerges channelling her inner Hades, and delivers an ultimatum: step down from office and seek help, or she’ll never see their child again. It’s all very upsetting, as is Tai’s discovery of the bloody basement altar later on, where she promises Steve that killing Biscuit was simply a mistake and that she’s “going to do better”. Famous last words!

Family time isn’t going great with Shauna’s crew either. Sarah Desjardins is on deliciously spiky form as Callie, who knows her Mum is covering up Adam’s disappearance but hasn’t yet copped on to the full extend of her shadow side. “You could start by not pretending like everything’s normal!” she yells at her mother across the kitchen cabinets, but Shauna has bigger problems to worry about. While looking through Adam’s possessions in her safe – i.e, stone-cold incriminating evidence – she has a horrifying realisation: not that she’s committed a murder, but rather that Adam has an art studio somewhere, as evidenced by splattered paint on one of the keys. Instead of calling the Yellowjackets, though – who are, let’s be honest, the only ones capable of covering up a murder – she ropes Jeff into the mix once more. At the studio, they discover the entire place is filled with paintings of Shauna in suggestive poses; and for what it’s worth, they’re gorgeous. Shauna isn’t moved by her ex-lover’s devotion, though, and instead decides to tell Jeff that the idea of her husband being unfaithful always turned her on. Before we know it, they’re going at it in front of the paintings, which they then proceed to deface with turpentine. And back at home, they burn Adam’s driver’s licence on the barbecue, and grill Frankfurters for dinner. 

While Shauna is committing crimes, Misty is playing citizen detective, unable to accept that her bestie would just abandon her. Heading to Natalie’s dingy motel, she sweetly threatens the manager, who tells her that Natalie took off in the middle of the night. Unsatisfied, Misty breaks into Natalie’s hotel room and spots splinters on the floor when the door was forced open, leading her back on the trail.

For Natalie, waking up chained to a bed in a room with bars on the room is far from an ideal scenario, as is discovering that you’re in a cult compound where everyone’s wearing pendants with the ominous symbol from the woods. Despite being literally bedbound, Natalie does a great job at psyching out her youthful captor, and manages to escape by seizing the opportunity to stab her with a dirty fork. After being chased through the forest by more of the purple people, she comes to a clearing where she finds a frightening scene reminiscent, possibly, of what went down in the wilderness: people wearing animal masks, beating drums, and preparing to bury a naked man in a ditch. That’s when Lottie appears in sweeping white robes, prompting Natalie to emerge from her hiding spot and prepare to beat the living daylights out of her with a heavy piece of wood. But Lottie isn’t perturbed by Natalie’s sudden appearance. “I have a message for you,” she says breathily. “From Travis.”

It’s the final montage of the premiere, though, that really delivers the WTF energy we all know Yellowjackets is capable of. While Natalie and Travis appear to find evidence that Javi might still be alive, and Callie, in the present day, discovers the charred remains of Adam’s driver’s licence, teen Shauna takes Jackie’s ear out of her pocket and scoffs it like a pringle. Sound the klaxon, we’ve officially got our first taste of human flesh.

Are we any closer to solving the show’s central mysteries come the end of the episode? No. But the addition of post-rescue flashbacks is a brilliant addition, the present-day timelines are gaining traction, and even if we now have more questions than answers about what creepy sh*t went down in the wilderness, Yellowjackets is at last shaping up to be the cannibalism drama we all hoped it would become.

Yellowjackets season 2 episode 1 is available to stream now on Showtime and Paramount+.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a Republican-backed bill giving parents more power and oversight over school boards’ and school administrators’ policies and decision-making processes.

The bill comes at a time when the Republican Party nationally has injected itself into culture-war battles over curriculum content, student privacy policies, special accommodations for LGBTQ students, and what books or materials are accessible in school libraries.

The House approved the bill, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow (R-La.) on a largely party-line vote, 213-208, with five Republicans voting against the bill. 

According to a “fact sheet” of talking points issued by the U.S. House Education & Workforce Committee, the legislation would require public school districts to publicly post information about curricula for students, including providing a list of books and reading materials available in libraries — even if they are not used in actual classroom instruction.

Teachers would be required to hold two in-person meetings with parents each year, and parents would be allowed to publicly comment at school board meetings on district-approved policies, with school boards encouraged to “consider community feedback” in their decision-making.

The bill would also require parents to have the right to see school budgets, including revenues and expenditures, published, and require that parents be informed of any violent activity on school grounds or at school-sponsored events, while still protecting the privacy of the students involved in the incident.

Schools would be prohibited from sharing student data with tech companies, would be required to inform parents of changes to school privacy policies, and would have to obtain parental consent before performing any medical exams or mental health screenings, as well as before students complete any behavioral surveys containing questions about sensitive topics to which parents might object.

Democrats have largely opposed the bill, arguing that Republicans are simply pushing divisive social agendas and are instead imposing new reporting requirements and unfunded mandates on schools that will leave administrators and teachers more focused on meeting the law’s dictates than on actually teaching. 

Opponents are also concerned that the bill will result in bans on or the removal of books and lesson plans that touch on potentially controversial subjects, historical events, or are written from the viewpoint of racial, religious, or political minorities.

Additionally, LGBTQ advocates fear the bill’s requirements will encourage administrators and school districts to adopt policies hostile to LGBTQ-identifying students such as banning books with LGBTQ characters, barring transgender children from gender-affirming facilities, or prematurely “outing” LGBTQ students to their parents.

The Office of Management and Budget released a statement noting that the Biden administration does not support the bill as introduced.

“The administration does not support H.R. 5 in its current form because the bill does not actually help parents support their children at school,” the statement reads. “Moreover, instead of making LGBTQI+ students feel included in their school community, it puts them at higher risk. The administration strongly supports actions that empower parents to engage with their children’s teachers and schools, like enabling parents to take time off to attend school meetings. Legislation should not politicize our children’s education.”

The Democratic-controlled Senate is not expected to take up the legislation this session.

First Focus on Children, a bipartisan advocacy organization that calls for centering children and families in federal policy and budgeting decisions, opposed the bill, calling it a “Politician’s Bill of Rights” that would “usurp the authority of parents and children in the schools that they attend and support with their tax dollars.”

“Parents are fundamental to the upbringing of children and absolutely should be engaged and involved in the education of their children. In fact, children have better outcomes when their parents are involved,” the organization’s president, Bruce Lesley, a parent of four, wrote in a letter to members of Congress opposing the bill. The letter was addressed to the bill’s sponsor, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and the chair and ranking member of the House Education & Workforce Committee.

“[W]e strongly support parental engagement in education, but parents should not control all curriculum and educational decisions. Doing so is unworkable,” added Lesley, providing examples of how H.R. 5 could potentially empower a minority of parents holding fringe or factually incorrect views to impose those views on the entire student body, or demand special accommodations that impose additional burdens on teachers.

The solution, argued Lesley, is to follow what parents and children have told pollsters about educational priorities, including pushing greater investment in public education, safety measures to prevent gun violence in schools, adopting curricula that teach children lessons and skills they’ll need to be successful in school and in life, addressing teacher shortages, providing mental health services for students who need them, expanding tax breaks for families with children, providing child care opportunities for working parents, and expanding family and medical leave.

“Parents are far more interested and focused on improving education, child health, and reducing child poverty, hunger, and homelessness than book bans, censorship, the whitewashing of history and science, and the excessive filing of numerous records requests for personal and confidential information about school teachers,” Lesley concluded. “Let’s work together toward those goals.”

The National Black Justice Coalition, a leading Black LGBTQ+ civil rights organization, condemned the bill as “yet another vehicle for the anti-democratic, white nationalist GOP to traffic in hate and discrimination in its crusade against Black people and the LGBTQ+/Same-Gender Loving community.”

“This bill is political posturing designed to ignite the [Republican] Party’s base around anti-woke hysteria. In this case, the bill would allow parents susceptible to manufactured right-wing paranoia to opt their children out of any education related to race, sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation,” Dr. David Johns, the executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, said in a statement. 

“The bill and the underlying threats to democracy, civility, and holistic development pose a significant threat to the rights and safety of Black, transgender, and LGBTQ+ students and puts already vulnerable students at additional risk, limiting their access to resources and support needed to thrive,” Johns added. 

At the start of March, Australia was the queerest place to be.

Members of the LGBTQ+ community and their families walked over the Sydney Harbour Bridge for WorldPride, joined by the prime minister, Anthony Albanese. Rainbows draped the city, eco-friendly glitter was strewn across the streets and trans and gender-diverse performers hit the stage.

Then the tone changed.

Last weekend, a group performed the Nazi salute on the steps of Victoria’s state parliament in Melbourne in support of British anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen.

On Tuesday, a mob in Sydney chased and attacked an LGBTQ+ group protesting a talk by a right wing politician.

In the aftermath, Australia’s LGBTQ+ community has been left reeling. MPs from Victoria’s Liberal party are considering whether to boot an MP from the parliamentary party after she attended Keen’s rally, and a Melbourne council has cancelled an event involving LGBTQ+ people after a threat from a far-right group. Victoria’s premier has vowed to enact legislation banning the Nazi salute.

But Australia’s LGBTQ+ advocates say these aren’t isolated incidents – they come after an increase in attacks on the country’s queer community.

‘Out for our blood’

Keen’s visit to Australia was controversial before she arrived.

Keen – also known as Posie Parker – has made a name for herself in the UK, cozying up to far-right commentators and campaigning against the transgender community. Her Australia tour proved no different.

“We’re going to say ‘hello boys’,” Parker told a crowd in Melbourne last Saturday.

She was referring to around two dozen men dressed in black. They carried a huge banner with the words “Destroy Paedo Freaks” and threw Nazi salutes at trans supporters protesting her rally.

After the rally, Keen claimed in a video posted on YouTube that the men who gave Nazi salutes might not have been neo-Nazis.

Days later in Sydney, a mob set on LGBTQ+ protesters demonstrating outside a church in south-western Sydney where Mark Latham was speaking.

Videos of the incident showed men swarming the protesters from grassroots campaign group Community Action for Rainbow Rights (CARR), chanting “leave our kids alone”. In another video, a person could be heard accusing police of “protecting the paedophiles”. Videos shared on WhatsApp groups in the days before the incident showed a man urging people to disrupt the protest and “drag away” activists “by their fucking hair”.

Attenders said they were pushed to the ground and punched in the face.

“We were just surrounded by these people who were out for our blood, basically. It took a lot for police to push them back and for us to make our escape,” one protester said.

Three people were charged over Tuesday’s clash and both the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney and the Maronite Eparchy of Australia, New Zealand and Oceania condemned the violence.

CARR says it is being targeted online by members of religious rights group Christian Lives Matter, with photos and names of one particular organiser shared on the group’s Facebook page. The post – shared to more than 26,000 members – says organisers of the protest brought “terror” to the Belfield Church.

“This evil people [sic] need to be held responsible for their actions!!!” the post read.

‘They want to intimidate queer people’

Grace Isred, who was standing with the pro-trans rights crowd in Melbourne, said last Saturday’s events “filled everyone with rage”.

In the days after the Melbourne protest, Keen traveled to other cities in Australia, including Canberra, where she addressed a crowd of about 30 supporters. On the other side, a larger gathering of more than 100 people led chants and held signs.

“One positive is that everywhere, including Melbourne, the pro-trans crowd have outnumbered the anti-trans crowd,” Isred said. “But by the same token, you also have quite a disturbing rise of anti-trans movement.”

That’s something others in the community have noticed. Charlie, who asked not to use her full name for privacy reasons, is an organiser with grassroots political organisation Pride in Protest. She said there had been an increase in attacks on the LGBTQ+ community in New South Wales recently, which she believes may be partly due to the upcoming state election.

“They want to intimidate queer people and bolster candidates,” Charlie said.

During WorldPride – a festival held every couple of years in different cities around the world – a group of approximately 30 men staged a Christian protest march in one of Sydney’s LGBTQ+ hubs. According to Charlie, the men poured paint on a church that had painted the rainbow flag on their steps.

Another rally, held last Saturday in Sydney, featured a wide coalition of religious groups, with speakers suggesting children needed to be protected from an agenda of “homosexualisation”.

Son Vivienne, 53, is no stranger to anti-trans hate. The CEO of Transgender Victoria – the peak body for gender diversity in the state – has been out as non-binary for a long time.

“We don’t need a debate about whether or not we exist,” they say.

Vivienne is angry the Melbourne protest caused a whirlwind of backlash, with the state’s Liberal party debating if they should boot MP Moira Deeming, who attended the rally. Deeming has vowed to fight the expulsion and maintains she has done nothing wrong.

“Our lives are not a debate, we exist already. We are working, we are contributing to society, consuming services and needing health care the same as everybody else,” Vivienne says.

‘We shouldn’t expect them to disappear’

Anti-LGBTQ+ groups in Australia are nothing new.

“Fringe extremist movements, they tend to kind of glom [attach themselves] on to the culture war issues of the day,” says Lydia Khalil, an extremist expert from the Lowy Institute. “There is a point of convergence in terms of what it is they believe in their ideology around some of these cultural and political issues with regard to gender, sexuality and equality.”

Although these movements are fringe, Khalil says it’s unlikely they will fizzle out.

“There is a potential for their focus on the trans movement to move on once the main culture moves on from that issue, but we shouldn’t expect them to disappear.”

Neo-Nazi researcher and left activist Tom Tanuki says the group that showed up in Melbourne did so for two reasons – they agreed with the substance of the event, and they also wanted to use the stunts to help them recruit new members.

“They can walk around, they can Sieg Heil. And then they can walk off,” Tanuki says. “And everyone talks about it.”

The impact

The events this week dominated headlines and social media feeds. They also prompted Australia’s LGBTQ+ groups to question their safety.

This week, two Melbourne councils cancelled upcoming drag events over safety concerns.

“This decision in no way legitimises or validates the actions or statements of individuals, activists or protest groups,” City of Casey chief executive Glenn Patterson said in a statement.

Hume city council, which cancelled a drag event this week before reinstating it after an online backlash, said it “sincerely apologised for the stress” caused to the performer and LGBTQ+ members and allies. “Hume city council is committed to supporting our proudly diverse community and we wish to re-affirm our commitment to all.”

Last year another Melbourne pride celebration was cancelled due to threats from Nazis.

Drag artist Belial B’Zarr was scheduled to perform at last year’s event and the City of Casey’s event, and says when the Stonnington council cancelled the first event, B’Zarr warned it would only escalate.

“I said, ‘hey, this is going to make things more dangerous. Do you want more Nazis? Because this is how you get more Nazis,” said B’Zarr, who uses he and they pronouns.

“They’ve been emboldened. They’ve been allowed to get away with it more times than they should.”

“I still have to work, I still have to make money and pay my bills. But I can’t stop existing as a queer person,” they said. “But it’s getting really hectic If I’m being honest.”

B’Zarr said it was “terrifying” how quickly it had escalated, but the community was determined to keep running events.

“This is not the end. We will continue. Maybe it’ll look different to what it usually looks like but we’re not going away.”