Right off the bat, Yellowjackets presented itself as a deeply mystifying series leaving behind a growing trail of unanswered questions as the show progressed. The puzzle box show weaves in its mysteries with clever twists and turns that have kept curiosity alive, stirring the embers of fan theories. In addition to the identities of the Antler Queen and Pitgirl, the whereabouts of Shauna’s baby count among the most engrossing mysteries of Yellowjackets.
As the show shuffles back and forth between the wilderness and the present timeline, we see that adult Shauna has a daughter named Callie. This singular detail makes it easy to erroneously assume that Callie is Shauna’s baby from the wilderness, but the timeline rules out this possibility as Callie, a teenager in 2021 is simply too young to have been born in the 1990s. The fact that Callie isn’t Shauna’s baby from her teenage pregnancy, for which Jeff is responsible, leaves a concerning possibility regarding the baby’s fate.
No, The Yellowjackets Don’t Eat Shauna’s Baby
Given the show has hinted at cannibalism from the pilot episode teasing how the girls will eventually split into cannibalistic clans and take turns hunting each other for game, the obvious reasoning then becomes that Shauna’s baby was likely snacked on by a rival faction. It’s a grotesque imagination even for a show that thrives on eerieness and one that the showrunner, Ashley Lyle seems to agree would have been a step taken too far. As the theory ran rampant online following the Season 1 finale, the question of Shauna’s baby being eaten was an unavoidable one for the creators who were soon forced to address it.
In the most spoiler-cautious manner possible, Lye told THR that “a baby doesn’t seem like sustainable nutrition,” ruling out the theory on grounds that the baby wouldn’t be a big enough meal to serve a group. Several of the cast members including Christina Ricci who plays Citizen Detective Misty have been a lot more definitive with their responses with adult Taissa’s Tawny Cypress clarifying in a separate interview: “They’re not going to eat the baby.” The creators may have quashed this crazy theory, but it didn’t stop them from toying with the idea as seen when teen Shauna, in a hunger-induced dream, gives birth to a rotisserie chicken and proceeds to eat it as Misty and Jackie happily look on.
The Best Theories For What Happened To Shauna’s Baby
With hopefully the most gruesome of outcomes for Shauna’s baby rebutted, fans have returned to the drawing board to pinpoint the most plausible clues. While many of the theories have been downright outrageous, there are a few that could give Misty’s sleuthing skill a run for its money. Shauna’s lover Adam turning out to be her baby seemed like a concrete theory judging by the loudly suspicious circumstance of their meeting among other factors. However, Lye was quick to debunk this while also revealing that the baby’s arc was still being mapped out pointing towards a possibility of the baby being alive in the present timeline.
Though Lye speaks of a developing arc for the baby, this doesn’t guarantee that the baby is alive as the story could well be set only in the wilderness timeline and concluded with its death. Other likely Yellowjacket theories have predicted that Shauna’s baby had died through multiple means including being stillborn or Lottie sacrificing the baby to the forest as she did with the bear’s heart. With Lye promising an even darker turn as the series progresses while also teasing the occurrence of something worse than eating a baby, then it’s anyone’s guess what the fate of the poor baby was on Yellowjackets.
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