Twitter Is In Shambles After Yellowjackets’ Most Gutting Episode Yet

Spoilers ahead for Yellowjackets Season 2, Episode 6. Yellowjackets fans now know what happened to Shauna’s baby — even if they wish they didn’t. When teen Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) went into labor in Season 2’s sixth episode, “Qui,” the Yellowjackets assembled to help deliver her “wilderness baby” in their cabin refuge. As if Shauna’s birth scene wasn’t already harrowing enough, though, the storyline took a tragic turn when the teen had to experience her son’s death, not once, but twice, thanks to a fake-out sequence.

First things first: They did not eat Shauna’s baby, at least not in reality. After losing consciousness, she experienced the early days of motherhood. Due to her malnourishment, Shauna struggled to produce milk for her crying child. Soon after she and her baby finally bond, the new mom finds her cannibalistic teammates nightmarishly feasting on the newborn. But Shauna had hallucinated the entire series of events while unconscious from blood loss. The reality of the situation was similarly grim, though.

Shauna’s baby died, forcing her to reconcile the real tragedy with the happiness and horrors she’d imagined. “The idea was to make Shauna feel grounded and like the audience is with her,” the Rosemary’s Baby-inspired episode’s director, Liz Garbus, explained to The Hollywood Reporter, also sharing that the cast cried after filming the scene. “You didn’t have any knowledge ahead of her, you’re right alongside her going through this.”

Though the cast and creators have said all along that nobody was going to eat the baby (Melanie Lynskey even said that she was “quitting the show” if that ever happened), fans on Twitter still braced themselves for the worst. When the baby’s fate was ultimately revealed, several viewers found the reality to be even worse than they’d expected.

Several other Twitter users admitted they’d fully fallen for Shauna’s dream sequence, making the reveal even more emotional.

Shauna also heard Jackie’s (Ella Purnell) voice in her unconscious state, something that particularly had viewers in their feelings. While some imagined that Jackie would care for her best friend’s son in the afterlife, others pointed out that they believed the baby’s death was the price Shauna had to pay to survive childbirth.

Several other scenes struck a chord with viewers, particularly the moment when the screen fades to black as a distraught Shauna asks if her friends can hear her baby crying.

One thing fans could agree on, though, is that Nélisse — who told Entertainment Weekly she listened to Harry Styles’ “Fine Line” in preparation for the scene — should start polishing her shelf for an Emmy Award after such a powerful and heartbreaking performance.

Unfortunately, this is surely only the beginning of more darkness ahead on Yellowjackets.