Shauna’s psychological traits aside, the final moments of this episode are undeniably heartbreaking. When he wakes up from the worst of his fiery dream, the first feeling is relief, but that feeling quickly subsides as he realizes how far back this dream string began. Sophie Nélisse gives an Emmy-worthy performance as Shauna desperately clings to the good part of the dream, and the episode ends with Shauna asking her friends and then seemingly asking us if we can hear her baby cry.
We can’t anymore, but thanks to her hallucinatory conversations with Jackie, we can still believe that Shauna can. The importance of those early scenes becomes clear in those final moments: when Shauna asks that question over and over, we now know it’s not just rhetoric. We now know that there is a high probability that Shauna cannot tell the difference between imagination and reality right now, which further shows how much the grief and trauma of the past nine months has broken her.
While deep down we all know that Shauna’s baby won’t survive, the way the “Yellow Jackets” delivers disclosure and the season’s growing value towards it is arguably the show’s darkest moment. far. And sadly, about a year into the team’s rescue, things will probably get darker after that.