Believe it or not, Yellowjackets season three is more than halfway over. While there are still many questions that need answers, one big question about a crash survivor does get a resolution in episode six. And it is a very heart wrenching and sad one. In the previous episode, Shauna bullied everyone into finding Coach Ben guilty of attempted murder despite Misty doing a superb job of defending him. And by the end of this episode, Natalie makes the very difficult decision to kill a suffering Coach Ben in Yellowjackets’ latest episode, which doesn’t go well for her.
Previously, the girls planned to kill Coach Ben via a one person firing squad. But, after Akilah revealed her vision about Coach being the bridge to get them home, they decided to keep him alive. Shauna and her new girl toy Melissa gleefully maim him so he cannot escape from his outdoor prison. In this episode, Coach Ben begs Natalie to kill him because living this way is not okay. It’s a switch from him previously begging for his life before his botched firing squad death. Perhaps he lost all hope and somehow knew that there was no way to make it out of this situation alive.
Natalie ignores his pleas and continues to go along with the group decision for a while. One night, she’s finally had enough, takes a knife, and kills him with his permission. It is a grisly scene. Honestly, I wish she’d let Coach Ben go and allowed him to make the choice of whether he wanted to die by suicide on his own in the woods. As the morning breaks and the others discover her actions, Misty calls her a killer and Shauna is livid.
They strip her of her leadership title and Shauna becomes their leader. It’s a confounding decision considering Shauna 1) is insane and 2) doesn’t believe in the ways of the Wilderness like the majority. She’s simply a very angry person who could kill anyone at the drop of a hat. It makes sense for them to be mad at Natalie and all because they believe in Akilah’s vision but this choice is… a choice.
Anyway, Shauna makes Natalie prepare Coach Ben’s body for their feast. This turns into a cool howling session until they are interrupted by two outsiders. One of the new people screams when he sees Coach’s head on a pike. It is not clear if these people are real or figments of their imagination. But, if they are real, they’d better run because these girls literally eat people.
It isn’t a shocker that Coach Ben met his death in the Wilderness in Yellowjackets. He’d lost a leg and lost his authority as an adult figure in this space. Eventually, someone was going to kill him, either for revenge or because he’d crossed them the wrong way. And, he simply no longer wanted to be alive after all of this horrid trauma. Rest in Peace, Ben.