‘Yellowjackets’ cannonballs into cannibalism in its most shocking scene yet. What now?

This post contains spoilers for Season Two of “Yellowjackets.”

Things will never be the same after what happened in last week’s episode of “Yellowjackets.”

The Showtime psychological drama — about a New Jersey high school girls soccer team whose plane crashes in the wilderness, leaving them stranded for 19 months — teased just glimpses of cannibalism in Season One. But the second season, which premiered March 26, has already thrust the topic into the center of the show.

The Season Two premiere caught one of the teens, Shauna (Sophie Nélisse), chomping on her dead best friend Jackie’s (Ella Purnell) ear right before the end credits rolled. The second episode, titled “Edible Complex,” however, really went there, showing the starving soccer team devouring Jackie’s body.

The moment came as the stranded teens faced a harsh winter with little food, their raging hunger seeming to eclipse their ethical compasses. Famished and drawn to the smell of the corpse, a pregnant Shauna took the first step — and bite — and the rest dug in.

The show takes a surreal approach to the scene, as footage of the characters consuming Jackie’s flesh is intertwined with a trance-like sequence of the teens surrounding a bountiful feast with fruits and meats, wearing togas and crowns, drinking and laughing.

The Yellowjackets took their first bite

While chatting with TODAY.com at 2023 PaleyFest in Los Angeles, showrunners and creators Jonathan Lisco, Bart Nickerson and Ashley Lyle said that having the teens turn into cannibals in the second episode “opens doors” to explore what happens after a line has been crossed.

“We talked a lot about how they would cope with what they were doing, particularly at this point because this is still teenage girls,” Lyle said. “They haven’t fully lost their humanity. They haven’t lost all of the socialization that they’ve spent their entire lives living within. We knew that they would have to find a coping mechanism, and we wanted to explore that, but in a way that felt also symbolically rich.”

“Artful was what we were aiming for,” she continued. “We felt like it was horrific enough on its own, we didn’t want to revel in the gruesomeness. We wanted to give glimpses of the gruesomeness, but also really get inside our character’s heads in that moment.”

Lisco added that they wanted to create “something that made emotional and psychological sense” by using mass hallucination to protect themselves from the harrowing trauma of what they’re doing.

“It’s not just that we wanted you to be able to look away,” he noted. “They needed a way to look away.”

Another major point was the “unavoidable physical elation” of starving and finally getting food, Nickerson explained.

“What’s so traumatic is the juxtaposition of the horror at what you’re doing, but also the physical joy of your body getting nutrition,” he said.

How will the Yellowjackets cope?

According to the cast, some characters will cope, some will have internal struggles, and some will just be glad to live another day.

“She’s full, she’s happy. She’s got a full belly on her. It sounds so bad,” Samantha Hanratty said of her character, young Misty. As for the rest? “I think they probably have tummy aches now that they just had a big feast. But for the most part, I think that (Misty’s) kind of like, ‘This was a necessity. We did what we needed to do. Shauna was the first one to do it, so I’m in the clear.’”

Hanratty teased Misty’s resourcefulness in the upcoming episode, sharing, “Not to spoil anything but I am going to tell you one of the lines for next episode. Misty says, basically, ‘Can we make, like, bone broth soup?’ and everyone’s kind of like, ‘Huh?’”

“She’s thinking ahead, like, how can we continue to use this protein?” she added.

For Kevin Alves, who plays young Travis, he shared that tensions will grow between the teammates.

“(After) a climax of that type, craziness happens. There’s going to be a drop no matter what. There’s going to be that waking up the next morning and realizing what you did,” he told TODAY.com. “That’s going to really hit everyone in different ways. Some people are going to feel worse than others and I think that’s going to create a lot of tension within the group.”

He also noted that there will be “a lot of confusion” for Travis as he questions his beliefs and relationship with Natalie (Sophie Thatcher). “I think we’re going to deal with him trying to connect with other people in the group overall for the first time,” he said.

For Shauna, actor Sophie Nélisse said that now that the line has been crossed, viewers will see how the characters come to terms with what they did.

“All these relationships between each other shift. I think all these dynamics are changing — some girls are getting closer together and some are drifting apart,” Nélisse said. “But Shauna, toward the end, will undergo a big loss and a lot of tragic events, which will not keep her as grounded anymore. She will lose it a little.”

In the meantime, showrunner and creator Lyle said to look out for these two specific characters when it comes to seeing how things will evolve.

“Lottie (Courtney Eaton) and Natalie are sort of at the crux and really opposing forces this season,” Lyle teased. “So I think they represent two very distinct points of view that are both valid in their own ways.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com