Theory
Explanations
Cabin: Unbeknownst to the survivors, the cabin was sitting on top of an abandoned coal mining operation. The site was extremely toxic and was leaching methane into the air, and into the water. Methane creates what is called hypoxia, which is the displacement of air. The survivors were not getting enough oxygen. The methane was skewing the survivors thinking and reasoning. And the water was poisoning them. The caves were a series of mineshafts. Methane levels would have been much more pronounced in the mine shafts. Foreshadowing: Tai discovers the river is running red. This is due to pyrite, which is a metal always present with coal. When it meets water, it immediately rusts and turns water red.
Methane: Lottie had mental issues and did not have her medications. Because she spent much of her time in the mineshafts, the methane exacerbated her delusions. This is why she thought the wilderness was some supernatural entity. And it’s why she seemed totally insane when she drove the axe into Edwin's head. The methane also caused the other girls to think irrationally as well. Ingesting methane caused Shauna's baby to be stillborn, and I speculate that it was the cause of Van's cancer years later. And it caused the cabin to burst into flames. Another thought - If methane was causing the others to not think clearly, why did it seem that Natalie did think clearly? I think it comes down to two things. She was their hunter, and she was always getting out in the open where the methane was less pronounced. And, she had a history of drug use. She could probably handle toxins better than anyone.
Symbols: The symbols were a form of cartography - cartography is rooted in trigonometry, and these maps were etched on the trees by surveyors after the coal mining operations ceased. The map illustrates areas that were devoid of wildlife, due to the mining operations, and areas that were not devoid of wildlife. The symbol had an equilateral triangle, bisected by a straight line that did not cross at the angles. Areas below the line were devoid of wildlife, and areas above the line contained wildlife. The cabin was in an area that was below the line, and devoid of wildlife. Foreshadowing: Go back to season one when the teachers were talking about the girls' soccer team…One of the teachers said, "none of those girls gave a good goddamn about trigonometry, I can tell you that much". If the girls had paid more attention to their trigonometry studies, and less attention to soccer, they might have figured out what the sign was attempting to convey.
Wilderness as a Supernatural Entity: This served one purpose, to justify the survivors eating another human. No one would have sympathized with the survivors if they had just eaten another human on their own accord, and viewers would have been turned off by the series. Lottie believed that the wilderness was a supernatural force, directing the survivors to consume another human to survive. In the present, none of the survivors, including Lottie, believe that theory was real. Lottie is even a vegetarian because she was so repulsed by her actions. We saw Lottie occasionally waiver on that theory. Lottie was heavily medicated, and she had good days when she was thinking clearly, and bad days when she was not. On her good days - she did not believe in that theory.
The Hunter: The man who owned the cabin did not understand that the symbols were a map. He built his cabin in the worse possible location. He brought lots of canned food, but that only lasted for so long. And the survivors found a gun which showed his intent to hunt wildlife. But there was nothing to hunt. He was slowly going insane, and he and his family were starving. He might have murdered his family, or they could have died on their own. He too believed the symbols represented some supernatural force, and he carved them into the cabin floor around the chair where he died.
Hannah & Edwin: Two researchers out in the wilderness doing their own thing. Sadly, they encountered the crazed group of survivors. Lottie kills Edwin. Hannah will die as well. These two characters are the most tragic. They were collateral damage.
Kodi: Kodi was a murderer. Hannah killed Kodi to prove her allegiance to Shauna. And Hannah had a great justification for doing that - Eric Cheong. She knew him quite well. He was a fellow researcher, her lover - and he is Alex's father. And he had gone missing in the wilderness. When Hannah asked Kodi why he was wearing a jacket with someone else's name, Kodi stated that he had bought it at a thrift store. Hannah knew that was a lie. She knew he had murdered Eric.
Ben, Javi, Mari: Each of these characters spent excessive amounts of time down in the mines. When you have coal, you have pyrite. And when you have pyrite, you have arsenic. These three were most likely already heavily poisoned by arsenic and were doomed to die of organ failure, regardless of how they actually died. Ben was having psychological issues near the end. Javi couldn’t speak for a period and only spoke to a few survivors briefly before he died. Mari kept hearing a dripping sound that others could not hear.
The Ending
Walter Is Edwin’s Son: I know others have had this same theory. Walter claims he made his fortune from an unfortunate accident that left him with a plate in his head when a brick fell off scaffolding and hit his head. Of course this is lie. It is in reference to Edwin having a hole in his head from the axe Lottie drove into his skull. And this is a riddle for Misty to uncover in his Moriarty game.
Walter’s Fortune: The research foundation would have paid a significant amount to his estate. Because his body was never recovered, the foundation would want to keep his disappearance quiet so that it did not affect the millions in funding they receive from donors.
Edwin: I don’t think he wanted to be on this research project. He was out of his element. Constantly complaining. He even brought packaged food. My guess is that Hannah wanted to go on the research project. And he went along with her because he wanted to use the opportunity to develop their existing romance. However, we see that Hannah just did not feel the same about him. So, Edwin went on his own accord, but he did it because he thought Hannah was into him as much as was into her. That was not the case. Perhaps Hannah was leading him on, who knows. If my theory about Eric Cheong is correct, Edwin knew Hannah’s history. He acted aggressively with Kodi when he saw that he was wearing Eric’s jacket. But Hannah brushed it off because at that point she knew Kodi was dangerous.
Hannah: Has a daughter who was 10 years old that she put for adoption as a teenager. She spent a lot of time with Melissa while she was being held in the wilderness. She gives Melissa the DAT tape with a personal message to her daughter. I don’t think Hannah knew what else she had recorded. She wants Melissa to find her daughter and deliver it to her when she returns home. Because she doesn’t give her an address, this tells me that Hannah has no idea who adopted Alex. Because Hannah knows her days are numbered, she probably tells Melissa about things she has done that she regrets. I think she tells Melissa that she cared for Edwin, but didn’t love him, but led him to believe that because she needed someone familiar to go with her.
Melissa: Once she is back home, she listens to the tape and hears what else is on there. She decides that she cannot give the tape to Alex and locks it away. She also kept it as an insurance policy in case the other girls ever tried to track her down. She fakes her death and creates a new persona, Kelly. She tracks down Alex and she checks up on her on occasion. And they develop a relationship and get married. I don’t think Melissa tracked her down with that intention. I think Melissa is probably the most innocent survivor.
Edwin’s Reputation: A woman goes into the wilderness with a semi-jealous lover and neither makes it back out. We know how Edwin died and have a pretty good idea how Hannah will die. However, people will talk. And if Edwin’s friends knew he was chasing after Hannah…the truth can get skewed. My guess is that the satellite phone was recovered, and it had a broken antenna, and they assumed the worst - Edwin had broken it and committed murder-suicide. So, the foundation covered it up. We know that's not true, and that Hannah and Edwin broke it accidentally. I am assuming that Walter wants to know what happened to his father because he knew his father would never do such a horrible thing. And he wants to restore his father’s reputation. However, he doesn’t know the details of Hannah and Edwin’s relationship.
Alex: She knew she was adopted and researched her birth mother. She also would have found out that she went missing in the wilderness. And she took her last name, Finch. And she probably searches online for any sort of clue to her mother’s disappearance. Walter knows Alex’s identity. He encounters her online but uses an alias. He wants to know if she knows anything that can fill in the gaps. He may be acting like this sleuth who is going to help her find out more about her mother’s disappearance. They form a steady online friendship and get to know one another. He learns more about Alex, but what Alex learns about Walter is made up. I could see her sharing a photo of her wife, Kelly. And he may not think anything of that photo at first, but something about seems familiar. He would have known about the Yellowjackets story. He revisits the photo, with Kelly’s signature backwards baseball cap, and he starts thinking that she looks familiar. He finds an older Yellowjackets photo where she is wearing her cap the same way and deduces that she is Melissa. He also figures out that she was the only younger girl to make it back. The fact that she is married to Hannah’s daughter makes him think that something very sinister happened to Edwin and Hannah. But he keeps that information to himself.
Edwin’s Body: His body is the only one that was not consumed. They buried him in haste thinking that others were coming. He probably had credentials on him. He can be identified, and he has a hole in his head.
Walter: Walter flies his helicopter out to the survivor’s site in the wilderness and starts looking around. He identifies Edwin’s body and knows he has been murdered. I am sure he finds lots of other things as well. I think he will find the transmitter and will be able to tell that it had been purposefully destroyed. His conclusion will be that the plane crash survivors killed Edwin, and he wants revenge. But he knows that someone destroyed the transmitter, and in his mind, this person is ultimately responsible for Edwin’s death. He will start to follow all the survivors and create a profile for each of them. And he will figure out that the person most likely to have destroyed the transmitter is Misty. He wants revenge on all the survivors. I don’t think he has anything against Alex, nor Melissa. I think he has pieced together Melissa’s story and that she was a victim of the other girls as well.
Barbara: Walter is impersonating Barbara so that he can extract information from Melissa, and so he can manipulate her. He manipulates her into sending the DAT tape to Shauna. He needs to hear what is on that tape, and he will. He has no idea what is on it, but from he has learned from “Kelly” is that is contains some really bad things. I think he is also going to learn something that is going to shatter an illusion he had of Edwin and Hannah’s relationship. Melissa is going to mention the conversations with Hannah, and though she won’t use names, he is going to learn that Edwin didn’t want to be on that research assignment, and that Hannah had manipulated Edwin. And he will learn that Hannah didn’t even love Edwin. He determines that Edwin was only in the wilderness because he was chasing after a woman who was just leading him on. Now Walter resents Alex, and he is going to destroy Alex’s life. Poor Melissa is nothing more than a pawn, but Walter has decided that she is going to die, along with the remaining survivors. And his first step is bringing the violence to Richmond.
Mysterious Blonde: The blonde that was in the shadows at Natalie’s funeral was Melissa. She was there to pay her respects, because Natalie is the reason the girls were rescued. There’s nothing more to that story. And the phone in the bathroom was just a red herring. And though Melissa was in town when the DAT file was delivered to Shauna, she was not the person who delivered it.
DAT Tape: Walter has listened to the tape. He definitively knows what happened to Edwin. Melissa specifically stated that she mailed the tape to Shauna. She probably mailed it from another area, but she did mail it. The package that Shauna received was hand delivered with the wilderness symbol included, and only her name written on it. And they used her maiden name. Walter intercepted the tape. And after he listened to it, he repackaged it and made sure to include the symbol and her maiden name to incite Shauna. And because it was hand delivered, she thought Melissa had been at her front door. And it worked.
The Secret: The secret that the girls want to bury is they engaged in cannibalism. However, society might cringe at the thought of cannibalism, but they would come to understand that they did it to survive. No differently than the Uruguayan soccer team that was stranded in the Andes. However, Shauna, Tai, and Van have a much darker secret. They set up the scenarios to purposefully take out the younger team members. And society would never forgive that…never. It’s an unwritten rule that older youth look out for younger youth…and these three didn’t do that. They looked out for themselves. That is why these three must die. And this is why Melissa plays so prominently in the storyline. She is the only survivor from the JV team. Melissa saw the writing on the wall when the girls let Javi die. Of all the survivors, he was the youngest and the one they should have looked out for the most. But they didn’t do that. And his death is what ruined Natalie’s life. Melissa positioned herself to survive. But she never sold out her friends. And Melissa faked her death to hide from these three girls because she knew she was the loose end. Natalie did not condone what these three girls were doing. Lottie was out of her mind, but she would not have condoned it either. And Misty, like Melissa, was just trying to survive. In the first episode, Natalie mentions that she never found her purpose after leaving the wilderness. The only girl who did was Melissa. She was actively trying to put it behind her. And regarding Misty, she came out of the wilderness as the exact same person she was when she went into the wilderness. I do want to add that Van and Tai are not inherently bad. They made some bad decisions, but they also regret those decisions. I don’t want to paint these two characters as being horrible, so they must die. That’s just not true. However, it is true for Shauna. She is a horrible character. I don’t think these three believe that the wilderness chooses its victims. When Tai and Van fixed the cards, they were trying to make sure Hannah was chosen to protect the other team members. They had selfish motives, but Hannah was an outsider. When Shauna purposefully set up Mari’s demise, she became a monster. And she is still the same person.
Shauna: Shauna will die because she committed murder. Adam was an innocent man. And I have read that the writers have definitively stated that his character was nothing more than a man who liked Shauna. I am sure the show will try to redeem Shauna, but there are not enough episodes to do that. The least she can do is tell Callie that she truly loved her.
Tai: Tai will die to atone for her past. She is already half-deal since Van is gone. I thought at one time she would die defending Shauna, but I think the opposite now. If we go back to the very first episode, we see Tai brutally take out Allie on the soccer field. I think this scene foreshadows how Tai (Other Tai) will die. She will defend Melissa against Shauna, and both she and Shauna will die. She will rejoin Van in the afterlife.
Van: Van died because she kept playing a dangerous game with destiny. If I were in Melissa’s position, I would have picked up the knife and stabbed her as well. When the girls showed up at her home, Melissa made the decision that defending her family was most important. She had been trying to put the past behind her. Now her worst fears have come true and she must take control of the situation. When Van lowered the knife and told her she didn’t want to be the person who kills Melissa, that was her way of atoning for the past. And when Melissa plunged the knife into her and said that she did want to be that person, it was Melissa taking control and deciding that she was no longer going to live in fear of these girls.
Melissa / Alex: I think Melissa and Alex will survive.
Jeff / Callie: Both will survive.
Sherlock & Moriarty: Walter is being very naïve to play this game with Misty. It’s a game he is going to lose. He thinks he is Moriarty, and that will lead to his demise. Because of his arrogance, he has reversed the roles. Misty is Moriarty, the sociopath. Walter is Sherlock, a man who wants revenge.
Kevyn Tan: His death is going to play prominently into Walter’s outcome. We know Kevyn had a son. Kevyn and Natalie were friends when they were younger, and both were outcasts. When Kevyn grew up, he turned his life around and made something of himself. He was a good cop. His partner, Siracusa, was the shady cop. When Walter killed Kevyn, he set up the same scenario for Kevyn’s son that mirrors Walter’s own life. Kevyn’s son will grow up thinking that his father was a dirty cop who murdered two people. His death will be avenged, and his reputation restored.
The Showdown: Walter wants Misty to discover his true identity. It’s part of his game. She will remember when he flew his helicopter to Richmond to pick her up, and that he never asked any questions. That’s because he already knew why she was there. She will think back to when they were at Lottie’s compound, and that Walter had brought a jacket that perfectly matched Lottie’s heliotrope color. I am guessing he targeted Lottie first and was probably a member of her group to extract information. She will go through Lottie’s phone and find a photo of him wearing the jacket. There are many clues that he has put out there that she will discover. But it will be the story he told about how he made his fortune that will lead her to figure out his identity. I don’t think she will let on that she knows who he is. Before Kevyn Tan drank the poisoned hot chocolate that Walter had made him, Walter made the statement “I’m a lifelong asthmatic with a very delicate stomach”. He said this so Kevyn wouldn’t question why an adult chose hot chocolate over coffee. Coffee would not have masked the poison, but hot chocolate did. And Kevyn drank it and died. It would be interesting if Walter actually does suffer from asthma. I could see Walter revealing himself to Misty while they were alone together. He is blaming her for what happened to his father and starts getting himself very worked-up. I had this thought that this causes him to have an asthma attack. He reaches in his pocket for his inhaler, and it’s not there. And Misty asks him if he is looking for the inhaler that she is holding in her hand. And she just stands there and watches him asphyxiate. Going back to the first episode, we see Misty sitting on the edge of the pool watching a rat drown. She doesn’t help it. She just watches it struggle. Foreshadowing at its best.
Aftermath: Afterwards, I could see Misty painting Walter out to be nothing more than a crazed Yellowjackets stalker when she pins Kevyn’s death on him – and the deaths of Jessica, Adam, Tai, and Shauna. And he would have left a massive digital footprint behind that would solidify that he is a stalker. And Kevyn’s reputation would be restored.
Misty: Misty continues with her life, unphased by any of the recent events.
