Warning: this article contains massive spoilers for “Yellowjackets.”

On the latest “Yellowjackets,” the teenage cast — stuck in the wilderness and the ’90s — held a trial for Coach Ben (Steven Krueger), accused of torching their cabin last season. In the 2021 timeline, Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) was once more haunted by the late Jackie (Ella Purnell) while Tai (Tawny Cypress) and Van (Lauren Ambrose) tested if the Wilderness is hungry for another trade of lives.

Overall, the past storyline (as usual) seemed like the higher stakes one — until the episode’s closing moments, when Misty (Christina Ricci) sees the latest post on her Citizen Detective message board. Lottie (Simone Kessell) is dead, lying at the bottom of a stairwell. Just to convince any doubters, the camera lingers on her still body to show, yes, she really is dead.

This twist has got the “Yellowjackets” hive all riled up, and not exactly because they’re singing its praises. “I get they wanna make bold moves but killing Lottie so early in the season is kinda … dumb?” one X user wrote. Others have said everything from crying their eyes out, critiquing the writing, and even giving up on the show altogether. Kessell herself, speaking to Variety, didn’t seem too convinced by the decision either and outright called Lottie’s demise “premature.”

“I was pretty brokenhearted, because it felt like it had come to an end just when I felt Lottie was coming into her own. I was excited that season 3 would take her somewhere interesting, and unfortunately, they just decided that storyline was no longer.”

As Kessell notes, Lottie’s death will surely drive Misty to investigate and the suspect list is long: Tai, Shauna, Walter, the mystery stalker, and maybe more. But in trying to get the story running, “Yellowjackets” has shot itself in the foot.

After season 1 of “Yellowjackets,” it’s felt like the writers haven’t quite gotten a grip on Lottie’s character. The ending of “12 Angry Girls and 1 Drunk Travis” is the stumbling end of that.

The first season of “Yellowjackets” set Lottie (Courtney Eaton) up as a villain. We’ve known from the beginning that the past storyline will eventually see the Yellowjackets practice not only survival cannibalism, but neo-paganism, hunting each other like animals, and blood sacrifice. The mentally ill Lottie (having run out of her medication) was the first one to suggest the Wilderness itself had a will and offered premonitions from it. The girls, desperate for guidance, clung onto her as a leader. It’s no surprise many pegged Lottie as the eventual “antler queen.”

“Yellowjackets” season 1 finale “Sic Transit Gloria Mundi” ended with Natalie (Juliette Lewis) being abducted by cultists. Their leader? An unseen but still-alive Lottie, who had also emptied the late Travis’ (Andres Soto) bank accounts. The very last scene returned to the Wilderness, where the teenage Lottie placed a bear heart on an altar, praying to her forest god: “Shed blood my beautiful friends, and let the darkness set us free.” Sinister.

During the wait for season 2, everyone expected Lottie’s reintroduction to amp up the horror in the 2021 timeline. Was she still practicing the brutal blood rituals the Yellowjackets dreamt up in the Wilderness? Had she murdered Travis? How had she brought others over into her cult? How far did her reach spread?

Then, “Yellowjackets” season 2 did not live up to those terrifying expectations. The writers evidently decided to pivot and wrote Lottie as a surprisingly sympathetic character. She wasn’t a cult leader per se, more an eccentric wellness guru with good intentions. Travis’ death was a contrived accident. Even in the past storyline, Lottie’s character shifted; suddenly, she wasn’t leading the girls into darkness, it was her followers misinterpreting her message and dragging her with them.

Even rewatching “Yellowjackets” season 1, Lottie doesn’t feel quite so scary anymore and that season’s original tension deflates. I’ve read speculation the writers pulled back on evil Lottie because they’d realized they would be equating her illness with evil — but if so, they didn’t have to write her as an ill person in the first place.

Lottie’s death feels extra galling because the show just made a similar mistake by killing off Natalie in the season 2 finale, “Storytelling.” That ended the show’s sophomore season on a sour note for many, and Lottie’s death is a refreshment of that bitter taste. There’s been rumors that Natalie’s premature death was because Juliette Lewis wanted to leave the series; Lewis herself hasn’t explicitly confirmed this, but she has said about leaving “Yellowjackets,” “I think I’m good for a series for two seasons.” But even if that was the case with Lewis, it definitely wasn’t here! Simone Kessell thinks there was more story to tell with Lottie, and she’s right.

Back in “Storytelling,” Lottie became enamored with Shauna’s daughter Callie (Sarah Desjardins). Lottie, once more a fervent believer in the Wilderness, seemed to want to indoctrinate Callie if not something even worse. Well, that story has gone up like a popped balloon, with no resolution or catharsis. The past storyline too seems to be returning to the more sinister Lottie from season 1, so taking her off the table in the adult timeline now is a puzzling decision.

In general, the 2021 storyline in “Yellowjackets” season 3 feels like it’s trying to recapture the spark of season 1 and so is falling back on old plot beats. Someone, who knows the Yellowjackets’ secrets, is once more stalking them in the shadows. Travis’ death was a driving mystery in season 1, now Lottie’s death will be one in season 3.

I’ve been harsh during this article, so I will stress that I’ve mostly been liking “Yellowjackets” season 3. But unfortunately, taking out Lottie adds a huge asterisk to that enjoyment.

“Yellowjackets” is streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime.