Warning: This article contains spoilers for season 3 of “Yellowjackets.”

Shauna Sadecki (nee Shipman) was originally our window into the “Yellowjackets” world as the protagonist, but now she’s become more of an anti-hero. In the first season, we felt for her as if she were a character in a John Hughes teen movie — rebellious, insecure, living in the shadow of her best friend. In the present day, she was a bored, stifled housewife.

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But the trials of the wilderness have taken their toll on Shauna, turning her into a hollow shell of the sympathetic teen girl we once knew, as she grows angrier and more violent by the day. She goads her teammates to sentence Coach Ben to death and provokes the cannibalistic hunt for Mari with bloodthirsty glee. Worst of all, she is getting in the way of everyone’s rescue. Sophie Nélisse gives Teen Shauna a permanent snarl and an intense gaze that makes her truly terrifying this season. Her face appears more gaunt, the light in her eyes gone — now flashing with a fury hardened by the brutality of wilderness survival.

As Adult Taissa says to Adult Misty in the finale, “The worst of what we went through, she fueled it. She thrived on it.” The show is slowly revealing this to be true in the teen timeline. Now, in the adult timeline, she not only murdered her lover but has led her fellow Yellowjackets on a series of hijinks that have resulted in three of their deaths. In the finale, Adult Melissa declares, “Shauna is the problem,” and we’re starting to see that.

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All of this has led to a lot of online buzz about hating Shauna. While her actions have been heinous, there seems to be an extra vitriol toward her. These reactions seem over-the-top when compared to how other problematic characters — especially men — have been received and are even beloved in popular culture.

During TV’s Golden Age, the anti-hero became a defining character. They were morally ambiguous and did terrible things, yet still kept us glued to our television screens. We loved watching Tony Soprano strangle one of his enemies to death with his bare hands while still sympathizing with him when he broke down in Dr. Melfi’s office. We were captivated by Walter White’s transformation from Mr. Chips to Scarface, as his love for family twisted into a hunger for money and power. Don Draper drank like a fish and slept his way through Manhattan, yet we still marveled at his rise from poverty to asking the entire world to buy a Coke.

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All these men can be ruthless, manipulative, even monstrous — but they’re also framed as tortured souls. When women like Shauna behave similarly, they get hundreds of Reddit comments complaining about what a psychotic b***h she is. Why can’t we view a female character with that same complexity? Why can’t a woman be both “bad” and have her moments of vulnerability? One of the reasons is that we are used to women being the nurturing, moral center of most stories. It’s jarring to see her embody all of the darker aspects of human nature that we typically associate with masculinity. 

While there are many flawed TV women, like the drug-stealing Jackie from “Nurse Jackie” and the manipulative Nancy from “Weeds,” Shauna is a full-blown sadist. Her cruelty is relentless, and her violence is transgressive and disgusting; in season 3 episode 8, she bit a piece of skin off of Melissa and forced her to eat it. Yet, viewers seem to forget that just as much as the famous male anti-heroes of prestige TV, we’ve gotten a glimpse into her psychological motivations — as broken as they may be.

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Many seem to be forgetting just how much trauma Shauna has endured: attempting a DIY abortion, the death of her best friend Jackie (and subsequently eating her), slicing Javi’s body for their second cannibalistic feast, and losing her baby. In one of the most harrowing scenes in “Yellowjackets” thus far, Shauna swore she could hear her infant’s cries and called after him with heart-shattering and guttural screams, terrified that her teammates secretly ate him. Now, she’s left simmering with rage, possibly worsened by postpartum depression or even psychosis. If her child had to die, then no one else deserves to be spared. On top of all this, Shauna is still only a teenager. 

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She has unfathomable pain behind her extreme actions, the same way we understood Tony Soprano being threatened by his mother to have his eye poked out, Don Draper growing up in a whorehouse, and Walter White being deeply insecure about being less successful than his friends. These painful experiences do not excuse their behavior, it just makes them all the more fascinating to dissect and observe. 

Melissa urges Shauna to forgive herself and let go of the past, but Shauna seems to be heading in the opposite direction. In her voice-over, she declares that the wilderness was a place where she felt alive and happy, where she wasn’t in a subservient role but a “f***ing queen.” Back home, she was passive and had no power, playing second fiddle to Jackie. Now, it seems Shauna is becoming even more unhinged, with her status as an anti-hero shifting into outright villainy. Will the “Yellowjackets” hive still be able to embrace her as a multifaceted and engrossing main character? We’re not used to seeing female roles challenge us in this way, and that’s why “Yellowjackets” is so fascinating to watch.

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