Ronald.phillips

theodp writes: Golf reports that amateur golf legend Rose Zhang will compete for the first time as a professional when she tees off in the first round of the Mizuho Americas Open Thursday. Golf news is rarely fodder for Slashdot discussion, but when the 20-year-old Stanford student (who plans to complete her degree after a leave of absence) was asked by Golf to identify her toughest class, she threw CS under the bus. "CS 106A," Zhang replied, referring to a computer science course. "Currently and still trying to grind in that class. It's been a little unfortunate for me. I'm not a CS major. Will never code again after this class." Back in April, Zhang expressed some doubts about being able to juggle the demands of an already-renowned golf career and CS 106A. "I'll be super, super busy," Zhang said in an interview. "I'm planning on taking CS 106A. I don't know if it's a smart decision but it's kind of an essential intro CS class into Stanford so I'm going to try to navigate that, balance that out." The Stanford Daily reports that CS 106A: Programming Methodology is an introductory programming course taken by 1,600+ students from all academic disciplines each year (2015 Slashdot post on CS 106A's growing pains). According to the syllabus, CS 106A "uses the Python programming language" and there's "no prior programming experience required," although the schedule indicates a lot of ground is covered for someone new to coding (the same could be said of Harvard's famed CS50). Lest some take Zhang to task for the sin of stating programming is hard, consider that Stanford's CS 106A website suggests the same, reporting that the median score on the midterm exam was only 68%, despite a plethora of review materials and sessions. CS 106A students were offered the chance to submit formal 'regrade requests' to try to improve their midterm scores and can also vie for "a Jamba Juice gift card and 100% on the final exam" by entering a Python programming contest -- one prize will be awarded for "Aesthetic merit", another for "Algorithmic sophistication" (a number of runners-up will be awarded "a grade boost similar to getting a + on one of their assignments").

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Yuzu Nintendo Switch emulator has quickly become one of the most exciting emulators ever made, as the development team has continuously improved it since its public launch at a surprising speed, reaching another important milestone earlier this week when the emulator was launched on the Google Play Store for Android devices.

While the Android version of the emulator is not yet capable of running every Nintendo Switch game with perfect performance, it is definitely capable of running the latest games more than decently. The mobile version of the emulator can already run Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom at around 20 frames per second on a ROG Phone 6 Pro with default settings, which is quite impressive, considering the emulator has just been released.

TOTK Yuzu Android - Good job Yuzu Team! Surprised that this is running on default settings! (ROG 6 Pro)
by u/PlacidBeetle in yuzu

On a related note, those enjoying Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on PC with the main version of the Yuzu Nintendo Switch emulator can now have a much better experience at ultrawide resolutions thanks to two new mods that were released online this week. The first mod, the Ultrawide UI fix, attempts to fix the interface alignment at ultrawide resolutions such as 3440 x 1440 and 5140 x 1440 resolutions, while the Any Aspect Ratio custom utility allows users to create a mod that patches the game to any aspect ratio possible. This mod is still in early development, so there are plenty of issues, but it's still impressive how something like this is already possible on PC with a game released less than a month ago on another platform.

The Yuzu Nintendo Switch emulator can be downloaded from its official website. The Android version is now available on the Google Play Store.

Hidden code in hundreds of models of Gigabyte motherboards invisibly and insecurely downloads programs -- a feature ripe for abuse, researchers say. From a report: Hiding malicious programs in a computer's UEFI firmware, the deep-seated code that tells a PC how to load its operating system, has become an insidious trick in the toolkit of stealthy hackers. But when a motherboard manufacturer installs its own hidden backdoor in the firmware of millions of computers -- and doesn't even put a proper lock on that hidden back entrance -- they're practically doing hackers' work for them. Researchers at firmware-focused cybersecurity company Eclypsium revealed today that they've discovered a hidden mechanism in the firmware of motherboards sold by the Taiwanese manufacturer Gigabyte, whose components are commonly used in gaming PCs and other high-performance computers. Whenever a computer with the affected Gigabyte motherboard restarts, Eclypsium found, code within the motherboard's firmware invisibly initiates an updater program that runs on the computer and in turn downloads and executes another piece of software. While Eclypsium says the hidden code is meant to be an innocuous tool to keep the motherboard's firmware updated, researchers found that it's implemented insecurely, potentially allowing the mechanism to be hijacked and used to install malware instead of Gigabyte's intended program. And because the updater program is triggered from the computer's firmware, outside its operating system, it's tough for users to remove or even discover. "If you have one of these machines, you have to worry about the fact that it's basically grabbing something from the internet and running it without you being involved, and hasn't done any of this securely," says John Loucaides, who leads strategy and research at Eclypsium. "The concept of going underneath the end user and taking over their machine doesn't sit well with most people."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Biden administration officials are divided over how aggressively new artificial intelligence tools should be regulated -- and their differences are playing out this week in Sweden. From a report: Some White House and Commerce Department officials support the strong measures proposed by the European Union for AI products such as ChatGPT and Dall-E, people involved in the discussions said. Meanwhile, US national security officials and some in the State Department say aggressively regulating this nascent technology will put the nation at a competitive disadvantage, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn't public. This dissonance has left the US without a coherent response during this week's US-EU Trade and Technology Council gathering in Sweden to the EU's plan to subject generative AI to additional rules. The proposal would force developers of artificial intelligence tools to comply with a host of strong regulations, such as requiring them to document any copyrighted material used to train their products and more closely track how that information is used. National Security Council spokesman Adam Hodge said the Biden administration is working across the government to "advance a cohesive and comprehensive approach to AI-related risks and opportunities."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This article contains spoilers for the "Barry" finale.

"Barry" has always delved deep into the psychology of the main character, and the fourth and final season continued exploring Barry's mind even after he died in the series finale. He has always had competing desires in his double life of killing and performing. In his life as an actor, Berkman played the role of a good-hearted soldier who saw some bad things but was ultimately a good guy. He killed to maintain this facade, but when he got caught for those killings, his fake identity collapsed.

Starting a new life as a fugitive, Barry had a son and gave himself a whole new audience to stage his heroism for. He always hoped the world would see him as a stand-up guy rather than knowing the real him. The hitman might not have lived to see it, but he got exactly what he wanted — a real Hollywood ending. Berkman realized at the very beginning of the series that he is attracted to performing, to taking a sliver of truth and using it as a mask. This is what gravitated him towards the acting class of Gene Cousineau, the man who would eventually be framed for Barry's crimes.

Before Gene was inevitably imprisoned, Barry was on the run. He shielded his son from the world in fear that he might catch onto his parents' lies. The serial killer turned to his own convoluted interpretation of religion and did his best to act like a real All-American family man. "He's very much trying to paint the version of himself that he wants to be to his son," series creator and star Bill Hader explained to TV Line. "How his son sees him is how he's always wanted to be seen by everybody."

The Mask Collector Paints Barry As The Hero He Pretended To Be

Becoming an Evangelical, overbearing stay-at-home dad might have seemed like a total 180 for a murderous fugitive, but the part was actually well within Barry's wheelhouse. Being a stand-up father was just a role to Barry, who had always been drawn to acting, only this time the stakes were a little higher. "The thing that was nice about him having a kid is Barry had a chance to be the person he always wanted to be in the eyes of his son [...]" Hader told The Wrap. "This kind of upstanding American guy, which is a character he's playing. So they're still acting."

The most important thing for Barry was to maintain his hero image in his son's eyes, to be redeemed through this fabricated persona that he had created and maintained for John's benefit. Luckily for Barry, the world would help him maintain this carefully constructed lie even after his death.

Cousineau signed his own proverbial death warrant the minute he shot Barry. He was already being accused of orchestrating the murder that Barry had committed, and now it really looked like he was behind it all. With no confession to counter the accusations levied against him, Gene was villainized so hard that they got a British guy to play him in the movie — and everyone knows the most sinister and calculating villains are British!

Barry, on the other hand, was lauded as a troubled veteran and naive victim of Cousineau's manipulation. The court of public opinion (and of law) found him to be a hunk and a war hero. The misinformed Hollywood narrative lines up almost perfectly with the fantasy that Barry had created for his son. When John watched "The Mask Collector," he didn't see unjust inaccuracy — he saw his late father's bravery.

Does John Know The Truth About Barry?

So, how much does John know about Barry's past? At the beginning of the series finale, before the final time jump, Sally confessed to her son that his father has killed a lot of people, and not as a soldier, but as a murderer. Even though Barry is vehemently opposed to violent video games, he does defend the home with a gun in episode 5 and has clearly opened up about his past in the armed service.

It seems that Sally has tried to keep John sheltered from the truth of his father's crimes into his teenage years since he was not allowed to watch "The Mask Collector" at home and had to see it in secret. Since John readily believed the story told in the film, it would seem that Sally kept her son in the dark about the specifics of Barry's murders. It's possible that she didn't want to give him the gruesome details, or that she hadn't wanted to revisit the subject since Barry's death.

Maybe John just didn't remember that his mother had told him his father was a murderer all those years ago. Maybe he thought she was misinformed. Maybe Sally thought it would be best to maintain Barry's lie — like the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. Or maybe the movie was so compelling he threw everything he knew to be true about his father out the window. 

Maybe he simply wanted to believe the Hollywood lie.

Read this next: The 18 Best Crime Dramas In TV History

The post Barry Finally Became The Hero He Always Wanted To Be In The Series Finale appeared first on /Film.

Tim Cain talks about cut content of Fallout and Fallout 2: Fallout Cut Content I talk about content of Fallout (and one thing from Fallout 2) that never made it into the shipping game, either because the design was rejected, or we didn't have time to make it, or it wasn't finished by the time the game shipped....

“Oh yeah, we’ve got the System Shock IP,” said the insurance company. “What do you want to do with it? Do you want to make a sequel?”

It’s a question you could imagine being posed to Ken Levine, or Warren Spector, or several other notable designers who could reasonably lay claim to the legacy of Looking Glass and Irrational’s legendary immersive sims. Instead, it was asked of Stephen Kick - at the time, a recently unemployed videogame artist holidaying in a Guatemalan hostel. Up until that point, Kick had dedicated his life to creative pursuits. He had no business background, and none of the acumen required to understand contracts or negotiate licensing fees. More to the point, he had no more than $5,000 to his name. Hardly the foundation for a follow-up to two of the most acclaimed PC games of all time.

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The California state Senate passed Sen. Susan Eggman's (Stockton) Right to Repair Act (SB 244) on Tuesday with a 38-0, bipartisan vote. From a report: It's the furthest a Right to Repair bill has advanced in the state. The bill would significantly expand consumers' and independent repair shops' access to the necessary parts, tools and service information required for repairing consumer electronics and appliances. "This is a huge victory for anyone who's ever been faced with limited options when their phone, fridge or other household electronics break down," said CALPIRG State Director Jenn Engstrom. "It's due time that California fixed its laws so that we can fix our stuff. For the hundreds of advocates and repair businesses and the untold number of consumers supporting Right to Repair, we're one huge step closer to making that happen." Advocates have been pushing for Right to Repair legislation in California for 5 years. Similar bills have died in the Senate Appropriations Committee the past two years after intense industry lobbying efforts against their passage. But public support for the Right to Repair in the state has grown amid a swell of national momentum. New York, Colorado and Minnesota have all passed their own Right to Repair laws in the past year.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Hidden code in hundreds of models of Gigabyte motherboards invisibly and insecurely downloads programs—a feature ripe for abuse, researchers say.

Here is another tidbit on how you can leverage the power of vSphere Events, which now includes over 2K+ as of vSphere 8.0 Update 1 to help monitor when an ESXi filesystem and/or partition is low on disk space. With vSphere 6.7 or later, we have two events that you can use to help alert […]

New Zealand's Civil Aviation Authority is asking that its national airline weigh passengers departing on international flights from Auckland International Airport through July 2, 2023. From a report: The program, which Air New Zealand calls a passenger weight survey, is a way to gather data on the weight load and distribution for planes, the airline said. "We weigh everything that goes on the aircraft -- from the cargo to the meals onboard, to the luggage in the hold," Alastair James, the airline's load control improvement specialist said in a statement. "For customers, crew and cabin bags, we use average weights, which we get from doing this survey." Still, weight is a personal thing that not everyone wishes to disclose. In order to protect individuals' privacy, the airline says it has made the data anonymous.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

TorrentFreak: Five men behind pirate IPTV service 'Flawless' were sentenced to more than 30 years in prison today, after a private prosecution by the Premier League. A FACT test purchase in 2017 led to the involvement of four territorial police forces, three regional Trading Standards units, and the arrest of service kingpin, Mark Gould, in 2018. In less than two years, Flawless served over 50,000 UK households while generating millions in revenue.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If there’s one thing you should take away from this System Shock remake review, it’s that this is the most playable version of the classic PC game. Both its 1994 original and the subsequent Enhanced Edition from 2015 suffer at the hands of a user interface with more in common with Excel spreadsheets than a first-person shooter. The System Shock remake from Nightdive Studios is far more game-like, but it’s still perhaps a little too faithful to the source material.

As a hacker arrested for attempting to steal company secrets, you soon find yourself onboard a dilapidated space colony, festering with mutants, rogue robots, and humans turned into corrupted androids. Unfortunately, all of them are trying to kill you without provocation, presenting a slight hiccup in your interstellar journey. As it turns out, the ship is under the control of the now-sentient ship’s ai: SHODAN, whose moral inhibitors you disabled not long before. As one of the last living people onboard the space colony, it’s up to you to stop SHODAN’s plans to exterminate the human race.

MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best old games , System Shock system requirements, Best space games

The Yuzu Nintendo Switch emulator received a new update that further improves the emulation of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, fixing an annoying visual issue and introducing a performance improvement of over 50% in certain scenarios.

The latest Early Access version, 3621, addresses the issue which causes missing menu images for weapons. As the issue is caused by Asynchronous Shared Building, the team introduced an option to reset the cache storage in the remove items section that appears when right-clicking on the game in the game list. Doing so will display the image correctly without clearing the shader.

The above fix isn't the only Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom improvement brought by the Yuzu Early Access 3621 version. The new update fixes audio desync and crackling, which can happen under certain conditions, and improves Open GL performance by over 50%, not only in the latest entry in the Zelda series but also in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet and other titles.

As it usually is with Early Access releases, the fixes introduced by version 3621 will only make their way into the main build of the Yuzu Nintendo Switch emulator in the coming days. If you cannot wait, you can get access to all Early Access releases by subscribing to the emulator's Patreon page.

More information on the Yuzu Nintendo Switch emulator can be found on its official website. The installer for the current latest build of the emulator can also be downloaded from there.

Carrying a reusable water bottle is good for both you and the environment. But without regular cleaning, it may not be as helpful and healthy as you think, as bacteria and mold can easily make themselves at home.

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This post contains mild spoilers for the "Barry" series finale.

Over the course of his lengthy and varied career, Stephen Root has proven himself to be a consummate character actor; not just someone reliable and hard-working, but a true chameleon, darting in and out of disparate genres and roles.

As a result, it's incredibly difficult to choose a definitive Root character — there are some he's more famous for, like his creepy predator in "Get Out" or his eccentric billionaire in "Newsradio." Yet there are numerous other appearances of his that are just as beloved if not more so.

Throughout his resume, however, one doesn't see too many sexy, virile, crime lord assassin characters. That's all changed thanks to "Barry" and the series star, Bill Hader, who in this fourth and final season of the show has transformed Root's Monroe Fuches into the mysterious, intimidating, and — yes — sexy jailbird, the Raven.

As Root revealed in a recent interview with /Film's Josh Spiegel, this change in character came as much of a surprise to the actor as it did to the audience. Thanks to Hader giving Root the, ahem, freedom to spread his wings and fly as high as he wished, we have been blessed with another gift of another memorable Root role. Who would've thought that Milton from "Office Space" could be this badass?

'You Can Have Fun'

During the first several seasons of "Barry," Stephen Root made Fuches arguably the one character on the show who is the most difficult to like, but yet is always eminently watchable. A weasely, black-hearted master manipulator, Fuches —  a man who is both incredibly selfish and easily offended — is the dark shadow of Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler), the other surrogate father figure of Barry Berkman (Bill Hader).

Yet everything changed — for the show as well as Fuches — when the show enacted a time jump during season 4, one that caught up with everyone eight years into the future. For Fuches, that meant serving out his prison sentence by transforming himself from a guy who just got screwed over (again) by his protegé, into an all-powerful hunk of a gang leader, the Raven.

Speaking to /Film's Josh Spiegel, Root explained how the change allowed him to essentially be grandfathered into playing a character he usually doesn't get to play:

"We all knew at the end of season 3 he was going to be in prison, and I thought you could go so many [places] from there. I didn't have a specific way to go in my head where Fuches would go. But then again, I didn't know we were going to do a time jump, and nobody knew that for a while. [Hader] alluded to it and then we finally got some sense of it at the start of season 4. And at that point Bill hinted about what was going to happen, and I told him I would never be cast as [the Raven]. And he said, 'That's okay, you can have fun.' And we did, of course."

Root Gets To Be Sexy On Screen, With Hader's Permission

Thanks to his sonorous voice, a gaze that can range from quirky to piercing, and a bulky physique, Stephen Root has had the opportunity to play lots of imposing characters. Yet Fuches' reincarnation as the Raven (a persona that Fuches himself created out of thin air as a way of getting revenge on Barry) gave Root the opportunity to play an out-and-out sexy beast.

As the actor detailed to /Film, this came about thanks to one key piece of direction given to him by Bill Hader:

"In Bill's word, he really sidled up to my left ear and said, 'And I want you to be sexy.' [Laughing] I would never be cast as that. It would be a really, really fun challenge as a character actor to let most of the Fuches character go and come at it as confident and sexy."

As the back half of "Barry" season 4 proves, Root did indeed run with this suggestion, emerging from jail as the Raven and instantly picking up a barista to be his new wife before taking over the muscle of the newly minted businessman, Noho Hank (Anthony Carrigan).

Of course, no badass can truly be a badass without doing something that's actually badass, and most of the Raven's deeds are just Fuches in tatted-up, leather-clad dressing; a bloody feud begins between Hank and the Raven because Fuches drunkenly calls out Hank's role in the murder of Cristobal (Michael Irby), a goof that the old Fuches would definitely have made. In the season 4 finale, "wow," Fuches finally steps up and admits his mistakes, leading to a fate that's as surprising for the character as it is earned. As one can see, where both Monroe Fuches and Stephen Root are concerned, there's a lot more than meets the eye.

Read this next: The Best TV Shows Of 2022, Ranked

The post Bill Hader Wanted Stephen Root To Be A Sexy Raven In Barry Season 4 [Exclusive] appeared first on /Film.

This post contains spoilers for the "Yellowjackets" season 2 finale. 

The season 2 finale of "Yellowjackets" is out, and fans aren't 100% thrilled. A lot of the backlash so far has centered around the death of adult Natalie (Juliette Lewis), a plot point that was arguably a little rushed and unsatisfying. The other major point of contention is with the resolution of the long-running Adam subplot. Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) killed a guy she was having an affair with in season 1, and after a full season of the police closing in on her, the situation's been resolved not through the actions of Shauna herself, but with the help of Walter (Elijah Wood), a man Shauna's never even met.

For a lot of fans, this conclusion is a little too convenient. It's made worse because Walter's whole plan doesn't hold up to scrutiny in the slightest. There's no way an experienced detective would casually accept a drink from a mysterious stranger he met 10 seconds ago, just as there are a million different ways that Walter's proposed narrative could backfire on the Yellowjackets. (The fact that Misty also tells Walter "I killed my best friend" five feet away from the police, with no repercussions, just adds insult to injury.) 

Realistically, Walter's "solution" would open a whole new box of headaches to deal with, but the finale acts as if everything will be fine now. It's a deeply unserious resolution and some fans have complained, but is it really such a bad thing?

Yellowjackets' Handle On Reality: Questionable At Best

Let's go back to where this storyline began in earnest: Shauna stabs Adam to death, goes home, and then confronts her husband Jeff (Warren Kole) about the glitter in the closet. First Shauna finds out that Jeff's been the one blackmailing her, with the absurdly mundane motive of his furniture store not doing well. Then Jeff finds out Shauna's committed murder, and the guy she's murdered is also a guy she's been having an affair with. Shauna explains the situation by sheepishly saying, "I stabbed him, and now he's dead," and it's one of the funniest line deliveries in the whole show. It's only outshined by Jeff's "there's no book club?!" realization shortly afterward.

After nearly an entire season of suspecting Jeff of being a shady cheater not worth Shauna's time, it was refreshing and amusing to learn that Jeff was actually a deeply forgiving wife guy. He's not particularly bright, but he's unconditionally loyal and unwaveringly positive. He's known about Shauna's misdeeds in the wilderness this whole time, and he still loves her anyway. 

"Yellowjackets" has always been a darkly comic show, but the constant little throwaway lines with Jeff this season is where the humor shines brightest. Him playing "F*** Tha Police" while his wife and daughter are being interrogated, him suggesting a spontaneous trip to Colonial Williamsburg to spice up their marriage, it's all great. Of course, his best moment is when he blows off steam in his car by listening to "Last Resort" by Papa Roach. It's a moment where you can just feel the writers winking at us, letting us know that while the female main characters are dark and complex, Jeff is thankfully not.

Don't Talk To The Police!

The Adam storyline also helped to subvert everyone's expectations around Callie (Sarah Desjardins), Shauna's teenaged daughter who seemed bratty and obnoxious at first, but who turned out to only need some honesty from her parents. Like with Jeff, we know that the smart thing for Callie to do is turn her mom in straight away, but when it turns out she's totally down with covering up a murder, it's both weirdly wholesome and (once again) very funny. These scenes of Shauna's family finally being open and nice with each other, juxtaposed with how horrifying this would all seem from an outside perspective, is the sort of thing that only "Yellowjackets" could pull off. 

This leads us to the other insane thing about this storyline: the fact the entire Sadecki family can't help but constantly run their mouths off to their police. Misty tells Shauna early on in the season that the only words she should say to a detective are "I want my lawyer," but Shauna never does this, and she never even tries to advise her daughter to do this either. 

Their attempts to cleverly outsmart the police almost work out at times (mainly because these detectives are established to not be that great at their jobs), but they always end up digging themselves in even deeper. Fans complained about this aspect too, pointing out how mind-numbingly stupid the whole family is for not asking for a lawyer, but Shauna's early conversation with Misty makes it clear that this stupidity wasn't an accident in the script. This whole storyline is a dark comedy of errors, and it was always going to be resolved in a comic manner. 

What This Show's Really About

At the end of the day, "Yellowjackets" is about a group of traumatized, chaotic women and their way-too-supportive life partners. Taissa's got the ride-or-die love of Van, Shauna's got Jeff, and as of season 2, Misty's got Walter, another character who doesn't handle things ethically at all, but who is so helpful to our main characters that we've come to love him anyway. And even though Taissa's actual wife Simone is objectively a better person than Van, audiences like her way less because we know she can never truly be there for Taissa. Simone's a normal person, and that won't do.

It's a twisted yet strangely gentle take on the idea that all a person really needs to deal with their problems is someone who truly cares about them, someone who can help without any judgment or dishonesty. In season 1, all of the survivors we followed believed they had no one else they could turn to for their problems but the other survivors, which of course wasn't healthy because all of them were too messed up in their own special way to truly be of service to one another. With the Jeff reveal, the Walter introduction and the Van re-introduction, the surviving members of the original quartet are all finding their genuine support groups, made up of people who are unconditionally loving and dependable.

Shifting Sense Of Reality

In addition to being a show about ride-or-die partners, "Yellowjackets" is a show about subjectivity. Is there something supernatural going on in this show, or are these supernatural elements just manifestations of the characters' many mental health issues? Outside of the magic tree Coach Ben's now living in, it's not really clear, and it doesn't need to be. The show is told from the warped perspective of the Yellowjackets teammates; if the characters accept the supernatural, so should we. 

With that in mind, Walter's successful manipulations throughout this episode are a parallel to that convenient gust of wind at the beginning of the season, or the convenient bear from season 1. The fact that he pulled it off could be a lucky coincidence, or it could be the wilderness's way of rewarding the group for Natalie's sacrifice. Yes, most of Walter's plan unfolds before Natalie's death, but think of it from Shauna's perspective: she sees Natalie die, then she finds out that all of her problems have been magically solved by a complete stranger. 

The resolution to Adam's murder isn't just intentionally funny; it's also specifically designed to push Shauna back into the wilderness cult she was part of as a teen. She says in the finale that the dark stuff was "just us," but Walter's miraculous intervention seems designed to make her second-guess herself. From the start of the show, "Yellowjackets" has been using implausible events to hint at the supernatural, to push the characters in a darker direction. The resolution to Adam's murder is just doing the same thing. It might still feel a little lazy to some viewers, but it's definitely not out of step with anything we've seen so far. 

Read this next: Every Yellowjackets Main Character, Ranked

The post The Resolution to Yellowjackets' Adam Storyline Makes No Sense, And That's Okay appeared first on /Film.

This post contains spoilers for the "Yellowjackets" season 2 finale.

"The wilderness chose." For the characters of "Yellowjackets," this simple phrase is a means of equivocating, the way a person might gloss over something bad by saying, "It is what it is." In the show's flashback scenes, that means girls' soccer players hunting and cannibalizing their teammates in the wilderness where their plane has crashed. Some of them, like the adult Lottie (Simone Kessell), believe the wilderness is a dark force that follows them back to civilization and demands appeasement even in a place where cannibalism is no longer necessary for survival. Others, like Shauna (Melanie Lynskey), believe Lottie is crazy, and they have only themselves to blame for the continuing murder and mayhem in their lives.

Christina Ricci, for one, sees the wilderness as a convenient out for her character, Misty, as she deals with the guilt of having killed her best friend, Crystal, after a confrontation that made Samantha Hanratty (teen Misty) feel like a method actor. In an interview with Variety following the "Yellowjackets" season 2 finale, Ricci said:

"I don't think that Misty believes that it's her fault. I think certain characters can conveniently apply the 'wilderness' and its power and willfulness when needed to not feel responsible for certain things. We do see most of the characters pick and choose when they decide that it was the wilderness doing something, and not them. I think that's one of those instances where she would deal with it in that way, so as to not really, intellectually, feel bad about it. Of course, subconsciously she does — that's why she doesn't want anything to do with Walter [Elijah Wood] once he reveals that he knows who she is. But I don't think that's a conscious thought for her."

'The Wilderness Made Me Do It'

Christina Ricci's comments about characters in "Yellowjackets" blaming the wilderness when they need "to not feel responsible for certain things" brings to mind another old phrase, "The devil made me do it," which served as the title of "The Conjuring 3" two years ago, when "Yellowjackets" made its series premiere. 

In the "Yellowjackets" season 2 finale, "Storytelling," the teen version of Van (Liv Hewson) begins telling a "once upon a time" story about the wilderness by the fireplace, only for the teen Lottie (Courtney Eaton) to interrupt her with the reveal that she "never wanted to be in charge." Before that, Van says the wilderness "was beautiful and full of life, but it was also lonely and violent and misunderstood."

You could apply those same words to the characters of "Yellowjackets." In the season 2 finale, Shauna seems to refute the ongoing question of whether there's anything supernatural happening in the wilderness, as she says, "You know there's no 'it,' right? 'It' was just us." Lottie retorts, "Is there a difference?" which seems to suggest that even if there is a devil or some external dark force they're interacting with, it doesn't matter, because the girls still decided to do what they did and let that force guide them internally. Saying "the wilderness chose" really means they chose.

"Yellowjackets" season 2 is now streaming in its entirety on Showtime.

Read this next: Let's Explore The Biggest Mystery In Yellowjackets: Who Is The Man With No Eyes?

The post Christina Ricci Thinks the 'Wilderness' Is a Crutch for the Yellowjackets Characters appeared first on /Film.

KeePassXC belongs to the KeePass family of powerful free and open source password managers. The original KeePass is available for Windows, but KeePassXC works seamlessly across all operating systems. Each version has some security measures that many password managers lack.

The Govee permanent outdoor lights are awe-inspiring. Govee has come up with some pretty compelling products over the years, but these are on another level. Govee has gone from being the perky little upstart with cheap LED strips looking to disrupt the smart lighting market away from the incumbent Philips Hue, to absolutely dominating it with a range of innovative products.

Vulnerabilities in your computer systems aren’t necessarily problematic until intruders discover and exploit them. If you cultivate a culture of identifying loopholes before threat actors, you can resolve them, so they don't pose any significant harm. This is the opportunity that penetration testing offers you.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post: Nearly any material can be used to turn the energy in air humidity into electricity, scientists found in a discovery that could lead to continuously producing clean energy with little pollution. The research, published in a paper in Advanced Materials, builds on 2020 work that first showed energy could be pulled from the moisture in the air using material harvested from bacteria. The new study shows nearly any material can be used, like wood or silicon, as long as it can be smashed into small particles and remade with microscopic pores... The air-powered generator, known as an "Air-gen," would offer continuous clean electricity since it uses the energy from humidity, which is always present, rather than depending on the sun or wind... The device, the size of a fingernail and thinner than a single hair, is dotted with tiny holes known as nanopores. The holes have a diameter smaller than 100 nanometers, or less than a thousandth of the width of a strand of human hair. The tiny holes allow the water in the air to pass through in a way that would create a charge imbalance in the upper and lower parts of the device, effectively creating a battery that runs continuously. "We are opening up a wide door for harvesting clean electricity from thin air," Xiaomeng Liu, another author and a UMass engineering graduate student, said in a statement. While one prototype only produces a small amount of energy — almost enough to power a dot of light on a big screen — because of its size, Yao said Air-gens can be stacked on top of each other, potentially with spaces of air in between. Storing the electricity is a separate issue, he added. Yao estimated that roughly 1 billion Air-gens, stacked to be roughly the size of a refrigerator, could produce a kilowatt and partly power a home in ideal conditions. The team hopes to lower both the number of devices needed and the space they take up by making the tool more efficient... It could be embedded in wall paint in a home, made at a larger scale in unused space in a city or littered throughout an office's hard-to-get-to spaces. And because it can use nearly any material, it could extract less from the environment than other renewable forms of energy. "The entire earth is covered with a thick layer of humidity," Yao said. "It's an enormous source of clean energy. This is just the beginning in making use of that." More information from the Boston Globe. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader SpzToid for sharing the article.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This post contains spoilers for the season 2 finale of "Yellowjackets."

One of my favorite things about the sophomore season of "Yellowjackets" is that this time around, the Showtime mystery series seemed to be as much in the business of answering questions as asking them. The survival horror series has always shared some storytelling DNA with "Lost," but while that series piled on mystery after mystery, "Yellowjackets" actually eased up on its more enigmatic elements for much of this season — and even went so far as to give us explicit solutions to a few major puzzles.

By the time the credits rolled on the second season finale, fans knew how Javi (Luciano Leroux) survived the winter, what the mysterious queen of hearts playing cards meant, what happened to Lottie (Simone Kessell) and Van (Lauren Ambrose) as adults, and exactly how the show's element of cannibalism came to be. Yet there's one thing we're still not sure about, and it's a mystery that dates all the way back to the show's very first episode: who the hell is the girl in the pit?!

Let's Talk About The Girl In The Pit

In case you need a refresher on the "Yellowjackets" pilot, here's how it starts: a girl in a light-colored nightgown runs barefoot through the woods, terrified of some screeching, howling offscreen presence. She's light-skinned, with long, brown hair, and soon enough, she runs straight into a snow-covered trap. It's a pit trap, and we see her body pierced through with multiple spikes. We also see that she's wearing Jackie's heart necklace, one of several details production designers have since used to foster a sense of misdirection. A mask-clad person steps to the edge of the pit, wearing pink Converse and a worn-out soccer sweatshirt. Later in the episode, we see the girl strung up and bled dry, and eventually, a group of seven mask-clad people (one of them Samantha Hanratty's Misty) gathers around a fireplace, feasting on her flesh.

This scene paints a hell of a portrait of what life will be like for these girls in the wilderness, and its twisted imagery kept fans hooked on this story — and convinced it would eventually involve cannibalism — long before the group took their first bites of their dead friend Jackie this season. Still, season 2 generally steered away from exploring the pit girl scene, even as it quietly delivered the backstory for several elements of the scene. We know now that a mixture of hunger, mental illness, superstition, and perhaps some dark influence lead the team to adopt a ritualistic hunt-based approach to staying alive. We've seen them draw cards and hunt Natalie, just as they'll one day hunt this girl.

The Hunters' Outfits Are Coming Together

We also have a pretty good idea of who those masked figures will be, although the position of honor is still up for debate. In the dinner tableau, six people donning a mix of winter clothes, furs, and creepy masks sit around a now-infamous figure: the Antler Queen. The status of the Antler Queen has changed over time. We've seen Lottie don the horns, but she's also hallucinated the Antler Queen as a sort of forest spirit that drives her to action. Plus, she gave up her leadership position to Natalie in the season finale, meaning it wouldn't be surprising if Nat soon decides to don similar garb during moments of ceremonial importance.

Early iterations of the ritualistic outfits from the pilot first appeared at "Doomcoming," when the team celebrated what would've been a school dance by dressing up in forest-inspired garb — and making masks to make recently scarred Van feel more comfortable. At the time, the team wore mostly dresses, but they also donned the masks we've seen them wear again since. The winter clothes in the pilot's feast scene also make sense now, as there's a chance the girls will be exposed at length to the harsh elements without the shelter of the now-burned-out cabin. With that in mind, it's likely the wintery scene will take place pretty soon in the show's timeline.

Who's RSVPing To This Feast?

As for the acolytes who surround the Antler Queen, those might be easy to guess, too. Natalie (or Lottie, if she's not the queen), Shauna, Misty, Taissa, and Van have all embraced the ritual of the hunt, and Travis seemed to be on his way in the finale when he took a bite out of his brother's heart. These are the seven main characters who are still kicking and still a part of the group in the '90s plotline, which leaves just a small handful of potential victims — the teammates whose present-day counterparts we haven't met yet.

This group includes Coach Ben (Steven Krueger), Akilah (Nia Sondaya), Mari (Alexa Barajas), Gen (Mya Lowe), and Melissa (Jenna Burgess). If we're feeling hopeful, we could also include Crystal/Kristen (Nuha Jes Izman), who fell off a cliff this season but whose body was never recovered. She's almost certainly dead, though, and the list of possible pit girl candidates narrows down from here. Coach Ben obviously isn't a teenage girl, and the victim in question has light skin, so she's not Akilah. Melissa, a background character whose most memorable moment so far was when she and Gen schemed to eat Crystal/Kristen if they found her, also has blonde hair and seems unlikely to find some dye lying around the forest, eliminating her from the shortlist.

Pour One Out For Gen Or Mari

That leaves just two possibilities: Gen or Mari. Both have long, dark hair and complexions that could match the pit girl. Gen, like Melissa, hasn't done much to differentiate herself at this point and is mostly known for being besties with Melissa. We know Mari a bit better: she has a tendency towards callousness and often acted as Jackie's catty second-in-command when she was alive, but seems to have mellowed out a little after her death. As much as I want every girl in the wilderness to make it out in one piece, if anyone has to get skewered in a pit and cooked for dinner, these are two characters whose loss wouldn't particularly sting at this point.

Even with everything we do know about the pit girl scene, there are still more mysteries to unravel beyond her identity. Why is she dressed in a nightgown, when everyone else in the scene seems prepared for the hunt? Is it possible she finds shelter the others don't — in Ben's cave, maybe? Or perhaps the pit girl is who Lottie was thinking of in the finale when she told Taissa they know what happens if someone refuses to draw a card. Could the rules of the hunt eventually degrade, leaving the victim surprised by the girls' suddenly predatory nature? Regardless of how the poor girl meets her fate or who she is, "Yellowjackets" has by now totally disabused us of the notion that there's any chance its opening scene could be metaphorical or hallucinatory: the hunt is real now, and anyone could be its next victim.

"Yellowjackets" season 1 and 2 are now available on the Showtime streaming site.

Read this next: Every Yellowjackets Main Character, Ranked

The post Yellowjackets Season 2 Finale Keeps Us Guessing on a Question From the Beginning of Season 1 appeared first on /Film.

Are you stuck at home this weekend, while your friends and family are enjoying themselves out of town? Not to worry: You didn’t miss your chance at summer travel. In fact, you can get airfare as low as $59 one-way during S0uthwest’s current sale. Here’s what to know.

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This post contains spoilers for the "Yellowjackets" season 2 finale.

Wouldn't it have been funny if this article was just me writing "Yes" and nothing else? Alas, I love, honor, and respect the "Yellowjackets" fandom hive too much than to write a joke post under such a provocative headline, and if you've followed me at all as a "YJ" recapper, you already know that I feel a kinship to Vanessa "Van" Palmer (Liv Hewson/Lauren Ambrose) in some eerily specific ways. Simply put, there was no way I wasn't going to meticulously dissect every last morsel left behind of the season 2 finale to try and get to the bottom of what the hell is going on with Van.

In the '90s timeline, Van has had a bit of a complicated journey. She was initially all-in on Lottie's woo-woo tree-worshipping magical thinking, but after Shauna's baby dies, she starts to approach things more realistically. "I just think it's time we woke up," she told Taissa, who had just begun to buy into the supernatural possibilities of their circumstances. Van continually cheats death as a teenager, and it's difficult for her to understand or process why that keeps happening. The human mind hates ambiguity or uncertainty and will constantly try and seek out the answers to "Why?" If there isn't a concrete explanation, we become susceptible to anything or anyone promising answers. It's why so many people in their most vulnerable states "find God."

Or in the case of Van, worship the whims of the Antler Queen.

The Goalie Who Won't Die

If you've been fortunate enough not to be bombarded with a series of traumatizing events that should have killed you by now (LOL CAN'T RELATE), getting into the mind of Van Palmer might be a little difficult. For those keeping score at home: Van's oxygen mask wouldn't fall from the ceiling in the plane crash; she was on fire post-crash; she was on fire again as a wolf tried to make a treat of her face; she somehow avoided infection as her gnawed face healed; she has yet to be hunted for sport in the sacrificial lottery; she was the last one out as the cabin came crumbling down after (presumably) Coach Ben set it on fire; and she's now been diagnosed with terminal cancer as an adult.

This doesn't even factor in the systemic and social struggles she likely faced as a lesbian or any of the impending nightmares she'll surely face in future seasons. Hell, the character wasn't supposed to live beyond the first season but Liv Hewson's performance was so brilliant the showrunners decided to keep her alive.

Van has been through some s***, and without any answers as to why she's not been wiped out yet, she's got all the makings of someone who would willingly join a cult. While Lottie's "intentional community" in the adult timeline has all of the obvious signs of being just that, the wilderness whisperers of the teen timeline are just as cult-like, but a lot more barbaric. At the end of season 1, teen Lottie makes an offering to the wilderness in the form of a bear heart, and Van is right there behind her. She's always been Lottie's star acolyte and often serves as her mouthpiece. As the saying goes, old habits die hard.

Van's Belief In The Wilderness Entity

Before the hunt of the season 2 finale, adult Taissa, Shauna, Misty, Natalie, and Van are all seemingly in agreement that Lottie is deeply unwell and needs psychological help. They call a mental health facility to come and pick her up, but as Van and Taissa work on making masks for the group (with theirs resembling the ones they wore as teenagers during the Doomcoming celebration), she admits to having second thoughts. The others have grown up and tragically accepted that, as Shauna later says, "There's no 'it.' It was only us." Van, however, doesn't seem convinced. "We have all felt 'it' in our own way," she tells Taissa. Her words get through, and Taissa calls off the pick-up.

During the call, Van watches on with encouraging eyes. Lauren Ambrose says so much with her face without saying a word, an acting choice that Liv Hewson has been adopting with teen Van as the character becomes more tribal. As Taissa hangs up the phone with the mental health facility, Ambrose's eyes get wide and she nods with approval.

As Shauna shuffles the cards before the hunt, Taissa asks Lottie if they can all talk about what's really going on, and looks to Van for support. But Van is laser-focused on the task at hand. She's not going along with the hunt because they're perpetuating their cycle of enabling Lottie 25 years later, but because she seemingly still believes in it. When the hunt concludes and Natalie is tragically, accidentally killed by Misty, Lottie is whisked away to a mental institution, but not before looking up and telling Van, "We gave it what it wanted. It is pleased with us. You'll see."

Did Van Send The Postcards?

Lottie's words to Van, and Van's overwhelmingly relieved reaction, are vital. Van told Taissa that she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, but the rest of the group has no idea that she's dying. For Lottie to indicate to Van that she'll soon see the results of the wilderness entity getting what it "wants," Lottie was either informed of Van's diagnosis before the rest of the group or she really is attuned to the unexplainable.

Considering "Yellowjackets" is consistently subverting puzzle box show tropes by allowing the supernatural and the tragically ordinary to exist as one and the same, there are multiple directions the show could go with Van's story. Maybe Lottie is a conduit for the wilderness entity, or maybe she really is sick in the head. Maybe Lottie knew Van was dying because she had previous knowledge, or maybe she gave her the final look because Van has a history of being one of Lottie's most loyal followers and she wanted an ally before she was shipped off to a psych ward.

Regardless of what is really happening, it doesn't change the fact that Van still very much believes in Lottie and the power of the wilderness. This has birthed the very popular fan theory that it was Van who sent the postcards to all of the survivors in the hopes of a reunion, possibly working in tandem with Lottie to get them all together once again. When Van tells Taissa that she only has months left to live, making a sacrifice certainly sounds like a last-ditch effort by Van to cheat death once again.

Is Van a villain or someone still operating in survival mode? I guess we'll have to wait until next season to know for sure.

Read this next: Shows To Watch If You Miss Yellowjackets

The post Does Van Still Believe in The Wilderness Entity in the Yellowjackets Season 2 Finale? appeared first on /Film.

Joining the cast of "Star Trek: Picard" in its third season could be one seriously intimidating thing, as the core cast has worked together and known one another for more than 30 years. But English actor Ed Speleers found himself right at home. The performer plays Jack Crusher, the son of Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), making him the one who could possibly carry the torch for the cast of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" into the next generation. Thankfully, Speleers fit into the cast and world of "Star Trek" like he had belonged there all along, bringing a swashbuckling roguishness that "Picard" was lacking. But what was it like for Speleers personally, joining such an esteemed crew and being a part of such a monumental part of their story? About the same!

In an interview with Collider, Speleers shared his experiences filming the series, including a pretty great anecdote about when he first got to America and played a little trick on one of the office employees involving actor and director Jonathan Frakes. It sounds like there's a whole lot of Speleers in Jack Crusher and vice-versa, which is a bit of a casting miracle. 

Assuming The Captain's Chair

The interview discussed family at length, because not only are Jack and the La Forge girls introduced, but the crew of the Enterprise is its own found family. When asked about what it felt like being inducted into that family, Speleers shared how quickly he felt at home:

"Yeah, Jonathan Frakes took me under his wing very quickly. Very, very quickly. We have the same U.S. agent who's wonderful [...] Because he texted me saying, 'I knew you were coming onto set,' and everything. [...] I was in the production office and my family hadn't arrived yet, and I was trying to do loads of things to do with really boring stuff about getting set up in America, which was really frustrating me, but I needed to use an office, and it was a production office. The only office they could give me was Frakes' director's suite, and I basically sat down, and took a selfie of myself saying, 'This is my place now, mate. Basically, I'm running the show. You're no longer the director.'"

While Speleers was working on getting set up in the States and having a bit of fun in the bosses' office, someone from the accounts department came in looking for Frakes, and Speleers had a bit more fun, telling the poor employee that Frakes had been fired and he was now in charge. The worker bought it and Speleers had to tell them that it was only a joke. After all, who would fire Jonathan Frakes?

No Starfleet Hazing!

While Speleers might have faced some practical jokes or hazing of his own joining the series, he didn't recall any when talking with Collider, instead sharing the moments that he bonded over with various members of the cast. He shared that he and Marina Sirtis, who plays Counselor Deanna Troi, bonded over their shared love of the British football team Tottenham Hotspur, while he and Stewart had a lunch where they discussed their lives, acting, and the series. From what it sounds like, the elder Starfleet officers took the younger ones on like their actual children, helping to bring them into the "Star Trek" family in a very real way.

The younger cast of "Star Trek: Picard" might end up getting to have a "Star Trek" of their very own if showrunner Terry Matalas gets to create "Star Trek: Legacy," which would continue the adventures of Jack Crusher, Sidney La Forge (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut) and Captain Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan). Who knows, maybe in 35 years or so, some plucky upstart will borrow Speleers' director's chair and tell someone he's been fired. What goes around comes around, Jack! 

"Star Trek: Picard" is available to stream on Paramount+. 

Read this next: Every Star Trek Show And Movie In Chronological Order

The post Star Trek: Picard's Ed Speleers Convinced An Employee Jonathan Frakes Had Been Fired appeared first on /Film.

This post contains spoilers for the season 2 finale of "Yellowjackets."

After a season of bloodshed, drama, and some excellent dark humor, the sophomore season of "Yellowjackets" drew to a close last night with an extremely bittersweet twist. In the present day, the crash survivors gathered on Lottie's (Simone Kessell) compound for a night that started as a quasi-intervention and quickly descended into ritualistic violence. In the end, Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) drew the queen card that marked her as the women's prey, but it was Natalie (Juliette Lewis) who died when she jumped in front of Lisa (Nicole Maines) to save her from Misty's (Christina Ricci) syringe.

Nat's fate is heartbreaking, compounded by the show's existentially frightening vision of an afterlife where she sits on a nearly-empty plane beside the boy she couldn't save and the girl she once was. At the same time, though, we learn that before Nat lost everything, she actually did have a major moment of belonging and recognition in her life, when she was chosen as the new leader in Lottie's stead. As unnerving as the girls' wilderness-borne blood rituals are, there was an undeniable sweetness to the scene in which each girl pledged her loyalty to Nat (Sophie Thatcher) as her eyes brimmed with grateful tears.

'I Think The Group Is Going To React Terribly'

According to Thatcher herself, though, it seems unlikely that the newfound harmony will last. The Hollywood Reporter spoke with the actor in the wake of last night's bloody finale, and Thatcher revealed that there's one Yellowjacket in particular who she thinks could end up a threat to Natalie's throne. "I think it will mess up the group dynamic no matter what," Thatcher says of Nat's coronation. "And no matter what, it's going to be exciting." The actor notes that just because "there is a sense of accomplishment and that she feels seen, for once, for everything she's done," it doesn't necessarily mean Nat will embrace the role or fully take over as leader.

This especially makes sense in the context of the episode's big finish; the girls end up stranded in the cold night, watching their cabin burn after Coach Ben (Steven Krueger) apparently lights it on fire. It's not exactly the situation any new leader would want to inherit. While it's worth noting that the WGA writers' strike put a pause on season 3's scripts just as they began, Thatcher does still have some personal speculation about what the next chapter might hold. "I think she's going to try to hold onto that and wouldn't just completely dismiss or throw it away immediately," she says of Nat's new power, "But I think the group is going to react terribly."

Did Lottie Pick The Right Successor?

In particular, Thatcher points to Shauna (Sophie Nelisse), who we see working out her feelings about the moment in her diary in the episode, as a potential fly in the ointment. "I think there's going to be tension between her and Shauna, because Shauna obviously has endured so much and felt like she was the natural one to fall into that role," Thatcher tells THR. "I think it's just going to start more conflict." Plus, she says, Natalie doesn't have the same appeal that Lottie, confident and otherworldly, does. "Not that things were going well, but they had a leader that people agreed on and now everything is thrown out of sorts," Thatcher explains, adding, "People don't even like Natalie that much."

This is true, but Nat does have some qualities of a great leader: she's more grounded than the rest of the superstitious group, and she's a capable hunter. She's also clearly learned exactly who she doesn't want to be after Javi's death. Still, the tensions among the group make sense, especially if you abide by the popular fan theory that the show will crown four different antler queens by the time the team is rescued, in accordance with the four different queens in a deck of playing cards. Regardless of whether or not that foreshadowing pans out, "Yellowjackets" writers have a five-season arc planned, and the girls have many more months to endure in the wilderness. Thatcher is right: Nat's reign surely isn't going to be a peaceful one.

"Yellowjackets" season 1 and 2 are now available on the Showtime streaming site.

Read this next: Every Yellowjackets Main Character, Ranked

The post The Reign Of Yellowjackets' New Antler Queen Is Bound to Raise Tensions appeared first on /Film.

This post contains spoilers for the season 2 finale of "Yellowjackets."

It was only a matter of time before someone from the present-day storyline in "Yellowjackets" died, but that inevitability doesn't make it any easier to deal with. Yes, Travis was the first adult survivor to truly kick the bucket, but he died before audiences ever got the chance to know him. Meanwhile, we've been following adult Natalie (Juliette Lewis) for two seasons now; we've come to understand so much about why she is the way she is, and we've even come to hope that things could get better for her. It's nice that she got to leave the series on a redemptive note — saving another person's life instead of letting them die like she did to Javi — but it's still sad to see her go.

It helps that "Yellowjackets" doesn't just show Natalie dying — it gives us a glimpse of her journey into the afterlife. She's back on the plane, being comforted by both teen Lottie and Javi. It's not clear if this is a real spiritual experience or if this is just another hallucination, but as the show's argued plenty of times already, it doesn't really matter which. It's a comforting final moment for the character, helping to ease the blow of an inherently scary, heartbreaking situation.

But already fans can't help but wonder: Where was Travis in this hallucination? Like Javi, Travis is also a deceased character who has had a major impact on Natalie's life. Throughout the entire adult section of the show, Natalie's been focused on learning more about Travis' death and blaming herself for what happened. It makes sense to wonder why he wasn't there. The omission of his presence is so glaring, there has to be more to it. 

Ultimately, A Reasonable Decision

The simplest explanation is that Travis' inclusion might've been a little awkward, narratively speaking. If Travis was included in the hallucination, would he be the adult Travis who died at the start of the series, or teen Travis? From Natalie's perspective, adult Travis makes the most sense. Natalie's had an ongoing relationship with Travis post-rescue (something she hasn't had with Lottie), and it's been adult Travis' circumstances she's been most worried about. The problem is that viewers have never really cared about adult Travis, to the point where it likely would've taken us a moment or two to even recognize him.

If the show did decide to include Travis in the plane hallucination, it would've most likely been teen Travis. Would that have worked? Maybe, but it would've taken the focus away from Javi and Lottie, the characters Natalie's storyline has revolved around the most in the last two episodes. There's also the issue that Travis isn't a consistently comforting figure to Natalie. Javi has always been nice to her and Lottie's always tried to be supportive, but Travis has gone through several periods of sullen, closed-off behavior. There are three seasons to go and a lot more heartbreak to come, so maybe Travis and Natalie's relationship takes some even darker turns from here.

Most importantly, however, is that with Javi dead in both timelines, his relationship with Natalie is at an end. Meanwhile, Travis and Natalie are still a vital part of the teen timeline, a storyline the writers still want us to care about going forward. It might make sense for adult Natalie to say goodbye to Travis in her final moments, but for the show itself, this would be a premature farewell. The two's fates may be sealed, but their stories are still far from over.

Read this next: Every Yellowjackets Main Character, Ranked

The post Someone Was Missing from That Last Hallucination in the Yellowjackets Season 2 Finale appeared first on /Film.