And then Javi dies. The ice cracks open and he falls in as the weapon-wielding chasers catch up. “If you save him, the others will get you,” Misty tells Natalie as she draws her away from the hole. Natalie, realizing that Misty is right, stops fighting. Javi will become the next meal, we assume.
The legacy of these cannibalistic traditions bleeds into the present day action.
The contemporary scenes feature mostly a lot of exposition that we as an audience already know but the rest of the characters do not. After Shauna explains that Adam’s remains have been found, Van, not clued into the whole cover-up situation, throws away Shauna’s keys so she can’t drive home to Jeff. Lottie brings the group all into the “sharing shack,” which proves true to its name.
Shauna shares that Adam wasn’t actually blackmailing her before she murdered him, it was Jeff and Randy — and that she may also have shared too much with the police. (Speaking of sharing …) Tai shares that she was the one who hired Jessica Roberts (Rekha Sharma) to do research on her teammates to protect her political campaign. Misty shares that she kidnapped Jessica and then “took care of it.” And, of course, they all share how they helped Shauna cover up Adam’s killing. (We see the gruesome fruits of their labors in the images the cops show to Jeff in hopes of getting him to talk.)
After all these confessions, Lottie emerges with an idea and some beverages. One of the cups is spiked with phenobarbital. Lottie’s plan is another sacrifice. “We give it what it always wants,” she explains. “One of us.” Her rationale is that it — whatever it is — will help them survive the various travails they are enduring if they offer it another sacrifice.
She leaves who should die up to chance. That’s what the wilderness would want, she says. “We don’t get to decide,” she explains. “It chooses.”
But these women still seem to be doing a lot of projecting about what the “wilderness” is requesting — and, in turn, absolving themselves of any guilt related to their own actions. Natalie could have continued trying to save Javi, but she didn’t. That’s not the wilderness, that’s a choice. It’s Lottie who is presenting her friends with potential death. Not the wilderness.
Esther Zuckerman
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