Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for ‘Yellowjackets’ Season 2, Episode 5.In Season 2 of Yellowjackets, we are introduced to Jay (John Paul Reynolds), a man who weirdly flirts with Shauna’s (Melanie Lynskey) underage daughter in a bar. We soon discover Callie (Sarah Desjardins) is not interacting with a sexual predator but with a cop named Matt — but while this revelation should put us at ease, Matt’s actions are still disturbing. That’s because, to get new information about Adam’s (Peter Gadiot) murder, the cop is willing to seduce a teenage girl without warning his superiors. So, in short, Matt is not on an official undercover operation, but he still decides his sense of justice is more important than the rules, which is why he decides to act like a creep. That would be bad enough if the flirting with Callie were a one-time investigation strategy, but as the latest episode of Yellowjackets shows, Matt is a terrible cop and not so different from the people he’s chasing.
Matt Is a Creepy Cop in ‘Yellowjackets’
In Yellowjackets Season 2, Episode 5, we learn that Matt is still going on dates with Callie, disguised as Jay. That is an obvious red flag, as he knows Callie is an underaged girl who desperately wants to sleep with an older man to get back at her family. Instead of pushing Callie again, Matt keeps teasing her, hoping to extract all the information he can to help build a case against Shauna. This behavior, while deplorable, could at least be somewhat explained if Matt were officially undercover. However, as we know, he’s going rogue and throwing his work ethic in the trash can.
As expected, Callie discovers the truth about Jay/Matt after snooping into his wallet. The problem is that Callie is now an accomplice to Adam’s murder because Shauna is the worst and has told the truth to her daughter. So, of course, when Callie finds out Jay is actually Matt, the cop, she panics and tells a farfetched story about how her mother is cheating on Jeff (Warren Kole) with Randy (Jeff Holman), her father’s best friend. Callie plans to confuse Matt, making him drop his correct assumption that Shauna was sleeping with Adam. In reality, all she does is fabricate misinformation to elude a police officer, another crime for her growing list of mistakes.
To cover her tracks, Shauna decides to use Callie’s lie instead of confessing to save her daughter — because, again, Shauna is the worst. So, the whole family comes up with the ludicrous idea of Shauna visiting Randy alone in his hotel room and asking the helpless man to ejaculate in a condom. Sadly, Randy can’t perform as intended with such mystery and pressure weighing over him. So, he fills a condom with body lotion and throws it in the trash.
Matt and his partner Kevyn (Alex Wyndham) watch Shauna enter Randy’s room and leave a while later, wondering if they were wrong about the woman’s affair with Adam. But since Matt is a sore loser who refuses to let small things like the law stop him from being right, he decides to break into Randy’s hotel room. Matt doesn’t have a warranty. Still, if he’s willing to seduce an underage girl, a simple door is not going to stop this terrible cop. And just to underline how uncanny Matt’s actions can be, once he finds Randy’s used condom, he smells it to detect its content. Sure, we could say his sharp instincts allowed him to see through Shauna’s deception. But there must be a better way to be a detective.
Matt is so persuaded that the ends justify the means that he’s willing to break the law. That’s not unlike what Misty (Christina Ricci) and her paranoid Citizen Detective friends do, ignoring other people’s privacy and justifying their actions as a necessary evil for the greater good. The problem is that Misty is obviously unstable, while Matt is a law officer who should lead by example. Cops must always play by the book. Otherwise, they risk becoming thugs. And in Matt’s case, his determination to manipulate Callie might push him to cross some dangerous lines.
As soon as Matt realized Callie was lying to him, he got the perfect opportunity to back down and go after Shauna through legal channels. Instead, he promises to destroy Callie in some sort of petty revenge. The next episodes of Yellowjackets will reveal Matt’s fate, but the odds are definitely not in his favor. And when Matt does everything he can to act like a jerk, we can’t help but hope he gets what he deserves.
New episodes of Yellowjackets Season 2 premiere every Friday on the Showtime streaming app and every Sunday on-air.
