In a perfect world, the cute starving artist with whom we have a random meet cute would be exactly who they say they are. Alas, the women of Yellowjackets live in a world that is far, far from perfect. It's a world constantly on the fringes of cannibalism, where everyone is a liar, and secrets threaten to unravel everything good. That's why, when Shauna's boyfriend Adam insists that he's hiding nothing from her in Episode 8 of Yellowjackets, I think it's safe to say — not so fast. In fact, I think Adam might be hiding a huge secret: That he's secretly Javi, Travis' brother, and a fellow plane crash survivor.
The latest episode of Yellowjackets made Shauna question her love affair with Adam, who she initially met after the two got into a random (or maybe not so random) car accident. Callie, Shauna's daughter, pointed out that Adam has zero internet presence, which is pretty weird for an artist who presumably wants to sell their work. Shauna brushes aside Callie's fears initially, but upon stewing on them, realizes that her daughter probably has a point. She calls Pratt, where Adam says he got his art degree, and learns that he didn't attend at all. Whoops.
Adam is able to convince Shauna that while he did lie about Pratt — he says his girlfriend went there, and that he just wanted to impress her — he wasn't lying about anything else. Whether Shauna wants to believe this, or actually does, is unclear — until Shauna opens her safe and finds her journals, which detailed her time in the wilderness with the Yellowjackets, are MIA.
It may be easy to think that this means Adam is the blackmailer — but maybe Adam isn't lying because he's trying to blackmail Shauna. Adam secretly being Javi makes a whole lot of sense — and there are loads of tiny Easter eggs that suggest it could be true.
The most obvious one? The fact that Adam is an artist. Sure, he may not have gone to Pratt, but Adam isn't lying about his passion for art. One of the few things we know about Javi is that he is interested in art as well — earlier in the season, he tells Shauna that he needs to borrow the hunting knife to work on an "art project." It's a small moment, but it's an interesting line, given that he could have borrowed the knife for anything else.
It's not just art that Javi is interested in — he also seems to be particularly interested in Shauna, who, obviously, sees him as just a little kid. In fact, when Javi is searching for the knife in Shauna's bag, he also stumbles upon her diaries. If Adam really did take the diaries when he was hiding in Shauna's closet, that would be a direct parallel to what Javi did in the wilderness.
Yet the thing that really made me convinced that Adam could be Javi actually doesn't have much to do with Shauna at all. Instead, the clues come from scenes with Natalie, who is trying to find out who withdrew the money from Travis' account. Natalie is told repeatedly by the bank that she's not able to see who took the money out of the account because she isn't family. It could be a clue that the person who took the money out of Travis' account was a family member — aka, Javi.
If Adam is Javi, it opens up a few questions. Why don't the Yellowjackets talk about him if he's alive? Well, it's quite possible that Javi — who was still a minor when they were rescued — went totally off the grid, and perhaps even changed his name to protect himself from the media. Maybe the Yellowjackets even believe Javi is dead. This would explain why Shauna doesn't recognize Javi as an adult, and would work with how Adam doesn't have any presence online, despite having a driver's license — he wants to stay as under the radar as possible.
Adam secretly being Javi also suggests he has some motive for connecting with Shauna — that it wasn't just pure chance that they met after all. Could it be that Javi has been fixated on Shauna since their time in the wilderness? Could it be for some sort of twisted revenge? Is he the blackmailer?
Stay tuned...