i just. there's something Wrong with these woods and there's something Wrong with these girls. there was always something Wrong with these girls, it was there before the woods and it remains after they've left. is there magic in the world, in the woods, that these girls have tapped into and been transformed by? is it just mental illness and trauma? is it both? does it even matter? there's something Wrong in the woods. there's something Wrong in the world. it'll destroy you either way.

DEATH IS SUDDEN IT IS UNEXPECTED ITS UNDIGNIFIED IT IS IT UNBEFITTING IT IS NOT PLANNED IT IS NOT CHOREOGRAPHED IT CANNOT BE RESCHEDULED IT CANNOT BE ORDERED AROUND IT CANNOT BE TOLD NO IT CANNOT BE THREATENED IT CANNOT BE FIRED YOU CANNOT THROW MONEY AT IT. IT DOES NOT BEND TO YOUR WILL, IT JUST HAPPENS: NOT WITH A BANG BUT WITH A WHIMPER

my brain is mush because i just woke up but after watching 2.03 i think lottie really is a good spiritual and community leader regardless of how terrifyingly unorthodox her methods are. and some of the scenes here did a rly good job establishing how she may have developed this strange complex and persona. the girls openly debating on her seemingly prophetic nature, many of them believing she possesses real abilities. the girls laying the 'blessings' at her feet without being asked to, so that she could offer them to the altar as the spiritual leader. the closing scene with the bees went a long way in showing what has needed to be seen since 4.01, that lottie is still just as traumatized and suffering and dealing with all of it as the other survivors. that her persona is a front, that she does care about the members of her totally-not-a-cult community, that she is aware of her illness and knows she is not an oracle. or maybe she thinks the beehives are a vision of what's to come. either way i'm obsessed with lottie again, and although i didn't initially like the direction they took with her survival, this episode puts on full display the reason for it - she never went back to normal like the others, not fully. for lottie matthews, life never stopped being centered around survival in the woods

sorry for girlblogging but i cant stop thinking abt this. lottie's genuine 'gifts', her talents, her decisions. the way she can never use them properly. i grieve for her. the way she comforts those in distress so easily (travis, her psych ward roommate). the way she is so free of judgment. the way she stands up for the downtrodden. the way she accepts everyone, regardless of what they have to say about her. the way she creates safe environments. im grieving so hard for lottie that she could never channel this energy into a normal life, as a counselor of some kind or any kind of supporting/caring profession. she could never leave the woods. even when her body returned home, the person she had become was in those woods and even after having the schizophrenia (mostly) shocked out of her head she still went back. she knew that's where lottie really was, that she could never be anywhere else. she couldn't live any other way. it's stockholm syndrome, it's the stunted growth we've seen in every woman who survived the crash