[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers through Yellowjackets, Season 2, Episode 8, “It Chooses.”]It was clear that Liv Hewson’s Van was taking an especially dark turn in Yellowjackets Season 2, Episode 7, “Burial,” but who would have expected they’d be behind the most twisted card game imaginable?

In Episode 8, “It Chooses,” Lottie (Courtney Eaton) is on the brink of death after getting pummeled by Shauna (Sophie Nélisse). With Lottie fading fast and the entire group desperate for food, they decide they need to take matters into their own hands. As Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown) puts it, “We need to find a way to stay alive, and it can’t be her.” So in comes a new master of ceremonies — Van.
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Image via Showtime

No, we don’t see Van come up with the card game idea on screen, but during their Collider Forces interview, Hewson seemed pretty convinced that Van was the one behind it. Here’s what they said when asked if that particular way of choosing a sacrifice was Van’s idea:

“I kind of do. That’s an episode I haven’t seen the finished version of, but it’s like, ‘We don’t get to decide, the wilderness decides,’ cut away, right? So she’s thought about it. She’s thought about it a lot. And it’s like, she’s not listening to what any of them have to say because she doesn’t care because she knows what they have to do. She’s like, ‘No, you’re all behaving like children. This is so beyond any decision we make. It is obvious what’s going to happen now.’ So she’s thought about it, and she’s presenting it to the group as inevitable because to her, it feels inevitable because in this larger psychological sense, it is. So given that, the chore cards are something that they have all been doing for that long. I do. I do think it was her idea. Because when you cut back to her and she’s holding them up, it’s not like, ‘Oh, what should I do now?’ She’s like, ‘No, this is what the rules are.’”

Image via Showtime

With that mentality, it makes all the sense in the world that Van doesn’t flinch when Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) picks the death card and Shauna steps in to kill her. But, what if Taissa of all people had taken the queen of hearts? Would Van have been as eager to see things through? Hewson immediately replied, “No.” But would Van have stepped up and become the Travis (Kevin Alves) in this situation? Would she have stepped in to stop the ritual had Taissa’s life been at risk? Here’s what Hewson said:

“I don’t know. I really have no idea what would have happened. And I don’t think Van knows either. In the playing out of that scene, Taissa shows her and nobody else, and that’s on purpose. And it was just relief, really. It’s like, ‘Oh good, I don’t actually have to think about that,’ because I don’t think she’s ready to.”

Looking for even more from Hewson on their Yellowjackets run including a brief tease of what to expect from the Season 2 finale next week? Check out their full 50-minute Collider Forces interview below: