‘Yellowjackets’: We Figured out Which ‘Pee-Wee’s Playhouse’ Episode Van and Taissa Were Watching

Yellowjackets may be packed with suspense and mystery, but a recent episode of Season 3 featured an intimate moment between Taissa and Van as they cozied up on the couch to watch an old VHS recording of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse – and we think we’ve finally found the episode.

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Yellowjackets Season 3, Episode 3, “Them’s the Brakes.”

The throwback moment to the nostalgic TV show came in Episode 3, “Them’s the Brakes,” as Tai and Van relaxed together after learning that Van’s cancer is shockingly in remission. Tossing in an old VHS tape and settling in together, the recently reunited pair watched what appears to be Pee-Wee’s Playhouse Season 3, Episode 2 (watch it here), “To Tell the Tooth.” In the episode, “Pee-wee has a doozy of a toothache, but refuses to go to the dentist,” though he discovers it’s not so bad after he finally garners the courage to go. Tai remarks as the clip plays that she watched the show “every Saturday morning at 9” as it aired on CBS.

As fans know, that episode of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse proved to be a major factor in unravelling one of the biggest Yellowjackets’ mysteries: the Man with No Eyes.

The mysterious figure first began haunting Taissa when she was a child, and at one point her grandmother, Nana Bassey, and re-emerged following the plane crash. However, it seems the Man with No Eyes has followed Tai out of the wilderness and into her adulthood, Tai seeing the figure after she and Van dined and dashed at a posh restaurant.

As she and Van reminisced while watching Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, the episode was interrupted by a commercial break with an old commercial for Ozzie’s Homemade Ice Cream Parlor. The advertisement features the slogan, “Our flavors will make your eyes pop,” as the Man with No Eyes appears onscreen getting ice cream, his usually empty eye sockets instead replaced with cartoon eyes that pop out.

It turns out that the Man with No Eyes is actually Ozzie’s Homemade Ice Cream Parlor’s mascot, and Tai theorizes she saw the ad as a child, the figure materializing as something far more sinister following her grandmother’s death.

Although the episode solved the origin of the Man with No Eyes, the figure is still shrouded in mystery, as Tai is not the only Yellowjackets teammate to see him. As teen Van, Shauna, and Akhila hallucinated in the caves while searching for Coach Ben, they also saw the Man with No Eyes pushing a cart in the school’s corridor, suggesting that something supernatural may in fact be going on.

New episodes of Yellowjackets drop Fridays on Paramount+ with Showtime.