In and Out of the Closet: Shauna and Tai

It might sound peculiar to consider pre-crash Shauna as being “in the closet” in the same sentence as Tai, but it’s not absurd; as we’ve been unpicking Shauna since the first episode, we’ve gained a sense of her teen self being deeply tucked away: when she talks with Tai, as an adult, about how their lives have turned out she explains what she had planned; take up the elite university offer that she’d received, and kept secret from everyone. Make art. Graduate and move to France. Have wild affairs. Things that her pre-crash self has kept a secret from everyone in her life, not even hinting at until her resentment at Jackie’s myopia erupts in the wilderness. She doesn’t even like football.

And after the crash it seems that she went back into that closet and stepped out wearing Jackie’s life. No elite university. No France. No wild affairs. Just marrying her dead friend’s boyfriend and having dinner with her dead friend’s parents and living her dead friend’s life.

Slam.

Tai is closeted in one way: pre-football Tai wasn’t interesting in anyone except maybe Van knowing that she’s a lesbian; she tells Van her reasons: it would be inconvenient for the life that she’s mapping out for herself. A life that, as she tells the story to Shauna, she got for herself. She went into the wilderness a closeted lesbian, she came out to her teammates while they ate one another in a more literal way, and then she flew home and took her girlfriend to Shauna’s wedding, and has lived her love life in the open ever since as she’s powered through law school, and business success, and into state politics. Out, and stayed out.

But is she? Because in the opener we see another side of Tai. Not just focused, but ruthless. She proposes injuring a team-mate to get her out of the way of the team. And when the others say no, she shatters her leg anyway. And we only see more of this side of Tai in the wilds - dark Tai. But dark Tai goes back in the closet when they come back from the wilderness.

But then Shauna meets Adam. And the affair starts, and the killing, and the skin-peeling speech. Dark Tai? She returns, too. Carving up the family dog. Eating dirt. Doing terrible things, beyond Tai’s normal ruthlessness.