WARNING! This article contains SPOILERS for Yellowjackets' season 2 finale, "Storytelling."Coach Ben finally takes extreme actions against the girls in Yellowjackets' season 2 finale, though his plan's failure seals his own horrible fate in season 3. By Yellowjackets season 2's ending, five people have died post-crash in the past timeline, including Laura Lee, Jackie, Crystal, Shauna's baby, and Javi. Jackie and Javi's deaths may not have been cold-blooded murders, but their demises were seen as gifts from the wilderness to provide the survivors with food. As the characters in Yellowjackets' past timeline descend into cannibalism, only one remaining survivor has yet to feast on human meat: Coach Ben, whose resistance to the teens' dark practices leads him to flee for the underground cave that Javi was hidden in.
Coach Ben has been shocked by the girls' actions since the crash, beginning with Misty chopping off his leg with no hesitation to save his life. Since then, Coach Ben has watched the team's descent into ritual sacrifice to "the wilderness" through murder and cannibalism, with his mind being kept away by visions of his boyfriend Paul. However, after seeing Javi's death, the teens' decision to eat his body, and Natalie - the only person he thought had similarly rejected these twisted brutalities - being crowned the new Antler Queen, Coach Ben takes drastic measures to end their violence in Yellowjackets' season 2 finale.
After returning to the cabin for matches because he's unable to start a fire in the cave, Coach Ben witnesses Natalie being bowed to as the new Antler Queen. Appalled that even Natalie has now embraced the harsh influence of the wilderness and "survival" tactics, the lone adult character tries to end the mayhem by setting fire to the cabin while the teens are sleeping. Shauna sees the fire blazing and rushes the rest of the survivors out of the cabin, where they gather their blankets, huddle together in the snow, and watch as their shelter slowly burns to ashes. While the fire yielded no casualties from the teens, Coach Ben certainly sealed his own fate in Yellowjackets season 3 with his failed homicide plan.
Coach Ben's inability to contribute to the survival of the teens made it somewhat shocking that he lived for so long given the girls' increasing proclivity for murder. While he may not be drawing a card for Yellowjackets' hunts, Coach Ben's actions now make him the biggest target for the survivors' next meal. The killings so far had been about survival and appeasing the wilderness, but the teens are so desperate and angry after nine months in the wilderness that revenge is certain to factor into their next sacrifice. Considering Coach Ben was the only character missing from the cabin, the survivors will put together that he took their matchbook and lit the shelter ablaze.
Related: Yellowjackets: Who Gets Eaten By The Other Girls?
After realizing that Coach Ben took their home, their warmth, and nearly their lives, Yellowjackets' survivors will more than likely hunt him next. Hunting down Coach Ben and killing him for revenge would also further the moral decay of the survivors in reference to their cannibalism, as his actions would likely make him the first character the teens don't feel extreme remorse about eating. In addition to revenge and sustenance, killing Coach Ben would also lead the survivors to their next form of shelter after the cabin. He's now hiding out in the caves where Javi survived Yellowjackets season 2's winter, which is apt to be the next location that the survivors call home.
Before Natalie's death in Yellowjackets' season 2 finale, adult Lottie hints that the six women - herself, Natalie, Shauna, Misty, Taissa, and Van - are the only survivors remaining from the wilderness in the present timeline. There's been much speculation about how many characters are actually rescued from the wilderness and, like in the case of Travis, how many died in the years since returning home. Despite the fact that Coach Ben had never been seen in the present timeline, there was hope that he could have been one of the few characters who survived the wilderness before going off the grid. However, his story set-up for Yellowjackets season 3 suggests he'll die long before the survivors are rescued.
While Ben is seemingly doomed to be hunted by the survivors in Yellowjackets season 3, he may stick around as the wilderness's villain instead of dying right away. Considering Javi is dead and Ben took the map that he made to the tree, it could take a while for the survivors to track him down and find the cave he's hiding in. During this time, the teens' anger at Coach Ben will grow as they suffer the remainder of the harsh winter without shelter or matches to start a fire. Once the survivors finally find Coach Ben in Yellowjackets season 3, their pent-up rage will likely lead to his death and cannibalized fate, thus explaining his absence from the show's present timeline.