Yellowjackets
The Showtime series Yellowjackets was pitched to the producers as “Dazed and Confused meets the Donner party”, and while that definitely describes the show pretty well, I think there are much better pairings to describe it, such as “Lost meets I Know What You Did Last Summer.” But neither of those pairings can truly describe the show to a tee. It’s the kind of show you have to see to understand, but regardless, I’ll try and explain what this show is like.
The show centers around a high school girls soccer team that takes a flight for a national championship game, which ends up crashing deep in the wilderness in 1996. It follows these characters just after their crash, and the present-day survivors that were rescued and brought back to civilization. The girls were stranded in the wilderness for a total of 18 months, so when a few of the survivors are rescued, the public is very curious what happened out there, and how they survived.
This show perfectly mixes dark horror, compelling mystery, great comedic acting, and a unique coming-of-age drama into an irresistible show that drew me in slowly but surely and smothered me until I finished the first season. The cast is amazing, especially the lead actress, Melanie Lynskey. Her dramatic range in this show is wonderful! She could really draw laughs out of me, as well as make me fear her and sympathize with her in a strange way that not many main protagonists can pull off in a show.
The rest of the older cast is great as well, including Christina Ricci, Juliette Lewis, and Tawny Cypress. But the younger versions of these characters are played by surprisingly talented young actresses as well. Sophie Nelisse plays a great young version of the main character, surrounded by Sophie Thatcher, Ella Purnell, Jasmine Savoy Brown, and Courtney Eaton. There is more, but those are the highlights. As you may have noticed, this cast is almost all girls, and is co-created by a woman, Ashley Lyle, along with her husband Bart Nickerson. You rarely see a horror show with a nearly all female cast. This is a wonderfully diverse cast, that all give different strengths and additions to the series.
The series’ creative team, which consists of the husband-and-wife duo alongside Jonathan Lisco (Showrunner of Animal Kingdom), does a wonderful job at keeping you intrigued. Is there something supernatural going on? Is this character good or bad? Will this character survive this episode or not? These questions and many more flooded my mind throughout the first season. I think the question of if a character is bad or good is a very prevalent one in the show. Every character is flawed deeply, and I love that. Everyone seems to be bad during one episode and good the next, and the cycle repeats. That isn’t because of inconsistent writing, but more due to a different perspective in each episode.
Personally, the first season of this show is everything I want from a show. Many shows like this have a great first season but go downhill from there. But I would like to talk about the second season, because its first episode premiered Friday March 24th, and I have watched some episodes to suggest if season two will live up to season one's standards.
So far, I am two episodes in, and based on the first two, I think this season has serious potential. There are parts I don’t like, such as some newer cast additions that don’t fit very well, and some characters that I just can’t get into following. But overall, what I love about this season is that the tone is shifting to even darker places than previously. I believe the ending of the second episode will be a seminal moment for the show, in retrospect. It perfectly incorporates a song from the 90s era the show takes place in half the time, Radiohead’s Climbing Up The Walls, in a scene that I personally will be thinking about for weeks to come. It gave me goosebumps, in not only an “oh wow…that’s super cool” kind of way, but also an “oh wow… that’s horrific” kind of way.
As a horror fan, I love that. The first season had moments like that too, but I’m very happy this season is continuing to shock and wow me, in a much more graphic fashion. Premium television is best known for HBO’s line up of instant classics, but I would argue that many of their shows released in the past decade have a very polished feel, and while that's often great, it is refreshing to watch a premium show that has a more hands on feel, like Yellowjackets. While Showtime is definitely behind HBO in the race for viewers’ attention, I think Yellowjackets perfectly exemplifies why HBO needs competitors that are constantly pushing what premium television can be, and what it can feel like. The show is already greenlit for a third season, so you don’t have to worry about it ending too soon. Watch this show now, before the season finale airs on May 14th, so you don’t miss another water cooler moment the show might give us and be sure to spread the word!