by Alice-Ginevra Micheli, Contributing Writer
Lord of the Flies but teenage girls. That’s essentially the elevator pitch for Yellowjackets, and it’s certainly how anyone who watches it has been describing it for their friends. Add in a slight allusion — or at this point overt illustration — to cannibalism, and it’s certainly enough to intrigue any fan of psychological horror and survival tension.
However, we’re now well into the story of the soccer team from New Jersey, and start this season with the Yellowjackets at their breaking point — literally and metaphorically. As a quick recap as to what the last season put on show: In the ’90s teenage timeline, they succumbed to their baser senses (err… ate some people), fell deeper into believing in the personification of the wilderness, ostracized the only adult on the island, and had their cabin burned down by a mysterious perpetrator. In the adult storyline, some 20 years later, after falling in step with Lottie’s (Simone Kessell) cult, Natalie (Juliette Lewis) was accidentally killed by Misty (Christina Ricci), Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) has had to deal with the fact that her daughter has killed someone, and all the other survivors are just trying to get through the day.
So it’s no surprise that a pretty bad time is about to get a little worse. In this third season, a familiar face from the past suddenly resurfaces, throwing everything off balance. Quiet moments hit harder, and a shift is beginning to happen, even if no one wants to admit it yet.
We are now 60% of the way through the planned story of these survivors. Three parts into what is meant to be a five-part plan. Anyone who is familiar with what it’s like to consume these kinds of serialized stories knows that as a result, we’re likely entering the darkest, or least “happy” — for lack of a better term — point in time. Now of course, it’s also unlikely that a show about a bunch of people who survived horrors, only to face them again decades later, was going to be a warm and fuzzy experience, but oh, if this show didn’t take that assumption and turn the dial up to 10.
Going in, it’s important to know that what the audience is meant to experience in Season Three is hopelessness. Absolute tragedy in every form a human can take. This is especially emphasized by the fact that one of the few moral characters, who continues to be so in the young version of events, is now extremely dead. So watching a show where things that are dark are just getting darker and darker, knowing the one point of light has already been snuffed out, leaves one with a bit of a bitter taste in their mouth.
The real issue is that although the teen half is still intriguing due to their incessant persistence, the later adult half is starting to be a little dragged down and uninteresting. It’s not really evident where this is even going. Thinking back to what the storyline in Season One was, and all the different levels working in that, it’s very b-side to what had previously been a very exciting series of events.
While some questions do get answered by season’s end, it just feels as if it’s running out of steam as a whole at this point. Ultimately there’s still this giant question mark as to what the personification or “godification” of the wilderness even is — psychological trick, or actual paranormal activity — and how that is affecting people beyond time and space. Not even the late entry of another A-list face (a name that we’ll keep under wraps just in case those reading have yet to finish the show) can save what is a confusing and kind of plodding script at this point in time. It boggles the mind to think how they can possibly extend this by another two entire seasons, but as they say, all we can do now is trust the process.
While the adult storyline leaves something to be desired, the other is still going strong, with a full descent into anarchy, violence, and madness. What was before a tease of the base instincts of humanity being served has now devolved into a meaty exploration of mob mentality, guaranteed to shake even the most stalwart watchers to their core — especially considering some of the choices made by certain characters.
With that being said, the one part of both sides that is still working exceedingly well is the development of Shauna as a character. Both Lynskey and Sophie Nélisse continue to deliver absolutely stellar work as the teen and adult versions of the same character, emphasized by the fact that their sides are very clearly beginning to merge into something “other.” Few series show the development of antagonists in believable or satisfying manners, but this has been one of the more interesting ones put to screen in recent history. There’s definitely a love-to-hate aspect here, which is only made better by the subtle choices in character that upon later reflection reveal a lot more than was evident at the beginning of the season, or even the show as a whole.
The gore, the violence, the horror elements are still well and truly present in Yellowjackets Season Three. The intrigue, the mystery, the misery, and the conspiracy are as well. However, what started off as something that felt like it was building to an explosive end is now settling into a state of perpetual unease, with audiences likely preparing themselves for disappointment come Season Five’s end.
We can only hope that the creators actually know what they’re doing, and it’ll all make sense as the next couple installations of this story release. Right now, this reviewer is hopeful but ultimately worried.
Rating: It Was Just Okay
Yellowjackets is currently streaming on Showtime
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