showtime’s yellowjackets (2021 ‘til it inevitably falls apart)

caught up on this over the weekend and it’s filling the lost-shaped hole in my heart. is it perfect? no. am i loving it? yes

last night’s episode was my favorite yet, and was probably the first one where i cared as much about present day shenanigans as i did about the 1996 fiasco.

side note, how long has it been since christina ricci was used so well?

I was thinking of starting a thread on this and calling it 🎵I know you're a cannibal🎵

I'm only on ep 4 so will probably exit the thread, but since I graduated high school in 1996 I feel more or less obligated to watch this despite it being disappointingly inert at times (at least compared to the super-hooky opening)

Ricci is awesome though absolutely

I was thinking of starting a thread on this and calling it 🎵I know you're a cannibal🎵

lol. blown to hell, crash.

this is excellent, it pisses all over Lost

love this show even though some of the dialogue is painful - it's LOST for teenagers and burned out moms and I am both.

it took me a long time to figure out which 90s actress Jackie reminds me of, and it's Robin Tunney (who obvs should be cast as her older version IF the character survives).

the finale was pretty solid imo, just the right number of answers given and new questions raised

I haven't seen it yet, but this show has done a p good job of dealing with things that bug me. For ex, I found adult Jeff initially to be a huge drag--not sure if it was the actor or the character or both--but his anguished "What?! There's no book club?" was hilarious

Younger Nat is a ringer for young Jennifer Jason Leigh. Everyone is so well cast, and Melanie Lynskey is amazing, as usual.

xp
"it" = the finale

i thought melanie lynskey and the actress who plays her daughter were both outstanding but despite how stoked i was to see ricci and lewis and survival horror the whole thing felt horrendously padded out and it was unclear why i should care beyond the natural curiosity of needing to know who was wearing that necklace

i bailed after e... 5 i think?

yeah that's the inertness I mentioned earlier, typical "slow burn" approach that can be more aggravating than tantalizing. It does pick up quite a bit in the last third I'd say

lots of shows benefit from the traditional week-to-week approach, but yellowjackets feels like it’s better as a binge. i didn’t feel like the middle was so inert, but perhaps that’s because i watched the first 8 eps in two days lol

lol yes i can imagine that would have changed my attitude towards it.

I had a lot of fun with it. Now the big question…who plays adult Lottie?

who plays Lottie definitely a big Q. Lot of questions surrounding their rescue -- who remained, why'd they go their separate ways, how has Lottie remained, seemingly, under the radar...

apparently the creators are just going into writing mode now so it may be a long wait : (

Christina Ricci is having so much fun on this show, I love it.

I know I mentioned Robin Tunney as a potential adult Jackie, but she actually could play adult Lottie too. Or Neve Campbell, who’s just coming off the latest Scream instalment. I just feel this show needs at least one actress from The Craft lol

they could’ve gotten away with casting alicia silverstone as adult jackie

^

okay i'm going back in on this show. it's pure pulp, i SHOULD love it.

The excellent theme tune has reminded me to listen to Shudder to Think again.

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2021 season is nominated in the ILX TV poll, with voting ending this weekend:

ILX's Best Television of 2021 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends After January 31, 2022

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (3 minimum, 25 maximum, ranked by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail. It'll take five minutes; get to it!

“What? There’s no book club?”

okay I'm only two episodes in ... but ... this is like Lord of the Flies + How to Get Away With Murder ... I am also having (mostly enjoyable) flashbacks to being an alt-rock DJ in college re the soundtrack, and in a constructive way thinking, "this was popular in 1995 ... is that okay? People still like songs that are a year old, so, yeah?"

Maybe my high school was exceptionally clique-y, but the only music thing that rang kinda false to me was Nat participating in a group dance to "This Is How We Do It" with the normie kids

idk i kinda agree with you on that, at the same time, she also is on the soccer team with a bunch of normie kids. reminds me of my high school friend, Angela, who was "goth like me" but she also played varsity basketball, and did things to fit in with that normie crew.

also -- again, I'm only two episodes in -- but, Jackie def has that Alicia Silverstone privileged snobby girl vibe. Are we supposed to like her or be looking forward to the tables turning and her "influence" (as the coach cited when he told her why he made her team captain) wanes?

yeah her being on the team at all would have been odd at my first high school, but there were more "freaks" doing sports at my second one (which tbf is where I was in 1996).

I don't want to comment on Jackie since I've seen the whole season, but your ambivalence is the intended response imo!

all the characters are v ambivalent to me because they have no goals or pasts or achilles heels or grudges apart from the Great Mystery which we are supposed to care about

based on two episodes, here is where my sympathies lie:

Natalie - I'm a fan
Ty - I like her too
Jeff - dude just thinks with his dick and is dumb; i don't hate him enough to want him to suffer or anything, though maybe that's what we're supposed to think? idk
Misty - she's the walter white of this show, yeah (in that she breaks bad)?
Jackie - she isn't horrible but ...
Shana - idk, definitely ambivalent
the blond jesus girl - she's kinda supposed to be everyone's top pick to die next, yeah?
the tall girl with the rich dad who takes pills whose name I don't remember - no opinion
the red headed girl with the ponytail that Jackie was gonna let burn in the plane whose name I also don't remember - I like her

Misty - she's the walter white of this show, yeah (in that she breaks bad)?

misty is my favorite character in both timelines lol

Some of these characters get fleshed out a bit. Jeff doesn’t suddenly become a compelling protagonist or antagonist (no spoilers) but he’s def more interesting as the series goes on.

this show was pretty trashy but i enjoyed it. it's nice to have an entertainingly trashy show in the era of prestige TV. it was obviously modeled on "lost" but less pretentious and faster-paced.

one of my favorite threads was how realistically incompetent adult shauna is at doing sneaky tasks.

okay, i watched 3 more episodes yesterday (lol) ... impressed that they dealt with the girls having their periods, as that was one of the first things I thought about in terms of the premise "a bunch of girls get stranded in the woods for an extended period of time".

I'm starting to like Jackie more

was it intentional that the actor cast to play Adam looks like James Franco?

one of my favorite threads was how realistically incompetent adult shauna is at doing sneaky tasks.

― na (NA), Tuesday, March 1, 2022 9:59 AM (twenty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ha this is otm. When she called Pratt to see if Adam had actually attended, she apparently didn't even come up with a backstory prior to dialing the phone. Part of me was annoyed -- why would you not prepare?! -- and part of me thought, actually, yeah, it makes more sense this way (for the character, for the story).

i thought adam looked a lot more like michael raymond-james from terriers, maybe with a bit of the nickelback guy mixed in

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTQyNjU3NTQ2MV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMzEwODY0MDE@._V1_.jpg
https://www.tvinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/yellowjackets-108-adam-1014x570.jpg

don't see it!

everyone should watch terriers btw

terriers is great, AND Adam looks a lot like James Franco circa F&G

I last saw Franco in The Deuce so was a bit puzzled at first, but I can see it; the louche artist character he's playing also part of it I would guess!

okay i finished the season

Natalie - I'm a fan still a fan, super cute = the snack machine incident where she smashes it but only takes the one thing that she wanted (as opposed to taking all the snacks she could possibly want); also that she was the only one with the wherewithal to allow Misty to perform her "true calling"

Tai - I like her too still a fan; the ways she handles her relationships with both Van and Simone are cool, in that, she isn't perfect but not a total wreck. Like, she is real. Also she's a land use lawyer, so <3

Jeff - dude just thinks with his dick and is dumb; i don't hate him enough to want him to suffer or anything, though maybe that's what we're supposed to think? idk i do appreciate him standing up for Shauna with Jackie's parents, I was impressed. Still think he was probably fucking Bianca, or had made moves that way and that was part of the leverage the loan sharks had on him, because if I were a loan shark, I would totally implement multiple points of leverage.

Misty - she's the walter white of this show, yeah (in that she breaks bad)? omg, there is a whole feminist essay to write about Misty, in terms of comparing her to other tv anti-heroes like Dexter and Walter White.

Jackie - she isn't horrible but ... another feminist essay in terms of Jackie's downfall as compared to Ralph in Lord of the Flies.

Shauna - idk, definitely ambivalent still ambivalent, but I feel like she is kinda the "stand-in" for the viewer in a way, in that we would naturally try and determine what _we_ would do if _we_ were in that situation, and most likely we would do some stupid shit and not be the heroic/visionary ones, but we would survive, because, well, we're sitting here in front of the tv watching this show, right?

the blond jesus girl - she's kinda supposed to be everyone's top pick to die next, yeah? yep, she was the first to go.

Lottie the tall girl with the rich dad who takes pills whose name I don't remember - no opinion lol there's another feminist Lord of the Flies essay here

Van the red headed girl with the ponytail that Jackie was gonna let burn in the plane whose name I also don't remember - I like her still like her.

also, since this is ILX, can we talk about the use of Ultravox's "Vienna" in this show? Like, it was a recurring song, but it was the one recognizable song that wasn't from the early-mid 90s? Not complaining about the inconsistency. I also like the song a lot. But it stuck out to me, and because this is ilx, I don't think I need to explain why.

the show was also triggering college flashbacks for me (because of the music), and the Rumpshaker song at the reunion reminded me of the horrible freshman roommate I had for a few months (because I had to move dorms mid-year) who would basically play that song over and over again, and was like the antithesis of glowering goth me ... and she actually had some very Jackie-like tendencies tbh

The only thing that made me angry -- because it's a hacky cliché, because I love dogs -- is when Biscuit first appeared, I thought, "Goddammit. Dog in series = dead dog by end of series." It's like when a character coughs ten minutes into a show or a movie, that character's definitely gonna die. With Biscuit, I knew he was only there to be killed off. With all the pseudo-supernatural stuff happening, couldn't they at least make it a talking dog that becomes Tai's campaign manager or something?

yeah ... especially in the context of the wolf motif appearing around the same time as the dog ... i was thinking, that dog is gonna be dead because the dog will represent wolf in trauma brain. ... also when the dog is beloved by a small child ... that's double points against the dog's longevity.

a few other minor things:
1. when they first find the lake, Van yells "Hell yeah, bitches!" -- and that was an anachronism ... like, I don't remember that being a common thing at the time.

2. They've been stranded for months at one point, and Natalie seems to have done touchups on her hair, because by that point, her roots would have seriously grown in ... i mean, maybe there was bleach on site, or she brought something with her ... but ... otoh i can see them being attentive to hair and make-up on a regular basis because there really isn't that much to do? It could be a way of preserving "normalcy" or "civilization" ?

3. the thing with Natalie's hair (and makeup tbh) is in contrast to Tai, who cuts her hair short and in one scene we see that her armpit hair has grown in ... like, that's kinda what I would expect would be the norm

Yeah, that was another aspect that I had trouble with...granted, they had access to a lake to bathe in, but none of them looked like they'd been stuck in the woods for one month, let alone six or seven.

As for anachronisms, the diary of Jackie's that adult Shauna read had references to music and movies that would have come out post-1996...but with Jackie being dead, it's either a mistake (and a weird one for a series where clues are constantly teased) or she's not dead. And if she's not dead, then she got caught up on 1997 films and music pretty quickly after they were rescued.

oh yeah, I read some Vulture article that mentioned that ...

it also thought Adam was actually Javi, and that made no sense to me.

Jackie was sporting a lot of spotless white outfits after living in the woods for six months

Jeff finally delivers on Candlebox in ep2! i knew it would happen :D

I just binged both seasons over the course of a few days. It’s been a while since a show really sucked me in so compulsively. Yesterday morning I was watching the s1 finale and when I looked up again I was on to s2 e5.

Second season was, I guess, “pleasantly uneven.” I liked all the plot lines just fine but there was a dissonance between how funny/hijinks the modern day narrative is vs the harrowing flashbacks. When Lotte talks to the women about the darkness has followed them, I’m with the rest of the women in the room thinking “nah, it hasn’t.”

Glaring things that bugged me - what happened to the mobsters Jeff was dealing with? Was that seriously em entire plot line that occurred offscreen with no fallout? And what about Tai’s political career? I guess we are in that period between election and taking office but there is a deafening lack of interest in her whereabouts. Even at the end of the season there seems to be no acknowledgement from anyone that this public figure was just found in a woods with a woman who died of a drug overdose, another woman being checked into an institution, and whatever story that cop might have told.

I forgive the show for its laziness if only because it remains utterly watchable. I’ll certainly forget half the plot points by the time s3 rolls around.

I watched S3 episode 1 the other day … awww Misty and Nat’s jacket. I still have my 90s teenage leather jacket in my closet… it’s shredded and too small, but it’s one of my few keepsakes from my childhood/youth. And as I was falling asleep that night, I was remembering being on my high school tennis team. Idk if I would have been the equivalent of Natalie… there were definitely Jackie-esque bitchy girls .. and there was an equivalent of Misty that the bitchy girls kinda bullied — Jill. She was my doubles partner one year. She was kinda annoying but the bitchy girls were worse iirc.

Also <3
Tai & Van dine and ditch
Shauna and her daughter bonding over the visceral prank on the mean girls
Walter is totally growing on me …

Mari and the two other girls who are now more visible in this season… my first instinct was “yellowjackets redshirts”

show is still incredible watchable even when wheel spinning, which it is most of the time

lol sarahel that’s funny about walter growing on you bc i think i am growing more annoyed w him! <shrug emoji>

this show is bananas & i love it so much <3

I’m up to s2e2 of my rewatch and as far as I can tell this new girl they introduced in s3 is nowhere to be found, even in background shots. Honestly I’m not sure there many (if any) extra girls beyond the ones who regularly fit into the plot.

this her?

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/lostpedia/images/a/a8/NikkiS3a.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20101230110038

grrr

http://www.emagill.com/gallery/nikki.jpg

i assume that is a picture of nikki and paolo from lost

yes

I don't think I can ever look at Shauna after she veered off-road through a playground full of kids instead of PULLING THE FUCKING HANDBRAKE

As soon as she even hinted at her brakes not working, I was yelling "Use the emergency brake, that's what it's there for!!"

My gf said "Wait really?" sooo... she's not allowed to drive anymore

That's a secondary thing. It's designed for parking securely.

yeah, they're mostly parking brakes. you're going to get some drag but in some cars if you pop it all the way in, it'll just rip it off if you're going too fast

Finished my rewatch of the first two seasons plus the four available episodes of s3.

Overall glad I did, as the bingeable nature of this show has me much more invested in the new season since all these episodes are occurring in a fairly compressed time period.

My biggest complaint about the series though is the way it drops fairly major plot points. It always annoyed me that Jeff’s motivation for blackmailing the Yellowjackets was that he owed money to the mob… and yet no mobsters ever appeared in the show.

Now in the new season, I find it tonally off putting that Lotte has reappeared like some kind of wacky neighbor rather than the schizophrenic cult leader who attempted to arrange for Shauna’s murder. Also, Taissa keeps mentioning her wife but there seems to be NO sense of urgency to check in with her or her son. I know she’s cheating on her but her wife is in the hospital and her son is… by himself? With family? Isn’t he wondering where is mom is while his other mom is in the hospital??

Anyway, I’m still pretty sucked into the flashback portions and it’s sustaining me. And even when the present-day portions don’t make sense, at least the actors are fun to watch.

i’m constantly thrown by how often Jeff “yes-ands” Shawna when she is clearly out of her tree (ie rescuing the lookalike cat to fake out the owners)

like i kind of love Jeff for being the only almost sane person but even still

Jeff is such a dweeb. I assume Shauna’s “you must become who you were meant to be” plan involves dumping his lame ass, but I feel like he’s the edible paste keeping things together

He’s also become comedic relief. All that bingo stuff? Shows pretty silly but it’s still a lot of fun to watch.

yeah he’s good value imo even if he is a complete wet noodle lol

I generally give this show the benefit of the doubt when thinking about how tonally different the two time periods are. I mean it’s clearly an intentional choice. But I’m having an increasingly difficult time believing past and present Shauna are the same person.

Agree. Misty, on the other hand, is spot-on. And Lotte and Natalie are believable.

i dunno. I can’t say why exactly, but I dont have as much of a problem reconciling past & present Shawna. If anything her unhingedness as an adult tracks more and more with what we see of how she was in the wilderness, and how hard she is trying to repress it all. but also with how she feels like that was her best version of herself. like that’s the saddest part to me, like she is careening towards full breakdown but is only half-aware.

like she is playing whack a mole with her own psyche?

anyway i feel weirdly sympathetic, even though she is a fucking LOON

vince staples shared some thoughts on twitter

The Feds woulda been swooped down if it wasn’t for Misty Quigley and Shauna refuses to show gratitude.

Everyone woulda been rescued in season 1 if it wasn't for Misty. She's a legit psycho who will turn on you in an instant. I question the wisdom of anyone trying to "stay on her good side."

She also destroyed all threats towards the set let’s not forget that. Shooters shoot it’s in her nature Lottie was a bad leader let’s get to that. https://t.co/f3xa3gICGE

— vince (@vincestaples) March 24, 2025

Well I can't argue with that

Having just watched episode 8 I am no longer having difficulty believing past and present Shauna are the same person

Haha same

I'm just having difficulty enjoying her as any sort of protaganist.

I really want to see True Detective Season 5: Misty, Walter, and Shauna

groovypanda otm, I mentioned to a friend, "Hey, now we know that she was batshit crazy the whole time and we just didn't get the whole story"

Walter and Misty really deserve each other, they have so many parallels! Compare him cloning that phone and then wiping it before anyone else could look at it with Misty's sabotage way back in the beginning

YOU HAD THE TRANSPONDER THIS WHOLE TIME?!

I honestly would watch a whole series centered on Walter and Misty tbh

yeah def need a walter misty spinoff of weekly crimesolving

please everyone, get treatment for your trauma.
grownup women don’t need to be stabbing each other this often lol. but it does make for insane tv viewing

ep9 music was v good

feel like the inevitable falling apart prophesied in my thread title is happening

apparently most people have never seen the clip of juliette lewis, a professional in the industry for years, walking offstage during a yellowjackets panel bcs she resented where her character’s storyline was going due to the writing and misleading of the showrunners. pic.twitter.com/jLIl0rQyNM

— kristen (not crystal) yellowjackets shish-kabob 🍡 (@lordesbbqribs) April 6, 2025

she was huffy, sure, but it also seems like that was the end of the panel?

same with Morgan Wallen

I went back and rewatched season 1 episodes and I had forgotten how great adult Nat and Misty dynamic was …

man this season really has strayed from gods light ie s1

but teenage Shawna is kind of great in the finale episode

imo if it had to be 90s Aerosmith i would have preferred the final needledrop to be “The Other Side” …( or “Crazy” lol)
“Livin on the Edge” felt v captain obvious and kinda boring

Elizabeth Alsop wrote a good piece on Yellowjackets for LA Review of Books that i kinda like … she gets at what made the show good & where it has strayed

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/rebel-girls/

Yellowjackets doing an obvious needle drop? no way

TBF apparently they very much less-obviously dropped a track off the Cocteau Twins FIRST album a few eps ago!

lol yeah i guess obv needeldrops go w territory

Xp re the article— she totally enjoyed writing that imo … one of the things I really like about this show is how there are so many angles to approach it.

There was some medium article I read recently that also analyzed it in terms of feminist politics… the critic was angry that there wasn’t as much solidarity as she had wanted… Someone else could write a thorough piece about it in re capitalism. And another about religion and belief systems. And of course there’s the obvious discussion around trauma.

I kinda eyerolled at the LARB writer comparing it to Daisies and Claire Denis and Virgin Suicides … like congrats on being versed in film studies canon and making obvious connections. I’m not saying that destroys any value it has though… not at all … it’s not the nineties anymore lol. I’m not going to say, sorry I can’t respect anything you say because you didn’t mention Carrie or the films of Dario Argento … nineties me would have tho lol.

I was thinking maybe I was done with this for the first half of Season 3, but the arrival of the frog scientists really livened things up!

My heart still drops a little when it switches to the present day, despite the excellent cast.

I do sometimes wonder if it wouldn't have been better as a lean 2 seasons and done all set in the wilderness (Could cut out tedious cave hallucinations as well).