Yellowjackets Season 1

 2021 - Showtime - 10 episodes
Created by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson

The trailer, I have to admit, was enticing. A high-school girl's soccer team's plane crashes in remote wilderness, location unknown, and they're forced to survive. But also, that was in 1996.  In the modern day, a few of the remaining survivors, including Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci, and Juliette Lewis are having their past probed by a reporter, and nobody's talking...yet.

Great casting, an intriguing spin on Lord of the Flies, and the images from the trailer looked impressive (with director like Karyn Kusama, Deepa Mehta and Billie Woodruff on board, it's bound to be shot well), but I didn't sign on right away.  I hesitated.  Why? Because I thought I had it all figured out.  I thought for sure it was just going to be updated Lord of the Flies (as that what we expect when kids are left to survive on their own) but with cannibalism (as that's what we expect when sports teams crash in remote locations).  I didn't expect the modern day with its bigger name stars to be much more than a framing sequence.

Yellowjackets debuted to a little acclaim in its initial release in November, but as the series went on, it picked up more and more viewers and critical attention.  The buzz (pun intended) was good, real good.  I didn't pick up on anything specific from the buzz, except to say that people were surprised, and enthralled.  It became a week-to-week show that generated much noise on the internet.  Somewhere in the early days of January, just as the penultimate episode aired, we started watching (after a recommendation from friend and regular reader Shaun), and binged the first season over a few days.  It's good, real good.

It opens strong, with a young woman (her face never clearly seen, I tried real hard to look) running through wintery woods, completely inappropriately dressed.  Too much exposed flesh, no shoes.  Clearly panicked, she runs, only to fall into a disguised spike pit.  A fur-wearing masked individual looks down upon them.  That's the first 2 minutes.

We're introduced to the soccer team in 1996, regional champions going to the National Finals in DC.  We get a rapid sense of their dynamics, though there are a lot of girls, so it's hard to know which ones exactly will be come important.  We meet the 2021 (non-pandemic reality) version of Shauna (Lynskey) who is a housewife, completely dissatisfied with life.  Her husband appears to be having an affair, her daughter is an entitled asshole, and that rabbit keeps eating her plants in the garden (she later kills, cooks and makes stew of the rabbit). Tawny Cypress plays the adult Taissa, who is running for state senate with the support of her wife, but is distracted by her troubled son, and her opponent keeps insinuating things about her survivalist times.  Adult Natalie (Lewis) is just getting out of rehab, again, and instantly jumps off the wagon.  She's getting harder and harder the older she gets, but also more self destructive. And then there's Misty (Ricci) who was an outcast in high school and is still an outcast in adult life.  She's perpetually perky to an unappealing degree, which hides her psychopathic tendencies. 

As reported in the commercial, a reporter starts digging around, looking for the story that 25 years later still remains untold.  But there's more to the reporter than she seems.  And a mysterious invitation sent to some of the survivors leads to a possible murder of yet another survivor.  And then there's the charming and mysterious artist/mechanic who "accidentally" rear ends Shauna and pulls her out of her suburban funk.  Taissa's revelations start to strain both her campaign and her marriage. Natalie and Misty become a reluctant duo (mostly due to Misty's intervention) and things get warped.

But back in 1996, the first episode ends with the plane crashing.  Before that we learn that Shauna was sleeping with her best friend's boyfriend, and this relationship between Shauna and Jackie is one of the key focal points of the season.  In the woods over the next four or five months of survival (of an 18 month stint) thing fracture and fray between them until it reaches a breaking point.

Taissa in the past also has a best friend/girlfriend, Van, but Taissa's proactive nature winds up putting them, and a few of the other girls in danger.  And then there's the problem of her sleepwalking...

Misty in the past is the only one with any sort of first aid training, and reveals her competence quickly.  As appreciated as her skills are (and as necessary as they are) she just makes everything weird and awkward at every turn... especially with Coach Ben, the only adult survivor whom she's infatuated with (and starts to Phantom Thread him).

Natalie's past was traumatic enough, and it seems like more trauma just piles on top of her.  But when she proves herself to be the best marksman of the group, she's paired with Travis and they form a thin, yet unbreakable bond.  Travis and his brother Javi both survived the crash, but their father was killed.  Their brotherly bond is a rough one, but it's clear Travis knows he needs to look out for his timid younger sibling.  

Other key players include Laura Lee, the deeply Christian one and Lottie whose medication runs out and starts having "visions" which just weird everyone out.

What I thoroughly enjoyed about Yellowjackets was not just it's two-tiered approach to storytelling (which, yeah, acts like Lost in reverse) but also how it didn't choose the expected path.  Though the young women may have individual bones to pick with each other, they never threaten to fracture into two warring tribes.  Tensions may rise within the group, but also many of them are dispelled through sympathy and conversation.  It really does take into account that these are women, and not boys, and that there's a much different tone to how they interact.  Women use words (and silence, and emotions) to hurt each other, rather than physical violence.  The injection as well of two boys and an adult also really change up the dynamic nature of the entire group.  Very, very little of this played out as I would expect.  And if you were thinking, like I was, that there would just be high-school girls getting picked off every episode or two, well, beyond the first episode there's only, I think, two deaths in the woods, and not how you would think.

The present day is absolutely sodden with the traumas of the past that each of the four women we follow are saddled with.  They each cope in their own way - Shauna avoids the world, Taissa just keeps moving forward like a freight train, Natalie is deep into self-medicating, and Misty kind of seems to be having a good time in spite of everyone being totally weirded out by her.

The show hints as a bit of paranormal or mystical, but almost every instance has a pretty grounded truth to it, save for Lottie's visions.  It could have easily went into very specific horror tropes of having found a malevolent, infectious force in the woods that they then brought home with them, but no, it's all really just about survival, the horrors experienced along the way (wolves and bears and oh my), and the trauma that follows.  Even the insinuated cannibalism...still isn't exactly confirmed.  It's all but confirmed.  But the modern day survivors were definitely responsible, even if indirectly, for some deaths.

Season one gives us a lot to chew on, and really just hits home the characters and their dynamics both in the past and present.  What it doesn't give us is any answers to what ultimately happened.  The two deaths this season were accidental, so we're left to ponder what happened to the rest of them?  I can't wait to find out.

I should also note it has the best opening credits of 2021 (2022's best opening credits award is already locked down by Peacemaker).  Even after the full first season, it's a dizzying display of warped and haunting imagery, accompanied by the Hole-esque growl.  The song "No Return" is by Craig Wedren and Anna Waronker,  from the rock bands Shudder to Think and That Dog, respectively. They also composed the score for the season.