YELLOWJACKETS Season 1 (November 2021)

YELLOWJACKETS Season 1

(November 2021)

“Something's coming.”

Now here’s a recipe:

 
Take a couple of chunks of Lost; the first, a plane crash; the second, a narrative timeline sliced into two, where we toggle back and forth between the crash and the mysteries and horrors of its direct aftermath, and 25 years later, where we see the survivors still dealing with all their shared, secret trauma.
Oh, and maybe grab some handsful of possibly supernatural craziness from Lost as well, and sprinkle that all over.
 
Then take a chunk of Lord of the Flies, and gender-reverse it, as we witness the trials and terrors of a girls’ high school soccer team who spend over a year and a half(!) out there in the wilderness doing shuddery, unimaginable things in order to survive.
 
Take a number of stand-out established actresses (Tawny Cypress, Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis, and Christina Ricci) and cast them as the adult survivors, then take a number of young and very capable up-and-comers--among them Jasmin Savoy Brown (The Leftovers and the current Scream) and Liv Hewson (Santa Clarita Diet)--to fill out the teen roles, some of which are of course, the younger versions of the aforementioned established actresses.
 
Then take a whole bunch of suh-weet needle drops and sprinkle those around too, and what you get, is Yellowjackets.
 
“Of course that’s how it ends. That’s all we are the whole time. It doesn’t matter; we’re just shells with nothing inside.”
 
The feeling has gone, only you and I
It means nothing to me
This means nothing to me
Oh, Vienna
--“Vienna”
     Ultravox
 
So yeah, on the way to Nationals, the Wiskayok Yellowjackets’ plane crashes in the depths of the Canadian wilderness, the inciting incident of this compelling and compulsive series, which, thanks to that dual timeline, is both a brutal and twisted coming-of-age tale, and an examination of women creeping up on middle age whose lives’ trajectories were forever altered all those years ago, out in those deep, dark woods.
 
And, just to assure you, lest you start to think this is all doom and gloom, let the records show that Yellowjackets has a sense of humor.
Sometimes dark and bleak and black, other times absurd yet somehow still emotionally resonant.
So yes, there are laughs, in betwixt the secrets and the mysteries, the blackmail and the blood and the… ummm… disturbing diet these girls may have had to resort to in order to survive.
And, speaking of surviving, that’s one of the key mysteries that drives the narrative: who exactly survived long enough to get rescued, and what exactly did they have to do to make it out of there.
 
“We won’t be hungry much longer.”
 
And if you bore me,
You lose your soul to me…
--“Gepetto”
     Belly
 
And did I mention the needle drops?
Aside from the ones that get quoted here, you can also savor tracks by Liz Phair, Kim Wilde, The Prodigy, Portishead, and Dinosaur Jr.
Yum!
 
And that theme song!
“No Return” indeed!
Brought to us by Craig Wedren and Anna Waronker (who also score the show), and wedded to that disturbo found footage credits sequence!
Chef’s kiss!
 
“I know what I saw. I don’t know what it meant… but I know I saw something. Something was out there with us.”
 
I think it’s strange you never knew…
--“Fade into You”
    Mazzy Star
 
So if all that smells enticing, then hey, you’re cordially invited to this scrumptious mystery box feast, with the Pilot episode directed by Karyn Kusama, and the season finale by Eduardo Sánchez, both names that have graced the ¡Qué Horror! Archives.
Kusama gave us The Invitation, while Sánchez was at the helm of ¡Qué horror! 2010 title Seventh Moon, 2012’s Lovely Molly, and the pre-online ¡Qué horror! Altered.
 
And don’t worry, ‘cause the show’s been renewed for a second season, so we’re at least assured of still more hijinx beyond the kookoo bananas craziness of this wondrously glorious first season.
Goooooo, Yellowjackets!
 
“What? There’s no book club?!”
 
Oh help me Jesus,
get through the storm.
I had to lose her –
to do her harm.
I heard her holler.
I heard her moan.
My lovely daughter –
I took her home.
--“Down by the Water”
     PJ Harvey
 
Parting Shot:
Yellowjackets has just received two nominations at this year’s Writers’ Guild Awards, for Drama Series and New Series.
Competition is stiff in both categories, so we’ll just have to see how things turn out on March 20, when the winners are announced.
 
Yellowjackets also gobbled up two nominations at this year’s Critics Choice Awards, one for Best Drama Series, and the second for Best Drama Actress (Lynskey).
Competition is likewise stiff over there, so we shall see on March 14 how the Critics Choice Association vote…
 
For what it’s worth, once more: Goooooooo, Yellowjackets!
 
“What if the truth is just that we’re all f*cked in the head from what happened to us?”
 
(Yellowjackets key art courtesy of amazon.com.)