Like most hit shows, Yellowjackets last produced new episodes two years ago, due to the writers’ and actors’ strikes in 2023. There might not be quite as much anticipation of Season 3 as there was of Season 2, given the mixed reaction Season 2 got. But there are still a lot of juicy stories to be told among both the lost teens in 1996 and their adult counterparts in 2021.
YELLOWJACKETS SEASON 3: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A teenage girl is running through the forest, as if she’s being chased.
The Gist: We’re in the Canadian wilderness after the 1996 plane crash carrying the Yellowjackets, a high school soccer team. They’ve gone through their first winter and suffered some losses, along with finding that eating their classmates will keep them alive. The girl that’s being chased, Mari (Alexa Barajas), is actually playing a game with the rest of the girls in the group. There’s two teams; whoever gets to a central point with a bone in their hand wins for the team.
Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) has had an especially tough time in the woods, having had to live through the death of her friend Jackie (Ella Purnell, not in the cast for Season 3) and a baby from a surprise vacancy, not to mention the supposed attacks by Coach Ben (Steven Krueger) that got him exiled, and the fact that their cabin burned down. She hates that Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) has ascended to lead the girls, but seems to let people like Van (Liv Hewson) and Lottie (Courtney Eaton) run the show. Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown) tries to be an ally, but Shauna is making things difficult.
Back in 2021, we’re getting the aftermath of what happened in the woods with the adult Lottie (Simone Kessell). Nat (Juliette Lewis, not in Season 3) is now dead, and Misty (Christina Ricci) is still struggling with the fact that she plunged the phenobarbital pen in Nat’s chest. Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) is concerned about what her daughter Callie (Sarah Desjardins) saw in the woods and how it’s affecting her, but seems more sanguine about it than her husband Jeff (Warren Kole) does. But he’s also busy asking Callie if she’s “smoking chronic” like it’s still 1992.
Van (Lauren Ambrose), who has cancer and doesn’t have a lot of time left, is staying with Taissa (Tawny Cypress), who wants to restart what they lost when they were a couple in the woods. At first, Van isn’t interested, but then after Taissa takes her to a fancy restaurant, a dine-and-dash situation brings them back together. One problem: Taissa thinks she’s being watched. Second problem: Someone ends up dead that night.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? We keep comparing Yellowjackets to “Gossip Girl meets Lost meets Lord Of The Flies,” and that continues to be the case.
Our Take: It feels like most of the story momentum of Season 3 of Yellowjackets will be on the teenagers’ side of the ledger, if the first episode is any indication. A whole lot of things happened to both the teenage and the adult versions of the Yellowjackets in the second season, but as the third season begins, it feels like the shows’ creators, Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, are treading water a bit.
Yes, there are still secrets that the adult Shauna and others are trying to keep, like the death of Adam Martin (Peter Gadiot). Misty is away from the group as she mourns what happened to Nat; she doesn’t even go to Nat’s very short funeral. Walter (Elijah Wood) is there to support her, but he seems to be getting too close for her comfort. She’s also doing things that are uncharacteristic of her, like getting drunk and confronting a man in a bar who said “nice jacket” to Misty, referring to Nat’s old leather jacket.
Other than that, though, we’re not sure where the adult story is going. Yes, it does seem like they’re being watched. Is it Lottie, who was committed after the ritual that left Nat dead, or one of her purple-clad minions? Is it someone else? We’re just not sure.
The teen versions of these characters are now fully in Lord Of The Flies mode, somehow building a village and providing for themselves after the cabin burned down, and we’re starting to see how Shauna became the most cynical and angry of the group. There does seem to be a threat or two out there, one of which may not be of this earth, but the other threat is very earthly: Coach Ben, who is still alive. We can imagine that, with Nat being a capable but passive leader and Lottie’s schizophrenia continuing to go untreated, things will get worse for the girls before it gets better, which is what we want to see.
Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode.
Parting Shot: Coach Ben, after finding military supplies in the woods, sets a trap, but what he catches isn’t a wild animal. As the trapped victim screams, we hear the strains of Cake’s version of “I Will Survive.”
Sleeper Star: We like Lauren Ambrose as the adult version of Van, because she somehow can joke around despite the fact that she’s in pain and doesn’t have long to live.
Most Pilot-y Line: Sometimes the show’s needle drops are a bit much. The scene with the adult Van and Taissa goes from Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now” as they run out of the restaurant to Bush’s “Glycerine” as they rekindle their love for each other.
Our Call: STREAM IT. We’re sure that the storytelling of Season 3 of Yellowjackets will even out as the season goes on, but it really feels like we need to see more of the teens than the adults at this point, and that imbalance is pretty evident in the first episode.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Yellowjackets’ Season 3 On Showtime, Where The Teens Are Fully In ‘Lord Of The FIies’ Mode appeared first on Decider.
