I have finally made time for the excellent Showtime drama series, Yellowjackets. All the critical praise this show received, along with a Critic’s Choice win for the lovely Melanie Lynskey, is totally deserved.
Sure, did I maybe have a morbid curiosity about a plane wreck that killed many and stranded the rest for just over a year and a half? Yes. But, I was curious too to see how the survivors integrated back into normal life. Even more interesting was to see them some 25 odd years later. The show did a nice job of cutting between those two time periods, as they played in well with the current day storyline. It was strange to see really how little these people had actually changed. Yes, you can lie and make the outside look presentable, but the tragedy and trauma they endured likely stunted their emotional growth considerably.
The show opens with the 1996 version of our main characters. We interact a little bit with their current lives, but the crux of their situation stems from a flight to Seattle for a national soccer championship game. They never make it though, as their plane goes crashing into the middle of some mountainous area. After coming down from the shock of what happened, along with the deaths of the flight crew, teammates, and their head coach, they all pull together to survive the night. Then that night turns into a few days, then weeks, then months. It doesn’t feel like too much time at all has passed before all the girls realize they might be stuck out there forever.
They manage to find a cabin near a lake and take up house there, soon finding a rhythm to the predicament they find themselves in. That is, except for captain, Jackie. She’s sure someone is coming sooner rather than later and doesn’t manage to pull her weight. Several of the girls argue, some get attacked, and some die in other tragic ways, but most of them learn to adapt the best they can. Of course other wrenches are thrown into their stay. One being that their other coach, Ben Scott, has half of his leg mangled and amputated, and Shauna learns that she is pregnant with Jackie’s boyfriend, Jeff’s baby. Without giving too much more away about the past, let’s jump into the future.
As middle-aged adults now, we get to see the vastly different lives of Shauna, Taissa, Natalie, and Misty. Shauna was all around well liked back in the day, but has slid into a mundane and boring life with Jeff and their daughter, Callie. Things heat up for her when she meets Adam after a fender-bender, and the two quickly start an affair. I think she wouldn’t have done so, but was convinced Jeff was having an affair of his own. Taissa seems to have a picture perfect family, really succeeded educationally after getting rescued, and is now running for state senate. As the season progressed, I felt a really dark energy from her, so she might be the most sinister of the bunch. There’s a scene in the last episode that is crazy disturbing!
Next there is Natalie, who’s sort of always struggled with drugs and alcohol and we meet her on her last day at rehab. She immediately falls back into drinking, but is determined to find Travis, who was also stranded with the team at the time. She begrudgingly gets helped by Misty who is kind of evil in so many subtle ways, but she’s always under the impression that she’s helping. Christina Ricci did a fabulous job playing her, and I would love to know in future seasons what happens with her and what more gets revealed about her time stranded in the mountains. These four women get back together when they find out they’re being blackmailed. They reluctantly work together to find out who’s behind it and manage to do some bad things, although I think in their minds, nothing will be as bad as what they did during that 19-month period after the crash.
There’s still so much story left to be untangled in the past, and while some things can be inferred, I’d love to see how they all came to play out. By the end of the season, schizophrenic Lottie is introduced in the present day, so that will be all sorts of fun to see next season. You read that right! This engaging drama pretty quickly got picked up for another season, and I can’t wait to see it! Literally so much happens over the course of Yellowjackets‘ ten episodes that you’ll just have to watch to get it. I promise it’ll be worth your time.