by Chantal Ashford, Contributing Writer
I caught up just in time to be ready for the Season Two premiere of Yellowjackets. I was hearing so much raving about the show, even from friends, so I was intrigued and fell into the wasp nest. Season One had me hooked, and Season Two had me strapped in my seat, ready to go.
At the end of Season One, were left with Shauna (Melanie Lynskey), Taissa (Tawny Cypress), Natalie (Juliette Lewis), and Misty (Christina Ricci) cleaning up a murder, before Natalie was kidnapped from her hotel room by a mysterious group. Taissa won the senate race, and in the past, the girls lost their teammate Jackie (Ella Purnell) from freezing while sleeping in a winter storm. But this is just the beginning of these ladies’ worries.
Season Two introduces a citizen detective played by a funny Elijah Wood, the past still haunting their present, a teen pregnancy, cannibalism, a murder investigation, a mental health compound (a cult), and the return of adult Van (Lauren Ambrose) and… Lottie (Simone Kessell)?
This season opens up more on the story — whereas the first season is the introduction, in Season Two, we finally see what these young women are capable of in the wilderness, how the crash molded them into the women they are now. Still affected by the trauma from 20 years prior, Shauna, Taissa, Misty, Van, Natalie, and Lottie are brought together once more to stop whatever they brought back with them.
The surviving team deals with the darkness surrounding them in the woods, trying to understand what is real and what is not. They must figure out how to survive without months of food, and deal with the harsh winter. Our group must struggle, fight, and overcome to survive another day.
The days become rougher; the weather becomes harsher; the food is scarce; and pregnant Shauna has to deal with her pregnancy while the adult Shauna has to deal with the death of her lover; Taissa’s marriage is trouble in paradise; and Misty tries to find where on Earth Natalie is.
It can be a lot to follow the interconnecting storylines if you’re not paying attention to what happens in the past and the present. I know I had to keep focus, because if I looked away once, I missed a critical piece of information. It’s better to not have any electrical devices around you.
Including other teenage characters is a bit of a misstep. They come across as fillers to give a little more to the scene, and I didn’t know any of their names, except for Crystal. We just can’t have the primary survivors out for 18 months and survive for the show to work.
The leading ladies and their teenage counterparts are always the standouts, though. I would love to give the casting directors a round of applause as well because, WOW, they are perfect — they carry the weight of the show. They’re the reason to tune in every Friday (or Sunday, if you got cable) to find out what they’ll be going through next.
My standout episodes are Episode Six, “Qui,” and Episode Nine, the season finale, “Storytelling.”
In “Qui,” Shauna goes into labor, and the group has to figure out who will deliver this baby. With no medical equipment or any running power or water, they have to work with what is around them. That isn’t much, but they have to work fast before possibly losing the mom and the baby.
Sophie Nélisse, as teenage Shauna, is a force in this episode. She has to fight to stay alive, not only for herself but for her baby. They don’t have a clue if they ever going to survive this journey, let alone be able to take care of another mouth to feed. The actors show expressions from scared to nervous about what’s to happen when a child is brought into this strange world — a world they’re not accommodated to. Shauna has to deal with loss of her best friend Jackie, and to get through this delivery. There’s a crack in the reality in this episode, and that is all I’m saying. There just has to be an Emmy nod coming in Nélisse’s direction.
In “Storytelling,” in the past, the Yellowjackets are enduring another day as the team deals with another incident, which freaks out Coach Ben (Steven Krueger), allowing him to realizing the girls are a danger. In the present, adult Lottie believes the wilderness is asking for another sacrifice between the six, and if they give the wilderness what it wants, the women will be free of their past. Van, Natalie, Taissa, Misty, and Shauna play along with Lottie, but believe their old friend may need help herself. We watch these women battle with their past, which slowly deteriorates their present. With the choices they make, they realize their outcomes aren’t the best.
Unfortunately, Season Two ends on a wild note, and we don’t know where we will see our Yellowjackets in Season Three. How will they survive the winter without their only shelter? When will they be rescued?
Season Three will have the answers. So time will tell, and I mean that since the WGA are still on strike. We may have to wait for a while.
Score: 8/10
Yellowjackets is currently streaming on Showtime
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