Image from the Thriller television series, “Yellowjackets.” Photo available via https://gamerblog.ir/mystery-horror-shows-like-yellowjackets, CC0 1.0
“Yellowjackets” Background Information
“Yellowjackets” is a thriller-action show, available on Netflix or Paramount +. This show follows the story of a New Jersey girl’s soccer team on their journey to nationals. However, on their way to their soccer national championship in Seattle, their plane crashes and they become stranded in the Canadian mountains, where they stay lost for the next 19 months. Eventually, the girls on the team grow so accustomed to living like animals they resort to cannibalism, and turn on each other.
This show took the internet by a storm, with fans sharing their opinions and theories on what will happen next. The final episode of season three previously aired on April 13 leaving viewers on a cliffhanger until next season. One of the most interesting aspects of the show is that it switches between the past and the present. The past being 1996, the time when the girls were teenagers, and the present being 2021-2025, now with the girls as adults. As the show goes on, more details about their experience in the wilderness and the lifelong effects the group faces begin to unfold.
Thought-Provoking Plot Ideas
Another interesting aspect of the show is whether the show is paranormal or if the team’s detachment from society affected their sanity. Select plot points in the show explore the possibility that certain spirits in the woods are haunting the team, while others explain the oddities that happen due to long-term isolation.
For example, season one episode five titled “Blood Hive,” shows the team finding a cabin a couple miles from the crash site, and they set up camp there. They explore the cabin’s attic, in which they find the skeleton of the man who once lived there. Later in the episode, the window in the attic slams shut by itself while the girls are trying to contact the spirit of the previous owner. Moments after this happens, one of the girls on the team, Lottie, begins speaking in French, acting in a way which seems possesed. This is one of the first hints of possible paranormal activity. However, viewers later learn that Lottie is schizophrenic, so that could explain her actions.
Alongside Lottie remaining un-medicated, the girls slowly start to go crazy, believing that the wilderness deemed them the chosen ones. One of the most popular theories is that the girls contracted some type of disease from eating each other. As well as this, viewers speculate they contracted coal mine poisoning, both of these diseases affect one’s sanity.
Character Analysis and Complexity: Misty
All of the characters in Yellowjackets are very complex. At one point or another, they all exhibit controversial behavior, but the show has multiple flashbacks from the pre-crash that explain a lot of their behavior. For example, right after the plane crashes, Misty, the team equipment manager, rushes around the crash site, helping any girls who sustained injuries. Excluding Misty, all of the other girls are in a panic, and are unable to help out the team. Later in the episode, Misty leaves the crash site and destroys the plane’s emergency transponder, which eradicates the chance of someone finding them. The first impression of Misty’s actions is poor, but there is later evidence to a reason Misty destroyed their potential rescue.
In a flashback, Misty receives a prank phone call from two anonymous girls, who call Misty names and laugh at her. Perhaps the reason why Misty acted in such a way is because of the emotional isolation she feels from the rest of the team. Originally, Misty is a shy and awkward character, but she eventually opens up to be a deeply insecure person, who sometimes acts rash. She is caring towards the rest of the team, but likely feels resentment towards all of them due to her lack of emotional connection, feeling disconnected from the girls. However, it could be justified as Misty just trying to fit in.
Character Analysis and Complexity: Laura Lee
Another interesting character is Laura Lee, a quiet and kind member of the team, whose actions likely postpone the ramifications of Lottie when she is un-medicated. When the girls are at the cabin, Laura Lee baptizes Lottie, which encourages her to keep pushing through without her medication. Laura Lee also finds an old plane near the crash site, and she studies the guidebook for how to fly it for weeks. Unfortunately, in an attempt to find help and save the team, she tries to fly the plane, which results in her death. After her plane explodes, it is a turning point for the rest of the girls, as it seems that Laura Lee’s death affected Lottie deeply, acting as her final straw.
Worst of All?
Unlike Laura Lee and Misty, Shauna is arguably one of the worst characters, despite being one of the main characters. Even pre-crash, Shauna acts in a malicious manner, partaking in heinous things, including an affair with Jeff, who is Jackie’s boyfriend. In the first episode, Jackie comes off as a stereotypical popular girl, as well as the captain of the soccer team, who Shauna clearly envies. In the end of season one, Jackie discovers the affair since their rendezvous had resulted in a pregnancy.
Shauna and Jackie get into a fued, which ends with Jackie sleeping outside. The next morning, the girls are awoken with a surprise that it had snowed the night before. They immediately rush outside, seeing that Jackie had frozen to death, which was objectively Shauna’s fault. Even after Jackie’s death, Shauna is still haunted by her betrayal. Shauna continues to talk to Jackie’s corpse, hallucinating a conversation with her. Even in the adult timeline, Shauna shows a lot of immaturity and jealousy, as if she is still 17. This is likely due to the fact that traumatic events can cause a person to revert to the emotional maturity of the age when the event happened.
Cast Selections
As well as a very compelling plot, Yellowjackets exhibits a phenomenal cast. Cast members worthy of mention are the likes of Melanie Lynskey as adult Shauna Shipman, Sophie Nelisse as teen Shauna, Tawny Cypress and Jasmin Savoy Brown as adult and teen Taissa Turner, and Ella Purnell as Jackie Taylor. Many of these A-levels actors have won awards for their performances in Yellowjackets, including The GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Drama Series, and The Satellite Award for Best Genre Series.
Thoughts From the Media
Be it the past or the present, everyone on “Yellowjackets” is still lost. The eerie and propulsive second season of Showtime’s horror thriller takes the characters deeper into the literal and emotional wilderness as they struggle to survive myriad dangers: a harsh winter, a police investigation, and the vise grip of trauma that refuses to be ignored. In both timelines, the “Yellowjackets” continue to barrel forward in search of escape, and the journey remains compelling — though there are a few worrisome signs that the writers are not quite sure where their true destination lies,
Kristen Baldwin from Entertainment Weekly, said.
