showtime’s yellowjackets (2021 ‘til it inevitably falls apart)

caught up on this over the weekend and it’s filling the lost-shaped hole in my heart. is it perfect? no. am i loving it? yes

last night’s episode was my favorite yet, and was probably the first one where i cared as much about present day shenanigans as i did about the 1996 fiasco.

side note, how long has it been since christina ricci was used so well?

I was thinking of starting a thread on this and calling it 🎵I know you're a cannibal🎵

I'm only on ep 4 so will probably exit the thread, but since I graduated high school in 1996 I feel more or less obligated to watch this despite it being disappointingly inert at times (at least compared to the super-hooky opening)

Ricci is awesome though absolutely

I was thinking of starting a thread on this and calling it 🎵I know you're a cannibal🎵

lol. blown to hell, crash.

this is excellent, it pisses all over Lost

love this show even though some of the dialogue is painful - it's LOST for teenagers and burned out moms and I am both.

it took me a long time to figure out which 90s actress Jackie reminds me of, and it's Robin Tunney (who obvs should be cast as her older version IF the character survives).

the finale was pretty solid imo, just the right number of answers given and new questions raised

I haven't seen it yet, but this show has done a p good job of dealing with things that bug me. For ex, I found adult Jeff initially to be a huge drag--not sure if it was the actor or the character or both--but his anguished "What?! There's no book club?" was hilarious

Younger Nat is a ringer for young Jennifer Jason Leigh. Everyone is so well cast, and Melanie Lynskey is amazing, as usual.

xp
"it" = the finale

i thought melanie lynskey and the actress who plays her daughter were both outstanding but despite how stoked i was to see ricci and lewis and survival horror the whole thing felt horrendously padded out and it was unclear why i should care beyond the natural curiosity of needing to know who was wearing that necklace

i bailed after e... 5 i think?

yeah that's the inertness I mentioned earlier, typical "slow burn" approach that can be more aggravating than tantalizing. It does pick up quite a bit in the last third I'd say

lots of shows benefit from the traditional week-to-week approach, but yellowjackets feels like it’s better as a binge. i didn’t feel like the middle was so inert, but perhaps that’s because i watched the first 8 eps in two days lol

lol yes i can imagine that would have changed my attitude towards it.

I had a lot of fun with it. Now the big question…who plays adult Lottie?

who plays Lottie definitely a big Q. Lot of questions surrounding their rescue -- who remained, why'd they go their separate ways, how has Lottie remained, seemingly, under the radar...

apparently the creators are just going into writing mode now so it may be a long wait : (

Christina Ricci is having so much fun on this show, I love it.

I know I mentioned Robin Tunney as a potential adult Jackie, but she actually could play adult Lottie too. Or Neve Campbell, who’s just coming off the latest Scream instalment. I just feel this show needs at least one actress from The Craft lol

they could’ve gotten away with casting alicia silverstone as adult jackie

^

okay i'm going back in on this show. it's pure pulp, i SHOULD love it.

The excellent theme tune has reminded me to listen to Shudder to Think again.

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2021 season is nominated in the ILX TV poll, with voting ending this weekend:

ILX's Best Television of 2021 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends After January 31, 2022

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (3 minimum, 25 maximum, ranked by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail. It'll take five minutes; get to it!

“What? There’s no book club?”

okay I'm only two episodes in ... but ... this is like Lord of the Flies + How to Get Away With Murder ... I am also having (mostly enjoyable) flashbacks to being an alt-rock DJ in college re the soundtrack, and in a constructive way thinking, "this was popular in 1995 ... is that okay? People still like songs that are a year old, so, yeah?"

Maybe my high school was exceptionally clique-y, but the only music thing that rang kinda false to me was Nat participating in a group dance to "This Is How We Do It" with the normie kids

idk i kinda agree with you on that, at the same time, she also is on the soccer team with a bunch of normie kids. reminds me of my high school friend, Angela, who was "goth like me" but she also played varsity basketball, and did things to fit in with that normie crew.

also -- again, I'm only two episodes in -- but, Jackie def has that Alicia Silverstone privileged snobby girl vibe. Are we supposed to like her or be looking forward to the tables turning and her "influence" (as the coach cited when he told her why he made her team captain) wanes?

yeah her being on the team at all would have been odd at my first high school, but there were more "freaks" doing sports at my second one (which tbf is where I was in 1996).

I don't want to comment on Jackie since I've seen the whole season, but your ambivalence is the intended response imo!

all the characters are v ambivalent to me because they have no goals or pasts or achilles heels or grudges apart from the Great Mystery which we are supposed to care about

based on two episodes, here is where my sympathies lie:

Natalie - I'm a fan
Ty - I like her too
Jeff - dude just thinks with his dick and is dumb; i don't hate him enough to want him to suffer or anything, though maybe that's what we're supposed to think? idk
Misty - she's the walter white of this show, yeah (in that she breaks bad)?
Jackie - she isn't horrible but ...
Shana - idk, definitely ambivalent
the blond jesus girl - she's kinda supposed to be everyone's top pick to die next, yeah?
the tall girl with the rich dad who takes pills whose name I don't remember - no opinion
the red headed girl with the ponytail that Jackie was gonna let burn in the plane whose name I also don't remember - I like her

Misty - she's the walter white of this show, yeah (in that she breaks bad)?

misty is my favorite character in both timelines lol

Some of these characters get fleshed out a bit. Jeff doesn’t suddenly become a compelling protagonist or antagonist (no spoilers) but he’s def more interesting as the series goes on.

this show was pretty trashy but i enjoyed it. it's nice to have an entertainingly trashy show in the era of prestige TV. it was obviously modeled on "lost" but less pretentious and faster-paced.

one of my favorite threads was how realistically incompetent adult shauna is at doing sneaky tasks.

okay, i watched 3 more episodes yesterday (lol) ... impressed that they dealt with the girls having their periods, as that was one of the first things I thought about in terms of the premise "a bunch of girls get stranded in the woods for an extended period of time".

I'm starting to like Jackie more

was it intentional that the actor cast to play Adam looks like James Franco?

one of my favorite threads was how realistically incompetent adult shauna is at doing sneaky tasks.

― na (NA), Tuesday, March 1, 2022 9:59 AM (twenty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ha this is otm. When she called Pratt to see if Adam had actually attended, she apparently didn't even come up with a backstory prior to dialing the phone. Part of me was annoyed -- why would you not prepare?! -- and part of me thought, actually, yeah, it makes more sense this way (for the character, for the story).

i thought adam looked a lot more like michael raymond-james from terriers, maybe with a bit of the nickelback guy mixed in

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTQyNjU3NTQ2MV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMzEwODY0MDE@._V1_.jpg
https://www.tvinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/yellowjackets-108-adam-1014x570.jpg

don't see it!

everyone should watch terriers btw

terriers is great, AND Adam looks a lot like James Franco circa F&G

I last saw Franco in The Deuce so was a bit puzzled at first, but I can see it; the louche artist character he's playing also part of it I would guess!

okay i finished the season

Natalie - I'm a fan still a fan, super cute = the snack machine incident where she smashes it but only takes the one thing that she wanted (as opposed to taking all the snacks she could possibly want); also that she was the only one with the wherewithal to allow Misty to perform her "true calling"

Tai - I like her too still a fan; the ways she handles her relationships with both Van and Simone are cool, in that, she isn't perfect but not a total wreck. Like, she is real. Also she's a land use lawyer, so <3

Jeff - dude just thinks with his dick and is dumb; i don't hate him enough to want him to suffer or anything, though maybe that's what we're supposed to think? idk i do appreciate him standing up for Shauna with Jackie's parents, I was impressed. Still think he was probably fucking Bianca, or had made moves that way and that was part of the leverage the loan sharks had on him, because if I were a loan shark, I would totally implement multiple points of leverage.

Misty - she's the walter white of this show, yeah (in that she breaks bad)? omg, there is a whole feminist essay to write about Misty, in terms of comparing her to other tv anti-heroes like Dexter and Walter White.

Jackie - she isn't horrible but ... another feminist essay in terms of Jackie's downfall as compared to Ralph in Lord of the Flies.

Shauna - idk, definitely ambivalent still ambivalent, but I feel like she is kinda the "stand-in" for the viewer in a way, in that we would naturally try and determine what _we_ would do if _we_ were in that situation, and most likely we would do some stupid shit and not be the heroic/visionary ones, but we would survive, because, well, we're sitting here in front of the tv watching this show, right?

the blond jesus girl - she's kinda supposed to be everyone's top pick to die next, yeah? yep, she was the first to go.

Lottie the tall girl with the rich dad who takes pills whose name I don't remember - no opinion lol there's another feminist Lord of the Flies essay here

Van the red headed girl with the ponytail that Jackie was gonna let burn in the plane whose name I also don't remember - I like her still like her.

also, since this is ILX, can we talk about the use of Ultravox's "Vienna" in this show? Like, it was a recurring song, but it was the one recognizable song that wasn't from the early-mid 90s? Not complaining about the inconsistency. I also like the song a lot. But it stuck out to me, and because this is ilx, I don't think I need to explain why.

the show was also triggering college flashbacks for me (because of the music), and the Rumpshaker song at the reunion reminded me of the horrible freshman roommate I had for a few months (because I had to move dorms mid-year) who would basically play that song over and over again, and was like the antithesis of glowering goth me ... and she actually had some very Jackie-like tendencies tbh

The only thing that made me angry -- because it's a hacky cliché, because I love dogs -- is when Biscuit first appeared, I thought, "Goddammit. Dog in series = dead dog by end of series." It's like when a character coughs ten minutes into a show or a movie, that character's definitely gonna die. With Biscuit, I knew he was only there to be killed off. With all the pseudo-supernatural stuff happening, couldn't they at least make it a talking dog that becomes Tai's campaign manager or something?

yeah ... especially in the context of the wolf motif appearing around the same time as the dog ... i was thinking, that dog is gonna be dead because the dog will represent wolf in trauma brain. ... also when the dog is beloved by a small child ... that's double points against the dog's longevity.

a few other minor things:
1. when they first find the lake, Van yells "Hell yeah, bitches!" -- and that was an anachronism ... like, I don't remember that being a common thing at the time.

2. They've been stranded for months at one point, and Natalie seems to have done touchups on her hair, because by that point, her roots would have seriously grown in ... i mean, maybe there was bleach on site, or she brought something with her ... but ... otoh i can see them being attentive to hair and make-up on a regular basis because there really isn't that much to do? It could be a way of preserving "normalcy" or "civilization" ?

3. the thing with Natalie's hair (and makeup tbh) is in contrast to Tai, who cuts her hair short and in one scene we see that her armpit hair has grown in ... like, that's kinda what I would expect would be the norm

Yeah, that was another aspect that I had trouble with...granted, they had access to a lake to bathe in, but none of them looked like they'd been stuck in the woods for one month, let alone six or seven.

As for anachronisms, the diary of Jackie's that adult Shauna read had references to music and movies that would have come out post-1996...but with Jackie being dead, it's either a mistake (and a weird one for a series where clues are constantly teased) or she's not dead. And if she's not dead, then she got caught up on 1997 films and music pretty quickly after they were rescued.

oh yeah, I read some Vulture article that mentioned that ...

it also thought Adam was actually Javi, and that made no sense to me.

Jackie was sporting a lot of spotless white outfits after living in the woods for six months

they could still eat it?

i may like this show even more now that it’s very uneven and is seesawing between being an bad melodrama and being completely fucked and gross

irl lol, sarahell

at this point i'm like, making the mental list of characters that we haven't seen in the present day and imagining why

I think that breaking the 4th wall and staring at the camera feels manipulative and cheap in this instance, scene was powerful enough w/o it and that final shot just irredeemably cheapened it for me

i think for me, it was like, we know the baby didn't make it ... it's really just about when it died and how and did it become food. ... i guess i found that whole piece of the story (the pregnancy) not all that inherently interesting, because there is a whole subgenre of horror about it (or multiple subgenres, depending on who is categorizing) ... like, i think at one point i even thought they might do a "dingo's got the baby" callback re a wolf ...

I don't know much about this show, or at least I've stayed spoiler free beyond the broad plane crash/Lord of the Flies setup, but I couldn't make it through the first episode. Just didn't like the writing or acting, really. It just felt so ... mildly edgy teen show? Is this one of those series that gets better, or is it one of those guilty pleasure shows?

I don't know if it's a good show or a bad show but I will never stop watching it

Interesting.

I'd honestly listen to arguments from both sides but man do they go there and then some

it is fun, don’t think about it too hard

it feels like a slightly more uh grounded (?) version of Riverdale ie ott emotional melodrama - i love it

OK, that explains it a bit. I guess I was expecting something more serious and not something like Riverdale. I'm not a fan of soapy/campy/trashy melodrama, teen or otherwise, no matter the degree of paranormal or sci-fi or mystery or survival or whatever (way back when I think I saw a little over a season of "Lost" before I moved on), so maybe it's just not for me. Like I said, I thought the half an episode I watched with my wife was pretty bad, and while she finished the episode, she told me she is in no real hurry to continue. So I guess we need to find a new show!

big lol at Jeff listening to NWA outside the police station, he's so ridiculous. every one of his line readings kills me

I totally cracked up at that

yeah the needle drops for jeff are a+ hilarity

next up on Jeff's playlist: Rage Against the Machine "Killing in the Name Of"

dying for them to bust out some Candlebox for Jeff

lol!!! they could probably have a whole social media campaign around the soundtrack of Jeff

"last resort" was hilarious and accidentally appropriate.

cut my [dead, accidentally cooked friend] into pieces, this is my last resort

just watched the finale and the ‘90s needle drops have got to stop, pls make it stop, or give us an all Chili Peppers episode next season

also lol @ them killing off the least annoying adult character, next season is gonna be even worse than this season? lmao

i honestly don't understand why anyone would choose that mediocre Live song to nostalgically dance to ... though the use of that Cranberries song, honestly, in context, that was possibly the most affection I've ever felt for that song. ... and more soundtrack opinions ... while thematically appropriate, Killing Moon was an 80s song that ... was used twice in this episode and idgi, even though I have much love for it.

As far as endings go ... Natalie's death I realized that I much prefer the teen version of her, like she is seriously the best. ... so although sad, I felt a bit relieved. I would have been more devastated if Misty had been killed ... adult Misty is seriously the best ... teen Misty is also a joy

Agree with all of this ^^^

i like this show so much i followed it on Insta lol ... I also have the desire to assign astrological signs to the characters ...

doit doit

xpost lol I’m not following the show but I got accidentally spoiled about who was killed after Christina Ricci and Melanie Lynskey both posted long tributes to them on IG.

i seriously get nightmares after watching ... it's very cathartic

a lot of this season didn’t make sense to me esp the walter of it all but I still for some weird reason find myself completely caught up in it and not bothered?

i like how van seemed to suddenly get very onboard w lottie again once they were like, IN it … nooo don’t commit her we made her etc i get it but i dunno how letting her run around w a bowie knife is ~better~ for any of you but you do you van

bummed about the loss of (spoiler) but interested in where it goes now

real talk: coach is my least favorite character is it bad that i wanted him to jump off the cliff

also the way they crowd the frying pan with meat is criminal, like jesus you’ll fuckin steam the meat it’ll taste even worse lol

agree that coach is the worst - I really wanted them to eat him already lol

this show is bad imo, but fun to watch. love young nat and misty, and all the silly jeff+shauna+daughter hijinks, christina ricci is also hilariously goofy in this

and yeah the soundtrack was particularly obnoxious in that finale... cranberries + radiohead + buffy sainte marie + two versions of Killing Moon, jesus

idk i kinda enjoyed the needledrops

they're all songs i like/appreciate! but it's very distracting when you have them all together in a row

i did lol at walter singing "send in the clowns" though

lol yeah walter’s stuff has been fun! also some of missy’s stuff too when she was at home or in the car

"climbing up the walls" was the best drop, many of the others ranged from "too obvious" to "this is actively detracting from the emotional beats in the scene"

spoilery thoughts: i don't know how to feel about the reveal that natalie was the leader out in the woods. it doesn't jibe with the way they interact with her in the present (well, except for misty), nor does it jibe with their fear of lottie in the past and present.

I'm waiting for some sort of payoff for all of the coach's weird flashback/hallucinations. I'm thinking there won't be one.

he definitely started the fire

well yeah, that's obvious. just don't think we need all that back-story for that.

the anti-Billy Joel as it were

for sure

I was wondering what his dreams about a world where he’d not traveled with the team, embraced his identity, etc. were going and I wasn’t expecting it to be “I’m normal and a decent person and these girls are crazy as fuck, hell with this” but I get it

his Melrose Place dream sequences did not endear me to him

idk I knew enough closeted teens in the mid 90s who put up with a lot of shit, even if they didn’t 100% sell it for that adult guy it felt aspirational and better than teenage cannibal girls

no way cannibal girls rule

i guess i’m cynical or dead inside? like of course i’ve known closeted teens too but his whole rugby-shirted game night knotted sweater ish just made me roll my eyes x 1000

honestly, I like coach Ben ... real talk, as an adult, would you really be cool with being stuck in the wilderness for over a year with ten teenagers turning to cannibalism? ...

now that I think about it, he dresses like a younger version of one of my favorite high school teachers who ended up quitting after being outed

I just think if I was an adult, and a COACH, I might've stepped up a little bit more into a leadership role, even if they took my leg.

i don't think Natalie is the antler queen tbh

same

i think it follows the template of Lord of Flies where she is the leader for a while, and tries to do things the good way, but then shit doesn't work out, and either Lottie resumes power or someone else does. It is in line with how she is as an adult: a loner and distrustful of groups. If I had to pick someone else other than Lottie who "assumes the mantle" I would go with Tai, who we see in Season 1 getting elected to public office. But it could just revert back to Lottie.

‘Yellowjackets’ Plans Bonus Episode as Season Two Chaser. No word on when it'll air, though, just "before season three."

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/yellowjackets-bonus-episode-1234746724/