(This review covers episodes one through four of Yellowjackets season three, and contains spoilers).
Yellowjackets season three opens with an intriguing cold open, one that mirrors the pilot’s opening scene. Almost beat for beat, we watch Mari, one of the remaining Yellowjackets, being pursued through the wilderness by her teammates, just as "pit girl" was in that now infamous scene. Only after Mari's tackled to the ground by Shauna do we realise it’s just a game. This time. It almost feels like a message to fans – you might think you know where this story is going, but how it unfolds might keep you on your toes.
In the wilderness, the teenage survivors have managed to make a life for themselves in spite of where we left them at the end of the second season, but things are simmering beneath the surface. Nat’s leadership has clearly been to the team’s benefit, as they’ve managed to construct their own makeshift village out of the remains of the cabin (and the plane wreckage), the woods are thriving with prey again, and everyone seems to have a purpose. All the girls seem to be in a better place than they were in the depths of winter... except Shauna.
Before they fled the cabin, Shauna was furiously filling her journals with disappointment and bitterness about having been passed over as the group’s new “queen” in favour of Natalie. That bitterness has only gotten worse in the interim, leading her to seek solace separate from the girls' more hopeful attitudes at base camp. It’s in one of her moments away from them that she’s confronted with one of the other girls we haven’t heard much from – Melissa.
It’s odd that we’ve slowly seen certain background characters get cast post season one (think Nikki and Paulo from Lost). A price to pay for having a larger cast that might require a higher budget (and more relaxed COVID restrictions) to fill out. Now that we’re into the middle part of the story, we need to know exactly who’s left, and now we finally do.
Melissa, who we saw for the first time properly last season, sees something in Shauna that she admires, something that’s led to an intriguing connection between the two girls. Melissa is a dangerous influence for someone like Shauna, essentially emboldening her worst tendencies and allowing her inner jealousy that she’s harboured against Nat to turn to hate. We see that play out in episode four during coach Ben’s trial, where she pushes for Ben’s execution for supposedly burning the cabin down. Sophie Nelisse is a terrific performer, but teen Shauna often comes across as one note in these four episodes. Hopefully Sophie N is given more of a chance to add layers to this version of Shauna as this season goes on.
Ben is definitely the catalyst for where the girls go next. We don’t get any clear answer as to his innocence in the fire one way or the other in these opening four episodes, but we do see that he hasn’t lost his feelings for these girls, even if he’s still frightened by what they’ve become. When Mari stumbles into a pit that Ben found (a cute little hint to the fanbase’s theories that she’s the infamous “pit girl” from the pilot), Ben initially holds her hostage, eventually letting her go after a heart to heart. His mercy isn’t returned, as the team track him down and tear him from the caves he’s been hiding in to bring him back to base camp. There, they find him guilty of the arson that left them homeless. The trial episode is a fun one, placing several characters into key roles from Twelve Angry Men, with each role fitting nicely with where each respective girl is in her personal journey at this point. What they choose to do with Ben next will give us a good indication of just how brutal they’ve become, and where their journey into madness will take them to next.
In the present, some dark tendencies are continuing to come to the surface following the loss of Nat last season. Interestingly, just as teen Shauna is unhappy with her place in her team, adult Shauna is struggling with where her own life is heading. A potential stalker makes matters even more complicated for her and her family, as several attempts to shake Shauna leave her paranoid and angry.
Lottie showing up doesn’t help matters, either. Released from the psychiatric hold she was placed in at the end of the second season, Shauna reluctantly agrees to let her old teammate stay with her family. Naturally things don’t go well, and Shauna returns home to her daughter Callie sporting that necklace. She kicks Lottie out, and an episode or so later, Lottie is found dead. Between this surprising twist, and a potential stalker targeting Shauna, the adult timeline has a lot more momentum driving it than it did last season, something the second season was lacking once the adults' reunion fell a little flat. Where it takes both of these stories is super important to keep this series driving forward, but the groundwork is there to keep us as invested in the adults as we are in the teens.
I’m a bit unsure about Tai and Van’s antics. This season they’ve found themselves in a weird place, as an accidental death pushes them further into the dark hole they were peering into last season. The death in question is one that took me out of the show for a second – an innocent waiter who chases them following a dine and dash dies of a heart attack... after being almost hit on the street. It’s all a little stupid. I do find it interesting that Tai is the one championing this pursuit of the “darkness.” Is she still “normal” Tai, or did her darker self take the reins? Even though Van has found that her cancer has stopped growing, she remains the more hesitant one. Last season would have had you thinking it would be the other way around...
I still find Misty the most engaging character, in large part thanks to how she’s portrayed in both timelines, but also because you find yourself feeling for someone who is largely responsible for a lot of the horrible things that have happened to the survivors. This season we see Misty in a very new place for her – one in which she’s wracked with guilt over the accidental death of her best friend. We’ve seen Misty kill before, and never bat an eye, but here she’s in mourning over her (slightly one-sided) friendship with Nat. She’s drowning her sorrows in a very Misty way, sporting Nat’s leather jacket, and pushing Walter away. Perhaps the requirement for a citizen detective to investigate Lottie's death will spur her on to reclaim some of her lost gusto, even if her fellow survivors don’t want anything to do with her.
We Hear the Wilderness...
Tai has (deservedly) lost her position as state senator and her wife and son have moved out. How did she ever get elected in the first place?
Shauna, Van and Tai didn’t extend an invite to Misty to Nat’s funeral. I get why but also... :(
There are a couple of scenes between teen Nat and Misty that might show us why Misty was so connected to her in the present.
Shauna finds a cellphone in a restaurant restroom playing “Queen of Hearts” by Juice Newton, meaning whoever is stalking her is well aware of what happened in the wilderness.
Callie also finds a tape addressed to Shauna “Shipman” with that symbol on the envelope, only to hide it from her mother. It’s a frustrating thing to do since it essentially freezes that aspect of the plot for no real reason.
Walter is really annoying this season. I cheered when Misty kicked him out of her house.
We got more Ella Purnell this season, which is wonderful. She came back for a weird vision a few of the teens “shared,” and a hallucination of adult Shauna’s.
...And It Hears Us
Tai: "Maybe out here its all life or death."
Lottie: "We have to understand what It wants from us. Otherwise, how do we keep It happy?"
Misty: "Stop air quoting my friendships!"
These opening four episodes are a promising start. The second season of Yellowjackets was fun, but pacing issues and a lack of intrigue kept the adult story from maintaining the same energy it did in the first. This looks to have been course-corrected for the most part, but certain areas of the series still lack the little nuances that kept things so fresh and exciting during the show’s first outing.
7.5 out of 10 secret tapes.
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