Yellowjackets squanders a Nat-centered episode with inert subplots
It is way too early in season one of the Showtime drama for a such a blatant filler episode.
TV Reviews Yellowjackets
Moving the plot forward is not necessary for a great episode of television—see: Breaking Bad’s “Fly,” Atlanta’s “Teddy Perkins,” Community’s “Cooperative Calligraphy.” But four episodes in, an inert episode of Yellowjackets is a sad thing to behold.
It’s not all bad news. This week, we focus on Nat, and Juliette Lewis’ performance has been a true highlight of the show so far, matched beautifully with Sophie Thatcher in the younger role. We start with the crash again, this time from Nat’s perspective. At first, all is as we remember it: screaming, shaking, and the oxygen masks swinging from the ceiling like broken marionettes. But something is different this time. As Nat looks to her left, she sees her dad looking at her, smiling with half of his face blown off.
The Nat flashbacks prove to be a highlight of an otherwise inconsequential episode. In the present day, she goes to visit her Mom in her trailer. Juliette Lewis is perfect in this sequence, heartbroken by her past and her cold reception from her mother but still a little warmed by the nostalgia of youth. She goes through her old things are remembers the terrible day before the terrible 19 months.
In a rare moment of sweetness, the teenage, pre-blonde Nat sneaks future-detective Kevin into her room to listen to music. Her dad storms in, furiously calls her a “little slut” in a tone that suggests it’s not the first time he’s said it. Having been pushed to the edge, she gets out his gun and he dares her to fire. She works up the strength to pull the trigger, but nothing happens. The safety is still on. Still, we know this man ends up missing his face somehow and that somehow is all the more banal. He trips while holding the gun and boom. Face removed.
It’s an interesting choice to go with for Nat; she technically didn’t kill her father but that technicality is wafer thin. And that guilt started the spiral of addiction that has landed her in rehab, time and time again. In the wilderness, that guilt almost paralyses her. The group, having found a gun and mountains of bullets in the cabin, decides that two people need to be selected to hunt deer, guided by the coach—who is, fortuitously, an experienced hunter but can’t do it himself on account of the missing leg. Travis is selected alongside Nat, because apparently having an anger problem isn’t disqualifying.
Even when it transpires he wants to use the opportunity to dig up his father’s corpse to get a ring, that doesn’t put her off. The two young actors have got great chemistry, which makes the lasting bond from the present day all the more believable, even if we never got to see them interact as adults. Nat remains steadfast that Travis was murdered and even goes for a flirty dinner with Detective Kevin in an attempt to manipulate some classified information out of him. It’s not exactly a leap forward for adult Nat—not much seems to be contingent on her getting this small piece of evidence, but Juliette Lewis reading the phone book would still be one of the most riveting performances on television.
Not quite as interesting, but equally well performed, is Misty’s role this week. In the past, she forms an unhealthy attachment to the coach, and in the present, she stalks Nat with a whiskey-drinking, wise-cracking homecare resident in tow. Her storyline is in stasis, but it’s still a joy to see her approach the journalist/private investigator and deliver the killer line: “I know when you look at me you don’t see someone you should be afraid of, but you’re wrong.”
Taissa is in a similar loop. Her creepy son is still being creepy and her run for state senator is still not going well. She goes to a fancy party to try and win the support of a wealthy donor who can turn it all around. Sadly for her, it turns out the donor is interested in a Hannibal Lecter-style quid-pro-quo situation: He will give her cash in exchange for the real story of what happened in the woods. It’s a maddening missed opportunity for the show to finally establish what it is that the public thinks happened out there, but it swerves away. Instead, Taissa might as well have not been in this episode since she starts as she ended: with a creepy son and worse campaign.
Right at the bottom of the barrel is Shauna’s storyline, which has fallen off of late. She and the world’s most suspicious man Adam get up to some hijinks, where she tries to recreate the high-school experience that she missed—even though, by my calculations, she didn’t miss that much high school and is married to her high school sweetheart and lives in the same town. How much more high school would you want than that? Their activities include drinking cheap booze that they pay a guy to buy them, mini-golf, swimming in some sort of body of water and having sex in a car. Melanie Lynskey is such a talented actress, it’s a terrible shame to see her lumbered with this half-baked rom-com storyline. More embarrassing still is when she finally gets home and husband Jeff asks her how book club went, as many-hour-long book clubs are a thing. Jeff the husband, we the audience, and Lynskey the actress deserve better than this.
Stray observations
- It was pretty fun hearing Taissa telling the donor with the white savior complex to go fuck herself.
- Lottie and Sammy seem to possibly be affected with the same problem. Similarly seeing things no one else can.
- There is the tiniest hint that Adam real identity could be Travis’s younger brother? Could be a red herring but there are some parallels between present day Shauna and teen Shauna bonding with him over her journal.
- Misty is keeping up with the creepy drink orders with a chocolate martini. Gross.
- Best line of the episode goes to Misty’s care home resident companion with, “You remind me of my granddaughter. No one really likes her either.”
- Why haven’t they tried to build a raft in the wilderness? Seems like the logical way to look for civilization would be to scope out the giant lake.
55 Comments
I thought this was a much better episode than last week. I hadn’t heard the theory that Adam is Javi, but if it doesn’t happen, I’ll be disappointed.
someone shared her last week that Adam is just in Shauna’s head, and now I felt this was even truer after this episode. Adam might be Javi, but only a manifestation of him by Shauna.
I lean towards the “he’s imaginary” theory too. But then who hit her car?
Maybe she did hit something but the interaction ever since has been in her mind, especially since it seemed to be triggered after she started reading her journals(and her and Javi connect over her journals).
It is way too early in season one of the Showtime drama for a such a blatant filler episode.they creators pitched a 5-season show so we’re getting lots of filler or what we think is filler but they don’t.the last episode started to lose me and i’m almost to lost with this episode but of course i’m going to keep watching.adam being javi is too obvious but it seems like that’s the case or they want us to think he’s javi. adam was not wearing the ring any time in the episode so comes the episode where the “cliffhanger” will be a shot of him putting it on if adam is indeed javi. some people say, “how could she not recognize javi?” javi is younger than the high school kids. after the rescue they all went their separate ways. some people can look drastically different in ~15 years even without getting work done. maybe something happens and javi isn’t around long.
i am so over taissa’s kid. it better be going somewhere good.lottie senses it’s the forest that’s doing all the bad so maybe that’s the supernatural element of the show? maybe they’re on native supernatural cannibal cult land from way back.whose backstory or are we getting next?
anyway as always misty the unhinged sadist is great.
I don’t know how anyone pulls of five seasons’ worth of something presenting itself as a taut, tense psychological thriller. I was definitely sad to hear that’s the plan.
Yeah, five seasons is absurd with this material. I dunno…
Maybe this should be the first time ever a fanbase should petition for fewer seasons.I support two or maybe three, because I can’t imagine them wrapping everything up in this first season. But five is ridiculous. Please don’t do it, Showtime.
I think it’s a common complaint with The Handmaid’s Tale too.
Maybe the pitch was to get 5 seasons off runway, but to land it in fewer? Kinda like what Game of Thrones did. But competently. And on purpose.
I was about to say, the idea of any show seeking to emulate the ending of Game of Thrones is seriously anxiety-inducing.
5 seasons? Great. I can’t wait for the two-parter about the Jesus girl getting a splinter.
I imagine this show is gonna have a ton of filler if what I heard about there being multiple seasons is true. I seriously hope that that’s a false rumor, as there’s no way this show can sustain any suspense or momentum with that kind of stretched-out story. This seems like the type of show that should be a limited series and be done after one season.That said, is it explained why a New Jersey team, going to nationals, is somehow flying over Canada? Where were they going, was it said and I missed it or what?
I imagine this show is gonna have a ton of filler if what I heard about there being multiple seasons is true
Sounds like this is confirmed?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowjackets_(TV_series)#DevelopmentThen again this was early in development, so maybe something’s changed. but yeah I have a hard time seeing what they’ll do beyond this season.
i think in the pilot they said they had to make a detour over the Canadian Rockies to try and avoid a storm. Yeah, it doesn’t make much sense.
Ah ok. I found it finally after rewatching episode one; it’s just the pilot over the speaker announcing it while the camera is on the two girls. I must’ve missed it. And they were going to Seattle as well.
makes sense, they were skirting the border anyway. they would have landed literally in the middle of nowhere. Canadian here and we legit can’t find people who get lost just wandering from our rural communities here.
Which also means that exploring the lake with a raft is not likely to expedite their rescue, since they are in remote northern Ontario (I believe) and basically no one lives in northern Canada. Though the raft is not in itself a bad idea.
I can at least confirm that commercial airlines do this. I flew out of Jersey on the way back to Seattle and at one point we crossed into Canada to avoid storms in the mid west.
I guess we’ll have to chalk this up to how the same work can resonate differently with different people. Because I loved this episode, my favorite since the pilot. Far from being filler, this episode continues the series pattern of devoting each episode to the backstory of one of the girls, first with Shauna & Jackie, then Misty, then Tai, and now Nat.I saw Natalie’s story as incredibly heartbreaking, almost a betrayal, because she had been positioned as the character who has a moral compass still intact, but look at the chess game she plays in pursuit of her unhealthy obsession with Travis. She feigns interest in her mom so she can find a mix tape, which she then uses as part of an overall scheme to manipulate and take advantage of the feelings of the one person in her whole life who truly cared about her, all to get confidential information. It’s heartbreaking to hear her mention Travis through crocodile tears and you realize the whole date was a setup. It goes to underline my theory that this series is much less Lord of the Flies, than it is Christie’s “And Then There Were None,” featuring an assortment of protagonists who are all, in fact, guilty of terrible deeds. I truly wonder if this mysterious person stalking the survivors isn’t in fact someone who either was victimized by them in those woods, or is a relative of one of the dead, seeking justice. Christina Ricci continues to be a wicked delight, creating the most compelling character I think I’ve seen since Heath Ledger’s Joker. She just revels at being the center of, the cause of the action, from the way she cracks an almost titillated smile at seeing Nat for the first time, to the barely contained glee she exhibits at telling Shauna about Travis. Ricci is giving the finest performance of her career, and that is saying a lot. Taissa meanwhile is beginning to crack in more ways than one, and in this episode one begins to wonder if she is in fact the most deluded of them all by trying to build a political career by seeking aid from people who ultimately see her as a freak and a curiosity to be kept around for shock value, someone they can leer at and wonder if she is in fact a person-eater. Moreover, the scenes in 1996 establish the beginnings of what I believe will be the arc of the whole series, how the team will eventually split. One can see it happen already, as those with skills for survival emerge – Nat, Shauna, Taissa, Akilah, Van – while those without – Lottie, Laura, Jackie, Mari – seem increasingly at risk. This is soon going to devolve into a situation that Mari unwittingly alluded to, about one having to earn their place on the team. There are so many smaller threads. The sense that Coach Scott is in real danger from Misty. That Van may (or may not) have buried her enmity toward Jackie for abandoning her. That Lottie is getting nearer to a breakdown that could signal either her impending demise, or possibly, her rebirth. I saw so much to love about this episode, and I for one would strongly encourage a rewatch. Far from a filler episode, I saw many plots advanced, and the seeds for new ones sown, and I have never been so invested in a show and its characters since Breaking Bad.
“Murders on an island” just offers so many pop culture templates to choose from.
One wonders if the writers are a fan of “Play Misty for Me”. Not sure that name is random.
I will give this show all my money if they have Misty utter, without a hint of irony, “I will not be ignored.”
The Nat-Misty relationship is perhaps not supposed to be that hugely important in the overall context of the show I think, but the chemistry of Juliette Lewis & Christina Ricci is kind of drawing so much of my focus to them that I start caring about them teaming up again to a probably disproportionate amount
Dare I dream of a Better Call Saul-esque spinoff?
Misty Quigley: Citizen Detective.
Hopefully the show just leans into that & the next four seasons in the present are about Nat & Misty doing crazy shit, maybe while Shauna tries reluctantly to keep them from blowing everything up
Meanwhile Tai is standing nearby, wondering how she mixed up with these damn crackers.
Tai certainly could be fun as a foil to the wacky shenanigans of the other adult main cast members. So far I like young Tai a lot more though The who-gives-a-shit politics storyline is doing adult her no favors
I agree that backstory is really important, and I love long character building arcs. But so far, I am disappointed in how cheesy some of the backstories are. Tai’s “magical negro” grandma surrounded by crosses and talking about the Lord before she passes. Nat’s totally cliche “poor girl from trailer park with abusive dad and useless mom who sleeps all day” story. That gun accident was ridiculous. Laughable. The father was a cliched clown. Why must EVERY SINGLE person depicted as living in a trailer park be the proverbial “trash?” It’s kind of gross, honestly. And, again, SO overdone.So I don’t mind backstory, but I was hoping for better from the writers here after the excellent, totally on point pilot episode. I feel like it’s been steadily downhill since. The “creepy kid” is also a Stephen King-ish cliche. I get that it all might be leading to something good, but right now it just feels like cliche after cliche, trope after trope and some really bad writing, sadly.
I love a chocolate martini! But not the creamy, desserty kind Misty drinks. Just dark chocolate liquor and vodka.
I agree that this was a wheel-spinning episode, although there were some small moments i enjoyed . While all the actors are doing the best they can with what they have to work with, the Shauna and Taisa subplots were particularly dull this episode. And i’m really really not a fan of the implication that Taisa and her son have supernatural visions. but sadly that’s the most interesting thing about her. I did enjoy seeing flashback Misty trip the coach and present-day Misty threaten the “reporter” (something tells me she will underestimate Misty to her own detriment, possibly fatally). Nat’s story was quite interesting, i almost wish she (and Misty) were the entire focus of this episode and they had just left the other two out of this one and resumed their stories in the next episode.
I think the supernatural element is a lot deeper than that, and is more connected to the layers of trauma and whatever beliefs the girls developed out in the wilderness. Those antler cult beliefs might be something Taisa has told her son about which might be revealed later.
I’ll watch the whole season despite the story struggling a bit, I still feel they can pull it together when the adult girls lives become more entwined. the characters are all compelling and the actresses are great.I felt Taisa was talking to the audience when she mouthed off to the donor, our entitlement to trauma and the strange enjoyment we find in watching how the tragedy will unfold.
I didn’t get why they were excited to find the plane. It’s not like they’re gonna fly it out of there.
I’m pretty firmly in the “Adam isn’t real” camp. There have been opportunities for people other than Shauna to interact with him and they don’t (the hotel front desk worker, the guy in the liquor store parking lot), and Shauna has never been given an opportunity to ask anyone else about him, since she never called his auto shop after rear ending him. That whole thing was very strange anyway. He wasn’t even remotely upset that she hit him, and just immediately starts flirting with her, an never gives even a made up reason for stopping abruptly. What would Javi’s motivation be for pretending to be a stranger to Shauna? Even if he does look different, there’s no way he could be sure she wouldn’t recognize him.
I don’t know. they did show him by himself in the auto shop when she was talking to him on the phone in an earlier episode. i feel like if he was imaginary they wouldn’t have done, instead they would not show him and just let us hear his part of the conversation while the camera focused on Shauna. But maybe not.
i’m not really leaning into this theory. i think i’d like that adam was just in her head. showing adam at work could be how she “imagines” him during that phone call.if he is imaginary and they show us a montage of their hangs without him i’m gonna laugh at her getting dicked down by nothing alone in the back of a car..
My new theory is Adam exists but he’s a journalist. The look on Shauna’s face when he kept asking about her past made me think Shauna knows he’s a journalist, but is enjoying having fun with him anyway. Because why not? Taissa broke her promise.I also think Shauna and Javi are both adults and frequently talk to each other. Misty’s comment about “*Someone* might not have told you yet…” makes me think Misty knows Shauna and Javi still talk to each other.I think we’re going to get Travis’ background story next, which is a giant tease because I *NEED* to know if Van survives!
There was the moment when Shauna points to the Adam waiting in the truck as she’s talking to the guy outside the liquor store. I don’t think the guy looks at her as if she’s pointing at an empty vehicle – but then again, it was an odd moment that stood out to me. “Look, I’m not alone. See?”
I see a lot of commenters being harsh on the idea of a 5 season arc for this show. I agree that it seems like a lot, but also think if they have a good plan it could be very doable.My issue with this episode is it really didn’t tease anything out in terms of the postcards. I don’t think the show can sustain itself on just slowly moving forward the 4 women in the present, while giving us a sliver of what happened in the early days of survival. The key to this show is for the present to stay interesting, and that’s only going to happen with them keeping the tension on, and teasing another adult coming forward. I’m certainly not ruling out that one of the four could have killed Travis and sent the postcards, but even then the show just has to keep the tension on the present. I mean in this episode the whole present day Natalie/Misty arc only moves the needle forward for us to eventually get the toxicology report. Besides that nothing really progresses for them.Who cares that Misty confronts the “reporter” when we already know she’s not a reporter…
Enjoying the show, but I can’t get past the fact that they are on a HUGE lake. Start walking the perimeter. Build that raft. Something. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but how many huge lakes in the continental US are completely cut off from civilization?Also – five seasons? I’m not going to make it. I guess the teen actors aren’t actually teens, or they would age out of their roles.
Well, you said to correct you if you’re wrong…They aren’t in the continental U.S., they’re in Canada. They had to fly further north of the normal flight path to Seattle to avoid bad weather (so said the pilot in Episode 1). If they’ve crashed near the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, they’re either in Alberta or B.C. That being said, there are 600 lakes in Alberta and 20,000 in B.C.And you aren’t the first person to suggest this, but why should they build a raft? What good would that do them? If they were interested in exploring the perimeter of the lake to find another cabin or an access road or anything for that matter, why wouldn’t they just walk it?
Floating is easier than walking, which is good if you’re low on food and conserving energy. What they should be doing is looking for the lake’s outlet and/or following any stream flowing down out of the mountains they’re in. One stream inevitably flows into another and, based on their likely crash region, they will eventually find their way to the Columbia or Snake rivers and Vancouver.
I think it’s supposed to be Canada, not the US. But agree that if one small plane was able to find it and its owner build a cabin, there are likely more.
Some questions…1. Misty somehow magically knew to put the notepad she found in Travis’s house into her pocket when the sheriff caught her and Nat. And at some later point, she got a pencil and made a rubbing of the last note written on that pad which read, “TELL NAT SHE WAS RIGHT”. Where is that note?2. How does teen Nat, who had no idea how to use the shotgun and didn’t even know that the safety was on, miraculously become a crack shot? And nobody holds a rifle like post-crash Natalie does and actually hits anything. Poor coaching on the directors part. 3. The plane had tires (it wasn’t a sea plane, was it?), so there had to be a landing strip. Or could you land/take off on solid ice in the winter? And there’s no way that plane’s engine just starts right up after 20 years.4. Why would you have to hold onto Misty when taking a dump? You couldn’t hold onto a tree branch? Or sit backwards on a chair?5. You don’t give Nat and Travis a knife so that they could bleed the deer and gut it before hauling it 5 miles back to camp? That’s just rude…
So we learned that in that opener for the season that it was Shauna who bled out whoever fell into the stick trap, right?, and we know which one was Misty, I feel like that is how we put together who is the grand high poobah (seemingly obviously Taisa, but probably eventually revealed to be Shauna) and who got killed.I do like this show, but it is really uneven…whatever is happening with Adam is taking too long. I understand that Shauna’s deep antisocial streak is what we are seeing, she seems to be definitely related to Lynskey’s performance in “I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore” but can we get to the point where he reveals he’s crazy? Because he showed up at the hotel? If you watch Showtime, there were two really poorly conceived chance meetings in hotels this week (this week’s Dexter has one of the laziest plot points I’ve ever seen, even for Dexter). They are also going to have to get some tailies, there aren’t enough extra girls for good kill fodder.And wasn’t having Nat’s dad scream “slut” beat his wife and then blow his head off a little on the nose? I mean Sophie Thatcher is absolute perfection in this role (she was great in “Prospect” also) but isn’t that kind of bad writing? This show does have the best music, I’m even getting things I never listened to like Kim Wilde.
The girl in the pilot was wearing Jackie’s necklace, but doesn’t mean it was Jackie. She already gave it to Shauna, so it’s not definite who would have been wearing it at that point.
I don’t think Jackie will be killed off in such an unceremonious fashion…that was likely the girl who keeps getting bad vibes?Also if this show has an actual supernatural element (which i kind of hope it doesn’t) anything goes
I’m not sure why you think the lake is particularly large nor why a raft would be the best method of exploring the area.
I agree that a big missing piece that maybe they did not realize would be one is what exactly does everyone “think” happened out there? Yes, living alone in the woods is pretty newsworthy, but most people would be pretty respectful to people who survived, especially when it seems almost all of them are dead. But it seems like the “world” in this story thinks something truly juicy happened to them, which I think this far in we should know.
I dont get that the reiewer doesnt get what their official story is versuss what everyoe suspects. Its clear people suspect there was cannibalism though we dont know why and its clear what the cover story is, that they crashed, scrounged, suvived, but some of them died.
I think that Adam is real and part of whatever the conspiracy is in the present against the survivors, that involves the postcards & the death of Travis. But that is hard to even speculate about yet since it is so murky & we don’t have enough information.I would watch Melanie Lynskey read the phone book & that might have been preferable to the dumb storyline about her acting out high school-type stuff that she supposedly missed out on (she was already having furtive car sex with her best friend’s bf, how much more high school did she need).
replying to an old thread, but Shauna was clearly a straight a student and her friendship with Jackie was always a side kick deal. Her passion for adam and what he represents, breaking out of the monotony of her suburaban life, theres a lot of character stuff there, especially with what happens later and how relatively cold she is about it despite thinking thi guy might be “the one”
Coming back and reading these comments after finishing S1 of this show, it’s fantastic how pretty much everyone is wrong.
I’m doing the same right now as S2 is airing (risking spoilers as I go!) and I’m interested to see where it all winds up.