Yellowjackets promised that Season 2 would be darker, and the first two episodes already prove that, in the best way.
2021’s first season of Yellowjackets became a smash hit, with multiple Emmy nominations in 2022, and a greenlight for Season 2.
Fans have been waiting eagerly for said second season, which continues the story of a soccer team that was stranded in the wild for a year after a plane crash, and the ensuing trauma that lives on into their adulthood.
Thankfully, the second season is easily living up to the first, with the first two episodes already bringing comedy, drama, and an intense feeling of dread. Let’s get into it, and we’ll do our best to avoid any big spoilers.
Meet later Lottie
The season opens with an intriguing flashback into the past. We see atmospheric imagery, haunting expressions, and the tale of a young survivor who is brought back home, only to be forced under electric shock therapy to “treat” her. All the while a grungy ’90s song plays, perfectly capturing the moody vibe of the flashbacks.
This girl is Lottie, played by Courtney Eaton and Simone Kessel. She is the supposed psychic that has managed to survive the team’s time in the Wilderness. She had been an ominous, if slightly stereotypical figure in Season 1, but is clearly about to get a much bigger role.
We won’t say how she is introduced in the present, but it certainly makes sense for her character, and her appearance concludes some questions with answers that have you feeling even more suspicious.
As is the structure of the show, we get flashes to and from the Wilderness-filled past and drama-filled present. It makes for an interesting structure and pace, though there aren’t really any links between the past and present-day scenes, it’s more so that the editors just picked randomly which scenes to put where.
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But these flashbacks are often the best parts of the episode. They look more into Shauna’s grief over Jackie, Natalie’s relationship with Travis, and Taissa’s sleep walking, in scenarios that get more and more troubling. A sense of dread keeps building over the episodes, with every character’s issues becoming more intense each scene. A culmination is building, and it’s clear that it won’t be good. For the characters we mean, we ourselves can’t wait to see it all play out.
Yellowjackets knows how to build dread
The series has somehow managed to thread the needle of tension and relief. Throughout the first two episodes, there is simultaneously dread, drama, and comedy. Dread comes from the increasingly horrifying imagery that pops up from time-to-time. Drama comes from the subtle mental battles waged between the girls as they either encourage or deny hope for survival. And comedy mainly comes from Misty, played by Christina Ricci, who is a near-Harley Quinn level of fun, delusional, and dangerous.
On the whole the cast – both old and young – gives increasingly good performances. There’s also been the appearance of Elijah Wood, though his role hasn’t been fully revealed yet. The only character that feels somewhat lacking is Shauna’s daughter, though that’s more the fault of the writing, as she appears more of a Gen Z stereotype rather than a fully realised character.
Yellowjackets Season 2 Episodes 1 & 2 review score: 4/5
This show’s second season is off to a very promising start, if by promising we mean dread-filled.
It’s clear that Season 1 only scratched the surface of this group’s time in the Wilderness, and if a shocking scene at the end of Episode 2 has anything to say, it’s that things are about to get a whole lot more nail biting… literally.
Yellowjackets Season 2 will begin streaming exclusively on Paramount+ on March 24. Season 1 is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video, which you can sign up for here.
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