Season 1 of “Yellowjackets” started in 2021 and immediately became one of the brightest events of that year. This series has a huge number of fans around the world and their number is only growing. The showrunners of this series (Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson) were able to bring something really new and fresh to the horror genre.

From the first minutes, the viewer is given to understand that the story will not just be confusing and gloomy, but very frightening, truly mystical and supernatural. It’s better for children to move away from the screen!

If you think that this story will not be able to impress you enough, then you just haven’t seen this series yet. “Yellowjackets” will suck you into its story. Buckle up and get ready for a hard landing!

WHAT IS THIS STORY ABOUT?

In 1996, the women’s high school football team “Yellowjackets” from New Jersey, having won local competitions, flies to the national championship in Seattle. From the beginning the situation with the girls is not straightforward. What is going on between them?

COURTESY OF SHOWTIME

Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) and Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown) come into conflict due to the fact that the latter deliberately roughly pushed one of the football players during the game, and she broke her leg. The only thing that prevented a fight was the intervention of the captain and part-time school queen Jackie (Ella Purnell).

When the plane crashes in the forests of Ontario, most of the passengers remain unharmed. Among them are three men: assistant coach Ben (Steven Krueger), who lost his leg in the crash, and the sons of the deceased coach Martinez — Travis (Kevin Alves) and his younger brother Javi (Luciano Leroux). They will spend a year and a half away from civilization, and then the survivors will be rescued.

“YELLOWJACKETS”AFTER 25 YEARS…

We learn about all this from the fragmented memories of four of the grown-up team members. It’s the same Shauna (Melanie Lynskey), Taissa (Tawny Cypress), Misty (Christina Ricci) and Natalie (Juliette Lewis). After 25 years, someone is blackmailing them with secrets of the past. Apparently, something terrible was happened in the forest at that time.

COURTESY OF SHOWTIME

Evidence of this comes from a mysterious episode shown already in the pilot. This episode kind of tells the audience to be ready for what they will see next. A distraught girl rushes through the forest, and sinister people dressed in animal skins are watching her. We don’t see the faces of the participants in this scene, but the suggestion is that the “Yellowjackets” had to resort to cannibalism.

Also it is no accident that Shauna keeps her diaries about that time locked in a safe. Furthermore, she doesn’t let anyone read them, including her husband, whom she has known since school years.

WHY IT IS WORTH WATCHING?

Of course, it may seem to a sophisticated viewer that the plots of many films and TV series are intertwined in this series. The screenwriters don’t leech off these works, but create their own completely separate story. The creators spend the entire first season not promoting the main plot, but revealing the main characters more deeply. They really want to show their traumatic past, painful adaptation to the present and to identify their dark side.

COURTESY OF SHOWTIME

Also they plunge us into the 90s with perfectly matched tracks from that time and rare references to popular media. Without a doubt, this series wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the cast. The creators have ideally selected young and adult actresses. Sometimes it even seems that Melanie Lynskey is a really young version of Sophie Nélisse and Christina Ricci is a funny but dangerous Samantha Hanratty.

The series is also notable for the fact that there is always a thin layer of black irony in it, dramatic moments and the subtle melodrama of family scenes. That is why some of the characters’ actions are understandable. This show really makes us smile while at the same time frightening us with mysterious mysticism.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This series is, without exaggeration, striking in many aspects. Of course, the creators could not give the viewer answers to all their questions at the end of this season. And this only fuels interest in it. After all, viewers really want to know the full story.

COURTESY OF SHOWTIME

Viewers are left so perplexed (in a good way) that they want to know what will happen next. Did anyone else survive? What secret are they hiding? What does this mystical sign mean? They will get answers to all these questions in the second season (or maybe not!).

“Yellowjackets” catches the audience’s attention with a famously twisted plot and numerous riddles, while the series can change dramatically, from tense horror to an ironic teenage romcom and a psychological drama about post-traumatic disorder. Start watching the first episode and you definitely won’t be able to tear yourself away from the screen.

You can watch the series on Showtime.