Based in 1996, Yellowjackets is a series about a soccer team of teenage girls which has been invited to play at the Nationals but their plane crashes in a remote wilderness rendering the girls to look for ways to survive. The series starts with a girl running barefoot on snow being chased by mysterious forces before she gets pierced via a trap. After being stranded for nineteen months, the impact of the ordeal on the survivors is deep and is going to haunt them for a long time. The character of Shauna who once dreamed of going to Brown University is a housewife with a horrible daughter and an uncaring husband. Played by Melanie Lynskey, Shauna is one of those who are not taken seriously and is envious of the fact that in high school too she was unattractive but her life is better than Natalie who is an alcoholic and a drug addict recently released from rehab and Misty who is a nurse whose patients have to endure her terrible jokes. And at last there is Taissa who is competing in the elections and has a weird son. Shauna’s relationship with her daughter is strange as she reminds her of those girls Shauna aspired to be. Natalie deals with the death of someone close whereas Misty thinks she’s moved on.
Usually, the viewers attention is captured by the ghastly bloodshed depicted in the show whether it is a bone coming out of flesh, the human teeth tearing into human flesh and horrific screams of passengers onboard an about to crash jet. Any horror film/show can haunt the audience by displaying corpse or blood but creator Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, known for their work on Narcos, give voice to each character which will creep out the audience. As far as the teenage storyline is concerned, it is what will keep us engaged. Influenced by the Donner Party and the Miracle on the Andes tragedies, the show is a violent coming-of-age story which is split between two timelines one in the present day and the other in 90s. The storyline focuses on the four survivors whose friends passed away and the show depicts what happened during that time. The 90s flashbacks, full of Kurt Corbain posters and Smashing Pumpkins songs, are divided between before the plane crash and after, showing how the ordeal changed their lives.
The ascertaining of truth is the theme of this dark, strange and exciting show. Yellowjackets is a survival drama which offers a mystery which grounds its story in a never seen before female experience. The question of what really occurred when the girls were stranded looms large over the show and the modern-day scenes show group pact among the survivors to never talk about what they were forced to do in order to survive.
