Yellowjackets Season 3 Secures Its Place In TV History
In its third season, Showtime’s supernatural thriller goes fully surreal.
When Yellowjackets first premiered, it was a sleeper pandemic-era hit. Through the course of its first season, the Showtime series rapidly went from a cult series to the show on everyone’s lips — and the theme song in everyone’s heads. Season 2 forced the survivors into a dismal winter and proved Season 1’s success wasn’t just a fluke — there was still room to innovate and raise the stakes.
Season 3 proves Yellowjackets will go down in history as something special. It’s fully secure in its identity as a “mystery box” show, a term originating with J. J. Abrams and Lost. Yellowjackets has always been saddled with comparisons to the ABC series, as they’re both supernatural survival shows with complex central mysteries, but in Season 3, the show finally proves it’s not doomed to rest in Lost’s shadow — it’s picking up the torch.
Shauna and her fellow survivors are haunted by a brand new threat in Yellowjackets Season 3.
Last we left the survivors of the Yellowjackets soccer team in 1996, they had just lost Javi during a ritual sacrifice to the Wilderness, even though Nat was chosen to die. In the present, Nat (Juliette Lewis) was accidentally killed, even though Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) was chosen to die. The message was clear: it doesn’t matter how you try to control the chaos of the wilderness, it will take who it wants.
In Season 3, that looming sense of dread permeates every scene, especially during Nat’s memorial which, needless to say, Misty (Christina Ricci) is taking the hardest. But in between the mourning, something far more sinister is creeping in on the teammates: a foe who may be scarier than anything they’ve faced before.
Meanwhile, in 1996, or what is presumedly 1997 at this point, the survivors have made it through the winter and have found something resembling normalcy. But in the wake of their cabin burning down, Coach Ben (Steven Krueger) is nowhere to be found and Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) is (understandably) a bit irritable about carrying on like normal after everything they’ve gone through. This leads to a conflict that challenges the girls’ newfound love of law and order.
The mystical elements of the wilderness are alive and well through Lottie’s experiments with Travis.
In both timelines, the story is unabashedly ambitious and, above all, surreal. For example, Travis (Kevin Alves) is coping with his brother’s death by finding solace in substances, something only encouraged by Lottie (Courtney Eaton.) In those moments, Yellowjackets is less a Lost successor and more akin to Twin Peaks — and it’s not limited to just the past storyline.
In this season, Yellowjackets comes into its own, morphing into the only thing fans could hope it could be: a mystery box show that’s learned from those that came before it. Maybe it’s the fact Emily St. James, who literally wrote the book on Lost, joined the writer’s room along with her wife Libby Hill, but every story decision feels incredibly aware and in control of the plot, dodging many criticisms that meandering stories can face.
Yellowjackets Season 3 makes it clear it knows the road ahead, even if the roadside attractions are strange. The result is a series that is genuinely satisfying to watch, as each little bit leads to something bigger. Granted, critics only received the first four episodes, but even that half-season contained more story than whole seasons of similar shows. We’re in good hands. The only question left is how the heck Hilary Swank factors into any of it.
