Yellowjackets has always thrived when it tears out its own heart of darkness and holds it beating in front of the audience’s face. This is what’s always made the material about the teenage soccer team stranded and starving and going insane in the woods more compelling than the material about the messed-up middle-aged women having zany murder hijinks played largely for laughs. The strength of the adult cast, cleverly (though not entirely, which has always been weird to me) made up of former teen actors Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis (RIP Natalie, we miss you girl, they really should have dyed your hair blonde so you’d look more like Sophie Thatcher), Christina Ricci, Lauren Ambrose, and Elijah Wood, disguises the lopsided nature of the drama somewhat, but only somewhat. As fun as, say, Ricci’s performance as adult Misty, the world’s perkiest sociopath, can be, I’d much rather watch her teenage self react with shock and grief to her first kill than her adult self react with quirky neurotic cheer to her third or fourth.
Tags: horror, pop heist, TV, TV reviews, yellowjackets