Pilot

Several years after their plane crashed in the wilderness, leaving them in a struggle for survival, the survivors are dealing with the ordeal in different ways. They were all part of a highly successful girls high school soccer team, the Yellowjackets. Now someone is snooping around their experience and there's details they'd prefer were never revealed.

A reasonably intriguing start to the show. Much of the episode introduces us to the main characters, their relationships, the dynamic within the soccer team and the events leading up to the plane crash.

It's a bit slow going initially and many of the characters aren't immediately likeable or interesting. However, over time, as their personalities are more familiar and the story starts to take shape everything starts to become more interesting. The intrigue around their experiences in the wilderness and how they survived helps the watchability immensely.

What does a talented teen girls soccer team on its way to a national competition have to do with a costumed, gothic ritual deep in the woods-which may or may not involve cannibalism?!? If you'd like to know that connection, I suggest you watch the Showtime series "Yellowjackets," the second season of which began yesterday, 24 Mar 2023. The unusual approach the show takes with its plot includes two parallel timelines: the first is the teens' harrowing survival experiences over their 19 months after the violent & tragic crash of their chartered plane circa 1996; the other timeline occurs 25 years later in the present day, as the (mostly) mature women deal with their families, addictions and the ongoing aftermath of their extreme traumas. Talk about your PTSD! The always interesting actors Juliette Lewis, Melanie Lynskey and Christina Ricci, play three of the surviving women in the present. But the surprising revelation is the ensemble portraying them at high school age: Sophie Thatcher (who even lowers the register of her voice to match Juliette's more closely), Sophie Nélisse (who manages to capture the conflicting thoughts and emotions in this and so many of Melanie's characters) and Samantha Hanratty (whose HS tormentors declare her on the telephone to be "so weird," which Ms. Ricci undoubtedly heard at eight years old starring in "The Addams Family") I'm rating the pilot episode a 7/10, but the show has the potential to do/get/be even better!

Thoroughly enjoyed the pilot and I'm dying to see the next episodes to see where it's going. I don't find it confusing at all how they switch back and forth to the 90's and now. It's something a little different. Has two stories wrapped into one big story and you can't wait to see where it's going. I'm in.

SweeZ.

At first I thought, "I can see where this is going" but with this stellar cast and knowing that Juliette Lewis is usually attached to some pretty twisted plots I am in for the long ride.

I can't see this extending onto a multi season series without losing momentum but as long as they keep answering questions and moving the plot forward I'm committed to this first season

It gets a little confusing flipping from the 90's to the present day and back and forth but give it a chance, you'll start to figure out who is who.

Rewatching the first season...

The opening scene is absolutely brutal, disturbing and terrifying. All the scenes in the wilderness really set up the rest of the season, it's hard to really appreciate during the first watch through. Bad sexual experiences are prominent, Jackie is basically scrubbed like a washboard, and Shauna has a moderately disturbing, and slightly depressing, moment on her daughters bed. The whole scene at the kegger in the woods is foretelling future scenes, especially Natalie. Man, those scenes in the woods.... just creepy.

I am biased because of age, this show has the best soundtrack of any series I've seen. I've watched some movies that were equally fantastic, as far as TV goes, this is it. Also, casting, so many shows do the transition from Young/Old so poorly, this show absolutely nails it.

My biggest knock is the Soccer scenes, not done particularly well. Pretty obvious with the cinematography, all the shots below the waist, the production was poor. Eitherway, Melanie Lynskey was something special, as was her fountain of youth doppelganger, Sophie Nélisse.