A Detailed Review of Yellowjackets, and the Brutality of Girlhood

SPOILER WARNING <3

Showtime’s new series Yellowjackets opens with astonishing violence. A young girl is chased through the snow, wearing only a thin, white nightgown, and funneled through a clearing as unseen figures call out to her with a variety of animal sounds. The girl collapses into a concealed trap and is impaled by a series of strategically-placed spikes. Her body is then dragged across the snow and strung up like a deer, only to later be ritualistically consumed by a group of seven animal-skin-clad individuals. Moments later, we are introduced to our protagonists--a team of high school soccer players, the Yellowjackets, who are on their way to a national championship.

In the first episode, the viewers are immediately immersed in the social hierarchy of the Yellowjackets. Their team captain, Jackie, is at the top of the food chain. The majority of the young women exist in a ‘neutral’ position in the hierarchy, including Mari and Akilah--two JV players brought up for the championship--Taissa, Lottie, Laura Lee, and their goalie, Van. Finally, on the bottom of the hierarchy are the team members who are almost universally disliked or looked-down upon. Nat, who has a drug problem and a difficult home life, Allie, the team’s sole freshman, and Misty, the socially-awkward team manager, exist on this tier.

The repercussions of this rigid social structure are illustrated almost immediately when Taissa devizes a plan to prevent Allie from getting the ball during a game, and attempts to get the other players on board. When no one joins her in the controversial campaign, she takes it upon herself to challenge Allie during a team scrimmage, during which she slide-tackles her and accidentally breaks her leg. In a matter of seconds, Taissa goes from having a ‘neutral’ position on her team’s hierarchy to being entirely rejected.

At the end of the pilot episode, the girls board a plane that is supposed to take them to the national championship. Instead, it crashes in the Canadian wilderness, killing a number of players, coaches, and family members of the team. From there, the dynamic of the team shifts--Taissa, Nat, and Misty find themselves at the top of the food chain (literally), and all have vital roles in the team’s survival. Taissa takes Jackie’s place as the leader, utilizing her charisma, intellect, and empathy to gain the respect of her teammates, while Jackie is looked down upon for attempting to lead the team as if they are still on the soccer field. Nat becomes the team’s hunter, being the only member who is well-versed in the use of firearms. Misty takes on the role of the team’s doctor, taking care of the coach, who lost a leg in the crash. It is also worth noting that, while taking a walk in the woods, Misty found the flight box from the airplane--which could have been used by the authorities to find the team--and destroyed it, because the forest was the first place she had ever been taken seriously. All three gain the respect that they had never seen before while existing within the team’s social structure--all it took was for the scenery to change from a locker room to an uncharted forest.

As food becomes more scarce and the girls progressively lose hope of ever being rescued, tensions begin to grow. Rivalries begin to form, resembling those that may have existed before the crash, but with the added danger of the lawlessness inherent to the forest. The characters who still follow the social rules of society are shunned, as seen when Jackie and Natalie refuse to participate in a horrifying ritual at the end of the ninth episode. Meanwhile, Lottie, who was revealed to be able to see the future, Taissa, who is an authoritative and charismatic leader, and Misty, who provides medical care to the team, maintain their power.

Although the team dynamic of the Yellowjackets is exaggerated both in and out of the forest, it nonetheless rings true to how real-life sports teams operate, especially in high school. There are always people on the top, people in the middle, and people on the bottom. The way in which the characters treat each other (other than the cannibalism and general cultiness) closely resembles how I have seen teammates interact with one another at games, practices, and tournaments. I have seen girls being purposefully ‘iced-out’ for not being perceived as talented enough. I have seen girls shunned completely for accidentally injuring another player. I have seen girls who are so obsessed with being liked on a team that they will do nearly anything to find acceptance, including creating problems just so they can fix them. The characters similarly represent real personalities present on most sports teams; I know a ‘Misty’, I know a ‘Nat’, I know a ‘Taissa’, and I definitely know a ‘Jackie’.

I highly recommend Yellowjackets to anyone who enjoys the survival-horror genre, but I recommend it especially to female athletes. It is absolutely horrifying to watch the main characters, whom I immediately identified with my own teammates, descend into madness. I can’t but imagine each character as people I know, which makes the show hit much harder.