What the Yellowjackets Season 1 Finale Reveals About the Show’s Wild Teen Matriarchy

As a seasoned observer of human nature and its myriad complexities, I find myself deeply captivated by the intricate tapestry that is Yellowjackets. The show masterfully weaves together elements of survival, adolescence, trauma, and spirituality, painting a picture that resonates profoundly with our collective unconscious.

I’m thrilled to share this article, first published in 2022, with you all as the highly anticipated first season of Yellowjackets is now available for streaming on Netflix. Enjoy diving into this captivating series!

Spoiler alert: This piece discusses plot points from the Yellowjackets season 1 finale.

Should you ever find yourself questioning the goodness of humanity, simply recall this: The series Yellowjackets ended its first season as a smash hit on Showtime. This teen-survival thriller has garnered much of its popularity from its mysteries reminiscent of Lost, keeping fans known as Yellowjacketologists engrossed in deciphering these intricate plot elements across various online forums. (Misty would certainly approve.) Just like many others, I’ve spent countless hours pondering whether Adam is indeed grown-up Javi and attempting to recognize the girl who meets a gruesome fate in the pilot episode. However, after watching the season finale, which revealed that neither Jackie nor Lottie was the victim from the cold open, I found myself more excited to discuss the season’s cleverly subversive themes instead.

Adolescence is a challenging phase for many, and unfortunately, as women continue to face societal disadvantages, numerous pop culture narratives about teenage girls often reflect the hardships and traumas they experience at the hands of society. This is true even for roles that brought fame to the stars of shows like Yellowjackets. For instance, Juliette Lewis portrayed a notorious spree killer marked by sexual abuse in Natural Born Killers, Christina Ricci was a beautiful young hostage in Buffalo ’66, and Melanie Lynskey debuted as a mentally ill child turned delusional murderer in Heavenly Creatures. However, what we seldom encounter are portrayals of teenage girls freed or isolated from their social environment.

In a creative twist, the TV series “Yellowjackets” places its soccer champions in an incredibly isolated wilderness, almost like the theoretical “state of nature” that philosophers used to imagine as a basis for understanding human behavior before civilization. A handful of male passengers manage to survive the plane crash, but they include a young boy, a nervous virgin (later becoming popular at prom), and a gay amputee; these individuals do not pose a physical threat to the emerging matriarchy. Instead, it’s the team captain, Jackie, who initially resists this new way of life. Over time, she transforms from a suburban ideal into a disillusioned forest outcast. Her tragic demise from hypothermia at the end of the season marks the final break with the old social order for the Yellowjackets.

Regardless of how various high school-themed narratives are drawn, they often portray a divide between those considered successful and unsuccessful – the popular crowd and the outcasts, athletes and intellectuals, bullies and their victims. This pattern is true for shows like Yellowjackets. However, this series offers a more complex perspective than its predecessors. Among these exceptionally gifted girls who are held in high regard by their school, only Jackie seems to truly flourish. She has the beauty, the wealth, the bright future, a supportive friend in Shauna and a loyal boyfriend of four years, Jeff, who doesn’t pressure her into making advances. Although Jeff and Shauna are secretly involved, Jackie finds out about this after she loses everything else in the crash. When reality contradicts her dreams (as with Shauna’s early admission to Brown), no one dares burst her illusions. To use a term from another iconic ’90s series, it seems as if she is living her own Truman Show.

Her prosperity often means sacrifice from others. In the initial episode, it’s revealed that Travis and Javi’s father appointed her as captain not because she was the most powerful player (Shauna is faster, Lottie has exceptional footwork, and Taissa…), but because she uniquely holds “influence.” She’s stable and charming enough, in ordinary situations, to keep her teammates focused. It seems that practicality like this is uncommon in teen girls, possibly because navigating female adolescence often requires a great deal of fantasy. However, Jackie doesn’t need to detach from reality because the world she lives in revolves around her. When Jackie prevents Shauna from rescuing Van from the burning plane, it suggests that Jackie—for whom Shauna is essentially an extension of herself—reflexively prioritizes her own survival over anyone else’s.

For the remaining Yellowjackets, what awaits them at home isn’t particularly welcoming: Misty, a friendless misfit, secretly kept the plane’s black box to prolong her time with the popular girls and her cherished coach. Lottie, who was once and might be again the Antler Queen, comes from super-wealthy parents who are largely absent; in one scene, we see her taking medication under the watchful gaze of a uniformed maid. It’s grim! Van’s mother is an alcoholic, Taissa masks her inner turmoil with calmness, and they both seem to harbor hidden feelings for each other. Natalie’s family story is as dark as a true-crime saga. Shauna’s troubles before pregnancy are minor compared to the others, but it’s clear she’ll snap if she has to hide her light any longer while an inferior student and athlete basks in the limelight.

This type of hardship drives individuals to look for something transcending their physical surroundings to provide purpose in life. Recall the moment in the opening episode when Jackie playfully ridicules Shauna about her brief attempt at Catholicism? (This trend also attracts teenagers to melancholic music, and it was particularly prevalent during the ’90s, as alt-rock took over the Top 40 charts. Suddenly, songs by artists like Kurt Cobain or PJ Harvey, filled with despair about emptiness, became popular on the radio. Even the more mainstream hits in Yellowjackets, such as Seal’s “Kiss From a Rose,” carry an air of morbid romance.) Regardless of what this intense new spiritual belief system evolves into, born during the psychedelic madness of Doomcoming and growing into a faith after Lottie predicts an end to their hunger and subsequently kills a seemingly submissive bear, the longing it fulfills might have existed before the crash.

In the course of its first season, “Yellowjackets” transforms beyond being merely a cleverly scripted and well-acted survival thriller. It subtly challenges our perceptions about the emotional baggage these middle-aged women harbor. Initially, it appears they are scarred by their 19 months in the wilderness, regardless of whether cannibalism was involved. However, it seems that those who survived Jackie and Laura Lee have never felt more liberated or alive than when within their ruthless matriarchy. Interestingly, despite being a teenage drinker and an adult alcoholic, Nat expresses in the penultimate episode that she hasn’t been tempted by the bottle of liquor she found.

It‘s the civilized, patriarchal world that drives her to drink—and Shauna to despair, and Taissa to compartmentalize her political aspirations into one box and, er, blood sacrifice into another. (Misty was probably never not on a path to derangement.) Although I’m also pretty certain that Van is still alive and working for Lottie, this is the only fan theory I can wholeheartedly endorse.

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2024-10-02 19:06