More than a year after the broadcast of season 1, the excellent “Yellowjackets” is finally back. The survivors of the plane crash have not yet revealed all their secrets.
We had to be patient, but Yellowjackets is finally back tonight on Canal + with season 2.
Showtime, the original channel, announced its renewal in mid-December 2021 when only 5 of Season 1’s 10 episodes had aired. Such a quick renewal shows how successful the series has been since its launch. Moreover, Season 3 was confirmed even before Season 2 aired.
An end that left us hungry
The finale of season 1 of Yellowjackets posed more new questions than it answered those that were already tormenting us over the episodes. This high concept series – which in its own way follows in the footsteps of Lost – clearly shows that the story has material to continue with a thrilling season 2.
As a reminder, Yellowjackets follows a women’s soccer team that survived a plane crash in the remote wilderness of Canada in 1996. Alone and left to their own devices, they strive to live there for 19 months before being finally rescued.
The story is told over two time frames: survival in 1996 and a narrative set in the present that sees some of the survivors struggling to keep their secrets hidden while continuing to live their near-normal lives.
In the season 1 finale, we not only learn that Taissa (Tawny Cypress) has a strange blood-covered shrine in her basement, but also that Jackie (Ella Purnell) isn’t the person killed in the intro. episode 1. As a bonus, we also discover that Lottie (Courtney Eaton) is still alive today. And that it is at the origin of even greater mysteries!
New blood!
The most important information about Yellowjackets Season 2 concerns the cast. Since at the end of season 1, we are led to discover the adult Lottie, interpreted by Simone Kessell. This character takes on more and more scope in a season that leaps with both feet into mysticism.
Another surprise of this new season, Lauren Ambrose (released from Servant) joins the troupe to play the role of Van, older. So she too survived the hell of winter in the Canadian forest, which we did not know until now.
But the good news doesn’t stop there. Elijah Wood is also there to play a brand new character. He becomes an accomplice of Misty (Christina Ricci) in the role of a somewhat peculiar boy who investigates the disappearance of Adam (Peter Gadiot), Shauna’s (Melanie Lynskey) lover.
show time
We also find all the former members of the cast from the periods located in 1996 and 2021. This means that we can see the young Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) and the adult Shauna (Melanie Lynskey, recently in The Last of Us) again. Teenage Taissa (Jasmin Savoy-Brown) and adult Taissa (Tawny Cypress) return, as do young Natalie (Sophie Thatcher, featured in The Book of Boba Fett) and her adult version (Juliette Lewis).
The complex Misty (Christina Ricci) and her teenage counterpart (Sammi Hanratty) are also back. The rest of the teenage team is also back, including Jackie (Ella Purnell), who died at the end of season 1, but we don’t tell you more about her… She’s at the center the plot of the first two episodes and in particular a scene that will probably go down in the annals of television history.
It’s a real pleasure to find this band of teenagers, admirable since they survived a terrible winter in the middle of nowhere. Except that survival involves the transgression of an ultimate taboo and this season tackles it with full teeth.
The series still plays so well with our emotions and our nerves. She cultivates her mysteries, deploys her universe and above all paints a fascinating portrait of her young heroines.
We are far from the adolescent fable and the “simple” initiatory journey. Yellowjackets takes particular care in writing female characters outside the conventions of fiction. As the title of the series indicates, they are wasps. They are dangerous, unpredictable and fascinating.
Yellowjackets season 2, Thursdays at 9 p.m. on Canal, two episodes per evening and available on MyCanal.