Relentless. This is the end of the second season of ‘Yellowjackets’, broadcast on Movistar+ and entitled ‘Storytelling’, which, although it omits many answers to the series’ most disconcerting secrets, confirms that the intentions may not be to provide clear solutions but playing with the idea of a presence as a way of explaining and justifying the decisions of a group of adolescents forced to do terrible things to survive.
The series has always been encoded by certain horror tropes, but the question of the force the girls found in the woods, whether it’s a real entity that can only be appeased with blood, doesn’t carry as much weight, and this ending dodges the idea to delve into much more uncomfortable and terrifying ideas, leaving the suggestion of why cults and rituals begin, offering a possibility within the limits of reality, how starvation and harsh conditions can convince humans to do something terrible, and how they can mask it through of rituals and religion.
SPOILERS for the season finale
Those keys appear clearly in the final combo of episodes, which brings together the horrors that the series promised from the beginning, but the more twisted the ’90s part has gotten, the more tedious the current plot seemed. However, everything that has transpired at the “wellness retreat” is explained with the final intent of the series, to expose religion as a scapegoat for trauma, proposing Lottie’s religion as a satire on influencer Teal Swan, from his methods to his wardrobe.
subverting expectations
Written by Ameni Rosa and directed by Karyn Kusama, the finale shows the development of two apparently different series. The forest timeline grows sicker and sicker, bringing blood and sacrifice to the fore. The feast with Javi is terrifying, but also sad, but it’s darkest when they collectively worship Natalie as her new deity. The way Kusama captures Javi’s frozen body has an unhealthy intimacy, the contrast of her pale skin and the color red highlight that the moral decisions that the survivors are making are not the joie de vivre of the teenagers of ‘Rompecorazones’.
In fact, the dark power of the series is based on its power of subversion of expectations of what a series with teenage female leads can or should not do. It’s not a bunch of girls arguing over cute boys, but barbecuing classmates’ meat. For this reason, although the plot of adults is not so intense, it has a background of trauma that creates a hidden interest in what can go through the heads of these women. The series is in no hurry to reveal anything, but it shows that it is, above all, a series of characters.
This makes each reserved event in its final stretch that much more impressive. Caring about them makes it scarier when they suddenly change personality or something happens to them. And here comes the biggest blow, when Natalie dies, a character always on the edge but who has been surviving. It seems unfair, but her fate seems almost inevitable, after nearly committing suicide last season. Although she has managed to get out of her nihilism, she deserved to enjoy that peace a little longer. But ‘Yellowjackets’ is coherent and shows why danger has followed them since the accident.
Cannibal adolescence and grunge music
Natalie appears in an airplane purgatory not by chance. Her life and that of all the girls is determined since her flight fell, and somehow now she returns to that moment, where she is joined by her younger self, Javi, whom she left to die, and the young Lottie. As they comfort him, Radiohead’s ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’ plays and the lyrics leave no doubt: “I can feel death, I can see her bright eyes.” A farewell that hurts, but that promises a clean slate. Showrunners Ashley Lyle, Bart Nickerson, and Jonathan Lisco have rebooted all the fringes of the present, opening up several possibilities.
Thanks to Walter’s plan, Shauna no longer has to worry about Adam Martin. Lottie is on her way to another mental institution. Misty’s trust is broken again, following the loss of Shauna’s baby, now that she is responsible for the death of her best friend. Van has a few months left to live but his attitude in the ritual shows that perhaps she has not forgotten her rituals and presents herself as a possible antagonistwhich is perhaps the most disappointing part of the season: the nemesis has been themselves, but it seemed that there was something else.
The group of fans of the soccer team, their media presence, the murder of the previous season… everything seemed to indicate that there is a group in search of the women with a certain spirit of revenge, but in the end that remains undeveloped, which it makes that part of the present lose its balance after a sensational first season. Also left out are some visions of Taissa, which showed disturbing supernatural possibilities that have not come to fruition. However, Lottie’s visions do confirm that we are in a horror series.
Mysteries that don’t matter so much
But let’s not kid ourselves, the winning card of ‘Yellowjackets’ is an impeccable cast, not just because of a cast of women who were famous teen actresses in the ’90s, something that pushes all the right nostalgia buttons, but because it makes an emotional investment that contrasts with the murky material that the series deals with. Lauren Ambrose is a great casting and Elijah Wood is a rediscovery, just as good at playing his ambiguous motives as one of his ‘Sin City’ or ‘Maniac’ psychopaths, but with a comedic twist that complements Ricci perfectly.
The season’s soundtrack has also been an indisputable value. Instead of throwing out nonsensical ’90s rock classics, each song is carefully chosen, with the lyrics accentuating what we see on screen. The use of ‘Something in the Way’ has managed to add a more depressing meaning than Nirvana’s own lyrics. Echo and the Bunnymen’s ‘The Killing Moon’ plays twice, once in the final credits, which, short of its iconic representation in ‘Donnie Darko’, does illustrate the force of fate that seems to always haunt the group.
Their actions will never leave them and they have defined their future, now ‘Yellowjackets’ reveals that the conflict lies in whether they will be able to defeat the designs of an entity that may exist or be only in their head but, in any case, continues to model what they are. However, we still don’t know what the symbol is, where the pilot came from, how they will be rescued… a handful of answers that pique curiosity but no longer matter so much, because the series has achieved the most difficult: that we want to see these girls survive, be it devouring human flesh, be it deceiving the police posing as defenseless housewives.
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