Caemeron Crain
I wrote a Yellowjackets Season 1 recap before I’d watched the trailer that was recently released, so if you’d prefer to read something free from any spoilers this footage may provide, you might want to head over there and stop reading now. I would understand completely, as part of me doesn’t like the amount of information I got from this trailer. But since I watched it, I’m going to think about it. I’m going to pick it apart. This is unavoidable. So read on if you’d care to join me.
Into the wilderness…
We begin with the teenage Van (Liv Hewson) telling a story, apparently in the cabin in the woods:
Once upon a time there was a place called the wilderness. It was beautiful, but it was also violent and misunderstood. And it waited, and waited… to befriend whoever arrived.
It certainly seems like Yellowjackets Season 2 is geared to ramp up the supernatural aspect of the show, or at least speculation about the same. I’m here for it, even as I hope things remain at least somewhat ambiguous. After all, it’s one thing to have characters muse about the darkness in the wilderness that followed them back to civilization; it would be another thing for this to be verified in a forthright way.
Speaking of musing that the darkness followed them back, that would appear to be the adult Lottie (Simone Kessell) doing so. The trailer doesn’t really confirm this until later, though you might have known already from casting announcements and such. But we actually learn a good deal about the adult Lottie from the trailer’s content. It’s honestly kind of more than I wanted to learn. But so be it.
According to Misty (Christina Ricci), Lottie has been committed to a mental asylum in Switzerland, and we can presume this happened right after the team returned from the wilderness. That was on my bingo card as a possible explanation for why the group in Season 1 hadn’t been suspecting Lottie of being behind the blackmail, so I’ll accept it (though I still think it was maybe unrealistic for them to never mention her to one another at all).
By the time we get to Season 2, though, it would seem that Lottie is at some kind of retreat, and maybe leading a group there, though perhaps I am just reading into the footage a lot. I still have it in my mind that she was behind the men who kidnapped Nat (Juliette Lewis) at the end of Season 1, and I don’t think this trailer disproves that, even if it does gesture in a different direction.
There’s every chance, for example, that scenes are being smushed together to juxatpose the dialogue suggesting that Lottie can help with the exchange between Nat and Misty. Maybe Nat is saying yes to confirm that Lottie kidnapped her. We’ll see. There is also a shot in the mix of the adult Lottie with blood on her hands.
We get some footage of the adult Van (Lauren Ambrose), though it doesn’t provide much of a sense of what she’s been up to exactly. Maybe working at some very strange kind of movie theater? That sign behind her lists Mean Girls, Footloose and Trainspotting—films from three different decades, so that’s kind of weird. Plus there’s that stuff on the wall to the other side of her. So… probably not a movie theater?
Most strikingly, though, there is a shot of a teen Misty (Samatha Hanratty) surrounded by press. This has me a little worried that the Yellowjackets are going to get rescued sometime in Season 2, with the plot continuing on only in the present in further seasons. I’m sure Ashley Lyle & Bart Nickerson could make that work if it’s the plan they’ve had in mind all along, but boy do I love the dual timelines of this show, so I hope it isn’t.
Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) is being investigated, or at least questioned, with regard to the fact that Adam (Peter Gadiot) is missing, and the trailer seems to show her confessing to Callie (Sarah Desjardins) that she’s done some murder. Of course, maybe she’s not confessing to Adam’s murder here! Shauna has probably done multiple murders, out there in the wilderness.
Back there in 1996, I found it noteworthy to see Travis (Kevin Alves) in the circle as everyone prayed to the wilderness, since Nat has insisted he was never into that stuff. This seems like the biggest question, still, leading into Season 2: who ends up going cannibal? Is there anyone who doesn’t? And how will that work?
The trailer is set to a cover of “I’m Just a Girl” from Florence + The Machine. Which is fine. I don’t have a ton to say about that and kind of find myself wishing they’d just used the original No Doubt version. The music in this show has been so great, I don’t know why we need cover versions. I’ve been walking around today singing “Hold On” to myself because of this show as it is.
And we will indeed have to hold on for one more day… or 10, until Yellowjackets Season 2 hits our screens. Showtime is releasing it on their streaming service on March 24. Is that as the clock strikes midnight on the 24th, or later in the day? I unfortunately do not know. Either way I’ll be back as soon as I can to break down the season premiere.
Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!
