It’s great when you find a show so compelling that you just have to binge the whole thing over one weekend. YELLOWJACKETS was one of these. It’s a brilliantly written mystery-horror-drama-thriller that feels like a wild mash up of HEATHERS meets LOST meets THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT.
It has two parallel tales to tell, past and present. The story begins in America in 1996 (realised in all its loving nostalgic glory) where the local girl’s soccer team is about to fly out to play the nationals. They never make it – their plane crashes in a deep forest. The survivors are not found for over a year and questions remain about exactly what happened to them in this time – and the ones who didn’t make it. Fast forward to 2021 and we follow a group of these survivors, now much older – but still fiercely guarding the secrets of what happened in the woods. Until unsettling new events force them to face the ghosts of their (bloody) past.
There’s a great ensemble cast and the teens are really good and spark off each other very believably. The adult casting is kind of brilliant too.- you can instantly buy them as the adult versions of these characters. The only one who physically doesn’t quite fit is Juliette Lewis who looks so completely different. But her performance is fantastic so it still works. Christina Ricci’s character is hilariously – and terrifyingly – nuts. She’s the friendliest sociopath I’ve seen on screen for a while.
It’s a cleverly structured tale with plenty of unexpected twists and turns, and it looks like it’ll take at least 3 seasons to play out this whole mystery. But series one ends on a pretty intense note, and I’m certainly looking forward to seeing where it goes from here (it’s already been renewed for a second season at least). And I should mention it looks and sounds amazing too – with a killer soundtrack of 80s and 90s pop classics, and an unnerving Trent Reznor-esque tonal score.
It’s on Sky TV / NOW TV for the next 12 days, so catch it while you can (and hopefully it’ll head to other streaming services after that)
