Yellowjackets' first season never delivers on pilot's promise

 


"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."--Adam Martin, Yellowjackets

One of the best pilots I saw in the Fall was for the Showtime drama Yellowjackets. It debuted in November, paired on Sunday nights with Dexter: New Blood. It gave the cable network its best Sunday night lineup in quite some time, a pair of engaging shows that worked well together. Dexter wrapped up its run January 9, while Yellowjackets finished its first season, a 10-episode adventure, on January 16.

When I first saw the pilot, I was quickly drawn into the action. The series is set both in the present and in 1996, where a high school girls soccer team is on the way to Nationals when their plane crashes in the mountains. It's clear some crazy stuff happens post-crash, and not everyone makes it back. In the present, we catch up with survivors who are struggling with the past while trying to push forward into the future.

The pilot, directed by Karyn Kusama, delivers some chilling moments, particularly as it forcasts the dark tidings of what's to come after the survivors have been left for dead in the wilderness for some time. The rest of the season was a journey as they dealt with threats in the present to reveal what happened, and some other dark tidings, while we got flashbacks to see how it all played out.

Mostly, I was waiting for us to get to that moment from the pilot that left such a searing impression on me. The thing is, while the season remained solid, we never got back to that point and never really reached the highs of that pilot episode, which remains for me the best episode of the season.

I still like the cast, particularly Tawny Cypress, Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis and Christina Ricci as the future survivors. Their experience at the reunion in the finale was another high point in the series. And the finale as a whole delivered a strong closing to the first season, answering a few questions, furthering some mysteries and building tension for future seasons. It just didn't get to that moment that was so chilling in the pilot.

I enjoyed the season and could see it being a success for Showtime for a few more seasons. Hopefully we build on some of that tension going forward. But for now, the wait continues to see how we got to that opening moment that has stuck with me since I first saw it. Maybe in season two.

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