Yellowjackets Hatesite

I've invested so much into this show it is still dragging my corpse along and I'm going to be an asshole about it. May make some diegetic stuff here but I'm probably going to mostly complain. ALSO THIS IS GONNA BE SUPER INCOHERENT FOR NOW because I'm just trying to get all my thoughts out so expect bad wording lol. Site is basically heavily under construction both in terms of how I'm writing and the actual css/html. I want to make more dedicated subpages eventually blogpost style.

The Good

The stuff I do/did like about it when I first watched it around the time of season 1.

- The complexity of Jackie and Shauna's relationship. They're such teenage girls. Seeing Shauna be allowed to be so resentful and immature and angry about one of the people she does love most that she fucks the girl's boyfriend? That was so exciting.

- The concept about society versus wilderness. The girls could be themselves out there without society forcing them into particular boxes. It was a really interesting thing to see explored, from Tai/Van getting to be themselves to Shauna finally feeling seen in the new hierarchy of the group as butcher.

- I was excited by the supernatural versus rational ideas. I prefer never getting a concrete answer because I want every choice to reasonably be either, but it feels like the show has kind of dropped this a bit. I still don't think it's provably supernatural, but too many coincidences seem to happen.

- It was really cool that Ben was gay. You'd think a grown man in the wilderness would be happy to be surrounded by teen girls, but the show flipped that idea on its head. He hated Misty being his hostage situation nurse.

- In addition to supernatural versus rational, there were so many cool mysteries that seem to have gotten dropped. Who was Javi's friend? What happened with Cabin Guy? I mean, I even wanted more info on Kodi. Not everything needs to be explained, and the girls coming to their own conclusions wrapped in supernatural vibes is crucial to their descent, but I feel less invested in brainstorming now due to feeling like these threads won't ever be explored.

- The soundtrack! Season 1's soundtrack was banger. Season 2's as well. I don't remember much of Season 3's.

- Simone Kessell as adult Lottie! I honestly love her so much from Terra Nova that even knowing she had a similar enough background to Courtney Eaton, I never imagined she would be the one cast. Although I'm not super thrilled with the writing for her, she did amazing and I'm so happy this helped her get the recognition her acting has deserved for years.

- It did get back some of the unhinged feral vibes I was hoping for around the end of season 3. It still doesn't feel like the show I signed up for, but a lot of scenes are kind of fun when removed from the overall show context. I guess I just had more fun imagining how it would turn out than how it actually turned out, but oops I can't admit that or fans who only got into it halfway through Season 2 will say I just got too attached to my Theories 😶

- It was also fun just piecing together the timeline and who else may still be alive. I probably shouldn't complain about unanswered mysteries if I do end up liking the show it isn't more than the show it is, since these things allow me to imagine a better show, lol. I think I forgot this section was supposed to be about things I liked.

- Anyway there are a lot of insane parallels, or at least there were. Lol. Callie wearing similar stuff to Jackie? Insane.

The Bad

I fucking hate this show: a musical. Aka if I ever put myself through the hell of rewatching I'll be putting more coherent criticisms here, from plot issues to some problematique vibes.

- I AM SO TIRED OF WALTER!!! He takes away from Misty's own capability that she was set up to have. It's interesting there finally seems to be some hint he isn't all he seems, but come on. This should've been settled the season he was introduced in.

- Hate the pit girl recontextualization with my whole fucking heart. I've also seen takes that it was good because it forces the viewer to question why they wanted to watch women suffer in the first place which is the most insulting fucking take. A show hooking people in on the promise of cannibalism and then, according to this reading, going "wow you fucking idiots! How dumb and cruel can you be to have actually wanted that?" is just stupid. Also I was promised declining morality and viciousness, not... this. It's just stupid, sorry. I also kind of would believe the writers would take that approach unfortunately since they did make fun of Redditer fans with Misty's forum :/ And of course there is something to be said about the writers basing this on the Andean disaster so exploiting IRL trauma is fine but enjoying fictional trauma isn't? Can these people get a grip.

- Bad handling of mental illness. Either embrace the premise of integrating stigmatized mental illnesses into a horror show and accept the consequences, or don't bother at all. Don't half-ass it and deny specific diagnoses just because you don't want to do the research to keep it consistent and realistic in a show that is based around whether something is legit or supernatural.

- Some decisions, while likely unintentional, feel racist. So many survivors are white. Simone and Sammy are sidelined for white girl Van. The visual of a white Christian girl baptizing a Maori girl is giving colonizer. Etc. I doubt it was intentional, again, but seeing how someone like Simone Kessell seems to have been treated behind the scenes, I wouldn't put some bias past the writers. Also the fandom reaction to her snarkiness about the show versus white actresses felt bad.

- Memory loss due to trauma is very helpful for explaining inconsistencies between timelines as the show develops, but this sort of show necessitates so much more planning than that and I don't think it got that. "We forgot the horrors because we were having fun" oh my god that's so stupid. Especially for Shauna, she doesn't need that considering the sheer volume of trauma she went through with Jackie and her son.

- We should've seen the discussion around the cards for the hunt. It was filmed, so I don't think those of us unhappy about it are... wrong to be, lol. They just cut it. And it felt abrupt.

Theories & Headcanons

My favorite ideas that are oftentimes better than canon

- Cabin Guy may have been based on Robert Hansen, which could imply that some pretty fucked up stuff happened to women there in the past and the energy of it all contributes to the Wilderness.

- Javi's friend may have been Cabin Guy's daughter or her ghost.

- Kodi is Cabin Guy's presumed daughter but transed his gender and that's why he knows the area so well, or he otherwise knew Cabin Guy or knew of him and that's why he explores the area

- Clearly not legit, but all the "HERE'S HOW JACKIE CAN STILL LIVE" Reddit posts citing incidents where people have been frozen to death and then revived... with the help of hospitals... was kinda fun.

- They're stuck in a time loop and that's what Lottie's visions tap into. It's also something only Other!Tai remembers and that's how she's been able to be so focused and know so much regarding the symbol.

- The Man with No Eyes is just... explained by anything else, lol. Canon was so stupid with this... It could've been one of those moments showing the girls are It, their own paranoia and insanity pulling them into self fulfilling prophecies, but it was just... stupid... especially since they do seem to be going for a more supernatural angle altogether now anyway.

- Crystal was actually Misty's hallucination. Doesn't really work because I do think Mari spoke in her direction once, and there is someting to be said about her introducing Misty to musicals she probably hadn't heard of before. But I prefer this since otherwise her character just doesn't make any sense and feels forced, which is understandable given the mold certain elements as they go, but... come on.

- Mari was hearing the dripping sounds of her own future self's blood or something back in season 2

- I liked the idea that they all took turns being Antler Queen based on card draws per hunt rather than Shauna being the Antler Queen of the pilot. It gave a sense of group responsibility. I understand the angle that there's passiveness in many of the girls that still hold them at fault, but I truly prefer them descending and becoming more cut off from their own individuality and into these more primal beings to cope with their situation, falling back into the instincts of how soccer games go with the pit as the goal and of course some sort of hive hierarchy.

- Lisa was Nat's child that she gave up years prior. I can't remember if there was something legit to Lisa being adopted? It also would have been too contrived, even though I'm sure Lottie would have kept close tabs on any kids of the YJs. But it was cool to think of a situation where maybe Nat and Travis or whoever had a son who transitioned which is why she didn't pick up on it being her kid. Also Lisa is trans Wilderness Baby, lol.

- Adam as Wilderness Baby because the show should've taken that opportunity to be more fucked up. Honestly, seeing how Shauna developed I doubt she ever would have given up her own child in a way that this could work. I wish there had been something more to him. It's nice there wasn't--again, the girls causing their own problems due to paranoia is great. TOO many perfect coincidences isn't really the point of the show and would feel TOOOO reliant on The Wilderness Making It So. But it did seem like there were maybe too many coincidences at the same time.

- Can we just pretend that Simone and Sammy were also hallucinations like Crystal to explain away bad writing? :/

- The five season plan the showrunners had is that they just wanted five seasons. Lol.

- Water contamination or whatever contributing to their mental declines. I like the idea they just... did all this to survive, but it helps to have factors like that to explain the supernatural.

- The symbol being a map or something

- Coach Ben lived and was being kept in Misty's basement, hence the wheelchair hostage set up she already had going

- Literallyyy anything else would have made more sense for how Travis died, lol. I HONESTLY assumed Lottie was lying or hallucinated how it went down, but since she's now dead it seems like her story is the canon we are supposed to believe because we'll never get any other answers unless the writers shoehorn in something about... some new random survivor who was actually there in the shadows orchestrating it al;jlkf