Yellowjackets Is A Series So Layered With Subtext And Whose Characters Contain Such Multitudes That I’ve

Yellowjackets is a series so layered with subtext and whose characters contain such multitudes that I’ve learned not to always take my first impression of something as a necessarily accurate one, because the show asks that you look past the surface and appreciate the greater thematic context in which it exists.

In this respect the audience’s perspective often mirrors the characters’. It’s easier to distill complex people and events into archetypes in a straightforward narrative, to elect a hero and a villain, to displace all blame onto an individual rather than confronting the circumstances, systems, and personal responsibility that created or enabled them. The violence is attributed to Shauna alone because unlike the others she embraces it, but what made her into that? She was always the catalyst, not the reaction. She says “maybe you should leave” to Jackie and nobody intervenes; she says “she wants us to” and they consume her body; she says “wait” and they let Javi drown; she says “raise your hand” and they condemn Coach Ben to death. She gives a voice to their shame, resentment, hunger, desperation, selfishness, indulgence, vengeance, because for all intents and purposes, Shauna and ‘It’ are one and the same. And ‘It’ is everyone: it is the darkness within each of the girls, and by extension that within ourselves. Try as one might to create a bogeyman in the Antler Queen, when they lift back the veil they will only ever find themselves staring back into their own eyes.