re: Yellowjackets season 3 thread

Watched the latest episode last night.

Even though Shauna sucks all the way around I was actually impressed by the ending. It was time that she either admitted she was bat shite crazy or owned the fact that she actually embraced and missed her time in the wilderness. To carry on as if she's left it behind was getting tiresome.

And I admit I got super hyped when Aerosmith was playing while Nat climbed the highest peak she could. That was awesome.

Shauna young and old sucks arse. Just an awful character. Young Nat is by far the best character in the show along with adult Misty. Where do they go from here? Are the next two seasons just going to be adult Shauna sinking further into madness?

Just finished episode 8- got 2 left. Came here to say that I sincerely want to see someone beat the smug ugly snarl off of Shauna's face.

Finished the season. I can't recall Shauna being such an awful character over the last 2 seasons. I mean, she was sleeping with her best friend's boyfriend, so she is an awful person and that's established. But man, if teen Shauna took direction from writers and was told to be an insufferable count this season, then she is one hell of an actress.

Travis has to be thinking "WTF?". Stranded with a bunch of girls and they're mostly gay? FML

can someone get rid of Shauna?

I'm late to this party, but just got done binging all three seasons.

Jackie - I'm glad she died early on. They didn't work hard enough to show her as a good leader, they just Mary Sue'd her into it so her in that role never really worked for me.

Shauna - frick her. Seriously. Both young and old she's just a shitty person. She bangs her "best friend's" boyfriend, she treats everyone around her like shite because they "bore" her (like it's their job to entertain her or something) and then becomes a paranoid homicidal Karen. She's interesting in that she seems to be the most willing to be what "it" wants, but she rejects "it" because she simply doesn't believe in mystical things.

Natalie - I don't care for the overly-sarcastic-but-misunderstood goth chick trope, but it set the stage for her to have a great character arc (at least the younger version). She went from a bit of the loner goth chick (the "rebel" on the team) to a leader, to being overthrown by Psycho Shauna (Pshauna, if you will) to being the leader of the rebel faction. Older Natalie was a trainwreck (it's Juliette Lewis and that's her specialty) that somehow went from the growth in the wilderness to ongoing addiction. Her death at the end of S2 would have been a great end for the series if it had not gotten renewed, even with the other storylines still unresolved.

Misty - First off, kudos to both actresses and the writers for creating such a bizarre and complex character. Right when you start feeling sorry for her, she either makes a mistake or purposely does something so batshit crazy that you regret that your feelings started to change. A great example of this is the coach. She saved him by amputating his leg and then cauterizing the wound but then tried to poison him to death while harboring hidden feelings for him. WTF?? This has also played out, to a lesser extent, with her desire for a mate by trying desperately to bang the guy she met online (who obviously doesn't want her) to being highly resistant to Walter's attentions (and he's obviously a perfect match for her). I now have to wonder if some of those deaths at the nursing home weren't caused by her.

Taissa - I feel like there's still a lot left in her story as she's bought into this "it", has definite leadership vibes but the "it" seems to use her only sparingly (like she's not quite what "it" wants, but is close enough). This may have something to do with the man with no eyes (perhaps they are the same thing or perhaps they are competitors or perhaps working together... for now).

Vanessa - See: Jackie. Her only reasons for being seemed to be to keep Taissa from buying more into "it" and for lesbian scenes.

Lottie - I feel like the writers didn't really know how to handle her. At times she's driving the story by being in touch with "it" but at other times she's almost a background character. Biiiiiiiiiiig WTF moment when she introduced that hatchet to the back of the researcher's head, but it set in motion the events which lead to Natalie reaching out and touching someone. At the end it feels like she knew far more than she was letting on (or, at least, was guessing at it) so it was good that she was killed off.

Travis - Trapped in the woods with a bunch of teen girls, drives away the only one actually interested in him and the rest seem to be lesbians in varying states of acceptance or denial. I get that he was torn up over his dad and brother (twice), but he had some recovery time during all that but never seemed to be able to get beyond it.

Coach Ben - Attractive, athletic male trapped in the woods with a bunch of teen girls for over a year so of course he has to be gay. The idea of his, the only adult, being crippled right off the bat and his distance from being influenced by whatever the primal "it" is, was a good placement for such a character. You could tell it was only a matter of time before Coach Ben became Coach Buffet.

Melissa - Hey, there's not enough lesbianism so we're going to create this new character for S2 and beyond for Shauna to play "dining at the Y" with. :facepalm: The writers do a good job of making her meaningful in S3, but it was such a bizarre thing to randomly add her in S2 after her never before being seen nor mentioned (Shauna's "you were nothing before me" speech).

Laura Lee - I'm leeeeeeaving on a -BOOM!-

Jeff - Too good of a guy, makes you wonder what he sees (or has ever seen) in murdery-Rosie-O'Donnell. Also, he's a bit of a cuck. His wife kills a dude she was banging behind his back and he just gets good with it and helps her cover it up. He catches his teenaged daughter smoking weed and he gives her advice on rolling joints.

Callie - Just as with her mother: frick her. While she's gained some utility since S1, I'm just tired of the unreasonably-always-angry-teen-girl trope. Especially when it's propped up with the angry teen just doing whatever they want after pointing out the parent's faux pax (whether a legit faux pax or ridiculously stretched) and the parent just stands around like a dumbass stuck in Contemplation Mode.

The rest of the characters, at least thus far, aren't enough of a focus for me to have thoughts on.

The show started off well enough, we get a crazy-arse scene then shift to the past and the story moves forward. We also get the flash-forwards where we see what's happened with some of them as they've grown older. Season 1 had a good feel with some interesting takes (Misty and the black box, for example), but a little bit of a slog from time-to-time. Season 2 felt like the writers decided they wanted to go in other directions with the story and some of the characters. Season 3 seems to be better thought-out but maybe was trying to do a bit too much (the back and forth with Walter, Jeff & Callie in hiding while Shauna just drives wherever the frick she wants, the researchers, adult-Melissa and her wife, etc while also bringing Callie into the central story AND bringing Shauna to the realization that she isn't really built for living in a calm and safe society). The only other critique is that with so much lesbianism, it would be more realistic if they had been a softball team.

Good post. I agree with pretty much everything you said.