*season three spoilers below*
The third season of Showtime’s hit TV show, Yellowjackets, is now fully out, and fans’ reactions are…mixed, so to speak. The show’s first season was released in 2021 and was an immediate success, drawing over 1.3 million viewers for the finale episode and making it Showtime’s second-most-streamed TV series ever.
Like so many others, I fell in love with Yellowjackets after watching the first season: The plot twists, supernatural elements, mystery, and intrigue from the past and present storylines kept me on my toes and hungering (pun not intended) for more. The second season was definitely slower and felt a little scattered, not showing that refined, well-developed plot like the first season nailed. And it breaks my heart to say this, but unfortunately, with the third season, the show has declined even further in quality.
It’s hard for me even to pinpoint all my thoughts on what I didn’t like about this season because there’s so much wrong with it. From poor writing, bad acting, plot holes, inconsistent background characters, and meaningless storylines, the show’s quality has become irredeemable to me. You can tell the writers had a solid storyline for the first season, and maybe they didn’t expect the show to do as well as it did and didn’t plan accordingly. However, frankly, that’s no excuse for the creative choices made with this fan-favourite show.
Let’s start with the first issue: Melissa. Mainly a background character for the first two seasons, the random storyline that was thrown Melissa’s way as Shauna’s b*tch was so out of the blue and had nothing come out of it. Plus, making Melissa another survivor? Seriously? Mari was right there (rip queen). Also, I hate to say it, but Jenna Burgess, who plays young Melissa, is not the strongest actress, and made Melissa’s scenes even more unbearable to watch.
My next issue is the entire adult storyline. This aspect of the show lost its flair after the first season ended. It already wasn’t my favourite part of the show, but now, with how inconsistent and random the plot has become, I’ve had to restrain myself from skipping the adult scenes. The plot with the man without eyes has become a dead end. Van is dead, Lottie’s dead, everything is dead. Shauna has snapped and reached her max freakiness, making me feel bad for Callie, a character I hated in the first two seasons. Also, um, does Taissa just like not know she has a son anymore or what? Again, why is Melissa there? The adult plotline is just such a waste of time now, and I genuinely cannot think of one good thing to say about it.
We can’t not talk about the frog people, too. Like what the hell? This plotline was so random, and it added nothing to the show. Unbelievably terrible IMO. You can’t convince me this was part of the plan for the show whatsoever. It feels so misplaced, and there was zero buildup or foreshadowing for Hannah and her wilderness boyfriends. The addition of the research team feels like a cop-out, as if the writers had no idea how they were going to plan the rescue of the girls. Also, so much time has gone by in such a short season. I think the first two seasons together spanned seven months. Then this season has covered a whole year on its own and rushed through so many opportunities to explore the wilderness and all the freaky stuff that’s been happening to the Yellowjackets team.
We’re also no closer to learning anything about what exactly “It” is. One of the most captivating aspects of Yellowjackets is the tension and intrigue surrounding the show’s “is there or isn’t there” supernatural element. The showrunners have kept us on the edge for three seasons with whether or not there is an actual scary supernatural god or demonic spirit in the wilderness that’s driving the girls to hunt and eat each other, or if it’s something like group psychosis or toxic fumes that’s making them all cray cray.
We learned a bit more about Javi’s hideout in the tree root system, which seems to be a hotspot for some sort of gas that causes hallucinations, but there are still so many unexplained events, like the suicidal bear and the falling birds, for it just to be the gas. This mystery is honestly one of the only reasons I might stick around to watch a fourth season of this show (that, and the hopeful karma Shauna has coming her way).
As I mentioned earlier, seeing this show become a flop is sad because it had so much potential. I wish the writers had planned out the progression of both the past and present timelines. I think the show would’ve done a lot better had the showrunners actually had a vision for the show past its first season. Maybe I’m just a hater, but I’ve tried to defend this show for as long as I could, and now I’m done.