No Return – Yellowjackets Review Season 3

From the pilot episode of Yellowjackets (created by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson), audiences were presented with duel timelines in 1996 and 25 years later following some of the survivors of a plane crash who had been stranded in the wilderness for 19 months in their teens. However, the pilot begins with a third timeline in the wilderness with the teens, doing a hunt and cannibalistic feast, while season three has not yet caught up to this timeline, it is likely to reach it by or near the end of the season but we already have the sense now of the significance of that scene to the mental state of the characters in the adult storyline of the series and a greater understanding of the series theme song “No Return.”

The series has always courted the line with the supernatural, leaving room for questioning, however, there at the heart of the show, the series is not about the supernatural. The supernatural or “the wilderness” serves a purpose for people in various ways in the series in that it gives them something to cling to, to shift their guilt onto, or as a means of claiming power. When I look at the wilderness in Yellowjackets, I think of other cases of group hysteria, particularly witch trials, and the purposes they served. I think particularly of the Salem Witch Trials and how people have tried to understand what happened with the moldy bready theory being thought of as a reason for the mass hallucinations, but the drive for the mass accusations is posited so that land could be seized from accused male witches. This season, I saw a lot of parrels with this, particularly with the group hallucinations in the cave and the trial of Ben (played by Steven Krueger), who, if Natalie (played by Sophie Thatcher) were better at math would have been found not guilty on the first vote (assuming abstentions were allowed) but instead went onto be found guilty.

His being found guilty was a turning point that led the characters to their point of “No Return,” as their theme song says. Because despite being found guilty, they do not kill him right away but instead wound him and keep him prisoner after Akilah has a cave hallucination that he is their bridge home. This leads them to force-feeding him when he refuses to eat, and eventually, Natalie kills him at his request. Shauna takes charge, and in her new leadership role, she decides they will feast on Ben despite not needing to eat him because they have plenty of other food sources. While they are eating him, dancing, and screaming into the night, that is when others finally come across them, and the hope of rescue is dashed because there is a dismembered head on display.

Before Ben, the other entries into cannibalism could be justified if they were rescued. They were starving, they had to do it. But there is no justification for this one. And immediately, Lottie (played by Courtney Eaton) kills one of the hikers. These are the characters you see in that opening sequence in that cold winter that kill, hunt, and feast behind masks. Masks they still wear in the present as they try to hide from their pasts and pretend it doesn’t exist and doesn’t affect them. Even as it continues to bleed and colour every aspect of their lives and the choices they make.

The series is about trauma, and each of these characters are big festering wounds of unresolved traumas, and they bite. Just ask new cast addition, Hilary Swank.

Yellowjackets Season 3 is currently airing on Paramount+ with Showtime in the US on Crave in Canada.