Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Yellowjackets: Season Two Blu-ray Movie Review

The series' fantastic cast struggles to pull this season out of the mud...

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown October 20, 2023

Oh, Yelllowjackets. Dear, sweet summer Yellowjackets. Your first season teased us with a weird and winding, downright captivating Lost-like mystery of survival, generational rivalries, stories within stories, remarkably well-drawn characters thrust into extraordinary circumstances, two (count 'em two) full casts of talented actresses, bizarre and bloody rituals, and eerie, presumably pagan supernatural forces. And let's not overlook cannibalism. Who could forget a series built on the back of teen cannibalism? The first season quickly established itself as a critically acclaimed, must-watch watercooler favorite from the Little Premium Cable Network that Could. (Poor Showtime has been trying to drag itself out of HBO's original programming shadow for decades now.) It started strong, it ended stronger. What could go wrong? Apparently a rushed, deflation of a hot idea crammed, and I mean crammed, into a middling 9-episode sophomore season whose back half unfortunately runs headlong into everything from budgetary constraints to dead-end subplots, off-kilter character developments, swiss cheese plot twists, disappointing answers to key questions, and an abundance of new questions that aren't nearly as interesting. What's a Yellowjackets fan to do? Hold out for a third season fix. Hope and pray, dear TV junkies. Hope and pray.

Just in case a refresher is required, Yellowjackets weaves the dark, two-pronged tale of a high school girls' soccer team that survives a vicious plane crash in the middle of the wilderness. Death comes fast and wicked. The girls who make it out of the wreckage are left with no other option than to fight for their lives. Their only resources? The contents of their luggage, an abandoned cabin, a lone adult coach and, of course, each other. But it seems there may be someone or something else inhabiting the forest that surrounds them. Demons? Pagan gods? Cosmic horrors? Extreme stress? Malnutrition? One of the best aspects of the series' first season is that it isn't ever entirely clear whether there are supernatural forces at play or we're simply watching frail kids fall victim to the dark magic of hunger and insanity. Weaved throughout each episode of this teenage nightmare is another story; one that takes place twenty-five years later and features a small handful of characters who somehow survived the entire, eventually cannibalistic ordeal to grow into psychologically damaged adulthood. But now these women, desperate to forget such awful deeds and days, are drawn back together by... the same malevolent entity that haunted the woods? Coincidence and their own trauma? Season One left both storylines -- 1996 and 2021 -- steeped in mystery.

Season Two gets off to a strong start. In the 1996 timeline, the teens battle the perils of a harsh winter, among other things. An increasingly pregnant Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) deals with the aftermath of her best friend's death and dismemberment, Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown) deals with her alternate personality and strange ability to intuit certain truths, awkward sociopath Misty (Samantha Hanratty) tries to cover up even more murderous mistakes, fiercely rebellious Nat (Sophie Thatcher) retreats within herself while searching for an escape from the wilderness, Van (Liv Hewson) struggles to help girlfriend Taissa through a crisis of faith, and Lottie (Courtney Eaton) reluctantly begins to embrace her role as spiritual guide and teen-cult leader. Meanwhile, in the 2021 timeline, the adults race to determine what, if anything, has brought them together and, if so, what it wants. The demure Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) tries to get away with murder, Taissa (Tawny Cyprus) battles to merge the two halves of her mind, Misty (Christina Ricci) teams up with an internet sleuth (scene-stealer Elijah Wood) and tries to hunt down a new age cult, Nat (Juliette Lewis) infiltrates said cult but soon finds it oddly appealing, Lottie (Simone Kessell) apparently leads the very same cult, and Van (Lauren Ambrose)... well, I guess Van tags along for symmetry's sake.

Yellowjackets continues to succeed in a number of areas. Both casts of characters remain compelling and endearing, regardless of how whacked out and crazy some of them just might be. The underlying mystery of the forest -- supernatural or no -- is in tact. The series' divisive but delightful blend of comedy and horror is as finely tuned and well-balanced as ever, both in its writing and performances. And where have all these talented young actresses been hiding? Constantly upstaging their adult counterparts (across the board I'd argue), the girls don't just look the part, though it's still creepy how much of a resemblance they bear to their corresponding adults. It goes way beyond surface level casting prowess. The teen thesps chew the hell out of every scene, grabbing hold of every opportunity and hurling themselves into every dramatic clash. It's quite breathtaking at times. It helps that with each passing episode, the 1996 storyline gets more and more attention and tender loving care from the showrunners and writers, offering a chilling frightfest that, in retrospect, might have been more successful on its own (sans the 2021 timeline shenanigans). Alas, it doesn't help that 1996 timeline in Season Two pulls far ahead of the 2021 timeline as the source of nearly all the hard-hitting drama and horror. The 2021 story wanders a bit too deeply into the quirky comedy woods (perhaps way too deeply) and, by episode nine, gets lost in the forest altogether.

Is the series redeemable? Maybe. Most of the work and improvements needed are to the 2021 timeline, which has such a disappointing Season Two endgame that it borders on laughable (in all the wrong ways). Speculation also exists that a full episode went off the rails and had to be jettisoned after filming, and there's plenty of evidence -- not just in the season's lower episode count -- but in the suddenly strange, incohesive, at-times baffling leaps later episodes make to hold the story together. It doesn't just feel as if entire scenes are missing. The structure of what might have been standout scenes in the final four episodes is stitched to one another, end to end, rather sloppily. If there wasn't a production issue, if there isn't entire chunks of plot that had to be cut, if the season finale isn't the best the showrunners could do with what little they have... oh dear. Then Yellowjackets fans really are in trouble. But the actresses, young and old, are top tier. The story still has genuine potential and gripping mysteries, despite the lackluster climax of episode nine. The possibility of clarity as to exactly what happened in the wilderness in 1996 and what's happening to our survivors in 2021 (and hopefully the revelation that there are very real, very unsettling dark forces at work) is very much at the forefront of my mind and I would love my time with the show to be rewarded with some truly terrifying, Stephen King-style answers. Will it happen? Or will Yellowjackets wear out its welcome and run its course, cut off and cancelled before it can build to its planned conclusion? Ratings need to rise, writing needs to tighten, and Season Three needs to deliver. Here's hoping and praying.

Yellowjackets: Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Like the 4-disc Blu-ray release of Yellowjackets: Season One, the 3-disc release of Season Two offers a striking 1080p/AVC-encoded video presentation. (Don't let the lower disc count worry you. There are fewer episodes, for one, and it doesn't appear as if the average bitrate of the episodes have taken any notable hit.) Colors are rich and vivid when called upon... especially those reds. Oh, those gory, bloody reds), skintones are warm and lifelike, black levels are deep and ominous, and contrast is quite stunning. Scenes alternating between bright snowscapes and fire-lit interiors reveals the beauty of the stark environments, and only the darkest nighttime exteriors could even be accused of suffering, though it's all in keeping with the series' cinematography and intentions. Detail is excellent as well, with crisp edge definition, refined textures and solid delineation. I caught sight of the slightest of banding here and there (typically in dark skies, flanking the moon), although it's almost not worth mentioning. Also, some of the series' dream/hallucination sequences are stylized to the point that artifacts and other anomalies occasionally appear. However, none of it seems to be the fault of the encode or the strength of the Blu-ray presentation, tracing back to the source photography and post-production techniques and fx. All told, Yellowjackets: Season Two may not thrill but its video quality certainly does.

Yellowjackets: Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

While Paramount/Showtime's Blu-ray release of Yellowjackets: Season One offered fans a lossless audio experience in the form of a terrific DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround experience, Season Two arrives without one. Instead, each episode is presented with a capable but (by comparison) underwhelming 640kbps Dolby Digital 5.1 track. The lossy mix is as good as what most people streamed when watching the series as it aired earlier this year, but just knowing the possibilities and potential makes for quite a disappointment. Dialogue is clean and clear, directionality is more than passable, rear speaker activity is represented well, and low-end support is adequate, above average even for a non-lossless track. It could be that I'm being too hard on Showtime. Perhaps if I hadn't noticed I would've been more impressed with the results. I'd like to think my ear is better trained than that but bias could be at play. Will casual fans be upset? Probably not. Will audiophiles complain? Absolutely. There's no real reason a high definition release of a modern television series should be saddled with a lossy audio mix, even a good one. Cost savings and a decent but forgettable track is apparently the name of the game here.

Yellowjackets: Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Buzz: Episodes 1-9 (HD, 2-4 minutes each) - A collection of nine behind-the-episode featurettes are included, although they're just relatively short and generic after-show talking-head pieces. Better than nothing, absolutely, but it would be nice if there was more to this 3-disc release than what a fan could find on YouTube. (A little over 40 minutes of total supplemental content has been ported to the Blu-ray.) Sadly, YouTube actually offers more.

• Creating Yellowjackets (HD, 9 minutes) - A look at the production of the season as a whole.

• "No Return" Cover (HD) - Alanis Morissette's cover of the series' title song, "No Return".

Yellowjackets: Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A lackluster sophomore season, a terrible finale episode, a lossy audio track and a small smattering of special features you can easily find elsewhere. Ah well. At least the Blu-ray release of Yellowjackets: Season Two looks the part. If you loved the first season, by all means keep watching. It's all salvageable. But the third season -- and the next Blu-ray release -- has some work to do if it wants to keep this Season One fan watching.