Skip to main content

"Yellowjackets": Season One

 We wrapped up "Yellowjackets" Season One. Let's see where we're at.


The writers have great fun with Shauna, who seems to grasp her situation, but that's a lie. We're led to agree with Shauna that the Absentee Husband ("I need to do inventory") must be having an affair, and that the strange young boyfriend must have dark secrets and schemes. In fact, it's Shauna who is a villain--more often than not--and I loved discovering her missteps in the final hours. 

I also enjoyed Shauna's anger: "I don't have a bond with my daughter. I don't even like my daughter...." And it was a thrill to see Shauna coolly eviscerate her kid at the dinner table: "You think you hold all the cards here? Have you heard of mutually-assured destruction? Let's talk about the fate of your college fund, if Daddy and I get a divorce...."

I giggled through Shauna's painfully awkward "reunion brunch" with Jackie's parents. This is like something from an Anita Brookner novel: No one wants to be seated at the table in question, but the brunch must unfold, because of strange sadomasochistic urges. Jackie's mother can't keep her passive-aggression under the surface: "It must have been difficult to be friends with someone as extraordinary as Jackie....You've done the best you can." Shauna's husband responds with a surprising and romantic thought: "Shauna is brilliant. Shauna, did you actually join MENSA?" All of this is delightfully uncomfortable, and the climax is Shauna's unveiling of a bizarre birthday trinket--a "gift"--that clearly means nothing to anyone at the table.

I didn't follow all the twists this season, and some things puzzled me. Why, exactly, did the Fearsome Four choose to attend the twenty-fifth reunion? And why would the coach allow Jackie to sleep outside? But I was invested in Shauna--all the way. "How have I been? Busy....I was just dismembering my lover's corpse...."

I think I might revisit "Goodbye to All That"--a Melanie Lynskey movie from ten or ten-ish years ago--as I wait for "YJ" Season Two.

P.S. Lynskey says she based Shauna's mothering on Mama Lynskey--Melanie Lynskey's own mother. "My mother didn't enjoy the parenting experience; she often seemed overwhelmed." The artist uses the things that life hands to her!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Host a Baby

-You have assumed responsibility for a mewling, puking ball of life, a yellow-lab pup. He will spit his half-digested kibble all over your shoes, all over your hard-cover edition of Jennifer Haigh's novel  Faith . He will eat your tables, your chairs, your "I {Heart] Montessori" magnet, placed too low on the fridge. When you try to watch Bette Davis in  Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , on your TV, your dog will bark through the murder-prologue, for no apparent reason. He will whimper through Lena Dunham's  Girls , such that you have to rewind several times to catch every nuance of Andrew Rannells's ad-libbing--and, still, you'll have a nagging suspicion you've missed something. Your dog will poop on the kitchen floor, in the hallway, between the tiny bars of his crate. He'll announce his wakefulness at 5 AM, 2 AM, or while you and another human are mid-coitus. All this, and you get outside, and it's: "Don't let him pee on my tulips!" When...
3 comments
Read more

The Death of Bergoglio

  It's frustrating for me to hear Bergoglio described as "the less awful pope"--because awful is still awful. I think I get fixated on ideas of purity, which can be juvenile, but putting that aside, here are some things that Bergoglio could have done and did not. (I'm quoting from a survivor of sexual abuse at the hands of the Church.) He could levy the harshest penalty, excommunication, against a dozen or more of the most egregious abuse enabling church officials. (He's done this to no enablers, or predators for that matter.) He could insist that every diocese and religious order turn over every record they have about suspected and known abusers to law enforcement. Francis could order every prelate on the planet to post on his diocesan website the names of every proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting cleric. (Imagine how much safer children would be if police, prosecutors, parents and the public knew the identities of these potentially dangerous me...
1 comment
Read more

Raymond Carver: "What's in Alaska?"

Outside, Mary held Jack's arm and walked with her head down. They moved slowly on the sidewalk. He listened to the scuffing sounds her shoes made. He heard the sharp and separate sound of a dog barking and above that a murmuring of very distant traffic.  She raised her head. "When we get home, Jack, I want to be fucked, talked to, diverted. Divert me, Jack. I need to be diverted tonight." She tightened her hold on his arm. He could feel the dampness in that shoe. He unlocked the door and flipped the light. "Come to bed," she said. "I'm coming," he said. He went to the kitchen and drank two glasses of water. He turned off the living-room light and felt his way along the wall into the bedroom. "Jack!" she yelled. "Jack!" "Jesus Christ, it's me!" he said. "I'm trying to get the light on." He found the lamp, and she sat up in bed. Her eyes were bright. He pulled the stem on the alarm and b...
1 comment
Read more