Everything You Need to Know About ‘Yellowjackets,’ Showtime’s Latest Survivalist Drama

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The show takes place in 1996 and follows a team of teenage soccer players from New Jersey after their plane crashes on their way to a tournament in Seattle. They find themselves lost ​​in the middle of the Canadian wilderness and find ways to survive for 19 months before they are rescued, and their friendships and sanities are put to the test. Things quickly get dark and eerie as they have to make tough decisions to keep themselves alive while dealing with their mysterious and sometimes terrifying surroundings. 

The dual-timeline goes back and forth between the time of the accident and 25 years later. Viewers get to see how the tragic events that took place have affected the survivors—Shauna Sadecki, Taissa Turner, Natalie Scatorccio, and Misty Quigley—and how the haunting memories continue to follow them as adults. There’s also a supernatural element to the show that creeps in throughout the season, while straight-up cannibalism and murder rituals also take place. Aside from the weirdness, there’s plenty of suspense, drama, and thrills that are good enough to keep millions of people hooked.

Yellowjackets was co-created and executive produced by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, who are husband and wife. While the show feels a lot like the female version of the classic novel Lord of the Flies, the creators said they were influenced by the 1972 Andes flight disaster that also inspired the 1993 movie Alive and 2009’s The Donner Party.

In 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed in the Andes mountains. The flight was carrying 45 passengers and crew, including 19 members of the Old Christians Club rugby union team. They were stranded for 72 days, and after some passengers died from starvation and weather conditions, some resorted to cannibalism to stay alive. Two survivors hiked for 10 days to seek help, and two months after the crash, a total of 16 survivors were rescued.

Yellowjackets’ characters are layered, at times problematic and complicated, and they don’t lean on the one-dimensional “mean girl” or “good girl” tropes from other shows or movies about teens. It’s a more realistic portrayal of how people are in those formative years, but in this case, it shows how they each deal with chaos and tragedy. It is necessary to portray young women as multidimensional human beings whose main focus isn’t always on boys, clothes, or superficial things. Stripping them down to the most primal versions of themselves allows viewers to see the duality in girls that even if they are book smart, pretty, talented, or good at sports, they can also make bad and selfish decisions. Women aren’t perfect, but they’re also not bad people for having flaws, and that’s an important message for viewers.  

The co-creators said that they wanted to explore the depth of female friendships and what humans are capable of in order to survive through these characters. "The real question is how did normal girls get from point A to point B? How do they go from having the most typical suburban teenage experience to doing the most extreme thing a human being can do?” Lyle said in an interview with Forbes. “The show is a metaphor for teenage hierarchy. These girls were already ravaging one another in 1996."

The show’s cast has a balance of newcomers and some familiar faces. Some of the teenage characters have adult counterparts, but so far, we’ve only met the ones that are assumed to have survived the ordeal. Ella Purnell stars as Jackie, who is the team captain of the Yellowjackets soccer team. Melanie Lynskey (Don’t Look Up) and Sophie Nélisse star as the adult and teenage versions of Shauna Sadecki, who was Jackie’s best friend. Tawny Cypress and Jasmin Savoy Brown star as the adult and teenage versions of Taissa Turner, who was just as driven on the soccer field and out in the wild as she is as a New Jersey politician as an adult. 

Juliette Lewis and Sophie Thatcher play adult and teenage versions of Natalie Scatorccio, who is also part of the soccer team but is considered the anti-social “burnout” of the group. Not much has changed when she starts the show as an adult in rehab. Christina Ricci and Sammi Hanratty star as the adult and teenage versions of Misty Quigley, who was the team’s equipment manager. In high school, no one took her seriously and even after being an asset to them in the wild, she didn’t get much respect or recognition from the other women as an adult either. Steven Krueger stars on the show as Ben Scott, who was the assistant coach of the Yellowjackets soccer team and the only adult to survive the plane crash. Peter Gadiot, Liv Hewson, Alex Wyndham, Kevin Alves, Luciano Leroux, Courtney Eaton, and Warren Kole also star in the show.

Now that the thriller is reaching its last episode of Season 1 and Showtime has already renewed for a second season, it’s safe to say that this is the best time to binge-watch it. Teen dramas might not be your cup of tea but there is plenty of suspense, action, and mystery to keep you hitting play, episode after episode. According to the network, 4 million viewers across Showtime’s platforms have watched the premiere, so go ahead and join the conversation and make Yellowjackets your first binge-watch of 2022. The finale airs on Sunday, Jan. 16 at 10 p.m. EST on Showtime.