Now that Yellowjackets season 2 has officially begun production, it’s the perfect time to take a look back at all the excitement of season 1 through some darkly hilarious memes. Starring Christina Ricci, Melanie Lynskey, and Juliette Lewis, it tells the story of a girls’ soccer team that has to survive in the Ontario wilderness after a horrible plane crash. Full of twists and turns, the girls go from working together as a team to breaking off into hostile clans, each one committed to staying alive at all costs.
The series has been hailed as a psychological thriller that highlights the dynamics of female friendships, the breakdown of societal norms, and the strong themes of tribalism and collectivism. Its fans comprise a close knight community that has produced many memes that perfectly capture the high stakes of its narrative.
Typical Teenage Fights Have Real Consequences
As Yellowjackets flashes forward and backward in the girls’ lives, it’s apparent that certain matters of pride can inflict deep wounds. Shauna and Jackie have their share of fights over Jackie’s behavior with her boyfriend, and their relationship remains tenuous even after the plane crashes. Later in the season, when Jackie and Shauna fight, their animosity escalates in a way that can’t be resolved in the same way.
Out in the wilderness in sub-zero temperatures, a typical teenage fight among friends has drastic consequences and could result in harsh words never being able to be unsaid because someone isn’t alive to hear them. As a female-led ensemble show, it does a terrific job of examining the interpersonal dynamics unique to teenage girls, and how they change when removed from societal norms.
Yellowjackets Has A Lot Of Plot Twists
From cannibalism and blackmail to cults and paganism, Yellowjackets has a lot of different threads woven throughout its tableau. Every episode reveals something about the plot or the characters, and fans are always curious about how these revelations will be treated.
When Jeff finds out about Shauna’s past he’s surprisingly okay with it, yet can’t seem to grasp that her “book club” was just a cover. What offends one person’s sensibilities might not offend another’s, but when the carefully constructed reality of a person’s life is shattered, it can lead them to question everything they know.
Yellowjackets Focuses On Trauma-Inspired Cannibalism
After the plane crashes and the girls are stranded somewhere in the wilderness of British Columbia, they have to pool their resources and their skills to stay alive. Each main character’s best traits can help them survive, but after weeks, they resort to some pretty deplorable methods of fending off starvation.
While cannibalism is a horrific act under most circumstances, it’s committed by young teens who can’t fully comprehend the consequences of their actions yet, making it even more tragic. As is evidenced by their adult counterparts, the choices they make haunt them for the rest of their lives.
Yellowjackets Doesn’t Mind Killing Its Main Characters
Like Game of Thrones and other gritty prestige dramas, Yellowjackets teaches its fans that no character is safe, no matter how integral to the plot they seem. Fans thinking that some characters were going to outlast others and make it to season 2 were sorely mistaken.
This meme is incredibly dark, referencing the scene when Jackie spends a night outside the cabin. Standing by her principles, not coming in out of the cold as temperatures reach below zero, all but ensure she’ll die. The most popular girl in the group passes away ostracized and alone.
Yellowjackets Inspires A Huge Amount Of Fan Theories
As a mystery that keeps fans on the edge of their seats every episode, Yellowjackets has a way of slowly revealing plot points that inspire more questions than answers. With every new development, fans start buzzing with theories about what will happen next.
In order to keep the suspense going, every character has questionable trustworthiness, sparking even more theories. From more likely ideas like Misty being a serial killer to Javi actually being the bear that ate her in a strange Wendigo-inspired twist, the show’s success is owed to the dozens of predictions fans make.
Yellowjackets Highlights The Death Of Innocence
Most teens learn how to prepare for adulthood through normal trials and tribulations presented at school, their workplace, and in certain social circles. In Yellowjackets, the team is placed in an impossibly difficult situation that not only traumatizes them but forces them to grow up rapidly.
The scene of Laura Lee and Leonard hopping into the Cessna plane to go find help shows incredible optimism and faith, and their subsequent incineration represents their death of those concepts. Laura Lee was the most positive member of the group, and with her death, the camp lost its innocence.
Yellowjackets Has A Heathers Vibe
Despite mimicking great shows that take place during the ’90s, Yellowjackets often has the darkness and the humor of an ’80s classic like Heathers, where the “mean girls” at a high school are targeted by their peers for making them feel like outcasts.
Even before the plane crash, the girls existed in a social hierarchy in their high school and their soccer team. When they’re in the wilderness it changes, and marginalized girls like Misty find out they have power, and girls like Tai and Shauna band together against the perceived “mean girl” Jackie for threatening the stability of the group.
Yellowjackets Has Solid LGBTQ+ Representation
There are more and more TV shows with LGBTQ+ representation, and Yellowjackets stands out for its dynamic characters. While it’s true, these characters go through brutal things and the Bury Your Gays trope is present, everyone around them is in the same dire situation.
Fan-favorite character Van undergoes some of the most visceral horrors but doesn’t let them define her. Her survival and continued temerity, tempered with her kickass personality and intelligence, have made her one of the most iconic women in the group of survivors.
Yellowjackets Has A Lot Of Dark Humor
Amidst the violence and psychological themes, Yellowjackets has an undercurrent of dark humor. Scenes of an adult Shauna living in the suburbs, nonchalantly skinning rabbits for her family’s dinner is just one example of the disconnect in the show that gives it a sense of surrealism.
This meme, which features a bloody Misty smiling, sums up the sort of bizarre comicality that can happen even during a gruesome scene. In fact, Misty Quigley has a lot of darkly funny quotes in scenes involving her adult self, who uses levity to break the tension in a situation.
Yellowjackets Has Some Archetypes
As strong as the writing in Yellowjackets can be, it still relies on some archetypes to prop up its storytelling, which fans have decided to lampoon with this meme. Depicting certain characters as packaged costumes from Spirit Halloween they reduce the cast to their simplest forms.
In a series with so many plot points, red herrings, and unreliable narratives, it’s not surprising that sometimes archetypes need to be used to keep everything from collapsing. A sense of fun and a desire to not take itself too seriously is what makes Yellowjackets different.
