Yellowjackets

We’re sure that the storytelling of Season 3 of Yellowjackets will even out as the season goes on, but it really feels like we need to see more of the teens than the adults at this point, and that imbalance is pretty evident in the first episode.

While it’s admirable to try to serve the sprawling cast by providing separate arcs for Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci, Lauren Ambrose, and Tawny Cypress, Yellowjackets forgets that a major appeal of this ensemble is what its members get up to together. .... When co-creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson and the rest of their creative team home in on what makes these girls and women tick, maneuvering the characters to reflect the thin line between civility and the feral, Yellowjackets is luscious, immersive, and barbed.

Depending on what brings you to Yellowjackets, this new season will either bring disappointment or seem like a turn in the right direction. On a plot level, the show feels in danger of stagnation, drawing out new mysteries with little conviction or clear purpose.

The adult half of the saga remains too scattered to gain much momentum. The teenage half is more cohesive .... With six episodes still left, there’s plenty of time for the show to swerve into new heights or disappointing dead ends or the vast middle ground in between. But it’s odd that nearly halfway through the season, we seem to still be in the setup phase.

There are still a lot of good performances, and more killer Nineties soundtrack cuts, but the show very much could use a shot in the arm leading to its own jaw-dropping equivalent of Jack telling Kate, “We have to go back!”

“Yellowjackets” isn’t quite one show but several of inconsistent quality joined by the flimsy glue of lingering questions that don’t seem all that complicated. What is “it” — “it” being the supposed wilderness terror – and what does “it” want decades after the teens left it? You, the loyal fans, can sit tight and ponder all that for as long as it appeals to you. And me? Um, I gotta go . . . do something.

The grown women are still scattered to the four winds, with most attempts to pair them off feeling forced, and they still lack an imperative as urgent as their younger selves’ need to stay alive. .... The paranoia, occult inclinations and regular old teen drama form a combustible powder keg that delivers some of the series’ best scenes to date.

Yellowjackets has lost much of its buzz in season 3. While the actors in both timelines are doing their best, the material they’re given doesn’t meet the high standard of quality set by season 1. The lack of connection between the actions of the characters in 1996 and their impact on their 2021 selves also makes the parallel storylines feel so distant as to not even matter anymore.

Now a wholly tedious affair whose dual narratives are equally aimless and pointless, it’s a mystery that lacks any terror, coherence, or purpose.