Has “Yellowjackets” lost its way?

The only way we’ll make it through this disaster is…jokes? Community? Carbs? Compassion? Take your pick. Grab it all. We are officially in a “smoke ‘em if you’ve got ’em” situation.

Here’s another suggestion: how about lowering our expectations? Like, “bucket clanking on the bottom of a dry well” low? This is also a valid coping mechanism. What’s true of all this (gestures indiscriminately) also works for “Yellowjackets.”

Since you’re reading this, presumably you’re invested in knowing whether the third season pulls out the second’s nosedive. I may be the wrong person to answer that question. Think of me as the dad who stands up from the table in the middle of Tuesday night dinner, mumbles something about going to the corner store for beer and walks out the door, never to return.

My feelings about “Yellowjackets” are about the same as that guy would have if he were ever asked about the teenagers he hasn’t seen or thought of since they were toddlers. Conceptually I miss what was, I guess. But I can’t honestly say I care what’s going on with those kooky kids. Have they figured themselves out yet? Are they still biting people?

Yet I also understand why people stick with moribund marriages after the initial thrill has faded. You’ve made it this far with the show, maybe sustained by the consistently solid performances and the soundtrack. Might as well see it through.

Besides, other series have retained their fandoms on a lot less. “Yellowjackets” still holds a few cards we’d like to read, mainly the ones that can tell us what’s really going on.

Season 3 meets the young surviving members of Wiskayok High’s soccer team in happier, warmer days. They’ve survived a bleak winter and are as close to their version of “at peace” as they can be, considering Coach Ben (Steven Krueger), the sole adult in their midst, deserted them like our figurative dad. When you’ve seen a pack of feral children eat two of their own, you may rightly wager they’ll rationalize devouring the longest pig at the first opportunity. 

From the team’s point of view, though, Coach’s disappearance makes him the prime suspect in the case of the burned-down cabin.

Other disturbances are a more present concern. Shauna (Sophie Nélisse), hurtled from a stillbirth to hunting her friend Nat (Sophie Thatcher) to butchering the corpse of the boy who died “in her place,” Javi (Luciano Leroux), resents the rest of the group for transforming their crisis into some quasi-religious celebration.

With Lottie (Courtney Eaton) as their shaman, the Yellowjackets mythicize their cannibalistic rituals to paint themselves as legends and heroes instead of the bloody monsters Shauna believes them to be.

But she also resents Natalie for accepting the mantle of leadership Lottie passed to her while she’s doing all the nasty work. Meanwhile, Travis (Kevin Alves), Javi’s older brother and the lone boy left in the group, is psychologically and emotionally marooned.

Steven Krueger as Ben Scott in “Yellowjackets” (Kailey Schwerman/Paramount+/SHOWTIME)

In the present, Shauna (Melanie Lynskey), Taissa (Tawny Cypress), Van (Lauren Ambrose), Lottie (Simone Kessell), and Misty (Christina Ricci), are wrestling with demons personal and, possibly, actual.

The remaining five are recovering from the unexpected death of adult Natalie (Juliette Lewis), a finale gut punch whose aftermath leaves one wanting – probably because the audience feels more for Natalie than her old friends do.

Or is that a matter of missing Lewis? In some shows, threatening that anyone can die becomes the carrot dangling a few inches out of reach, pulling us from one episode to the next regardless of the writing’s sharpness. The “Yellowjackets” cast tautens the narrative slack with muscular performances and some of the actors’ native likability.

Thatcher, thankfully, continues to exert her commanding presence in the four episodes provided to critics. But to some of us closer in age to the adults than teendom, losing Lewis feels like breaking up the actor equivalent of a ‘90s supergroup. (It also smacks of a business decision forcing the story in a certain direction since Hilary Swank is set to show up at some point soon, although that is purely a guess.)

Within that dissatisfaction are winding currents of black humor that keep the show watchable. Natalie’s memorial is a fine exhibit of what that means – it’s simultaneously bleak and hilarious, brutish and short as Thomas Hobbes told us it would be. Then comes her wake, which is intimate and not at all about her.

Scenes like these nudge us to mourn the paucity of emotional depth these women swim in. Conversely, the rarer notes of soft honesty poking through here and there approximate the feeling the show stirred in us in the first place.

“Yellowjackets” was fiercest when it brought into relief the wildness we abandon or push down in middle age. Some of that is still present in Lynskey’s Shauna bravely trying to prop up her marriage to the wet rag that is Jeff (Warren Kole), who is now a regretful blackmailer.

With her daughter Callie (Sarah Desjardins) now involved in her trauma revival  — the poor girl knows mommy murdered someone and fired a pistol at her mother’s friends as they chased her with knives and watched one of them die — maintaining a dignified front is an ever-increasing burden for Shauna. That grants Lynskey plenty of runway to exercise her comedic side when, say, her weak tea spouse behaves erratically.

I’m more curious about the subtextual invitations to inquiry, like how extensively Callie’s witnessing of her mother’s dark side will mold the daughter into the mother.

The ‘90s timeline of the show retains its clarity better than the present, which is understandable. Our past selves have straighter sides, creating the corners and borders that come to hold the full picture of our lives, pretty or not. They’re the easiest to fit together even if the whole image doesn’t make sense yet.

Melanie Lynskey as Shauna and Warren Kole as Jeff Sadecki in “Yellowjackets” (Kailey Schwerman/Paramount+/SHOWTIME)

That era also showcases the wild, unpredictability that’s stiffened in their 40-something versions. Having responsibility pressed on some doesn’t make them tougher or more mature. Their girl selves grow pettier and crueler, a shadow their middle-aged selves have learned to channel and surreptitiously enjoy.

The match between Samantha Hanratty’s performance as Misty and Ricci’s remains most consistent, with each lending shards of riveting volatility to their versions of a loopy role. Hanratty’s Misty is capable but not quite level, eager to be needed but also (and for good reason) petrified of losing everyone’s esteem.

And Ricci coupled with fellow citizen detective and genteel psycho Elijah Wood’s Walter could carry a bumbling physical comedy about a perfectly odd couple by themselves. In a way, that’s exactly what they’re doing, precisely evoking this drama’s shortcomings.

Without moving that train very far down the track we begin to wonder what purpose some characters serve.

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When we met adult Lottie (played by Simone Kessell) in Season 2, she was precisely what you’d expect her to be: a “healer” leading an “intentional community” drawing wayward souls to her, just as she did in the woods. Once that all fell apart, she was shuffled off to a facility for the “differently sane,” as Van put it, and maybe that’s all that needs to be written.

But…she’s still there. Like adult Taissa, freshly exiled from politics and her family, and a terminal Van, navigating what time she has left. Every ensemble show writes stronger parts for some actors than others, but there’s a sense the writers are less focused on delving into the substance of what draws these two to each other than using them as a focal point of . . . well. Some things need to be left unsaid for the sake of discovery.

Returning to those overarching questions – who is the Antler Queen, and will we find out which girl fell in the pit in that first episode? Who is the tall man with black pits where his eyes should be? Who’s getting eaten next? Can this show keep people invested in this runaround for two more seasons?

“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. No, no, don’t wait up.  

Two new episodes of “Yellowjackets” will be available to stream Friday, Feb. 14 on Paramount+ for Showtime subscribers, and make their linear debut at 8 p.m. ET/ 5 p.m. PT Sunday, Feb. 16 on Showtime.