If I were stranded in the woods and something happened that resulted in me breaking my glasses, I’d have to just sit there and hope for a tree to fall on me in the night; periodically calling out, “Not to be a b***h here, but can anyone help me?” — on the off chance that a friendly face would appear to guide my visually impaired self to safety and not a roaming pack of hormonal cannibals emerging from the darkness making animal noises, assessing my vulnerability to determine how easy of a next meal I’d make.
Nothing dissipated once they were out of those woods, their shame only rooted deeper, making it so that even after rescue, there was no “saving” them.
When Misty’s (Samantha Hanratty) glasses break in “Croak” — the episode of “Yellowjackets” that sees the teens in the wilderness timeline weighing the potential for rescue over the ramifications of their savagery coming to light — I first thought of the above, putting myself in Misty’s shoes, as someone who couldn’t make it out of the bathroom without my specs. Then I immediately thought of “Lord of the Flies,” the 1954 book by William Golding that “Yellowjackets” creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson were heavily inspired by when coming up with the idea for this show.
For those familiar with the book, this moment, where Misty’s glasses get knocked from her face during the hunt for Kodi (Joel McHale) — a wilderness expert guiding two unsuspecting frog scientists on a research expedition that ends with them chancing upon the teen Yellowjackets, mouths full of their former soccer coach, doing a ritualistic dance around a bonfire — was a true “Golding has entered the chat” moment. As were the moments that precede it in the wilderness timeline, kicked off at the end of episode 6, “Thanksgiving (Canada),” where, when surprised by the sight of three adults who got to them safely somehow and could, therefore, presumably take the teens back to the safety from which they came, the first word yelled — after waiting a year for rescue — was “No!” And, judging by the teens’ faces lit by the fire they used to cook Coach Ben (Steven Krueger), the first thing they felt was not relief or happiness, but shame.
At the end of “Lord of the Flies” — which centers on a group of British schoolboys surviving a plane crash and, in short time, going murderously feral on a deserted island — their reaction to a naval officer finding them after seeing the smoke from their fire in the distance is, like the young girls in “Yellowjackets,” not to jump for joy, but to fall to their knees in shaking sobs, ashamed of the signs of depravity displayed around them which included the dead bodies of two of their classmates.
One of the kids killed in the book — described as an overweight, intellectual and talkative boy with asthma — is given no name other than what his cruel classmates refer to him as, “Piggy.” Similar to teen Misty, his presence had been merely tolerated by his peers, beyond being made useful as the butt of jokes or, after his glasses break in a tussle, snatching what remained of them — leaving him blind — to start fires with. And as a self-governed group breaking into two opposing sides: the very savage and the not so savage . . . yet, the boys were mostly numb to the death of Piggy, until they were rescued or, in other words, “caught.”
Samantha Hanratty as Teen Misty in “Yellowjackets” (Colin Bentley/Paramount+ with Showtime)Stranded for 15 months on their island, just short of the length of time the Yellowjackets were stranded, which we’re told was 19 months, the boys in “Lord of the Flies” murdered two of their friends, sure, but they didn’t eat them — although some readers would say that was implied. One could still imagine these boys folding themselves back into society and growing up to lead fairly normal lives despite the indiscretions of their pasts as murderers and accessories to murder. Many men do. Some are even rich and famous.
The shame they felt at the time of their rescue would, you could imagine, dissipate the further they got from the island where their crimes took place — perhaps aided by months or years of court-ordered therapy and time’s ability to soften all blows. But, worse off than them, the Yellowjackets had a lot more blood on their hands and, well, we’ve seen what “going home” looked like in their cases. Nothing dissipated once they were out of those woods, their shame only rooted deeper, making it so that even after rescue, there was no “saving” them.
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Fascinated by the themes in “Lord of the Flies” and “Yellowjackets,” they jump out at me in other things I watch and read. For the past month or so — almost as long as Season 3 of “Yellowjackets” has been on — I joyously made my way through the 1,074 pages of Stephen King’s 2009 book, “Under the Dome,” and couldn’t help but notice similarities to the boys on their island and the girls in their woods.
Although rescue was always in the cards for the teens who were stranded, it probably would have been better for them if those cards had never been dealt.
Nobody eats anyone in “Under the Dome,” or chases anyone around a fire while threatening them with a stick sharpened at both ends, but they do inhabit a small area that gets trapped under a massive dome by (sorry for the spoiler here . . . aliens) and some of them like it because, like teen Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) and Lottie (Courtney Eaton) in “Yellowjackets,” having the freedom to go hog-wild nuts in a self-governing place has an appeal that a certain kind of person could really sink their teeth in. An appeal that’s hard to relinquish, once you get a taste for it.
Courtney Eaton as Teen Lottie and Nelson Franklin as Edwin in “Yellowjackets” (Kailey Schwerman/Paramount+ with Showtime)In “Under the Dome,” the Shauna of that trapped town is a character named Big Jim who uses the panic of the less evil-minded around him to instill himself, and those who follow him, as leadership. And the Lottie of that town would be Big Jim’s son, referred to as “Junior,” who gets migraines so bad that his eyes bleed and, in only a few days cut off from society, kills two girls and has sex with their corpses. Both of these characters in King’s book die before an alien is convinced to raise the dome and free everyone but, had they survived, imagine them trying to explain all of THAT. At least Lottie can blame the tree spirits — which she did, up until her own death — and Shauna can pretend that the woman she grew up to be isn’t exactly, if not worse than, the girl in the woods who ate her best friend and scribbled in her journal about not being appreciated enough for being the best at carving up a body.
With the story of “Yellowjackets” told in a split timeline we see, more and more, how although rescue was always in the cards for the teens who were stranded, it probably would have been better for them if those cards had never been dealt. Watching the miserable, broken lives of the girls as adults — especially Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) and Lottie (Simone Kessell), the two who worked against their rescue 25 years ago the most — it’s evident that they didn’t find their way back home, they left it behind them. And past the shame that fact will always bring them, their every action was and is an attempt to return to it.
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