yellow jackets It’s been in a downward spiral since its season 2 premiere – an unfortunate truth for those of us who were initially fascinated by the cult survival drama. You, like me, were forcing yourself to progress through the season with difficulty. yellow jackets Delivering on its initial twisty and reflexive promises, I have news for you: You are officially allowed to give up.
A scene that was more than halfway through Episode 7 that streamed last Friday took me straight to my group chats and grunted in all caps. This is a twin peaks– imitation scene that doesn’t matter art, content, inner logic, humor or plot. (Even Showtime, which is awesome Twin Peaks: Return in 2017 registered yellow jacketsobvious nod to the classic show.) In short, a “skip the shark” moment for a show whose influence on me was already weak.
Episode 7 features all the Adults (my least favorite version of these characters) hanging out at Lottie’s (Simone Kessell) white bullshit wellness center. Natalie (Juliette Lewis) is already committed to the group’s mission to compromise on income, communication with the outside world, and the right to wear any color other than purple. (I think they go for it, but I can’t be sure.) But to show their love for the members of this totally non-sect group, Shauna (Melanie Lynskey), Misty (Christina Ricci), Taissa (Tawny Cypress), and Van (Lauren Ambrose) need some practice. This involves each performing a task related to the group’s ideals, but the real relevance of the job to the goals is extremely unclear.
Shauna, for example, has to get around a baby goat. Taissa is painting a random building. But Misty’s mission is the most terrifying, inexplicable and meaningless. He needs to take a break in his sensory deprivation tank to capitalize on his own thoughts without being distracted. I think? She’s not very clear and she doesn’t want to do it as much as I don’t want to see it. What happens when Misty takes a nap immediately confirms my skepticism, because it’s absolutely ridiculous.
A close-up of Misty’s head and shoulders was taken in front of a red velvet curtain (this is twin peaks episode) accompanies an original show tune. His true crime-loving online friend Walter (Elijah Wood), who dances onscreen and wears a top hat and tuxedo; and a life-size version of his parrot Caligula.
Reader, if this sounds funny or Lynchian to you, don’t be fooled: This scene is neither. It seems endless, mindless, anti-revelation, and purely because the writers rewatched it. twin peaks lately and I had no better idea – and it was probably the similarly awful Season 2 of that show, for that matter!
A journey must be exciting in Misty’s mind. For example, Teen Misty remains one of the most interesting characters in the series; Due to his insecure desire to use this as a chance to bond with his teammates, he is upset by the knowledge that he is the reason everyone is stranded in the Canadian wilderness. A friend died after the two got into a fight over Misty’s actions. Everyone else thinks Misty is nuts and maybe even a killer, and they still don’t forgive her for poisoning them all with mushrooms in Season 1. Actually, in Episode 7, Young Misty has a beautiful fit of vulnerability after trying to speak. her old love, now suicidal Coach Ben, is down a ledge.
All of this has definitely caused some serious trauma, but Adult Misty is great at hiding her scars. His job in the sensory deprivation tank feels like the perfect opportunity for us to see the horrors—all the doubts, all the hate, all the self-loathing—that haunts him constantly.
Instead, it turns out that Misty’s darkest secret is that she has nothing on her curly-haired head. Left alone, she creates a little Broadway show and chats with her pet bird. The human-sized “Caligula” sings “Let your troubles melt away”. “You’ll be sitting pretty in the moonlight.” The subliminal lyricism, choreography aside, leaves much to be desired; Walter’s dance moves are limited to fist pumping and reluctant flashes, as the show melody doesn’t give much to work on. Even Ricci looks bored halfway through.
Worse still, he takes a trip backstage, where we discover that the actor wearing the Caligula costume is none other than John Cameron Mitchell with his nose painted black. director in my opinion Hedwig and the Angry Inch deserves better than this!
At least Caligula has a short chat with Misty to reassure her that she’s not actually a bad person. “Take the name from a bird named after a Roman emperor who was wrongfully accused of heinous acts,” Caligula says in a line that makes me laugh; I will give this to them. “You’re not a murderer, Misty! You’re closer!”
It’s the kind of reassurance Misty needs right now, who actually has several deaths to blame, especially as Teen Misty comes to terms with the death of her best friend Crystal, alongside Shauna. Baby. But this one comes from a respected director/actor dressed in a cheap bird costume, and it turns the power of character development into another joke.
Yet Adult Misty comes out of this experience with a renewed sense of self-esteem; Instead, she thinks it’s time to tell her girlfriends that Walter, whom she scoffed at the last time they saw each other, is actually her new boyfriend. (A strange, fictitious phone call involving all those cane flips she had in mind, plus high-pitched flips that should be interpreted as love notes, really convinced Misty that she still liked him.) Healthy!
The garish visuals of the scene are the perfect complement to its perhaps flimsy purpose, as they are equally bland and uninspired. Misty is a character that needs a lot of thought, especially since her story was so turbulent in the 1990s. After all, in the first scene of the pilot, he’s on the run from a group of masked teenagers trying to catch him! There’s so much more to Misty’s story than we’ve reached so far, and yellow jackets I may have planned a rewarding long game for him, I think I may be too exhausted to wait for the payout.
If nothing else, I will never forgive this show for forcing me to watch a man dressed as a tatty parrot running in circles.
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