2 l November
14 - 20, 2021
Northeast Oregon TV Weekly
The word “reunion” typically connotes
BY JAY BOBBIN a happy regathering. Then, there’s the
Ella Purnell (left) and Sophie Nelisse star in “Yellowjackets,”
premiering Sunday on Showtime.
‘Yellowjackets’ brings athletes’ past trauma
into the present on Showtime
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reunion that fuels “Yellowjackets.”
Premiering Sunday, Nov. 14, the
Showtime drama series focuses on four
women 25 years after surviving a wilderness
plane crash while members of a high
school soccer team. The show flashes back
frequently to that ordeal, helping to explain
the respective issues that they still have now.
Melanie Lynskey (“Two and a Half Men”),
Juliette Lewis (“Natural Born Killers”),
Christina Ricci (“Black Snake Moan”) and
Tawny Cypress (“Unforgettable”) play the
quartet in the present day.
“I honestly was so excited to read
something that was so different,” Lynskey
reflects. “There was a genuine sort of
edge to this, something very tense in the
writing. And I really loved that it was
so female-centered, and every single one
of the women was so well-drawn and
interesting. By the end of the pilot, I felt
like I knew everybody, and they were all
unique individuals. I’m very, very nervous
of signing long-term show contracts, and I
just was like, ‘I can’t wait to see where this
goes. I can’t wait to do this for as long as I
can do it.’ ”
Since “Yellowjackets” visualizes the plane
crash often, a younger foursome of actresses
also portrays the central characters. Sophie
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Nelisse (“The Book Thief”), Lynskey’s
counterpart as the teenage Shauna, recalls
that working on that part of the show’s
set was, “very claustrophobic. The plane
was slightly tilted to the side, so I think
it was really helpful for us to be in an
environment like that. It made it very
realistic. When we got there on the first
day and saw how real it looked, I think we
felt very scared, and it really helped us get
into our characters’ bodies and motions.”
Ella Purnell also is among the younger cast
members.
“Yellowjackets” executive producer and
(with Bart Nickerson) co-creator Ashley
Lyle says, “We knew we didn’t want to be a
show about what happened, but about why
it happened. We figured the best way to do
that was to just play it all in the beginning,
so that the question is more, ‘How did they
get from Point A to Point B?’ Obviously,
there are rifts in the group, but it’s really a
team.
“What was interesting to us about having
it be a championship soccer team is that it’s
all about collaboration,” adds Lyle. “Spoiler
alert: It’s not really a soccer show, but it’s
about how these girls were able to really
work together, then to see how that might
really start to fall apart and shatter over the
course of a season. The circumstances bring
out both the best and the worst in them.”
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