The Sloppy, Lazy ‘Yellowjackets’ Season 2 Finale Is A Crushing Disappointment

The Sloppy, Lazy ‘Yellowjackets’ Season 2 Finale Is A Crushing Disappointment

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Yellowjackets

Credit: Showtime

See Coach Ben’s face in the image above? This is how I feel after watching the Yellowjackets Season 2 finale. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve felt this upset over a TV show. A long time since something went from being so good to so absolutely terrible this quickly. I am Ben’s sad face. I am his disappointment. And like Ben in the final moments of ‘Storytelling’ I want to burn this show to the ground.

I don’t even want to recap. Honestly, I’m not sure this episode deserves a recap. Here’s what I hated about this finale—a finale I hated as much as I loved the Season 1 finale.

In the present timeline, everything is tied up in a nice, perfect, absolutely impossible bow. Just a little while after all the women converge at Lottie’s cult grounds, Walter shows up. And then Jeff and Callie. And then the two detectives, Kevin and Mustache. They all show up just a tiny bit before Lottie and the ladies have their little hunt ceremony. How terribly convenient! Callie has the gun, so when Shauna draws the queen and the women all, bizarrely, decide to actually hunt her, we know that Callie will show up just in the nick of time. And she does!

Walter kills Kevin with poison. I said, when he gave him the hot cocoa, “I wonder how much poison he put in the hot chocolate?” Shocker! He also manages to convince Mustache—in about ten seconds—that he has a bunch of dirt on Kevin making it look like he killed Adam Martin. How convenient!

Hey, here’s a game: Every time something really convenient happens in this episode, take a drink. You’ll be puking by the time the credits roll. I’m sick to my stomach just writing this.

Yellowjackets

Credit: Showtime

All of my regular readers know that I was one of this show’s biggest champions in Season 1. It made my best shows of 2022 list. I told everyone who would listen to go watch it. I watched the first season three friggin times!

I am heartbroken. In the end, after Callie shoots Lottie, after their stupid, ridiculous, horribly rushed hunt ceremony, Lisa shows up with a shotgun (how convenient!) and threatens to shoot Natalie because, for some reason, Natalie pulls a knife right at that moment (how convenient!) Misty has a poison needle with her (how convenient!) and rushes Lisa, but Nat steps in the way and takes the needle instead, dying moments later. This is supposed to be juxtaposed with her letting Javi die, like it’s some penance being paid or something, but that’s ridiculous. The most ridiculous TV death since Eddie friggin Munson.

Look, I hate to say this, but this show’s writers have lost the thread. They clearly don’t understand their own show! Nat was the hero. Now we literally have nobody to root for, which is one of the five biggest problems I laid out for this show in my article yesterday even before I knew what happened to her.

What a spectacular fall from grace. Much faster, much more brutal than Lost’s decline.

Yellowjackets

Credit: Showtime

In the past timeline, they butcher Javi and Ben sees this taking place and decides to burn the cabin down. I was basically cheering at this point. If only he’d succeeded. I guess there is still one person to root for, but I don’t like Ben’s chances anymore than I like this show’s chances at any kind of satisfying third season.

They eat Javi and Lottie is basically fully recovered by the time the meat is cooked. She tells them that Nat is their leader now, because the Wilderness wouldn’t let them kill her blah blah blah. I’m not sure what else to say. Travis took a bite of his brother’s raw heart before throwing it on the skillet. Guess that’s all resolved. How convenient!

This was a bad episode of TV, not just a disappointing episode of Yellowjackets. Contrived plotlines. Neat and tidy. Like they were hurrying to wrap up all the threads they’d screwed up. The cop plotline was bad and it was resolved in the most convenient, ridiculous way imaginable. Walter is just a walking deus ex machina. Lottie’s being taken off to a mental hospital. Nat is dead. Shauna is free. Who knows or cares where any of their stories go? Are they just done with the modern timeline now altogether? It didn’t go anywhere. We learned nothing about Tai or the Man With No Eyes. Nat basically did nothing all season before dying.

The past storyline is a drag now also. The butchering of Javi was too grotesque and bleak for my taste and I have a strong stomach for this stuff. I’m just horribly, horribly disappointed and I can’t imagine any fans of the first season watching this and thinking “Oh yeah this was satisfying and good!” but then, I’m always shocked by people.

0/10. F-. Two thumbs down. What a bloody awful shame. Here’s hoping Succession sticks the landing. Honestly, I’d be shocked if it didn’t. And maybe Barry will come through. I’m a little dubious. I’ll be writing about both series finales here on this blog, so you should follow me.

What did you think of the Yellowjackets Season 2 finale? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.

As always, I’d love it if you’d follow me here on this blog and subscribe to my YouTube channel and my Substack so you can stay up-to-date on all my TV, movie and video game reviews and coverage. Thanks!

P.S. My daughter was even more livid than I was after watching this episode. She went on a long, angry rant about it. She was yelling at the TV during the episode. We are not happy. Not happy at all.

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