MyCanal evening: the return of the series you should not watch during meals!

We had to wait, but Yellowjackets is finally back tonight on Canal+ for season 2. Showtime, the original channel, announced its renewal in mid-December 2021, when only 5 of the first season’s 10 episodes had aired. Such a quick update shows how successful the series has been since its launch. Moreover, Season 3 was confirmed even before Season 2 aired.

An ending that left us hungry

The Yellowjackets season 1 finale raised more new questions than it answered the ones we’ve already had for episodes. This high-concept series — which in its own way follows in the footsteps of Lost — clearly shows that the story has the material to continue into an exciting Season 2.

To recall, Yellowjackets follows a women’s soccer team that survives a plane crash in the remote Canadian wilderness in 1996. Alone and left to fend for themselves, they try to survive there for 19 months before finally being rescued. The story is told in two timelines: the rescue in 1996 and the narrative in the present, which sees some of the survivors struggle to hide their secrets and lead near-normal lives.

In the season 1 finale, we not only learn that Taisa (Tawny Cypress) has a strange blood-covered shrine in her basement, but also that Jack (Ella Purnell) is not the person who was killed in the introduction. Episode 1. As a bonus, we also learn that Lottie (Courtney Eaton) is still alive today. And that it is the source of even greater mysteries!

New blood!

The most important information about the second season of Yellowjackets concerns the cast. Since we learn at the end of the first season that Lot is still alive, we are led to discover an adult Lot played by Simone Kessel. This character takes on more and more scale in a season that goes both feet into mysticism.

Another surprise for this new season, Lauren Ambrose (fired from Servant) joins the cast to play the role of Chief Van. It also survived the winter hell in the Canadian forest, something we didn’t know before.

But the good news does not end here. Elijah Wood is also there to play a new character. He becomes Misty’s (Christina Ritchie) accomplice as a somewhat peculiar guy who investigates the disappearance of Shauna’s (Melanie Lynskey) boyfriend Adam (Peter Gadiot).

We also find all the former cast members from the time periods set between 1996 and 2021. This means we could see a young Shauna (Sophie Nellis) and an adult Shauna (Melanie Lynskey, most recently in The Last of Us) again. Teenage Taisa (Jasmine Savoy-Brown) and grown-up Taisa (Tawny Cypress) return, as do young Natalie (Sophie Thatcher, best known for The Book of Boba Fett) and her grown-up version (Juliet Lewis).

Complex Misty (Christina Ritchie) and her teenage counterpart (Sammy Hanratt) are also back. The rest of the teen squad is back, including Jack (Ella Purnell), who died at the end of season 1, but I won’t tell you more about her… she’s central to the plot of the first two. Episodes and in particular a scene that will probably remain in the annals of television history.

It’s a real treat to find this group of teenagers, excited as they survive a terrible winter in the middle of nowhere. Except that survival involves breaking the ultimate taboo, and this season he’s fighting it with all his teeth. The series still plays well with our emotions and nerves. She develops her secrets, expands her world and, above all, paints a fascinating portrait of her young heroines.

We are far from the parable of the teenager and the “easy” initiatory journey. Yellowjackets pays particular attention to writing female characters outside the conventions of fiction. As the title of the series suggests, they are wasps. They are dangerous, unpredictable and fascinating.

Yellowjackets Season 2 Thursdays at 9pm on Canal, two episodes per night and available on MyCanal.