Yellowjackets season three has received mostly positive reviews from critics, with many claiming the survival drama is back to its best.
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Created by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, the mystery thriller series follows a girls’ football team in 1996 who, while travelling to a tournament in Seattle, crash-land in the Canadian wilderness and are left stranded for 19 months. Between their attempts to survive, the show also jumps to their adult lives in the present day.
“The Yellowjackets continue to fight for survival after a brutal winter in The Wilderness,” reads the season three synopsis. “In the present day, still reeling from Natalie’s death, the survivors are forced to uncover secrets they thought were buried for good.”
The series stars Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci and Juliette Lewis among the adult cast, while Ella Purnell, Sophie Thatcher and Jasmin Savoy Brown are among the younger cast members.
In a four-star review of the third season, The Guardian‘s Rebecca Nicholson wrote: “Yellowjackets may have taken its time to get there, but boy did it get there – and with panache to spare… Its sense of humour is definitely back, too, which is a relief for a show about teenage cannibalism.”
Empire also gave the new season four stars, with Leila Latif writing: “Yellowjackets Season 3 takes longer to get going than the show’s previous two outings, but is still a transfixing watch with an achingly cool soundtrack and plenty of stomach-churning tricks up its sleeve.”
IGN, meanwhile, had a number of reservations about the third season, claiming the series has “lost much of its buzz”.
“While the actors in both timelines are doing their best, the material they’re given doesn’t meet the high standard of quality set by season 1,” wrote Tara Bennett. “The lack of connection between the actions of the characters in 1996 and their impact on their 2021 selves also makes the parallel storylines feel so distant as to not even matter anymore. The murky supernatural qualities that drift in and out of the series don’t feel like serious explanations anymore either, so there’s an adrift feel to this season that is very disappointing.”
The first two episodes of Yellowjackets season three are now available to stream on Paramount+ in the UK.