Yellowjackets is the next Lost. Let’s hope it’s not a letdown

YellowjacketsShowtime’s new thriller, “The Unexpected,” begins with a panicked gasp. The camera bounces alongside a young woman in a nightgown running through the woods; she’s barefoot, even though there’s snow on the ground. The camera records her making strange bird sounds and whispers behind her. The girl keeps running – for her life, it seems – until she stumbles into a deep pit full of spikes. Camera pans to her body; the pursuer watches her, her face hidden in a cloth mask and their shoulders covered with animal skins.

We then get a “time jump”. A high school girls’ soccer team got stranded in the wilderness after their private flight crash-landed; only a few survived, and now they’re adults, still haunted but trying to lead “normal” lives. Another flashback takes place in the wilderness. Masked girls tie up the body of a girl who has been killed and cook her as meat. This is the opening. Yellowjackets The mystery surrounding the mysterious woods that stranded these women has just begun. Each episode will continue to raise the stakes by revealing more and involving mind-bending endings.

Since the day I first started to watch, Yellowjackets Showtime has taken my thoughts to the extreme with panicked, desperate speculations regarding what would happen next. My friends have been calling it “the next Lost,” and much like LostMy brain is flooded with fan theories, and I have been arguing with my girlfriend for years about the character motivations.

The problem is, I can’t deal with another Lost. I’ve been down that road before, and I don’t want to go there again. But the other problem is, it’s already too late. Yellowjackets has its sweet little stingers in me, and it didn’t take long; the gory, chilling opening episode got me good, and I’ve been down for the count ever since.

Image by Paul Sarkis/SHOWTIME

Lost This exact kind of shit broke my heart many years ago. Remember the thrill I felt when the season ended. LostWhen the mysterious hatch was opened by one of the characters. You could imagine what might happen. There were many more great moments. The polar bears Not Penny’s boat! “We have to go back!”) Remember the speculation, the vindication whenever you managed to predict something correctly, the ongoing sensation that anything could happen? But then … remember how it felt to watch the last season and realize that it just wasn’t that deep?

Since that time, I have tried to avoid getting too invested in the puzzle boxes mysteries. After all, if you don’t get invested, you can’t be disappointed when the reveals don’t go anywhere. I didn’t get my heart broken when Battlestar Galactica True DetectiveIt took unexpected turns. I didn’t like Westworld – not even season 1 – because I got the sense I was being fucked with on purpose. Cliffhanger? I don’t know her! But not anymore.

Now, however, Yellowjackets, I’ve returned to my worst impulses. I search “Yellowjackets” on Twitter and Reddit as soon as I’ve completed an episode, checking multiple times a week to see if anybody’s noticed any details that seem promising. I send texts to friends to hear whether they’re caught up on the show so we can trade theories; one of my friends knows a recreational pilot who gave us his own theories about what really happened to the plane at the end of “Flight of the Bumblebee” (the most recent episode at the time of writing). Let’s just say, based on his insights, I’m more convinced than ever that Yellowjackets It is supernatural.

Since Yellowjackets airs on Showtime, it’s not as popular as Game of ThronesOr Lost, but I’m not the only one who’s become captivated by this show’s unfolding mystery. And that’s really as it should be, because I need more people to participate in fan theories and slake my thirst for mystery-solving.

Image by Paul Sarkis/SHOWTIME

I don’t know whether Yellowjackets This season, the show will solve any problem in a satisfactory manner. It’s more than a puzzle show. The ensemble cast of teenagers as well as their adults have a magnetic relationship. So I’m not just sticking around to find out about the wilderness cult; I’m also here for the stacked cast playing various anti-heroines tearing one another into pieces to survive. Christina Ricci’s terrifying turn as the villainous Misty – as well as her teenage version, played by Samantha Hanratty – gets me deliciously stressed every week. Then there’s Nat, played by Sophie Thatcher (the teen) and Juliette Lewis (the adult); she keeps making terrible choices, but given her tragic life history, it makes sense (and makes for harried watching). Tawny Cpress and Jasmin Sevoy Brown play the teenage Taissa. They effortlessly switch between being solemn or unhinged.

High I feel Yellowjackets Right now might not be the last. It feels like it has been earned for the first times in years, and I want people to share with me how it feels. We need more people to do the same. Yellowjackets Melanie Lynskey, actress on Twitter openly engages with fan theoriesThis keeps everyone wondering (and sometimes losing their damn minds). More people need to DM me about the glitter at the bottom of Shauna’s closet, and where it really came from. Callie is going to sleepovers every night. Doesn’t that seem suspicious to anyone?!

Can you understand what I am referring to? It’s hopeless. I’m doomed. My story is a warning tale. It’s okay to join me.

Yellowjackets Season 1 of Showtime’s series is currently airing, and new episodes are added every Saturday.