Review: Yellowjackets, “Full Circle” | Season 3, Episode 10

Well, another messy season of Yellowjackets comes to an end. I’ve given up on hoping for greatness with this show; there were glimpses of it in season one, but the series became a less interesting version of itself shortly after that, and it has never really recovered for very long. There was a solid stretch of good episodes in the middle of this season, getting some emotional resonance out of Coach Ben’s downfall and injecting some fresh energy with the introduction of Hannah’s group, but there were just as many perplexing decisions as last time and almost just as much boring abstraction around the existence of the supernatural.

And yet … I’m still here, and not just because I was assigned to write about the show. I’m in this until the end regardless because I am still curious about what happens to these characters, and about what choices the writers make in dictating where their stories go. Perhaps the source of my frustration is the fact that I do still see glimmers of promise in almost every episode of this show. Hell, I watched six seasons of Glee because it kept me on the hook, occasionally airing a really good episode that reminded me of those first couple years. I’m on the hook for Yellowjackets in the same way.

“Full Circle,” for example, is a really good finale overall. That’s not enough to paper over this season’s biggest issues, and there’s no real reason to expect a more consistent season four, but it’s enough to give me a slightly brighter outlook than I had after season two. Shifting the major action to the present day in “Storytelling” made that finale really land with a thud, especially with the unsatisfying ending for Natalie. This finale makes the wise decision to keep the bulk of the story where it belongs: in the wilderness.