TV

Descending yellow: How can the "yellows" miss such an important thing?

The "Yellows" series has become a huge success not only among audiences but also among critics in the United States, and often while watching it, the question arises as to how it happened. Worth watching? Review season without spoilers

Ido Yeshayahu

17/01/2022

Monday, 17 January 2022, 16:57 Updated: 17:25

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Trailer for the series "Yellowjackets" (Showtimes)

The "Yellow Jackets" series (originally Yellowjackets) cast a spell on critics in the United States. It’s hard to think of another reason for her almost-sweeping revelry, including two nominations for the Critics ’Choice Awards and a place of honor in the summaries of the top ten series this year in 23 of them. This is a nice series, yes, but from here to this outpouring the road is long and puzzling, especially since the series misses out hugely with one of the most important elements that are essential to make it truly superb.

In fact, the "Yellows", whose last episode will air tomorrow (Tuesday) Lis and Yudi next to the US, are a descendant of a fairly old genre that does not tend to receive particularly hot treatment from the critics - teenage thrillers. And so there are also tumultuous hormones and other problems of adolescence: from Veronica March - the only one that has really received rave reviews, at least in its original incarnation - through "Little Liars" to "Riverdale" and its duplicates,This matter is trite and ground and has had huge successes on television.

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All that interests the series is the mystery.

Melanie Linsky, The Yellows (Photo: Kylie Schwarman / Showtime)

This is not the only familiar genre that "The Yellows" appropriates - it is directly inspired by "Lost": its plot takes place in the 1990s, and follows a group of girls who during a flight to a decisive game, a plane crashes in the depths of a distant Canadian forest. Now they have to survive alone and deal with the fact that there is no rescue on the way, and in the process, as the season progresses, she flirts with the idea that there is something supernatural lurking for them. Are these the girls' false imaginations? Definitely possible, but maybe not either. One way or another, they will be trapped in this forest for a year and a half, during which they will degenerate into vile and terrible deeds - this is what we are promised in the opening scene of the series.

But even that does not end there with the only genres that "The Yellows" boast about.

At the same time she describes what is happening in the present - we follow four of these girls when they are already middle-aged women, and the past suddenly haunts them again: someone blackmails them and threatens to expose their deeds since, after secretly hiding them for 25 years.

These three women are embodied by icons of the nineties who erupted in that decade as young actresses and have since continued to work and thrive: Shona (Melanie Linsky, "Heavenly Creatures") is a frustrated housewife and married to love her youth, who originally "stole" from her best friend.

Natalie (Juliet Lewis, "Peak of Fear," "Killers by Birth") is now an addict coming in and out of rehab, and Misty (Christina Ritchie, "The Mermaids," "The Adams Family") is a psychotic nurse in a nursing home.

The fourth rib is Taisa (Towny Cypress), now a wife and mother who ran for the Senate.

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The same worn and unbearable string.

Julius Lewis, "The Yellows" (Photo: Paul Sarkis / Showtime)

If this description sounds cluttered, it's nothing compared to what's actually happening.

The "Yellows" - which are interspersed with stories of adolescence, survival, horror, mystery, suspense and relationship drama - occupy so much space that it has no chance of being able to keep it all in its hands.

The amazing thing is that as a series that deals with the tremendous trauma that its protagonists experienced, and further magnifies and presents them both during the confrontation and when they are mature women with such a wound in their past, all that interests the "Yellows" is the mystery - the gap between what was then and what is happening now.

What were they doing there in the wilderness?

Why did they do that?

Who did they kill in the opening scene?

What happened to all those who did not return?

Is there actually someone else back and the series hides this from us?

Who knows their story so he can blackmail them?

These are questions that maintain a reasonable interest throughout the ten episodes of the first season (a second season has already been booked), but they are all also ones we have seen masses of times before, and their interweaving and intertwining of the stories does not make them any fresher.

The idea for a band of nineties stars is also a cosmetic glitter from its essence.

While he does work with Linsky and especially with Richie, the use of Juliet Luis Fort on the same worn and unbearable string we’ve seen from her so many times in the past, and no wonder it hasn’t been torn to this day.

This is indicative of the entire "Yellows".

She portrays heroines who break down in their youth and then are broken or cracked in adulthood, and somehow fail - the truth, not even trying - to delve into them, turning them into something beyond a cliché or a scripted tool designed to serve the next twist.

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Little liars.

The Yellows (Photo: Kylie Schwarman / Showtime)

This flattening culminates in one of the most outrageous moments of the season

, where one of the older characters does something so awful to such a likable character. Beyond the hassle caused to her and her friends as a result, she does not seem to have even the slightest hint of remorse, and the series itself has no interest in investigating what is going on in her mind following the act. If this is supposed to be evidence that her soul was completely disfigured as a result of the acts she did on the island, it does not work - either because the writing does not make it clear or because the actress does not interpret her character that way.

Despite its flaws, and similar to the series it follows, "The Yellows" has also become a big hit.

Throughout the weeks it aired, more and more viewers joined the cable channel every Sunday.

In addition, it is the second most-watched series on Showtime streaming service since its launch in 2015 (second only to "Dexter: New Blood"), averaging five million per episode (excluding the finale, whose data has yet to be released).

Millions more are likely to be added now that the season is fully available.

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Lick your fingers.

Christina Ritchie, "The Yellows" (Photo: Paul Sarkis / Showtime)

One can understand the great success and why even squatters like me lined up regularly each week for another bleeding operation. The most notable virtue of the "Yellows" is probably the fact that she does not take herself abysmally seriously. Alongside heavy and dark dramatic moments, including one truly heartbreaking in the final episode of the season, the series also makes sure to maintain a black and vicious humor. This is mainly embodied in the psychotic character of the older Misty. Apparently Christina Ritchie enjoys playing her, a cool-headed psychic who relishes the horrible deeds she does.

Richie alone is worth watching, but even beyond that - the "yellows" are effectively ticking.

After all, the reason the paths she walks are plowed is because they have worked well in the past.

This is what happens this time too, and while not all of the balls the series juggles remain in the air, most of them are large and colorful: parallel plots, unsolved puzzles, harrowing clues and answers she occasionally drops.

The soundtrack's use of nineties classics throughout the season is clever and joyful, the creators of the series frequently demonstrate a talent for creating a chilling atmosphere, and the hybridization of the genres is done in precise doses that help it look like something up-to-date after all.

If in the following seasons the "yellows" thicken her characters and add layers to herself, she can become a really big series.

All of the "Yellows" episodes are available in Bite and Audi.

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