TV Talk: Buzz magnets ‘Yellowjackets,’ ‘Succession’ return
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Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers viewing tips for the coming week.
For the streaming era, the first three months of the year have been pretty quiet. Sure, there have been new shows to watch, but not the overwhelming number of series.
That ends this weekend with the return of both ascendant Showtime hit “Yellowjackets” and the beginning of the end of HBO’s “Succession.” The timing is not happenstance. These series — and others that will join them in the next month — aim to unspool the bulk of their seasons before the end of May so they can be in contention for this year’s Emmy Awards. (Shows with at least six of their episodes released between June 1, 2022, and May 31, 2023, are eligible for Emmys this year.)
‘Succession’
Frequent Emmy winner “Succession” (9 p.m. March 26, HBO) surely maintains its frontrunner status based on four episodes made available for review.
When HBO announced this family business drama would close up shop after this fourth season, my reaction was disappointment, but also a feeling that, yeah, better to go out on top than to wither away. After watching the first four episodes of the new season, it’s clear this was the right choice.
“Succession” has always been a bit of an echo of “Empire,” which itself was inspired by “King Lear.” And the problem with a show based on the question, “Who’s going to run the record company/media conglomerate after dad?” is that if you don’t answer that question, the show just spins its wheels.
“Empire” had a great first season and then suffered in subsequent seasons, ping-ponging from one heir to another. “Succession,” a more insightful show that explores the psychology of the adult Roy children and their relationships to one another and to their withholding father, Logan (Brian Cox), largely avoids those pitfalls with its emphasis on character.
“Succession” proves particularly engrossing when the series finds new themes to explore and forces the characters to confront new situations as it does in season four.
Before then, it’s just a joy to be back in the Waystar-Royco universe where some time has passed since Logan, with an assist from Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), betrayed his children.
The kids have regrouped and plan to launch The Hundred, an “indispensable, bespoke information hub” (AKA a news website). But when they find a different project that allows them to stick it to Logan, they hurriedly abandon their “Substack meets Masterclass meets The Economist meets The New Yorker” project in favor of revenge.
The show’s juicy dark humor remains intact — the way I cackle at this series! — whether it’s the naivete of Cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) or Kendall (Jeremy Strong) commenting on Connor’s (Alan Ruck) upcoming wedding to in-it-for-the-money Willa (Justin Lupe), “Let’s just enjoy this sham wedding and the death of romance. It’s gonna be great.”
Under the auspices of series creator/writer Jesse Armstrong, “Succession” has always been great and allowing the series to conclude sooner rather than later insures it will likely continue to be regarded as one of the best TV dramas of all time.
‘Yellowjackets’
It’s rarer for a genre show to win an Emmy for best drama series — “Lost” did it in 2005, then “Game of Thrones” truly broke the logjam with wins in 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019 — but up against “Succession,” which won in 2020 and 2022, that’s an uphill battle.
And “Yellowjackets” features cannibalism, which probably isn’t for everyone, including veteran Emmy voters.
A best drama nomination for “Yellowjackets,” which was nominated for its first season in last year’s Emmy race, seems pretty likely if the first six episodes made available for review are indicative of the season as a whole.
What’s so great about “Yellowjackets” (streaming March 24; on linear at 9 p.m. March 26, Showtime) is its ability to blend genres. Credit co-creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson (“Dispatches from Elsewhere,” “Narcos”) and executive producer Jonathan Lisco (“Halt and Catch Fire”) for finding a way to take a story that’s equal parts “Lost,” “Alive” and “Lord of the Flies” and create something fresh.
As season two begins, two months have passed since the events of season one in the 1996 timeline where Jackie’s death (she froze to death) still hangs over the high school soccer players who survived the plane crash in the wilderness. Teen Shauna (Sophie Nelisse) is haunted by her friend’s passing and finds herself in regular conversation with Jackie’s frozen corpse.
In the present day, adult Shauna’s murder of Adam, a man she was having an affair with and erroneously suspected of blackmail, continues to cast a pall as the coverup perpetrated by Shauna (Melanie Lynskey), husband Jeff (Warren Cole) and Yellowjackets teammates Misty (Christina Ricci), Natalie (Juliette Lewis) and Taissa (Tawny Cypress) begins to unravel.
In the present day, viewers will meet adult Lottie (Simone Kessell) and eventually adult Van (Lauren Ambrose).
The only downside to this season of “Yellowjackets:” The present-day former teammates are largely separated from one another for the first half of the season but they come together again around the halfway point.
One of the best aspects of “Yellowjackets” is its ability to wink at the audience. In the first episode, the show takes the “Chekhov’s gun” concept and turns it on its ear — literally.
Adult Misty, in particular, gets some of the most screamingly funny lines of dialogue (shades of the original “Melrose Place”), such as in the premiere when she rehearses a police interrogation with Shauna and advises her to only say, “I want my lawyer.”
“That’s why I put it on the cookie,” Misty says as the camera cuts to a nearby table with one of those giant cookies that are inscribed “I want my lawyer.”
Other early winners for best lines of the season:
- “Last I heard you were finger painting in the looney bin and now you’re leading a cult.”
- “I thought it would be good for us to bond since she forgave me for stabbing her in the face.”
- “That wasn’t the first time I’ve eaten a person: I absorbed my identical twin in the womb.”
The promise of cannibalism made in the “Yellowjackets” pilot gets paid off early in season two in a way that suggests there are indeed supernatural forces at work in the wilderness.
One pitfall of programs with mythology is the tendency to get too caught up in that mythological arc to the point that a series becomes impenetrable to all but the most die-hard fans. So far, “Yellowjackets” avoids that trap even as it borrows some devices from season two of “Lost” by introducing additional plane crash survivors. Unlike the “Tailies” on “Lost,” these new “Yellowjackets” characters don’t emerge dramatically from the woods; they were there all along but just didn’t get the spotlight in season one.
Unlike with “Lost,” it feels like the “Yellowjackets” showrunners have a plan even as they seemingly paint themselves into tension-filled, narrative corners.