Most of the new additions to Netflix in October are film-related, with few exceptions. There are new seasons of Heartstopper and The Lincoln Lawyer, both of which are homegrown hits for Netflix. S.W.A.T. season 7 is also coming to Netflix this week, and that’s a proven performer. But the choice for the one Netflix show that you have to watch in October was easy to make. It’s Yellowjackets.
Showtime debuted Yellowjackets in 2021, and it quickly became the premium cable channel’s biggest original series in years. The show follows a girls high school soccer team, most of whom live through a crash-landing in the wilderness before they have to make some tough choices in order to survive. It’s hard not to see the influence of Lost on this series, especially since it features flash-forwards to the surviving women’s lives in the present. Unsurprisingly, Yellowjackets is now one of the most popular shows on Netflix, and we’re sharing the reasons why it should be your next series to watch.
Need more recommendations? Then check out the best new movies to stream this week, as well as the best shows on Netflix, best shows on Hulu, best shows on Amazon Prime Video, and best shows on Disney+.
The show successfully juggles two narratives
It’s no small feat for Yellowjackets to hold on to viewers’ attention when the flashbacks to the girls’ time in the wilderness is by far the most interesting part of the show. But the events in the present reflect back on what happened in the past, especially since the relationships between the survivors have dramatically changed in the two-decades-plus since their most desperate hours. The show offers glimpses of what the Yellowjackets team did to survive in order to make us understand why they’re so reluctant to dwell on the subject in the future.
Additionally, there’s some lingering tension about who made it out of the wilderness because some of the characters in the past are noticeably absent in the present-day storyline.
Yellowjackets is impeccably well-cast
The casting team behind Yellowjackets deserves a lot of credit for attracting veteran performers like Christina Ricci, Juliette Lewis, and Lauren Ambrose as three of the adult Yellowjackets, while Melanie Lynskey and Tawny Cypress are doing career-best work in their own leading roles.
Yellowjackets has also already been a starmaking vehicle for Sophie Thatcher, Sophie Nélisse, and Jasmin Savoy Brown. Fallout‘s leading actress Ella Purnell also got a boost from being in this series. It’s a sign of a show’s success when other TV series and movies swoop in to offer the cast members new roles.
The characters are riveting to watch in both time periods
One of this show’s greatest tricks is that it’s easy to buy into the idea of the younger cast members like Sophie Nélisse — who plays Shauna Shipman as a teenager — aging into her adult counterpart, as portrayed by Lynskey. There is intrigue in the past, but a lot of the drama comes from seeing how broken Shauna and the other women are in the present. We don’t have all of the answers about what happened to them yet, but the pilot episode has a flash-forward that indicates things are going to get a lot worse.
One of the most intriguing characters to watch is Misty Quigley, as played by Samantha Hanratty and Christina Ricci, respectively. Misty is the outcast among the team and she’s not particularly well-liked. And subsequently, Misty takes some very morally questionable actions that shed some light on why her future self is even more messed up than some of the other survivors.
There are more Yellowjackets episodes on the way
The bad news is that only season 1 of Yellowjackets is currently on Netflix. Presumably, the second season will be added at a later date. But if you don’t want to wait, Yellowjackets season 2 is waiting for you on Paramount+ with Showtime’s premium tiers. Additionally, Yellowjackets season 3 is in the works and it’s expected to premiere on Showtime in 2025. So if you want more of this show after seasons 1 and 2, you’ll get it in the near future.
Watch Yellowjackets on Netflix.
