You've got to laugh a little, cry a little, until the ritualistic cannibalism rolls by a little. That's the story of, that's the glory of Yellowjackets.
In case you missed it, Yellowjackets Seasons 1 and 2 are connected by one of cinema's most iconic stories of love and long friendship, with several references to the eternally tearjerking movie Beaches.
Starring Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey as lifelong friends CC Bloom and Hillary Whitney, Beaches was released in 1988, eight years before the Yellowjackets' plane crashed in the wilderness in 1996. A tale of complicated best friendship over a lifetime, the film sees several parallels with Yellowjackets: from Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) and Jackie's (Ella Purnell) deeply competitive relationship to Misty (Samantha Hanratty) and Crystal's (Nuha Jes Izman) emerging bond as social outcasts. But Yellowjackets also includes direct references to the Beaches script and soundtrack, so let's dive in.
Yellowjackets Season 1 references Beaches in the finale.
Like Shauna and Jackie in Season 1, CC and Hillary navigate their friendship through a complicated love triangle; theirs is with CC's show business boss, John. Hillary and John sleep together, causing a rift between the two friends, though John later marries CC — sounds familiar, huh, Jeff? Later in life, Hillary finds herself unexpectedly pregnant by her cheating husband, and CC springs to support her, just as Jackie does with Shauna's pregnancy, albeit before she finds out the truth.
However, the biggest connection comes in the Season 1 finale, during Shauna and Jackie's final argument. Shauna chastises Jackie for narcissism — "The rest of us, we're just extras in the movie of your fucking life!" — something Hillary struggles with CC about in Beaches.
"Did I force you to live in my shadow, Shauna?" Jackie says in Yellowjackets. "It must be hard being this jealous all the time. You're so fucking jealous of me you can barely breathe."
"Are you quoting Beaches at me right now?" Shauna scoffs incredulously.
"What?! No," Jackie genuinely responds, as if she's internalised the script to believe it's her own words.
"You're so fucking jealous of me you can barely breathe."
The line Jackie apparently unknowingly quotes is from the scene in Beaches in which Hillary and CC have a brutally cold argument in a department store, in which everything they've ever wanted to say to each other comes out. Tensions rise as the subject turns to the idea of having children, and Hillary makes the outstandingly loaded statement, "I just thought someone like you wouldn't care about children, you're so obsessed with your career and all." From here, Hillary keeps laying out the judgment, provoking an all-out home truth session between these two supposedly best friends. Ultimately, CC declares Hillary's problem as "plain, old-fashioned jealousy."
"I'm living the life you didn't have the courage for, so don't give me you're not jealous," she says. "You're so jealous, you can hardly breathe."
In a more subtle additional nod, Jackie's "shadow" comment sounds like a reference to the lyric from Midler's Grammy-winning Beaches song, "Wind Beneath My Wings" — "It must have been cold there in my shadow."
Yellowjackets Season 2 references Beaches in the first episode.
In Season 2, the Beaches soundtrack makes yet another connection within the Yellowjackets team. The soundtrack would have peppered the Yellowjackets' childhoods, as "Wind Beneath My Wings" topped the Billboard singles chart in 1989 and won Grammys for Record of the Year and Song of the Year in 1990. You wouldn't have been able to escape it in New Jersey, in the team's fictional hometown of Wiskayok. But importantly, one of the songs from Beaches makes an appearance in Season 2, episode 1 of Yellowjackets.
Though she's constantly scorned by her teammates for it, Crystal enjoys a good sing, even in the wilderness. In one scene, when she believes she's alone, Crystal busts out in a Broadway-hopeful version of "The Glory of Love" — the same song she was humming in the cabin earlier before Gen tells her to quit it.
"The Glory of Love" is featured twice in Beaches, marking the start and end of CC and Hillary's friendship. It's the first song Hillary hears her new friend CC performing as a kid (played by Mayim Bialik), and after Hillary's funeral, Midler's CC sings a sombre ballad version at one of her concerts, concluding the film.
"You know that song I just finished with?" CC tells Hillary's daughter, Victoria, after the show. "I sang that song the day your mother and I met at Atlantic City. We were just about your age, did you know that?"
In Yellowjackets, Crystal breaks out into "The Glory of Love" thinking she's performing solo in the snow post-pee. She's surprised by Misty, who has been sent to collect ice for water again and who notably shares the unfortunate experience of being bullied by her fellow teammates. Misty instantly channels Gen and tells Crystal to can it; however, Crystal easily changes Misty's mind.
"I know it's annoying to people who aren't into the theatre like I am," she says, dropping the magic words for the audience, as we know Misty is big into it in her adult life, listening to the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack before kidnapping Jessica Roberts in Season 1. "You should try it sometime, it helps," Crystal adds, before offering to teach Misty to sing, nay, "harmonise." It's the first offer of friendship and kindness Misty's received from frankly anyone at Camp Yellowjackets, and she looks visibly humbled at this genuine olive branch.
With multiple Beaches references connecting the two series, Yellowjackets uses one of late '80s, early '90s cinema's most famous screen friendships to draw parallels between the girls' connections with each other. Sadly, Jackie and Shauna won't enjoy a lifelong friendship like CC and Hillary's, but there's hope for Misty and Crystal.
Yellowjackets Season 2 is streaming on Showtime, with new episodes streaming weekly on Fridays. Episodes also air every Sunday on Showtime at 9 p.m. ET.
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