How 'Yellowjackets' Season 2 bucks the bratty teen trope with Callie's wild arc

In Season 2 of Yellowjackets, the unthinkable occurs.

No, I am not speaking in regards to the cannibalism. I am speaking about how Callie Sadecki (Sarah Desjardins) has rapidly grow to be one among my favourite characters from the complete present — an particularly spectacular feat given how a lot of a nightmare Callie might be in Season 1.

“I do know lots of people are like, ‘Oh, she’s such a bratty teenager,'” Desjardins instructed Mashable in a Zoom interview. “A part of why that is humorous is as a result of previously timeline, within the ’90s, all the women her age are having such excessive experiences that it [contrasts] together with her ‘I wish to vape till my head falls off’ angle.” She laughed, persevering with: “It is not likely the identical, Callie!”

Nevertheless, as Yellowjackets audiences know, Callie has actually come into her personal in Season 2. Not solely has she discovered the reality about Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) and Jeff’s (Warren Kole) cover-up of Adam’s (Peter Gadiot) homicide — she’s additionally wholeheartedly joined their plans. It is the beginning of a really phenomenal character arc full of unusual, satisfying twists. Plus, we get a much-needed exploration of why Callie is the best way that she is, one thing Desjardins relished diving into.

Callie and Shauna’s relationship takes heart stage in Yellowjackets Season 2.

A significant turning level for Callie this season is available in episode 4, when Shauna lastly admits that she killed Adam. Primarily based on how Callie and Shauna have butted heads previously over every part from Callie forgetting to defrost meat for dinner to her dressing as a Yellowjacket on Halloween, you may count on her to sentence her mom and even flip her into the police. However she does none of that. In a pleasant flip of occasions, she chooses to face by Shauna.

We have seen Yellowjackets execute an analogous plotline in Season 1, with equally satisfying outcomes. When Shauna comes clear to Jeff about her affair and homicide, he would not retaliate both — if something, he appears extra upset that she made up her guide membership! Nonetheless, he devotes himself to serving to Shauna, changing into essentially the most dedicated husband on TV proper now.

With each Callie and Jeff, Yellowjackets subverts viewers expectations, utilizing their reactions to Shauna’s actions to additional discover their love for her. On the present’s begin, we’re positioned firmly in Shauna’s viewpoint. As such, we view Jeff and Callie as antagonistic figures: Jeff as a result of we imagine he is having an affair, Callie as a result of she is a “bratty teenager.” But as quickly as Shauna confides in them they usually facet together with her, our view of them shifts. We see simply how a lot they love her — and simply how a lot Callie wants that love.

“A part of why Callie is the best way that she is is as a result of she feels disconnected from her household and particularly from her mother. Her mother would not open up in any respect,” Desjardins defined. “So when Shauna tells her the reality, she thinks, ‘Yeah, she killed somebody,’ however her mother instructed her the reality. She feels nearer to her and she or he feels included, and naturally she loves her mother. All she desires is her mom’s love.”

We have seen Callie’s need for Shauna’s affection all through Yellowjackets, however nowhere greater than in a scene in Season 2, episode 2 when she bails Shauna out from intense questioning about Adam by detective Kevyn (Alex Wyndham). She makes up a lie in regards to the two of them needing to go to the mall earlier than it closes, and for a second, it looks as if Shauna will recognize this lie.

“She calls me ‘Cals,’ which is my nickname,” Desjardins mentioned. “And Callie’s simply hoping a lot that she’s going to say, ‘Thanks’ or ‘I really like you’ and she or he would not. She says, ‘Exit the again door in case he sees you.'”

That scene is only one of many examples of the space Shauna locations between herself and Callie. However as quickly as she opens as much as Callie about killing Adam, that distance collapses. Later that episode, we do not see Callie ditch her mother and father to hang around together with her buddies. She really joins them within the kitchen and asks to “chop a factor” to assist with dinner — a request that instantly calls to thoughts younger Shauna’s (Sophie Nélisse) function because the Yellowjackets’ resident butcher.

“I feel that as time goes on, as we have seen within the episodes up til now, the parallels between Jeff and Callie shift to us realizing that Callie is extra like her mother than we thought,” Desjardins mentioned.

That shift turns into clear as quickly as Shauna and Callie have their coronary heart to coronary heart. Within the following episodes, we see Callie exhibit some reckless, wild qualities much like what we have seen from Shauna. And as this superb transformation begins, Callie’s actions take Yellowjackets into a few of its most darkly hilarious territory but.

Methods to (assist your mother and father) get away with homicide, as taught by Callie Sadecki.

A part of Callie’s “emotionally fraught teen”(opens in a new tab) storyline this season includes her budding relationship with Jay (John Reynolds), a seemingly delicate older man who desires to commiserate about their household troubles, like Shauna’s affair. The one catch? Jay is definitely Matt, a neighborhood cop investigating Adam’s disappearance in essentially the most unethical method doable. And as quickly as Callie learns his true id in episode 5, she subverts our expectations as soon as once more. She would not confront him about his lie. As an alternative, she protects her mom with a lie of her personal, telling Matt that her mom was having an affair with Jeff’s good friend Randy (Jeff Holman) as an alternative of Adam.

What follows is one among Yellowjackets‘ funniest scenes ever, as Shauna can not help however agree with Callie that she could have give you a stable resolution. “Mendacity about Randy is her first time dipping her toe into this example, and she or he thinks, ‘Wow, it labored!'” mentioned Desjardins. “My favourite scene is once I inform my mother and father about it, and I am like, ‘I fastened it. I did repair it.’ She simply desires her mother to be happy with her.”

She simply desires her mother to be happy with her.

Pleasure sparkles in Callie’s eyes all through the scene as she will get a style of her mother’s approval and her mother and father’ subterfuge. Yellowjackets and Desjardins dial this pleasure up even additional in episode 6, when Shauna and Callie come into the native police station for questioning. As an alternative of cracking underneath strain, Callie continues her newfound passion of mendacity to cops, telling Kevyn that Matt, as Jay, tricked her into having intercourse. She places on a terrific efficiency, sobbing and blustering by the interrogation, but when she sees her mother and father afterwards, she’s all smiles. “Okay Mother, I used your concept, and I feel they’re scared shitless,” she beams.

“She’s having a superb time,” Desjardins mentioned whereas recalling the scene. “I simply cherished enjoying this new facet of Callie that will get unlocked as soon as her mother opens as much as her even the slightest bit, and I am excited for everybody to maintain seeing that.”

The enjoyment of Callie, unlocked.

With this enthusiasm, Callie cements herself as a brand new wild card in Yellowjackets‘ already wild forged. And as Desjardins identified, this pleasure is twofold, stemming from each her connection to her mother and father and to her personal enjoyment of the state of affairs. “She loves her household,” Desjardins defined. “She’s experience or die, in order that’s why she’s doing what she’s doing. However hopefully you’ll be able to inform if you watch it that she’s like, ‘Oh, I like this sense.'”

Like her teen compatriots from the ’90s, Callie has tapped into her personal type of wildness, one thing she did not actually have the area to do in Season 1. It is liberating for her, in that she will get nearer to her mom and likewise embraces the chaos alongside the best way. “I felt like somewhat evil genius,” Desjardins mentioned of first studying Callie’s Season 2 arc. “I really feel so deeply grateful to [showrunners] Ashley [Lyle], Bart [Nickerson], and Jonathan [Lisco] for deciding to increase on Callie as a personality this season.”

And I feel I communicate for the Yellowjackets viewers once I say that we’re grateful, too. In case you had requested me in Season 1 which character was almost definitely to get pleasure from overlaying up a homicide, Callie would have been useless final. (Misty would have been first, clearly.) However in a refreshing twist of occasions, Callie retains proving me flawed — and Yellowjackets is instantly higher for it.

Yellowjackets Season 2 is streaming on Showtime, with new episodes streaming weekly on Fridays(opens in a brand new tab). Episodes additionally air each Sunday on Showtime at 9 p.m. ET.