After a very brief introduction last week, this week’s episode of Yellowjackets, “Two Truths and a Lie” fully brought Lauren Ambrose’s adult Van into the story as she and Taissa (Tawny Cypress) reunite, but it’s not necessarily a happy reunion. Taissa has been struggling this season with the emergence of the “other Tai” and according to Cypress, both Taissa and Van are now setting off on a complicated journey as the season continues.
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“That’s basically Tai the rest of the season, is this shadow of the season one Tai who was so sure of herself and so confident,” Cypress told The Hollywood Reporter. “This new Tai is weak. Especially with the break of the personality where all of the strength has gone to the other Tai. She’s really a shell of herself.”
Ambrose also said that Van isn’t necessarily in a very good place, either. The episode reveals that Van is using pain pills, something that Ambrose says reveals that Van isn’t as okay as she may seem on the surface.
“Van as an adult is tuck and not that free, open self, maybe in her essence. But it’s really the guilt and shame,” Ambrose said. “She seems kinda okay on the surface, I suppose they all do. But you see eventually there’s a lot going on and a lot eating at her. I think of her as dimmed and stuck and hardened.”
She added, “A big thing is that all of these characters, at their essence, were most alive in the woods, and especially I think Tai and Van, being able to be in this relationship openly with their teammates, which is not really the experience that a teenager would have had in 1996. And what that must have been like coming back into society and back to the real world, and then I have lots of questions about how it was for them to part. Now that they haven’t seen each other for so long, that for whatever reason this thing was too much to bear for so many years, and now here they are, needing each other again, for various reasons. And then the whole group needing each other, because really, they’re the only ones who know the experience they had.”
What is Yellowjackets Season 2 about?
Yellowjackets begins in 1996, as a team of New Jersey high school soccer players travels to Seattle for a national tournament. While flying over Canada, their plane crashes deep in the wilderness and the remaining team members are left to survive for nineteen months. The series chronicles their attempts to survive while also tracking their current lives in 2021. The series stars Melanie Lynskey, Tawny Cypress, Ella Purnell, Sophie Nélisse, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sophie Thatcher, Sammi Hanratty, Steven Krueger, Warren Kole, Christina Ricci, and Juliette Lewis.
Season 2 also sees the additions of Lauren Ambrose as adult Van, Simone Kessell as adult Lottie, Elijah Wood as Walter, Francois Arnaud as Paul, and Nia Sondaya as teen Akilah.
New episodes of Yellowjackets hit the Showtime app on Fridays and new episodes air on Showtime on Sundays.
