One Yellowjackets Scene Makes Misty Quigley Painfully Relatable

“Yellowjackets” makes it easy to pick on Misty (this show is full of murderers and cannibals, but she gets ostracized as the socially awkward murderer-cannibal), and she’s certainly been making questionable decisions from the moment we met her. This is in no way, shape, or form a girlboss moment. Yet it does feel like an important point of connection between teen Misty and her adult counterpart (Christina Ricci), who is determined to keep all the fellow Yellowjackets safe under her watchful eye. She’s bonded to the team, not because they love her but because decades ago, her own well-being became entangled with theirs.

Of course, trying to talk Ben down in the first place is its own loaded decision, as is his initial request that she push him. The scene’s ending doesn’t possess any sense of relief or catharsis; it merely feels like Ben lost his resolve for the time being. The wilderness plot of “Yellowjackets” is increasingly bleak, to the point that Misty saving Ben’s life doesn’t feel like a win, especially when there will surely still be more loss to come. Still, it does feel like Misty at her most sympathetic, and with Hanratty putting as much heart into the scene as she did with her movie monologue a few episodes earlier, it’s not a moment we’ll soon forget.

You can watch “Yellowjackets” each Friday on the Showtime app and Paramount+, as well as Sundays on the Showtime channel.