You Must Watch ‘Yellowjackets,’ The Best New Show on TV

This is a preview of the pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To get the full newsletter in your inbox every week, Sign up for it here.

This week:

• And just like that is bringing me a lot of joy. Don’t spoil it.
• I’m here to force you to see Yellow jacket.
• Breaking news: I’m crazy about Adele!
• I won’t reveal how much I cried while watching PEN15last eps.
• Yuletide greetings of beef.

Yellow jacket Get So Many Buzz (Get It?)

It’s (what I would consider) a national emergency that not all of us are watching and talking about. Yellow jacket.

This is a crisis. Write a letter to your congressman. Je teléphone à la police. DM Deuxmoi on Instagram. Raise awareness in any way you can. We must mobilize. That is our mission. Failure to do so would be a nuclear example of negligence in popular culture.

Friends, compatriots, Yellow jacket Crusade: I will fail you all if I am not transparent. I am deeply embarrassed to admit that I only came across this series this week. Take off my nakedness and parade me through the streets while Game of Thrones Lady ring the bell. That’s how despicable behavior – this brute surveillance – happened.

Still, that means for me and now, for you, there are four episodes of the Showtime drama available to watch, with a fifth coming on Sunday. And while others are preoccupied send wrong dick pic for kind fathers and yes or no some Al Pacino enthusiastsThe character of going to die on that other show, you can obsess over what might actually be the most exciting (dare I say the best?) show airing on TV.

This exaggerated speech must carry a warning: There are times Yellow jacket So nasty and gross, I officially thought I was going to throw up. Don’t — I repeat do not—Pick this as a series to chat about while lying in bed, feverish and shivering after a booster shot. The dreams I had will haunt me forever.

But what’s interesting (perhaps an inappropriate word) about this one show that manages to be unsettling and provocative is how, bear with me, it’s hilarious and clever.

I feel uncomfortable saying it, and here’s why: Yellow jacket flashing back and forth between today and 1996, 25 years ago. After that, the Yellowjackets were a team of star girls so good that they were transferred to the national team. The father of a wealthy teammate chartered a private jet to take the teenagers there. However, the crashed plane – depicted with amazing realism – instantly kills some of the girls and leaves the rest stranded, understand this, 19 months.

What happened during that time is hinted at in flashbacks, detailed with traumatizing detail. Impressive teamwork and survival instincts: Great! Some kind of Lord in the air-seems cult: OK, perhaps unavoidable. Uh… cannibalism? !!

Currently, four of the survivors, due to Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis, Christina Ricci, and Tawny Cypress, have spent decades dealing with and burying heartbreaks. But as the 25th anniversary approaches, new media interest, and a mysterious person approaches, seemingly knowing the secrets they’ve all vowed to keep, they must reunite for once. again.

We don’t often see stories like this in a genre as savage and compelling as being told through the lens of women, with a strong focus on women’s relationships and what happens when they are told. shed light on — what is a woman’s true carnal instinct? (My favorite description of the series comes from Lorraine Ali at LA time: “Spice Girls meets Donner Party.”)

Anyway, here’s the Public Service Notice to start watching Yellow jacket right away.

Adele broke my heart again

The music industry made plans for next year and jointly decided on its public stance: “Omicron? Never heard of her.”

Oh, the sheer number of tours and accommodations announced last week is shocking, or thrilling. If you’re craving a live concert experience and feel safe in attendance, this is a long-awaited thrill. Olivia Rodrigo! Two M! Tame the Impala! John Legend Vegas Residence!

Adele seems to see all of this as an opportunity to play a practical joke.

You see, the singer and subject of my last six sessions has announced that she, like Legend, will be getting a Vegas residency in lieu of a full-fledged American tour. She suggested fans sign up for a chance to buy tickets before they open to the public and quickly sell out. The whole experience makes you feel like a certainty. It not only asks you which date you want, but also asks for three backup dates. Delete my entire 2022 calendar, Queen. I will go anytime!

But then the invites went out to actually buy the tickets. This isn’t a comprehensive or scientific study, but it’s as close to it as possible: I scrolled through Twitter for a few hours and saw every gay person I know complaining that they had been put on a waitlist. . Read: None of us got Adele tickets.

That doesn’t raise the question: Did anyone get them? Is this all one giant scam? Is Adele trolling us? Is this some kind of performance art, mimicking the devastation of her new album by feeding our hopes and then killing all our dreams?

If you really have an Adele ticket, if such a person really exists, I ask that you contact me. And then, obviously, take me with you.

You thanked for PEN15 Today?

It is important that you know how absolutely perfect PEN15Its final season ranges from the bat mitzvah episode in which a wealthy classmate ties her Hebrew prayers like a pop diva to a private outing for her mother. Maya is so terrified that these young Y2K girls only realize how valuable their friendship is to each other at the scariest and most formative time of their lives.

I was both bruised forever but, as someone their age forever working in PTSD of that time, have also healed.

The special thing that I want to talk about here is how amazing the acting of Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle is. They co-created the show, wrote the episodes, and even directed. But beyond the physical transformations — Anna’s beauty is forever perfect and uncanny — they lead alarming and abrupt shifts in the extreme emotions of adolescence, essentially a cast. The geysers are exploding, with a subtle skill that has been learned over the course of the show.

There is a moment in the episode “Luminaria” where they are walking, seriously just walking, after talking to the cute boys. The way they fell over each other, bumped into each other, and bounced up and down, as if their limbs and bodies were now an awkward, entwined entity, was exactly how girls of that age used used to interact physically with their best friend.

PEN15 is a gloriously unusual show: a time machine that helps you better understand who you were then, but also who you are today. Its last episodes are all on Hulu and you should check it out!

All I want for Christmas is beef

I received a press release this week from Omaha Steaks announcing that the company has produced a new beef-themed song just in time for Christmas, called the “Steak deck.”

Mariah Carey see shaking.

What to watch this week:

Red rocket: Simon Rex runs around naked while NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye” plays. Merry Christmas. (Currently showing in theaters)

West story: So magical. Enjoy 30 minutes of continuous crying. (Currently showing in theaters)

And just like that: Seeing Carrie Bradshaw on TV just makes me stronger. (Now available on HBO Max)

Being a Ricardian: I declare that I really like it in an extremely exasperated Ricky voice. (Currently showing in theaters)

What to skip this week:

Don’t look up: I am really happy about this. I just don’t want to spoil the speech once it’s given. (Currently showing in theaters)