Christina Ricci says her new series Yellowjackets is for women who are fans of Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 film Reservoir Dogs. The series premiered last month and has earned strong reviews from critics. The series airs Sundays on Showtime. In addition to Christina Ricci, Yellowjackets also stars Juliette Lewis, Melanie Lynskey, and Tawney Cypress.
Yellowjackets tells a dual narrative set in the past and the present. It follows a group of high school soccer players who find themselves stranded in the wilderness after a plane crash, and the Lord of the Flies-esque turn to a feral, clan-like system during their time trying to survive. The series’ other narrative follows the same group of women 25 years later as the chaos from their horrific survival story seemingly follows them home, begins to infect their lives, and allows secrets from the past to start to reveal themselves.
Now that Yellowjackets has premiered, Christina Ricci has opened up about the show’s success. Speaking with EW, the actress noted that the show is pleasingly dark and edgy in a way that should satisfy women who are fans of Reservoir Dogs and want a no-holds-barred series. Ricci explained:
Yeah. It definitely feeds that urge that we’ve all had to have a show about women that’s just like no f—s given. It’s dark. It’s for all the women who loved Reservoir Dogs.
The comparisons are relatively easy to see. Like Yellowjackets, Reservoir Dogs similarly tells the story of a group that slowly grows to distrust each other and eventually turns on each other while hiding in a warehouse after a botched heist. They don’t necessarily tell the same story, as Reservoir Dogs follows an all-male group of bank robbers and tells a much more condensed story than Yellowjackets. That said, Christina Ricci seems to think that the two properties share some significant DNA, such as hyper-violence and a sense of style, and the new series should very much appeal to women who grew up loving Tarantino’s first film.
Comparisons to Quentin Tarantino properties have always helped make new projects an easier sell for audiences, which may speak to the lasting appeal of Tarantino’s work. Though not the first director to experiment with ultraviolence and complex narrative design in his work, he arguably has had the most success with that formula of any director in the last three decades. His influence is everywhere these days. While that influence often reveals itself in the form of projects tailored towards male audiences, Yellowjackets should go a long way towards delivering something that caters to the tastes of female Tarantino fans, such as a great narrative and a fantastic soundtrack. Yellowjackets airs on Sundays at 10 PM PST on Showtime.
