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7 shows like Yellowjackets: What to watch if you're hooked on the breakout hit
With huge spikes in viewership from episode to episode and a well-earned season renewal, Showtime’s Yellowjackets is a major win for the cable network and a standout for its streaming division. With season one wrapping up, what should you watch once you’re all caught up and want more shows like Yellowjackets?
It’s not hard to see why the show resonates. In Yellowjackets, a high school girls soccer team is stranded in the wilderness in 1996 when their plane crashes on the way to a national tournament. Through jumps in time, we learn that the girls eventually descend into Lord of the Flies-esque group madness, with more than a few hints of the supernatural. Within the first episode, we get glimpses of ritual killings and cannibalism months after the crash. In the present day, we catch up with surVivors. As they work to put the past behind them, reminders of the woods creep into their lives, bringing them back together.
If that sounds like your kind of show, check out the link below to watch Yellowjackets on Showtime. If you’re already a fan, read on for what to watch next.
Shows like Yellowjackets
Lost
Yellowjackets is really its own thing in many ways, and comparing it to Lost because it features surVivors of a plane crash does feel a tad easy. Still, the basic format of both shows is important, and there’s a lot of overlap. Most notably, both shows feature a string of mysteries, with slow-boiling intrigue and hints of the occult. They jump between timelines to use the dynamics between surVivors to explore their previous (and future) lives back in civilization.
Lost is probably the most predictable title among shows like Yellowjackets, and it’s certainly worth checking out.
The Outsider
The Outsider, based on the novel by Stephen King, may not be the most obvious choice among shows like Yellowjackets. Still, it has some notable similarities, including a slow revelation of supernatural horror. One episode of the HBO miniseries is directed by Karyn Kusama, who executive produces and directed the first two episodes of Yellowjackets, setting the series’ overall tone.
When a child is brutally murdered, all signs point to his little league coach. The only problem is, the man has an airtight alibi. So, how could a man be in two places at once? This twisted whodunnit is a clever, disturbing look into an investigation that demands faith in something too scary to accept.
Pretty Little Liars
Vox’s Constance Grady has called Yellowjackets the prestige Pretty Little Liars. Sure, the latter show’s reputation as a trashy soap doesn’t quite live up to the high culture cachet of Yellowjackets, but the two titles traffic in similar mysteries. Namely, who died, who’s responsible, and who’s blackmailing those in the know?
Pretty Little Liars may be campier than Yellowjackets and far less invested in the body horror and survivalist grittiness that has inspired much talk around the Showtime series. However, it still ranks as a show like Yellowjackets that’s worth watching if you’re looking for more interpersonal teen drama and mystery.
The Wilds
Perhaps the most obvious counterpart to Yellowjackets, Amazon Prime Video’s The Wilds also sees a group of teen girls stranded after a plane crash. It also similarly offers flashbacks to their previous lives before the crash, allowing the show to blend the broader struggles of teen girlhood with the broader horrors of being stuck on a remote island. As the girls find their bearings, they begin to realize that they may not have randomly found themselves together and that the crash may be part of a larger plan for them.
Euphoria
One of the strongest elements of Yellowjackets is its portrayal of teen girls. There are no easy types to lean on when every character is richly developed and fully three-dimensional. That’s why HBO’s prestige teen drama Euphoria is a perfect choice among shows like Yellowjackets.
A critical and commercial hit, Euphoria offers an unvarnished look at California teens dealing with drug addiction, mental health, gender, young love, sexual violence, and everything else that comes with coming of age and finding yourself on the threshold of adulthood.
The 100
The 100 is a story set in the distant future following a nuclear armageddon. That doesn’t immediately make it sound like a show like Yellowjackets, but hear me out. Yellowjackets is a show about young people fighting for survival in a hostile environment, at least in part. The 100 similarly sees a group of youths sent back to Earth from their space station home in orbit.
Their job is to test whether Earth is habitable yet, and they have to deal with all of their teen problems along the way. Like Yellowjackets’ horror setting, the sci-fi backdrop is really a way into a human story about the messy business of growing up.
Friday Night Lights
If you’re looking for shows about teens who play sports, it would be a crime not to include the critically-acclaimed fan-favorite teen soap Friday Night Lights. Is it a gritty horror show about teens doing what’s necessary to survive after a disaster, with time jumps and mysteries? Well, no. Definitely not. But it is a show about team dynamics, coming of age, and the pressures of competitive sports on youth.
Friday Night Lights follows Coach Eric Taylor, his family, and his team in the rural town of Dillon, Texas, where high school football is a way of life and a major symbol of town pride and identity.