This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by editor Kevin Fallon. To receive the complete newsletter in your mailbox each week, register here.
When given 60 seconds to talk with Melanie Lynskey—star of yellow jacketssincere whistleblower on what Hollywood really is for women, and beloved LGBT ally—how much time would you spend discussing the year 2000 era hard rock band Papa Roach?
The indelible (and perhaps infamous) band is permanently stitched into the “cringe nostalgia” part of the brain for those who spent their early teenage years wearing JNCO jeans with legs around the circumference of pillars of supporting the overpass, pretending to enjoy the music that amounted to a cacophony of construction sounds and melodyless shouting. (Just me?)
But during a meeting by car at the yellow jackets The first red carpet event of Season 2 on Wednesday, Lynskey didn’t flinch at the mention of the group. Instead, her eyes actually lit up, as she began to nod her head in a groovy motion, as if imagining listening to — and maybe even liking — the song “Last Resort.”
The first episode of season 2 of yellow jackets is available to stream now and will debut linearly on Showtime Sunday night. The horror-thriller-drama-mystery series, a portrait of friendship, survival and light-hearted cannibalism, returns in great shape. Watching the premiere, I gasped twice, moaned in surprised disgust once, whispered, “Oh, that’s juicy…” after a revelation, and, in response to one particularly grotesque moment, I let go by reflex: “Oh my god, no, no, no, absolutely not.”.
“He really delivers on the more gruesome elements. It’s shocking. I mean, the first two scripts, I gasped audibly a few times,” star Christina Ricci told me on the red carpet, which was actually — and appropriately — black. (The Daily Beast’s Obsessed produced the fan experience at the show’s world premiere in Los Angeles. Our little baby is shining, y’all!)
But the moment in the episode that got the biggest reaction from me involved Papa Roach, in what might be the most unexpected and hilarious musical needle drop in a TV episode I’ve seen since. a long time. I burst out laughing and started clapping. “It’s so good,” said Lynskey, speaker of truth, purveyor of unimpeachable opinions and endless wisdom.
It’s the only thing I’m going to spoil from the episode, and I promise it’s not a big plot point, just a delicious one.
If you remember the end of Season 1 (and, for the love of God and Antler Queens, stop reading if you haven’t), Shauna (Lynskey) revealed her affair with the artist Adam (Peter Gadiot) to her husband Jeff (Warren Kole) – after she accidentally kills him. She and Jeff are no longer so much in forgive-and-forget mode (Jeff had blackmailed the other Yellowjackets survivors) as they are in “forgive-and-work-together-to-cover-up-this-murder” mode.
At first, Jeff seems fine and even relieved by this. But then, after a series of unexpected twists in their quest to destroy evidence, he finds himself alone in his car. It looks like we’re about to get a glimpse of his true raw feelings about the seriousness of what’s going on in his life and marriage. We’re starting to wonder what moody introspective ballad could accompany such an emotional moment, especially considering yellow jackets‘impeccable taste in musical cues.
But no. “Cut my life into pieces,” the radio begins to screech. “It’s my last resort.” It’s Papa Roach. Jeff is not going to look out the window and contemplate. He loses his shit, thrashes around his car, bangs on the dash and completely loose.
“We knew straight away it was going to be this song” playing in that scene, showrunner Jonathan Lisco told me. “We needed a way for him to purge all that rage. He’s obviously very cool trying to get over the fact that Shauna had an affair, but we needed a very concise and intense way to show that he wasn’t okay. This song immediately came to mind because of its really intense, hymn-like quality.
Perhaps more shocking than at any point in the yellow jackets The first itself was the few people on the red carpet who knew the song. “That’s my favorite moment from the first episode, but I didn’t know the song,” said Kevin Alves, who plays plane crash survivor Travis. “Now it’s on my playlist.”
Even Kole, who plays Jeff, had never heard of it. It came out in 2000, the same year he graduated from college. “So use your imagination to figure out how this one got blasted from my memory,” he laughed. He estimated he listened to it about 50 times to figure out how he wanted to play the scene, which wasn’t exactly the most enjoyable experience of his time working on yellow jackets this season: “I hate it. Horrible song. A perfect song for the stage. But oh, I can’t stand it.
The rest of the cast all had their own dream choices for which song from that era they’d want their characters to listen to during a cathartic/rock-out moment of rage, similar to Jeff’s. Tawny Cypress (Adult Taissa) is a big fan of Jane’s Addiction, but “I don’t know if Taissa would listen to this music,” she conceded. “So maybe a bit of En Vogue.” Liv Hewson (Young Van) said: “I’m dying for a needle drop from Fiona Apple on the show. That’s my wish for a star. Lauren Ambrose, who joins the cast as an adult Van this season, said “something from the Hole canon,” a response that my colleague Coleman Spilde says needs to become a meme immediately.
Lynskey nearly had me cringing when she nonchalantly explained, “The only songs I feel [like rocking out to] are, like hip-hop songs or rap songs. Sometimes, if I’m mad, I sing “I Don’t Fuck With You.” “I don’t know if I can say that,” she said, before saying it was from Big Sean. Useful! I’ll give it a feed!
But if the theme of this piece is “the things that made me have a wild and full answer,” like Papa Roach’s needle drop or Lynskey calmly saying the words “I don’t fuck with you” inches away from my face, then I have to mention a response from Ricci. She gave it when I asked her how she felt about being out in real life now, after being on that traumatic show.
I will paint the entire quote as a mural in my apartment. I will create a series of cushions with these words on them. I will be printing it on business cards and handing them out to strangers and passers-by, hoping to brighten and brighten their day. It’s here:
“I always feel weird going outside. I don’t like the wind. I don’t like the sun. The wind makes me gag until I vomit. I prefer an indoor, controlled environment.
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