How 'Yellowjackets' Season 2 bucks the bratty-teen trope with Callie's wild arc
In Season 2 of Yellowjackets, the unthinkable happens.
No, I'm not talking about the cannibalism. I'm talking about how Callie Sadecki (Sarah Desjardins) has quickly become one of my favorite characters from the entire show — an especially impressive feat given how much of a nightmare Callie could be in Season 1.
"I know a lot of people are like, 'Oh, she's such a bratty teenager,'" Desjardins told Mashable in a Zoom interview. "Part of why that's funny is because in the past timeline, in the '90s, all the girls her age are having such extreme experiences that it [contrasts] with her 'I want to vape until my head falls off' attitude." She laughed, continuing: "It's not really the same, Callie!"
However, as Yellowjackets audiences know, Callie has really come into her own in Season 2. Not only has she learned the truth about Shauna (Melanie Lynskey) and Jeff's (Warren Kole) cover-up of Adam's (Peter Gadiot) murder — she's also wholeheartedly joined their plans. It's the start of a truly phenomenal character arc full of surprising, satisfying twists. Plus, we get a much-needed exploration of why Callie is the way that she is, something Desjardins relished diving into.
Callie and Shauna's relationship takes center stage in Yellowjackets Season 2.
A major turning point for Callie this season comes in episode 4, when Shauna finally admits that she killed Adam. Based on how Callie and Shauna have butted heads in the past over everything from Callie forgetting to defrost meat to her dressing as a Yellowjacket on Halloween, you might expect her to condemn her mother or even turn her into the police. But she does none of that. In a delightful turn of events, she chooses to stand by Shauna.
We've seen Yellowjackets execute a similar plotline in Season 1, with equally satisfying results. When Shauna comes clean to Jeff about her affair and murder, he doesn't retaliate either — if anything, he seems more upset that she made up her book club! Still, he devotes himself to helping Shauna, becoming the most committed husband on TV right now.
With both Callie and Jeff, Yellowjackets subverts audience expectations, using their reactions to Shauna's actions to further explore their love for her. At the show's start, we're positioned firmly in Shauna's point of view. As such, we view Jeff and Callie as antagonistic figures: Jeff because we believe he's having an affair, Callie because she is a "bratty teenager." Yet as soon as Shauna confides in them and they side with her, our view of them shifts. We see just how much they love her — and just how much Callie needs that love.
"Part of why Callie is the way that she is is because she feels disconnected from her family and specifically from her mom. Her mom doesn't open up at all," Desjardins explained. "So when Shauna tells her the truth, she thinks, 'Yeah, she killed someone,' but her mom told her the truth. She feels closer to her and she feels included, and of course she loves her mom. All she wants is her mother's love."
We've seen Callie's desire for Shauna's affection throughout Yellowjackets, but nowhere more than in a scene in Season 2, episode 2 when she bails Shauna out from intense questioning by detective Kevyn (Alex Wyndham). She makes up a lie about the two of them needing to go to the mall before it closes, and for a moment, it seems like Shauna will appreciate this lie.
"She calls me 'Cals,' which is my nickname," Desjardins said. "And Callie's just hoping so much that she's going to say 'Thank you' or 'I love you' and she doesn't. She says 'Go out the back door in case he sees you.'"
That scene is just one of many examples of the distance Shauna places between herself and Callie. But as soon as she opens up to Callie about killing Adam, that distance collapses. Later that episode, we don't see Callie ditch her parents to hang out with her friends. She actually joins them in the kitchen and asks to "chop a thing" to help with dinner — a request that immediately calls to mind young Shauna's (Sophie Nélisse) role as the Yellowjackets' resident butcher.
"I think that as time goes on, as we've seen in the episodes up til now, the parallels between Jeff and Callie shift to us realizing that Callie is more like her mom than we thought," Desjardins said.
That shift becomes clear as soon as Shauna and Callie have their heart to heart. In the following episodes, we see Callie exhibit some reckless, wild qualities similar to what we've seen from Shauna. And as this glorious transformation begins, Callie's actions take Yellowjackets into some of its most darkly hilarious territory yet.
How to (help your parents) get away with murder, as taught by Callie Sadecki.
Part of Callie's "emotionally fraught teen" storyline this season involves her budding relationship with Jay (John Reynolds), a seemingly sensitive older man who wants to commiserate about their family troubles, like Shauna's affair. The only catch? Jay is actually Matt, a local cop investigating Adam's disappearance in the most unethical way possible. And as soon as Callie learns his true identity in episode 5, she subverts our expectations once again. She doesn't confront him about his lie. Instead, she protects her mother with a lie of her own, telling Matt that her mother slept with Jeff's friend Randy (Jeff Holman).
What follows is one of Yellowjackets' funniest scenes ever, as Shauna can't help but agree with Callie that she may have come up with a solid solution. "Lying about Randy is her first time dipping her toe into this situation, and she thinks, 'Wow, it worked!'" said Desjardins. "My favorite scene is when I tell my parents about it, and I'm like, 'I fixed it. I did fix it.' She just wants her mom to be proud of her."
She just wants her mom to be proud of her.
Excitement sparkles in Callie's eyes throughout the scene as she gets a taste of her mom's approval and her parents' subterfuge. Yellowjackets and Desjardins dial this excitement up even further in episode 6, when Shauna and Callie come into the local police station for questioning. Instead of cracking under pressure, Callie continues her newfound hobby of lying to cops, telling Kevyn that Matt, as Jay, tricked her into having sex. She puts on a great performance, sobbing and blustering through the interrogation, yet when she sees her parents afterwards, she's all smiles. "Okay Mom, I used your idea, and I think they're scared shitless," she beams.
"She's having a good time," Desjardins said while recalling the scene. "I just loved playing this new side of Callie that gets unlocked once her mom opens up to her even the slightest bit, and I'm excited for everyone to keep seeing that."
The joy of Callie, unlocked.
With this enthusiasm, Callie cements herself as a new wild card in Yellowjackets' already wild cast. And as Desjardins pointed out, this excitement is twofold, stemming from both her connection to her parents and to her own enjoyment of the situation. "She loves her family," Desjardins explained. "She's ride or die, so that's why she's doing what she's doing. But hopefully you can tell when you watch it that she's like, 'Oh, I like this feeling.'"
Like her teen compatriots from the '90s, Callie has tapped into her own kind of wildness, something she didn't really have the space to do in Season 1. It's freeing for her, in that she gets closer to her mother and also embraces the chaos along the way. "I felt like a little evil genius," Desjardins said of first reading Callie's Season 2 arc. "I feel so deeply grateful to [showrunners] Ashley [Lyle], Bart [Nickerson], and Jonathan [Lisco] for deciding to expand on Callie as a character this season."
And I think I speak for the Yellowjackets audience when I say that we're grateful, too. If you had asked me in Season 1 which character was most likely to enjoy covering up a murder, Callie would have been dead last. (Misty would have been first, obviously.) But in a refreshing twist of events, Callie keeps proving me wrong — and Yellowjackets is immediately better for it.
Yellowjackets Season 2 is streaming on Showtime, with new episodes streaming weekly on Fridays. Episodes also air every Sunday on Showtime at 9 p.m. ET.