The intensity of this season has an immense impact on its characters, and although they unfortunately suffer, it makes for some of the best television of the year.

Once again, the season 3 cast is terrific, and there are darkly funny performances from the adult versions of the characters – in particular from Lynskey as bored housewife Shauna and Ricci as twisted but vulnerable Misty.

"Yellowjackets" season 3 is proof positive that this show still has plenty to say about feminine rage and the haunting powers of grief and guilt.

The series from Ashley Lyle, Bart Nickerson, and Jonathan Lisco isn’t as confident as it was in previous outings, leaving the cast stranded in narrative wilderness and awaiting rescue that may never come.

Depending on what brings you to Yellowjackets, this new season will either bring disappointment or seem like a turn in the right direction. On a plot level, the show feels in danger of stagnation, drawing out new mysteries with little conviction or clear purpose.

“Yellowjackets” isn’t quite one show but several of inconsistent quality joined by the flimsy glue of lingering questions that don’t seem all that complicated. What is “it” — “it” being the supposed wilderness terror – and what does “it” want decades after the teens left it? You, the loyal fans, can sit tight and ponder all that for as long as it appeals to you. And me? Um, I gotta go . . . do something.

Each episode is split 50:50 between then and now, and while the wilderness stuff can be gripping, the present-day manages to be tedious and outlandish at the same time.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

This show used to be fun and intriguing. Now it's a slog to get through most of the episodes. If you're not feeling this by episode 1, get out fast. Loose ends from last season literally never get tied up. They're not even hushed away, they're just ignored. An entire episode is a trial put on by teens regarding who started a fire in the last season finale. Do we ever find out who started the fire? No! Living in the wilderness doesn't seem so bad. No one complains about necessities, even when it starts snowing. They were so set for food, water, and shelter that they had an entire day for a trial. A petting zoo randomly appears with no explanation as to its origin. The show is a mess. Characters are randomly killed off and frankly I don't care that they're dead. Other characters make non-stop irrational decisions and they are not even the crazy ones. New characters are introduced in the flashbacks just to have new actors in the present. My favorite character ends up being Shauna's husband, because he's the only one who does anything rational or believable. The show starts to delve into the teens' delusions about supernatural influences to an unbearable extent. There are dream sequences and toxin-induced hallucinations that do nothing for the story. Characters are motivated by their delusions, and no one seems to really object. Maybe they are as bored as I was? The show naturally gets compared to Lost because plane-crash/marooned/flashbacks/mysteries, but it falls so short this season. There was typically a theme and a focus character that tied the flashback to the present every episode in Lost. Here, it's just a mess. Stuff is happening in the flashback, stuff is happening in the present. Why is this stuff happening? Do I care? Not anymore. The only positive is that the ending works just as well for a series finale as a season finale.

A once excellent series collapses under the weight of its own pretension. I love the part where nothing happens hour after hour, while once-intriguing characters behave increasingly erratically. Season 3 is giving off serious LOST vibes in the worst possible way. Plodding, padded, poorly paced drivel that is an insult to the seasons that came before. Did they fire all the writers and replace them with Millennials?