Christina Ricci breaks down Misty's musical dream sequence on Yellowjackets
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Warning: This post contains spoilers from season 2, episode 7 of Yellowjackets, titled "Burial."
If you thought you'd never get to watch Misty (Christina Ricci) talk to a grown man version of her pet bird, well, you'd be wrong! In its latest episode, Yellowjackets continued its tradition of surprising its fans, only this time, it was with a musical number.
With all of the adult Yellowjackets now gathered at Lottie's (Simone Kessell) "intentional community," they were asked to choose which treatment they wanted to undergo. Misty ended up in a sensory deprivation tank, and once inside, she imagined a musical in which Caligula (played by John Cameron Mitchell) sang her a song and then confirmed her suspicions: She's not a bad person! As Caligula explained to her, she's not a murderer, but rather, a closer.
The vision then encouraged Misty to run to the nearest phone and call Walter (Elijah Wood) to let him know that she wants something with him.
Needless to say, a musical number with a dancing human-sized bird is not something fans were expecting to see, and EW spoke with Christina Ricci about the sequence.
Courtesy SHOWTIME Christina Ricci and John Cameron Mitchell on 'Yellowjackets'
ENTERTAINMENT: This will surely go down as one of the weirdest thing this show's ever done. I still haven't recovered from seeing the human-sized Caligula.
CHRISTINA RICCI: [Laughs] I know. And then it's John Cameron Mitchell, which is so fun. It's so good.
Did you know when you first got it that it was going to be John Cameron Mitchell?
No. And I didn't even find out until I went to hair and makeup. We find out everything from hair and makeup on this show.
Did you have extra security for the wig — when you laid back in the water, I panicked a little bit.
They had to secure it. But I also was like, "Don't worry, I won't let it fall off," because I hate having extra pins in. But no, the wig looked amazing. I was a little bit worried because for some reason I thought that we couldn't get the wig fully wet, because I guess when I was younger, you couldn't get wig lace wet because wig lace would shrink. But I guess that's not true anymore. I've been using that as an excuse to not be shot in the rain for a really long time. [Laughs]
Courtesy SHOWTIME Caligula on 'Yellowjackets'
When the sequence starts, you're looking at essentially nothing as the musical plays out on the screen. How was it written on the page?
The scene is written in such a way and in the stage direction they talk about how the characters feel about certain things. And my character is just delighted from the beginning. She loves musicals. Here's her best friend Caligula dancing in front of her and then Walter comes out. And originally it was written that Misty jumps up and joins them. We did a whole song-and-dance sequence that didn't make the episode. Probably my dancing was not good enough. [Laughs] I'm sure it was me. But she's just thrilled and excited. That's Misty. She kind of takes what's in front of her and sees the fun in it and isn't freaked out by much.
What was it like to work across from John when he had a bird beak on his human face?
I thought it looked so great and he's so incredible and he made that whole thing so sexy. I was like, "This beak is really working for you." [Laughs] He was so sultry. It was really sexy. [Laughs] And he's so good. He was so fun to work with. The big joke is that I hate musicals, so when I read the script, I kept joking with the writers like of course you couldn't write me a medieval time scene. I love medieval times.
As crazy as it was, this sequence also felt like a bit of a breakthrough for Misty.
Yeah, as much as she argues that the choices she makes are pragmatic or the murders she commits are for the good of the group and are logical and don't count as murder because they're not based in emotion, we get to finally see in this moment that actually she is a little bit conflicted. She doesn't want to be seen as a bad person. We see that, as much as she seems to never question herself or analyze herself in any way, she actually does struggle with this idea that people might see her as a bad person. That is really interesting. But it's so funny how immediately her subconscious is like, "Nope, you're fine." She's like, "Yeah, that's what I thought."
Courtesy SHOWTIME Elijah Wood and Christina Ricci on 'Yellowjackets'
It led to her making that final phone call to Walter, which is a very vulnerable moment for her.
When Walter says to her, "I know what you did and I'm fine with it," to her that's really devastating because the last person who knew her bad acts died. One of the reasons she pushes him away is this idea that she has a very negative correlation with someone she likes knowing everything about her. And then she has a fantasy sequence in which she doesn't have to feel anymore that. She is not a bad person and anyone who knows isn't going to suffer for it. So she's free to then pursue the relationship and allow him into her life. And what's great about that is that then, we go into a situation in [episodes] 208 and 209 in which had none of this happened, Misty I think would have a very different reaction to it. All of this sets Misty up for having a different reaction than you would expect from her. In a weird way, this gives her something so that then, when she goes into 208 and 209, she can have fear. She can want very much to live, and that is the motivation we get from those scenes.
New episodes of Yellowjackets drop Fridays on streaming and on-demand and air on Showtime Sundays.
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