Yellowjackets Star Tawny Cypress Got To Know The 'Bad' Taissa Ahead Of Season 2
This article contains spoilers for the first season of "Yellowjackets."
Showtime took the world by storm last year with the debut of "Yellowjackets," the multi-timeline cannibal thriller about a high school girls' soccer team who are stranded for 19 months in the Canadian wilderness after a plane crash, and still struggle to come to terms with what happened to them out there over 25 years later. And yet, trying to find food in the woods and unpacking unimaginable trauma is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the high-stakes chaos of "Yellowjackets." There's also murder, possible supernatural forces, cults, blackmail, self-harm, spies, family drama, (alleged) cannibalism, U.S. politics, and whatever the hell is going on with Taissa Turner (Jasmin Savoy Brown/Tawny Cypress).
Taissa is one of the main four Yellowjackets survivors that the show follows into adulthood, alongside Shauna (Sophie Nélisse/Melanie Lynskey), Misty (Samantha Hanratty/Christina Ricci), and Natalie (Sophie Thatcher/Juliette Lewis). As an adult, Taissa is an out Black lesbian running for New Jersey senator with a wonderful wife and son, but there's something very, very weird going on with her. As we learned in season 1, Taissa has a history of performing dangerous, unthinkable acts while sleepwalking, ranging from eating dirt and stalking her son from a tree outside his bedroom to sacrificing the family dog on a shrine in the basement crawlspace. Taissa's son Sammy often refers to this sleepwalking alter-ego as "The Bad One," recognizing that the mother he loves during the daytime is not the same person doing weird things in the middle of the night. In the latest issue of SFX Magazine, Tawny Cypress confessed what she knows about "Bad" Taissa, and what remains a mystery even to her.
'Is she feral?'
Tawny Cypress told SFX that during season 1, she elected not to know anything about what was really going on with Taissa. "I told them I didn't want to know anything, which they loved. They were like, 'Oh, that's perfect for us!' And then they started lying to me, boldface lies! I was like, 'Motherf***ers!' [laughs.]" With a show as twisty as "Yellowjackets," it wouldn't be difficult to outright lie to someone about what's happening, because the possibilities are endless. However, now that the show is in its second season, Cypress said she wanted to actually know what's going on to better shape her performance:
"We've talked about the other Tai. We've talked about where that stems from and how she comes across. Is she feral? Does she even like our Tai? Does she hate our Tai? All these sorts of questions were answered wonderfully by the creators, so I didn't go in completely blind. Although many things happen during this season where 1 was like, 'Whoa?'"
Season 1 ended with Simone finding Taissa's scary dead-dog sacrificial shrine and her winning the senate race, but it's still unclear whether or not Taissa is even aware of what she was doing in the basement. It seems as if the sleepwalking is something Taissa developed from the stress of the plane crash as a teenager, and the increased stress of becoming a public figure as an adult is bringing it all back. As Cypress put it, "She built this perfect life for herself, and she just went a step too far. Got a little too greedy and things started falling apart, you know?" She continued by observing, "She opened the door to let that other Tai back out."
How does Van come into play?
One of the biggest news breaks between season 1 and season 2 was the casting announcement of Lauren Ambrose as Adult Van, who in season 1 was only seen as a teenager played by Liv Hewson. Van and Taissa are a young couple trying to navigate survival, high school, and the less-than-queer-friendly 1990s, on top of adding Taissa's weird behavior into the mix. Van witnesses Taissa's strange behavior firsthand but stands by her despite how dangerous she appears. Knowing that she's still alive in the present timeline means that at some point, Van and Taissa are going to go their separate ways.
"When you're spiraling down, you try to cling to something familiar," Tawny Cypress said. "As we know, there might be an ex involved [played by Lauren Ambrose]. She informs who Taissa is for the rest of the season. It's because she's grasping and holding onto an old version of herself that was safe with somebody else." There's no word on when the Taissa/Van reunion will take place in season 2, but considering how quickly Taissa's "bad one" behavior has been escalating, hopefully, it will be soon. This isn't to say that Van needs to "save" Taissa from herself, but I think sacrificing the family dog is a sign enough that desperate times call for desperate measures.
"Yellowjackets" season 2 returns to the Showtime app on March 24, 2023, with the episode broadcast live on Showtime two days later on March 26.