"Yellowjackets" Season 2 with Dr. Jessi Gold

Welcome back to Analyze Scripts, where a psychiatrist and a therapist analyze what Hollywood gets right and wrong about mental health. Today, we are joined by Dr. Jessi Gold to analyze season two of "Yellowjackets." In this episode we discuss cults, schizophrenia, catatonia and the ghastly depiction of ECT.  We see many different depictions of trauma responses in this season, some from psychological stressors and others from their worsening physical state. Were you as shocked as we were to learn the mouse is actually dead? Was that a hallucination due to starvation or psychological trauma, the answer is probably both. "Yellowjackets" keeps us guessing and cringing through all nine episodes this season, but we are ready for a break and hope the actors are practicing some self care!  We hope you enjoy!

Instagram

Tik Tok

Website

[00:10] Dr. Katrina Furey: Hi, I'm Dr. Katrina Fury, a psychiatrist.

[00:12] Portia Pendleton: And I'm Portia Pendleton, a licensed clinical social worker.

[00:16] Dr. Katrina Furey: And this is Analyze Scripts, a podcast where two shrinks analyze the depiction of mental health in movies and TV shows.

[00:23] Portia Pendleton: Our hope is that you learn some legit info about mental health while feeling like you're chatting with your girlfriends.

[00:28] Dr. Katrina Furey: There is so much misinformation out there, and it drives us nuts.

[00:31] Portia Pendleton: And if someday we pay off our student loans or land a sponsorship, like.

[00:36] Dr. Katrina Furey: With a lay flat airline or a major beauty brand, even better.

[00:39] Portia Pendleton: So sit back, relax, grab some popcorn.

[00:42] Dr. Katrina Furey: And your DSM Five and enjoy. Back to another episode of Analyze scripts. We are so excited to once again be joined by Dr. Jesse Gold today to talk about the second season of Showtime's hit show Yellow Jackets. Thanks so much for coming back, Jesse.

[01:12] Dr. Jessi Gold: Thanks for having me.

[01:13] Dr. Katrina Furey: I do have to say, this show is really messed up. I feel like season one was a lot, and then we sort of watched it really quick to record our first episode and then watch season two really quick. And I was like, I had to take some breaks, I'll be honest, along the way, because it got really intense really fast.

[01:34] Portia Pendleton: Yeah.

[01:38] Dr. Katrina Furey: Maybe like a two out of ten on a scale of one to ten. So not like fully this season.

[01:43] Dr. Jessi Gold: I think it was like last season, they were like, this is a show about cannibals, but you never saw it.

[01:50] Dr. Katrina Furey: Right?

[01:50] Dr. Jessi Gold: This season was like, remember when you're walking?

[01:54] Dr. Katrina Furey: Here it is. Yeah, here it is.

[01:58] Dr. Jessi Gold: They danced around it in a way that was like, fine last season. And this season they were like, all.

[02:04] Dr. Katrina Furey: Right, here you go.

[02:06] Dr. Jessi Gold: And there are definitely parts where you're like, yeah, I can't watch it.

[02:10] Dr. Katrina Furey: Yes, I know. I told Portia when we were watching it, I stopped right around when Shauna was about to deliver the baby because I was so scared they were going to eat the baby. I was like, I can't watch that. And I think you actually had to tell me. They don't I looked up the spoiler.

[02:28] Portia Pendleton: Yeah, they post on their TikTok, right? Like, the cast being like, we do not eat the baby. You can watch it, I guess, trigger non warning. And I was like, we do a.

[02:38] Dr. Katrina Furey: Lot of things, but that's where we draw the line. Gosh. So, I mean, I think we have to get started since this was really early in the first episode, ECT and the depiction of ECT. Right. Like, you probably felt as good about that as I did, which is not very good.

[02:57] Dr. Jessi Gold: It is the first time I was disappointed.

[03:00] Dr. Katrina Furey: Yeah, right.

[03:02] Dr. Jessi Gold: Last season, I was really excited about all of their mental health portrayals, and I thought they were really thoughtful, and their trauma portrayals were really thoughtful. So I was super excited for this season, despite yes, I'm not, like, a creepy show person, so it's not like surprising that that wouldn't be my genre of choice, but I really liked it for a lot of the reasons I was talking about health wise. And so watching that and seeing that so early on, I was like, oh no, taking such a wrong, unnecessary turn. And yeah, I think inherently if you came back from something catatonic possible, you got ECT, right?

[03:43] Dr. Katrina Furey: Right.

[03:44] Dr. Jessi Gold: The actual treatment of choice for being like catatonic, I think who has schizophrenia or some version of a psychotic right, comes back catatonic. It seems we have like a tiny, tiny, tiny glimpse in that.

[03:57] Dr. Katrina Furey: I was going to ask you. I thought it was catatonia as well. Porsche, are you familiar with catatonia as much? How would you describe catatonia, Jesse, to someone who doesn't know what that word means, they're different forms.

[04:09] Dr. Jessi Gold: Some people have hyperactive, completely not moving.

[04:14] Dr. Katrina Furey: Speaking kind of like Lottie, like Lottie.

[04:17] Dr. Jessi Gold: Looks like she had it can be a reaction to a lot of things, like medication, like psychosis, like some medical issues inside, internally, like a medical issue. I haven't seen it a ton of times, but I have seen it sometimes it amazingly responds to just like an act.

[04:36] Dr. Katrina Furey: Have you ever seen that? Because that is amazing. So portia. Sometimes when you're catatonic, these people are usually brought to the Er and people are either like they're not moving or eating or they're going to the bathroom on themselves. They literally can't move from here to five inches away, or they're like they're being really bizarre and bouncing off the walls and making weird noises and just such a drastic change in behavior really acutely quickly, like for an unknown reason. And then eventually catatonia gets on the differential and you think, let's give them a little Addivan. And so you'll give them like a push of ivy. Addivan, wait a couple only like 2 hours and a lot of times they start to wake up. Then you give them another one if it's working. And that's one of the coolest things in psychiatry is you can see it work so fast. I feel like in mental health that's so rare. Maybe like Add and Stimulants, you see work really quick. But this is so drastic. Like, I remember one woman in the ICU, wasn't eating for days, couldn't move, had something called waxy flexibility where if you put their arm up, it stays. They never bring it down. Or you can position them in an odd position, they stay there. That's part of catatonia. That's one of the telltale diagnostic signs. We give her the Adavan, a couple of hours later she's eating. It's wild. Anyway, so I do think lottie was catatonic. I think that's what they were going for. And even if they weren't, they did.

[06:02] Dr. Jessi Gold: A good job in an offshoot. But I do think that as far as things you see in psychiatry, it's interesting, but I have heard from the perspective of a patient who was catatonic, that they understood everything that was going on but couldn't speak or function. And wow, sometimes when people were learning from them because they had certain symptoms, like there's this thing called echolalia where they eat everything that you're saying that they knew. They saw that and didn't like that but couldn't say anything. So after that, I've been hesitant sometimes to actually teach some of it, even though it's rare and interesting. And again, one of the few things you see really get better, which is really nice. But I would assume, who knows how long she wasn't speaking and functioning in the wilderness.

[06:56] Dr. Katrina Furey: I know now she's trapped like that. Can you imagine?

[06:59] Dr. Jessi Gold: And I would assume her parents were already thought she was dead, but on top of it, we're like, oh, gosh, she's been off meds for like two years. No, I think ECP is a treatment of choice for catatonia. ECT is a very successful medication or.

[07:18] Dr. Katrina Furey: Like, treatment super successful, which is unfortunate.

[07:21] Dr. Jessi Gold: Psychiatry because everyone flew over the cuz nest, really. And I think that book and that movie and that portrayal have really continued so much that even, like, generationally people who have absolutely never read the book.

[07:38] Dr. Katrina Furey: Or true know about it.

[07:41] Portia Pendleton: Yeah.

[07:41] Dr. Jessi Gold: In that movie, I don't know if parents told them or what, because, you know, they didn't see some old school Jack Nickson movie.

[07:48] Dr. Katrina Furey: Right.

[07:49] Dr. Jessi Gold: There's something where you mentioned ECT to people and their faces so concerned and they think it's the worst thing you can possibly tell them, but it's by far one of our most successful treatments, especially in situations like this. But in acute suspitality in pregnancy.

[08:06] Dr. Katrina Furey: Right.

[08:06] Dr. Jessi Gold: Postpartum psychosis wouldn't imagine it's as good as it is. And that stigma that exists for a very long time, very much created by the media, to be honest, really has made it hard for us to sell it as a treatment, despite how successful it is. And so for this show, which is new, to bring it back into the fold. And bring it back into the fold. So almost like quickly flashes, but the flashes y