There seems to be a lot of discussion on the Internet lately about character morality and whether the fictional people we spend time watching should be innately good. But the truth is that purely good characters are some of the tamest and least interesting ones in media, most likely because humans themselves are always destined to be flawed. Audiences have long been drawn towards complex characters that harbor both good and bad traits, due in part to the fact that these traits are almost always anchored in a relatable need. Of course, the need in question usually doesn't drive people to purposefully sabotage rescue missions or commit elder abuse ... but more on that in a minute.
Yellowjackets, the Showtime original series about the lives of a high school soccer team during and after a devastating plane crash, is full of these types of complex characters. However, there isn’t a character as complicated or just downright abhorrent as Misty Quigley (played in a dual role by Christina Ricci and Samantha Hanratty). Originally introduced as the team’s weird student manager with a knack for survival, she harbors a dark need for belonging that quickly reveals itself to be dangerous. As an adult, she’s a nursing-home employee and amateur citizen detective who now revels in the fact that people are dependent on her to survive.
There are many terms that could be used to describe Misty: evil, crazy ... batshit insane. And though they're harsh, they honestly do underscore just how interesting of a character she really is. The struggle facing Misty is one that is universal: She wants to feel needed and valuable to others. After years of being bullied and treated like an outcast, her teenage self feels like the plane crash in the woods of Ontario is the perfect way to prove her worth. She is almost immediately proven correct, as her quick decisions – such as chopping off the mangled leg of assistant coach Ben Scott (Steven Kreuger) to prevent infection – do make a positive difference. However, the validation from her peers for her heroic acts (something she's never received before) goes to her head, leading her to believe that she's the only one in the group that can save them.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in her interactions with Ben in the flashback segments. Misty has a crush on the much-older assistant coach and grows desperate to keep him as injured as possible so that she can take care of him forever. Before long, she's purposefully making him feel pain while tending his leg stump and poisoning his tea so that he vomits profusely. Her thirst for validation seems unending, and she becomes obsessed with making sure that Ben needs her attention.
This obsessive behavior also carries over to the present day, when Misty works at a nursing home and torments those under her care. She’s everything that comes to mind when you think of a nursing home staff member who uses her position to abuse her patients. Although audiences still aren’t entirely sure what happened with Ben, you can only assume the power Misty felt when forcing him to accept her care has trickled into her current profession.
However, it’s Misty’s rekindled relationship with fellow survivor Natalie Scatorccio (Juliette Lewis and Sophie Thatcher) that most resembles the toxic behaviors she exhibited on their assistant coach. Although Misty doesn’t go so far as to purposefully make her sick, she still does everything in her power to prove her worth to Natalie. When Natalie begins investigating the mysterious circumstances surrounding the survivors, Misty just so happens to be there, installing cameras in Natalie’s home and stalking her in public. Though her actions aren't as severe as they were with Ben, Misty’s obsession with Natalie needing her is still fascinating to watch, especially since her target knows exactly the game she’s playing.
In a way, this obsession is her method of expressing love. Misty loved Ben because he was an older authoritative figure who gave her purpose. While the reason for her love of Natalie is still unclear, one can only assume that it’s because she proved herself capable of helping the group survive with her hunting skills. Nevertheless, it is a demented idea of love that makes Misty, in all her terrible glory, just so damn interesting to watch.
Although the teachings of Sigmund Freud continue to be challenged, one could argue that Misty had missed an important stage of psychosexual development that led to her twisted sense of affection. However, the truth is perhaps a lot more complicated than that. Underneath her obsession with power and belonging, there is a genuine need to help. When the Yellowjackets crashed, she did everything she could to administer care not only to only Ben, but to the rest of the injured team as well. In the present day, she genuinely seems to want to know why the survivors are being threatened by a mysterious person who knows what happened in the woods. While this could very well be a facade, Misty openly struggles with balancing what she thinks love is and what she knows it actually is. It is this precise struggle that makes it hard to write her off as a crazy villain, but rather a slightly sympathetic yet still damaged anti-hero.
Admittedly, this could come crashing down at any second, as the season is still ongoing. Maybe she truly is rotten to the core, always has been and always will be. Even if that's the case, however, Misty will still be remembered as a character audiences couldn’t take their eyes off of. Whether you love to hate her or just hate her, Misty Quigley will continue to be important for the mainstream appeal of Yellowjackets. And isn’t that what she always wanted?