Misty gives Shauna a wildly inappropriate gift at her Yellowjackets baby shower, but the Steel Magnolias monologue speaks volumes about her character.
At Shauna’s Yellowjackets baby shower, Misty (Samantha Hanratty) gave the inappropriate gift of Sally Field’s emotionally raw graveside monologue from Steel Magnolias. Coming to terms with having eaten Jackie (Ella Purnell) in the previous episode, the survivors decided to throw a baby shower for pregnant Shauna (Sophie Nélisse). The baby shower was clearly a means to justify their actions of the night before, as eating Jackie is seen as having been vital to the survival of Shauna’s unborn child.
Misty is a misfit who, in both timelines, is driven by strengthening her relationships with her fellow survivors. Currently, adult Misty (Christina Ricci) and Walter (Elijah Wood) have teamed up to track down the kidnapped Natalie (Juliette Lewis), while she also tries to dissuade Walter from his theories about Adam’s murder, committed by adult Shauna (Melanie Lynskey). However, Misty regularly sabotages her own position too, such as when her teenage self inadvertently spiked the survivors’ meal with psychotropic mushrooms, and her Steel Magnolias performance walks a very fine line between sabotaging her position and gaining the respect of her fellow survivors.
Sally Field’s Graveside Monologue In Steel Magnolias Explained
Sally Field standing in a cemetery in Steel Magnolias
Interestingly, actor Samantha Hanratty hasn’t seen Steel Magnolias, despite her standout performance of the Sally Field monologue (per Variety). Instead, Hanratty watched the scene in which M’Lynn (Sally Field) delivers a heart-wrenching speech at the grave of her daughter Shelby (Julia Roberts) on YouTube. The scene comes toward the end of the movie after kidney failure brought about by complications during the birth of Shelby’s son Jackson ultimately claimed her life. As Shelby’s mother, M’Lynn is devastated by the loss and struggles to make peace with Shelby’s decision to have a child, despite the risks that her diabetes combined with her pregnancy posed to her life.
As teenage Taissa (Jessica Savoy Brown) observes, Misty’s choice to deliver the monologue at Shauna’s baby shower is wildly inappropriate. Not only is it a speech by a woman who has lost her child, but it’s also tied into a story about another woman who decided to have a child under complicated circumstances. It’s a blackly comic Misty moment, but when coupled with Shauna’s nosebleed, could also be a harrowing bit of foreshadowing for what happens to Shauna’s baby in Yellowjackets.
Why Misty Chose To Perform The Steel Magnolias Monologue In Yellowjackets
Misty (Samantha Hanratty) welcomes the applause after her Steel Magnolias speech
As the survivors prepared gifts for Shauna, Misty was struggling to decide what to give the expectant mother. She’s given guidance by her new friend Crystal (Nuha Jes Izman) who tells her that baby showers are really about the mother, not the child. Misty also tells Crystal about her admiration for actors who can become somebody else, something she’ll later do to a certain extent in her work as a citizen detective. As an aspiring actor herself, Crystal inspires Misty to gift Shauna a monologue at the baby shower, and she ultimately chooses the Steel Magnolias speech, presumably because it’s about a mother’s love for her child.
It’s emblematic of Misty’s personality that she sees M’Lynn’s speech in Steel Magnolias as a celebration of motherhood, rather than a heartbreaking speech about the loss of a child. However inappropriate it may be, Misty still gets what she ultimately desired from the speech when the derisive laughter of her fellow survivors gives way to rapturous applause.
This is another key aspect of Misty’s character, she’s always seeking the acceptance and approval of her peers but chooses the most left-field means possible to achieve it. This continues in the modern-day timeline as her unorthodox citizen detective work leads her in the direction of Lottie’s cult in Yellowjackets in an attempt to save Natalie (Juliette Lewis) and further prove herself as a key member of the Yellowjackets team.
