Lauren Ambrose in ‘Yellowjackets,’ ‘Servant’: a Long

Nov 11, 2023

IN SEASON

The latest addition to Showtime's teen trauma series already stunned us earlier this year, in "Servant." Between these two killer performances, Ambrose is having a helluva spring.

Freelance Writer

Yellowjackets Season 2 came full of exciting prospects, the chief of which is the introduction of more adult characters. The prospect of new actresses joining the cast was thrilling, but I practically ascended to the heavens when the news broke that Lauren Ambrose would be portraying Adult Van (Liv Hewson's character in the teen timeline).

For those of us who’ve loved her work for years, we’re not just excited to see her play a major role on a big show like Yellowjackets—we’re excited for Ambrose to finally gain the mainstream, widespread recognition as one of the best actors currently working that she's long deserved.

Ambrose had her major career breakthrough in the fabulous HBO series Six Feet Under, which aired for five seasons in the early 2000s. She played Claire Fisher, one of the members of a family running a funeral home. Ambrose's performance was characteristically excellent and earned her a slew of award nominations; she went on to win two SAG awards for her work as part of the show's great ensemble.

Despite her impressive work on the show, Ambrose's career didn't have the meteoric trajectory it deserved after leaving Six Feet Under. She appeared in a few films and some guest roles on TV, before largely turning to the theater instead. (She even received a Tony nomination for her role as Eliza Doolittle in a 2018 Broadway production of My Fair Lady.)

It wasn't until 14 years after the end of Six Feet Under that Ambrose landed her next major role in a TV series. This time, she wasn't a supporting character, instead taking the lead role. In Apple TV+'s utterly brilliant Servant, whose final season wrapped earlier this year, Ambrose played Dorothy Turner, a reporter and mother to a young baby in a gorgeous Philadelphia brownstone.

Except that the baby is no longer alive. Dorothy exists in a deep, unshakable denial over this, so much so that her husband Sean (Toby Kebbell), on the advice of a therapist, gets her a lifelike doll that they treat like their own real child. As they're both working professionals, they hire a nanny to help deal with the pressures of parenthood, and when Leanne (Nell Tiger Free) shows up, Sean is floored to discover that their baby Jericho is actually alive again.

Servant is an irresistibly creepy show that takes place almost entirely within the walls of the Turner house. Because of this, it relies heavily on the talents of its fantastic cast, which also includes Dorothy's brother Julian (Rupert Grint). They’re uniformly excellent, but much of the show's emotional heft relies on Dorothy. Ambrose more than rises to the occasion and, at the risk of sounding hyperbolic, delivers what might just be the finest dramatic performance in this golden age of television.

It's a complicated character to play; countless stories have dealt with grief, and even more are about the grief of losing a child. But what happens when you’ve pushed that reality so far into the recesses of your mind that you don't know your child ever died? That's far newer territory to take on, but Ambrose handles it with Shakespearean mastery.

Much of the spectacle of her performance, particularly in the fourth and final season, relies on her face. She has an uncanny ability to convey a universe of feeling through subtle movements in her face, tweaking her eyebrows, nose, eyes, and mouth to a jaw-dropping effect. The result is a character who is so rich, so multi-faceted, that you never doubt the reality of her situation, as increasingly implausible as it may be. If anyone can convince you that a rubber doll is a real, thriving child, it's Lauren Ambrose.

In Yellowjackets, Ambrose's character feels tailor-made to make me into a raging internet stan. The Adult Van is queer (check), a big-time movie buff (double check), readily employs pop culture references (triple check), and runs a pun-tastic video rental shop called "While You Were Streaming" (unlimited checks). With characteristics like that, Van could be played by one of my high-school bullies and I’d root for her. But she's played by Ambrose (who, to clarify, did not bully me in high school), so I’m already prepared to sacrifice myself at Van's request.

Though news of Ambrose being cast in Yellowjackets broke before the season premiere, for those of us anxiously awaiting her appearance, the wait was arduous. Besides the opening credits, there is not even a hint of the adult Van through the first three episodes. It's not until the very end of episode four that we finally get a glimpse of her, running her video store. And even then, it's only a fleeting moment; we only see Van's justifiably shocked expression upon her ex, Taissa (Tawny Cypress), walking through her door after so many years.

But finally—finally!—in Episode 5, we get to know Ambrose's take on Van. The episode begins a few minutes before the end of Episode 4, which gives us a look into Van's life before Taissa disrupts the quiet. And I swear, every detail is here to make you fall completely in love with Adult Van before she says anything.

We find Van in her apartment, which is located directly above her shop. She hastily eats a sprinkled donut, while she collects a bunch of VHS tapes to bring down to the shop, implying she spends all her free time watching movies—which honestly, same. Last night, she watched Welcome to the Dollhouse, which is bona fide proof that Van is amazing. Van heads down to the shop, flirting with a customer, and recommending them a truly underrated classic of queer cinema, The Watermelon Woman—be still my beating heart. But alas, this is Yellowjackets. Taissa walks through the door, and the peaceful routine of Van's life is all but over.

It's not long until Ambrose becomes a totally natural fit in the cast. Her chemistry with Cypress is immediate, and there's not a second between them where you don't believe these characters were madly in love as teenagers. There's no doubt that going through an experience as traumatic as what these girls went through bonds you in some intrinsic way, but that's amplified considerably when you were romantically intertwined during the biggest test of your life—and Ambrose nails that dynamic immediately in her portrayal of Van.

There's an immediate concern in Van's voice, as she asks Tai what she's doing at her store, after being gone for so long. "It's been … a long time," she says. "A really fucking long time." Here, as Van, Ambrose conveys decades of frustration and anguish in two lines. Her words weigh heavy in the air, but just a few moments later, Tai and Van are smiling together again.

It's clear that Ambrose is brilliant casting, not only from a lookalike perspective (I completely buy that Hewson would grow up to look like Ambrose) but also in terms of pure talent. It instantly feels as if this aged-up Van has been in the show since the very first episode.

Van is clearly perturbed by the sudden reappearance of Taissa, as it comes with a past, she's tried her whole adult life to put behind her. Watching her mix up pop culture references out of frustration is as humorous as it is heartbreaking. But her obsession with pop culture, particularly from the ’90s, suggests that Van has had an awfully challenging time moving forward from those years she had before the plane crash. The films give her an opportunity to relive the childhood that was torn from her by the Canadian wilderness.

This is perfectly expressed as Van watches a wedding video (of another family) that she's helping digitize. Van stares at the screen, full of happy faces, with a smile. It's a quick, haunting moment, as she reckons with a peaceful past that will never be hers. Ambrose has silently grafted Van's deepest desires and dreams onto her face, and it's remarkable to witness a performer on top form. It turns a few seconds into a lifetime, in the best possible way.

While Servant had a small, intimate cast, Yellowjackets is a sprawling ensemble with dozens of different characters, and more seem to be introduced with each passing week. But in just one episode, Ambrose established Van as a character we can't live without. So buckle up, because Lauren Ambrose is going to be a force in one of the most talked-about shows of the year. It's been a long time coming, but the Ambrose reign is here.

Freelance Writer

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