When it comes to giving audiences moments they won’t find anywhere else on TV, Celebrity Family Feud is known for featuring some shockingly terrible guesses and guessers — respectfully lookin’ at you, Boyz II Men during the Fast Money Round — as well as all manner of overtly sexual answers to overtly sexual questions. But with its Season 9 premiere, the show offered up something beyond the ordinary, as Steve Harvey welcomed the ensemble cast of Showtime’s timeline-twisting horror Yellowjackets. And despite not utilizing any cabin settings or edible body parts, the Feud gave fans something that the scripted series itself isn’t even able to pull off.
Namely, Yellowjackets fans were able to watch the differing generations of stars actually mixing it up and getting silly together on stage, which obviously isn’t something that can happen on the fly or with any regularity in Showtime’s series. Celebrity Family Feud split its teams up largely by age, with co-creator Ashley Lyle serving as the fifth team member for the “Teens,” which allowed for some glorious (if criminally short) moments between Misty portrayers Christina Ricci and Samantha Hanratty, Taissa actresses Jasmin Savoy Brown and Tawny Cypress, and Shauna stars Sophie Nélisse and Melanie Lynskey. Not to mention teen Lottie portrayer Courtney Eaton and adult Van actress Lauren Ambrose, as well as Warren Kole, who plays the man, the myth, the legend: Jeff.
Given the fact that the only way for Yellowjackets to mix up its core casts is through dream sequences, hallucinations and other moments that stray outside direct realism, there are basically zero moments when fans would be able to see both generations of Misty crossing paths. But I'll say with completely certainty now that it was an absolute hoot to see Ricci and Hanratty facing off at the podium for Celebrity Family Feud's first question of Season 9, largely because it was just instant and loud chaos, but like the comfortable kind of friendly sleepover chaos that starts off with two professional women shaking hands. The pair could make additional livings giving paid reactions to moments.
While Yellowjackets' characters have to deal with a heaping pile of escalating problems, the starts themselves were very fun to watch in the low-stakes world of Celebrity Family Feud, where the first question was "We asked 100 women: you'd rather do what then have sex?" And I gotta say, some of the wrong answers were better than what was on the list. Not so much Hanratty's confused look, but Ambrose' guess of "Read" was aces.
As fun as it was to watch Ricci and Hanratty, as well as Nélisse and Lynskey, the most GIF-worthy highlight from the Celebrity Family Feud episode involved the humble Jasmin Savoy Brown and Tawny Cypress showing off their excellent dance moves together. Just that eight seconds of chemistry was enough to spark a little bit of regret in knowing that they'll likely never share a Yellowjackets scene that involves such mirth and joy. Really, anytime someone dances on the dark thriller, it's a plus in my book.
Beyond the glut of questions we're still thinking about while waiting for Season 3 (which was delayed over the ongoing WGA writers strike), the Feud gave fans a bit of a comedic amuse-bouche with all these actors ahead of their return to possibly mystical survivalism. Maybe this can be the season where Showtime pairs off the actors for commentary recordings or behind-the-scenes extras to dig into after watching episodes. We need to see these generations collide!
Stream both already concluded seasons of Yellowjackets with a Paramount+ subscription, which recently added Showtime programming while raising its core sub price.
