The mermaids went
back to sea last episode which kind of leaves me looking at episode 5 and
seeing there’s 10 episodes in this season and having a lot of questions
Chris, our sailor who
was sliced by Donna the mermaid, held in a military hospital and then escaped
has been hiding out in Alaska. Which turns out to be pretty pointless, because
Decker, our torn military scientist who is experimenting on mermaids but is kind
of guilty about it finds him to basically find out what Chris knows and where
Donna is. Since he knows nothing, including her location that means he can
return home.
In an astounding
display of actual logical thinking from someone on this show, his friend
Xander, in between them drinking a lot of whiskey, realises that it’s damn
weird a doctor would be seeking an apparent serial killing nurse (their cover
story) and not, y’know, the police. I’m astonished, actual logical thinking
Meanwhile Ben and Maddie
are cooling a little because Ben is getting super obsessive about Ryn
disappearing and neglecting her. They try to rekindle this by being interrupted
trying to have sex in inappropriate places
And Elaine, Ben’s
mother, has lunch with Maddie to deliver a whole “my son’s not really into you”
vibe mixed with a rather disturbing scent of jealousy. She describes Ben as
getting obsessed rescuing “broken things” which is how she refers to herself
and her disability and Maddie and her absent mother. But that Ben gets bored
and moves on. And while that’s a very dehumanising way to refer to Elaine and
Maddie and Maddie is very right to shoot that down also doesn’t seem to be…
that inaccurate a description of Ben’s personality. A white knight looking for
a dragon and a damsel...
But Ryn and Donna do
return to shore - Donna following Ryn and really really not happy about it. Ryn
thinks the humans can help them. Donna thinks humans are terribad awful
creatures that can’t be trusted. She also rips off Ryn’s tracking necklace
because that wasn’t a respectful thing for Ben to put on her anyway.
They keep arguing
right up until they find Maddie and Ben in the rescue station to ask for help
and then Donna loses it over a dead fish and the mermaids fight, Ryn fighting
Donna to protect the humans until Donna is driven out by Ben using a flare.
Nice. Ryn apologises for her sister
Oh and Helen turns up
to say how donna is right and how unnatural it is for Ryn to be out of water
Y’know I was way way
way happier with a Black mermaid when she wasn’t the more animal, violent,
savage, wounded, damaged, inarticulate sister to the (admittedly marginally)
more civilised co-operative white mermaid who doesn’t go around ripping apart
raw fish
So what is the
problem? There’s no food in the ocean. All the fish are gone. This is why
Maddie and Ben have been found very very deep ocean fish apparently dead of
starvation.
Ben checks with his
fishermen buddies who are actually having injuries working day and night
basically scooping up everything (Including deep ocean fish?) because they have
a new supplier who will apparently buy any fish. Even non-marketable,
non-edible fish. And Because this company has no idea what sustainable
development or still-being-in-business-next-year means, they’re just hoovering
up the ocean
I find it dubious one
company could do this. In a few months. Or weeks even. I mean, Pacific is a big
ocean - but Ben manages to get close to his dad by accepting the environmental
consultant job he offered (you’re hoovering the ocean. You don’t need an expert
environmental consultant to ignore. And don’t tell me this is to get close to
your son. How is purposefully enraging him and ensuring many many many many
arguments going to build family bonds). Ben breaks into his office and his
computer (awww his password is his son’s names. How sweet. This shows all the
emotional conflict that comes from having the bad guy be your own father. But
also that IT needs to give him a smack upside the head for terrible security).
There he finds an email from this new company, Coastal Mills, to his dad and
many many other fishing companies saying “we have a waiver for all laws about
overfishing - get me all the fish in the ocean.” I kind of love how they’ve
just written this. I mean no legal documents, no government forms, just the
body of an email “it’s totes ok for us to break the law, ‘kay”
Ben realises it’s
actually a government conspiracy to remove all the fish from the northern
Pacific to starve out the mermaids
No, really, that’s
the bad guys’ plans. It’s a supervillain plot so ridiculous it belongs on Despicable
Me. Someone get Decker a Minion here. For the sake of poking at mermaids
the US military is going to denude the northern Pacific, collapse the fishing
industry, cause a major ecological disaster and spend gods know how much money
buying tons and tons of inedible fish (and doing SOMETHING with it, selling it
to Chick-fil-a or something)
And they’re going to
do this without some other government department - or government - noticing and
getting Upset By This. I can see this not going well with ANYONE.
And aren’t the
mermaids more likely to migrate out of US fishing waters? Doesn’t that make
more sense for a fish-eating species than coming to land to be captured?
Meanwhile we get the
much vaunted “bisexual” moment of Ryn kissing Maddie and saying how much she
missed her which feels far more about Ryn just not understanding human
interactions that well and Maddie holding still in case sudden motions get her
killed by the alien fish lady. But it does let Maddie explain families to Ryn
and her mother issues
And Doctor Abbot
decides to tell Elaine all about the various medical emergencies that Ben has
had lately. I mean, really, Doctor Abbot is violating all the medical ethics
now
