It’s more mermaids
and problematic racial tropes!
I mean, in a genre
where the writers are aware enough to think “hey, how about we don’t make all
the mermaids white for once?” could they not also make the depiction somewhat
cringeworthy?
We also have
different levels of unstable going on here: Ben is getting more and more
obsessed with Ryn presumably due to the siren song - he’s having disturbing sex
murder dreams about her. His decision making is now… questionable
Decker continues to
obsess about Donna because of the Siren song
While Xander is
deeply grieving for his father and on a major vengeance kick against the merman
who killed his dad -but not all merfolk at least. Though he does want Ryn to
show him to the Merman and is wandering around with a gun which is always
questionable.
The three visiting
merfolk quickly steal some clothes and go looking for Ryn, including menacing
Helen who is definitely a mermaid but no-one is talking about it (and has a
great put down on the merfolk acting extremely human with their pursuit of
revenge). Rynn assumes they’re coming to drag her back to the ocean which Ben
is very upset about because of the whole obsession thing - and tells her “he
needs her.” While Ryn would quite like to be able to come and go between land
and sea as she likes - but recognises it may be best to go back to the ocean
rather than have more conflict and these three mermaids killing humans.
They meet up and
Donna is happy because Ryn is coming home. But the other two are not here to
bring her home - they’re here to kill her. Donna switches sides and they run
and explain some back story
So we heard about how Ben’s ancestor slaughtered mermaid? Well, apparently he fell in love with a mermaid who spent a lot of time on dry land. The mermaid and Ben’s ancestor had a kid which was apparently disfigured or not human or otherwise troubling. So Ben’s arsehole ancestor murdered said child and his mermaid partner declared “fuck that” and went back into the ocean. To which the child murderer upped his arseholery and led the slaughter of the mermaids.
Mermaids have decided
from this that any merperson who hangs around on land for too long may cause
another genocide. Perhaps not the best cause and effect reasoning but I feel
humanity isn’t in a position to throw stones here.
Since Ryn has become
too human, the two merfolk want to murder her to save the merfolk from another
genocide.
Ben leads Ryn and
Donna to hide and they run into Xander who recognises Donna - but is again
focused on killing the merman. Ben disagrees because peace and love - while Ryn
is all, actually, yeah murder may be the best solution. Donna agrees, murder is
definitely necessary. I can get resorting to murder as a last resort, but the
speed to which Ryn and Donna jump on the murder train seems.. Dubious. I mean
Donna went from “humans are terrible kill them all” to “this human with a gun
should shoot my friend” in like
Meanwhile Maddie goes
to her aware dad, the Sheriff and asks him to take care of things because
dealing with dangerous murderous people is kind of what the police do. She gets
steadily more frustrated and even disgusted with Ben as he completely refuses
to hunker down and let the police handle things. Her dad’s already got reports
of violent nudists and calls out the police… though Maddie does have some
concerns about how dangerous mermaids are
Which is somewhat
followed through by the sheriff being attacked by the two merfolk… which is
scary. But he has a gun - which kind of puts a whole lot of perspective on the
whole idea that these mermaids are just that scary. He also has a car which he
uses to knock the merman out and imprison
Of course he forgot
that whole super strength thing so the merman escapes. We also have a kind of
weird colour-blind thing going on as the sheriff describes the female mermaid
and doesn’t say “Asian”. Since when do police describe potential suspects
without mentioning their race?
Which leaves pretty
much everyone - including Dekker - wandering around the dark, foggy town with
guns for the humans and heavy objects being thrown by merfolk super-strength.
All the while Maddie is pretty much chewing Ben out for not HIDING AND LETTING
THE GUYS WITH GUNS SORT THIS OUT. While Ben thinks they can take care of it
super quietly without the police being involved while Maddie points out how
utterly ridiculous this is
There’s lots of fight
scenes and the sheriff is injured. Ryn tries to reason with the mermaid which
doesn’t exactly go anywhere. Xander accuses both Decker and Ben of being
enthralled by the sirens which, y’know, isn’t wrong.
The stand off
eventually ends when Ryn defeats the female mermaid and lets her live… and the
merman bows to her. As Helen explains, merfolk are matriarchal and by winning
the fight Ryn established herself as dominant and therefore all the fears the
merfolk had about genocide no longer apply? I get the idea that she’s in charge
now but it doesn’t help humanise the merfolk - especially the merfolk of colour
- by having them submit to an alpha without a word of complaint like a feral
pack animal rather than continue to argue their point: especially when they
literally fear a reprisal of genocide. “Hey I’m afraid humans will wipe us all
out but you won a fight so, yeah, we’re offski” is not the decision making of a
reasoning being.
Yes, I know hardly
anyone’s decisions on this show count as the acts of a reasoning being, but
that’s because of stupidity, not feral animal-ness
I’m also not happy
that the motives of the murderous mermaids of colour went from “humans are
trying to kill us in evil sadistic laboratories” and even from “humans are
eating all the fish and leaving us to starve” to “we’re going to kill Ryn for
convoluted reasons.” By forcing this ridiculous motive shift we’re pretty much
forcing these merfolk into the bad guys camp without nuance. Fighting against
vivisection? Gives them a strong motive for their violence which is hard to
blanket condemn. Fighting against a literal attempt to starve them? Yes, again,
makes their motives more understandable and harder to just blanket condemn
But killing Ryn?
That’s a simplistic good mermaid vs bad mermaid conflict. NAMELESS bad guys.
Also bad is Xan
deciding to shoot the merman anyway and Ben jumping on him and Xan shooting
Donna by mistake. Oh you do not fridge this woman, Siren this is not ok
She’s taken to Helen
and since they can’t turn to any human medical professionals (even Ben’s
weirdly corrupt doctor), they have to resort to Dekker. The man who
experimented on Donna.
Donna deserves
better.
Maddie’s also super
super pissed with Ben and is looking after her injured father. While Maddie is
clear that Ryn proves merfolk can “learn” to be human (aaaaargh, I’ve said this
is a problem before making Ryn the “human” mermaid and the others the violent
“animal” merfolk is an issue). But the Sheriff is clear - he doesn’t want them
here and if it’s a choice between merfolk and the town, he’s choosing the town.
