Siren: Season 2, Episode 5: Primal Instinct

So, Ben, Maddie and Ryn wake up all in bed together. Apparently they didn’t go beyond kissing because they didn’t know how far Ryn wanted to go - and Ryn is super super super interested in doing more which everyone is really happy and slightly embarrassed about.

They do belatedly realise that maybe they should discuss what sex actually means for humans and merfolk as well as sex without the aim for children. Oh and not only are merwomen violent but it is not unknown for them to kill their male lovers. So maybe some discussion first is not a bad plan

Which they kind of touch on but not really about the mechanics of sex or could Ryn please not break them with her super strength? Or hey what genitals look like for merfolk - how do they even have sex? Fish do not have sex remotely like humans do.

Instead they discuss how unequal merfolk society is and I get that they’re trying to say how bad this is while at the same time Maddie is trying to avoid being judgemental of Ryn’s culture especially since she knows so little about it - and she DOES say it is occasionally unequal on land. But wow that’s like something of a huge understatement and a lot of me cringes to see the woman of colour say “yeah it’s sometimes unequal on land” when the focus is how unequal sex in the water is. I kept expecting Maddie to just 4th wall turn to the camera and say “really”.

Also they’re talking equality and consent which is super nice but can we also talk about not breaking things with super strength oh and how sex even works.

Anyway they’re also spotted by Donna’s daughter Cami who is getting more conflicted and still really sad over her dead mother. Ryn tries to comfort her by taking her to her mother’s grave but that’s not much comfort to Cami (would merfolk even have a concept of graves?) who is completely focused on  how humans killed her mother and how angry she is about this - and how she thinks Ryn is too human

Which I get but didn’t we just have the message a few episodes ago that merfolk move on and don’t hold grudges which is why Levi and Ryn don’t really understand why Xander is still angry with them? For that matter we have Katrina running around a great big simmering body of anger and resentment? I love building an alien viewpoint and all but it has to be consistent!

Speaking of Katrina, she’s all healed up and Xander still wants to make a deal with her - either way she goes out to try and recruit the others to leave Ryn and come back to the water: which starts with Cami (after Sarge says no).

Ryn does takes the idea of equality to heart and when Helen brings a little food she insists that the male merfolk eat at the same time as the women rather than waiting as they usually do. An lo, presumably generations of cultural norms are defeated? For that matter, if merfolk culture is so female dominated and in control shouldn’t that have stood out more in season 1 when Ryn’s main point of contact was Ben? When she started communicating more wouldn’t she focus more on Maddie? I love creating alien cultures - but make them consistent!

Our journalist friend is around to tell Ben that oil company is bad and doing more badness and it’s all so very bad. Xander catches up with Ben to tell him that he’s totally onside with stopping the badness and getting rid of the mermaids and telling them all about Katrina. I think this begins with his trying to get his hands on Levi but that kind of expands to genuine concern about the evil oil company which will destroy his livelihood as well

Siren: Season 2, Episode 4: Oil and Water

Ben is listening to recorded siren song. This is a bad bad bad idea.

A very bad idea.

And while he listens to it Ryn also dreams of Ben. This feels more and more like supernatural shenanigans and not a good sign. Ryn is especially confused because mermaids don’t dream and Maddie has to explain the concept to her - and add that it means she’s thinking about Ben and wants him. Which is kind of weird coming from Maddie - like she’s trying to resurrect her relationship with Ben but also trying to set up Ben and Rynn

But there’s a new merfolk drama - it seems while they all consider each other to be family et al, their views on family are much like mine: fine in concept but that absolutely doesn’t mean you need to spend more than 2 hours in their company. The merfolk are snarling at each other constantly, they need to be separated. Also in the sea, the merfolk are always hunting and fighting and doing something - inactivity is not something they’re used to. So time to get them all

Levi is coming with Ben and learning how to be a human man (which Maddie throws in more mixed signals by saying that Ben is the best rolemodel and kissing him). Levi promptly kisses a confused and shocked Ben - because like Rynn he still doesn’t understand how human interactions work. Ben does emphasise consent.

He wants to learn - so it’s down to Ben to teach him television, music, beer, sports, family and friends and not fighting. The last is especially important because though merfolk are a martriarchal society, the men are soldiers and protectors so Levi expects to fight and Ben has a nice speech about not fighting

There’s also the Xander issue and Ben tries to talk to him about how Levi is basically a soldier and can’t really be held responsible for Sean’s death. Unsurprisingly, Xander isn’t hearing this - because Xander has his own issues and plot for revenge

Xander has found the injured Katrina and is keeping her on his boat, trying to trade her freedom for Levi’s location (which is awkward because Katrina doesn’t actually know). It’s also dangerous because Katrina is a dangerous and crafty mermaid and quite willing to rip his face off - so he takes her out to sea. Unable to enter the water because of the death noise and can’t kill him because she can’t pilot a boat. So they strike a deal - he helps her get rid of the death noise and she will then help him get Levi

Which means both sides are kind of promising things they can’t keep.

Rynn and Maddie are living together with Donna’s daughter as Maddie moving out to get her own space to allow this. This does rather disturb Sarah who thinks her daughter is leaving because of her -but Maddie assures her it’s not and even has lunch with her as a peace offering. It’s a nice bonding moment but… awkward. Sarah clearly sees this as beautiful and meaningful and nostalgic and has even engraved one of Maddie’s necklaces with “love mom” on it which is nice. While Maddie is distracted, clearly viewed this as a sop to her mother, doesn’t have the same shiny memories or nostalgia and generally isn’t taking this as nearly as seriously. Awkward.

Maddie, Rynn and donna’s daughter all catch up with Ben and Levi in a bar (where Levi went contrary to Ben’s wishes because Ben is trying to teach him how to be his own person rather than just obeying commands). Levi’s doing well with beer pong and teaching Ben how mermaid mating works (which is fairly violent and involves men displaying gleaming neck lights to attract women) since Ben is clearly interested in Ryn. There is a bar fight and Levi manages to avoid fighting, listening to Ben. Ironically Ben is the one who knocks the guy out and then they dance (with Ryn confessing to Ben that she likes singing to him and this makes them think there’s a deeper connection to their longing than just siren song while I think that this actually means siren song is just more powerful than they realise).

---

Maddie who wants to check up with her mother - only to find out Sarah has been visited by Glen, her dealer, and is high when Maddie gets home. Maddie leaves tearful and angry, going to Ben and Ryn and the three bond and kiss. Is this the much vaunted bisexual representation that has long been teased on this show? Hmmm… maybe? I mean we just established that Ryn actually dreamed for the first time ever after Ben listened to a RECORDING of her song and she’s started daydreaming of him after that. We’ve also seen Maddie, despite the headphones, by definitely affected by Ryn’s siren song. The timing makes this whole thing rather less compelling as authentic - mind controlled potentially dubious consent driven by a mercreature that doesn’t even understand relationships. I can see this super complicated - but not as great un-asterixed representation. Ultimately, mind-controlling woo-woo casts a shadow here

The last drama is Helen - her squirrelly relative does come to visit her and perhaps my assumption of shadiness is unwarranted. Helen talks about how out of place she’s always felt and that’s apparently common ground for both the mermaid hybrids with addiction issues common in the family. As is their funky nasty icky skin. She presents him with a home cure which works which makes him super trust her because no-one has been able to cure his icky skin before

Which is when Helen introduces him to a mermaid to feel the connection -which he does on a mystical level.

Siren: Season 2, Episode 3: Natural Order

Time for some more tours of the forest with Maddy and Ben being kind of close to each other and growing more so as they show the merfolk the forest - and it’s dangers. Including poison ivy and the idea that some plants are dangerous (Ryn is familiar with the concept of plants as medicine)

And another problem is the merfolk drive to hunt and when a deer arrives they all charge after it and run out into the road, nearly getting run down. Katrina challenges as usual

They try to talk to Ryn about not hunting on land and to make things more difficult Marissa, Sheriff Dale’s replacement, arrives to question Ben about his friends trashing the local shop. Ben tries to explain it away as partiers but it’s clear she’s suspicious and it’s also becoming more awkward to stay in the cabin. To finally push them out, Ryn is having skin issues again - she needs water. Only the oil company is going all out with their sonic thingy, now no water is actually safe. Worse, Ryn can’t show weakness before Katrina or she will attack her for leadership - and she’s quick to tell Ben to back off when he wants to interfere. That is not the merfolk’s way - she needs to do this alone.

Maddie goes looking for lotion to help Ryn and discovers they have a giant tank lurking in the back of a cupboard which is just what they need and is super convenient.

They move into the little shed but it’s only temporary - because Helen has her money! Yes Elaine was blocking it mainly out of spite because she really hates her but Ben goes to her and makes up a lie about Helen being really sick and needs the money… which obviously hits Elaine, who is disabled and we know has already struggled seeking for treatment, pretty hard. But she does show Ben the DNA test she has of Helen which shows a mysterious “12% other” which I assume means fishy person. But it also shows Helen has another relative

They tell Helen this who spares a millisecond to be angry about Elaine stealing her DNA but she’s super excited about this relative she’s never met. She goes to see him and he is super super super super shifty and she seems to be willing to overlook that in her excitement. I will put him down as sinister plot hook for now.

Another ongoing plot hook is Xander and the sinister Nicole. Xander continues to be all conflicted, hanging around the cabin and generally moping while Nicole occupies his bed and continues to poke the death of his dad - finally getting Xander to admit he was murdered. But not by fish people.

Siren, Season 2, Episode 2: The Wolf at the Door

The Merfolk are on land and everyone is still obeying Ryn and there’s lots of interesting ways in how they show dominance and submission - I have to say how good they are at conveying very non-human creatures here. Ryn is in control and continues to teach the others how to speak English and react with the world.

Katrina, her rival, is not a fan and keeps challenging her, but the rest of the group backs Ryn and Ryn pays special attention to Donna’s daughter.

Helen is watching over the merfolk and one man especially seems to accept her. The injury from the wolf bite isn’t great - but there’s another problem: her skin is already degrading with lack of access to the ocean (can’t they run a bath and put in a lot of salt? No? Apparently not). Going back to the ocean is a problem because the oil explorers blasting the sea with mega sonar are going to be doing this for months on end. This is a problem they can’t possibly wait it out. They consider going to another part of the ocean but merfolk are territorial and they’ll be attacked by other merfolk bands for invading their territory

Ben starts looking at the safest place to get the mermaids into the ocean and while he does Maddie agrees to watch the merfolk… Ben is clearly wary and insists she take a shot gun. Which turns out to be useful to drive off a wolf - Katrina pushes the merfolk to disobey Rynn and gets Donna’s daughter injured when she decides to lead them out of the cabin and gets attacked by a wolf - much to everyone’s surprise. Wolves don’t generally attack humans, but merefolk apparently are different. This doesn’t make Katrina popular

We get a lot of building moments with the merfolk learning a bit more about humanity, language et al. Maddie and Ryn move closer which kind of helps chip away at Maddie’s own wariness towards Ryn after what happened to Ben. We also get some nice moments of Ben teaching Ryn to drive and trying to explain laughter to Ryn which is quite hilarious - and I say again, shows just how very good this show is at depicting how alien mermaids are

And Ben and Maddie are growing closer together as Maddie realises Ben is trying to sort himself out, even attending addiction counselling to try and deal with his obsession with Ryn and her voice. Maddie approves because he is trying. But there’s also that difficult moment when Ben, while talking to Ryn, wonders whether he’s actually bonding with her and attracted to her and it’s not just the song which… is less ideal. Also for some reason the people at this addictions meeting didn’t smack him one for standing up and announcing what, to any non-mermaid experienced watcher, sounds like someone who needs either relationship counselling or a restraining order calling his bad relationship an addiction.

Another complication of this is that Maddie’s mother, Susan, who also attends this meeting for much more conventional reasons, notices that Ben is there. She is both very worried that Maddie is dating an addict since she’s already aware of how much her own addiction has really hurt her daughter and also a little irritated that Maddie is so apparently accepting and supportive of his addiction but so very angry about her own

Dale advises her that things are waaaaaaay more complicated than this and if estranged mother Susan wants to rebuild her relationship with Maddie she really really OH MY GODS REALLY shouldn’t try to split her up from her boyfriend. She actually listens, thank you all that is sensible

Siren: Season 2, Episode 1: The Arrival

The second season of Siren opens extremely strongly - because it does exactly what a second season is supposed to do - reminding us who all the characters and what they’re going through

So we have Ben, rock climbing alone (which is a bad idea) and clearly having a lot of difficulty with siren song still echoing in his brain. And this may be more troubling than originally thought - pathologist Wanda tells Sheriff Dale that Decker - who committed suicide due to siren song - had actual brain damage. Also his doctor thinks he has substance misuse issues

He tells this to Maddie who tries to pass the warning on to Ben - who isn’t really willing to listen. This is pretty much the core of the rift between them

And Maddie has other issues - her mother is back in town after several months of no contact (she didn’t know basic things about Maddie’s life). While her dad, Sheriff Dale, is happy to have her back in their lives. Maddie is less of a fan, she’s clearly been hurt by her mother many times before both with her leaving them and for much alluded to substance misuse. Things are tense.

Xander is also finding his place again - Maddie is still not happy with him over the death of Donna but seems to be thawing, especially as she needs a friend to confide in. He’s pretty eaten by guilt himself and sought Ryn out to apologise to her - Ryn doesn’t seem to exactly understand the concept but appreciates it anywhere, taking him to her sister’s grave. She says that in the ocean, everyone moves forwards. Which is an interesting touch of Mermaid culture but also I have to say rather easily gives him a get-out-of-murder-free card for killing her sister who she apparently cared about so much she was willing to follow her out of the ocean

And didn’t her sister go in for revenge last season? That’s not exactly moving forwards.

Xander is also being flirted with by new character Nichole who either really likes fishing boats or is into big hairy guys in cable-knit sweaters. I’m not judging. But option c is she’s actually an undercover agent spying on them which is troubling

And to round off the town drama we have the town council kicking out Sheriff Dale as he finds out his friends weren’t all that trustworthy. Of course multiple deaths, suicides and dramas which he kind of let go with a “it’s fine, trust me” probably didn’t help him much. He reminds the cops to come to him when weird stuff happens. Presumably so he can point and laugh.

I may be a little more petty than him.

But the actual drama… why Ryn is trying to adapt to human life with Helen’s help and doing rather poorly, she’s also lonely as a pack animal without her pack. But the new plot line hits - something terrible in the water. This isn’t just sensed by Ryn but makes whales beach themselves and freaks out the sea lions.

With the help of Maddie and Ben they go out to sea so Ryn can swim and see what’s happening - only to be driven to shore by a headsplitting noise. A ship is exploring for oil using a kind of sonar - and the noise is driving sea creatures out

Siren, Season 1, Episode 10: Aftermath

It is now time for the… rather disappointing finale to what I have to say is a rather disappointing series

As a season finale, it’s especially odd because all the action happened last episode. We’re now left clearing up a lot of storylines… which isn’t a problem if we actually had storylines that were hanging. Or if we cared about any of them. So the whole last episode feels like an afterthought of belatedly remembered characters doing stuff that doesn’t matter a whole lot - or is shoe-horned in for desperate plot hooks for the next season

So, Donna is injured and they call in Decker to help. Decker does his medical know how but it becomes increasingly obvious he’s utterly obsessed with Donna because of her song. Helen has no time for his nonsense and Ryn doesn’t mince words in making it clear that Donna only sang to him to help her escape, not because she even remotely liked him.

Decker tries to appeal to Ben - but that doesn’t win him any sympathy either. Unshockingly. He heads to the water for a suicidal swim: so that’s the power of siren song.

Maddie arrives to confront Ben and she’s duly furious with Ben. Ryn tries to defend Ben’s actions because he tried to help - except Maddie has an awesome come back that the didn’t help. And it may be worth putting up with this whole series for that line alone. Yes he tried to help - but he failed dismally, he didn’t help, he put them at risk and all the while completely ignoring Maddie while he ran off doing his own random thing. She further confronts Ben about his change of behaviour - because he’s changed, he’s freezing her out, he doesn’t consult her and he won’t talk to her

Obviously the effect of Siren song, because the suicidal Decker isn’t the only one who has heard their music.

But that goes to one side because Decker doesn’t succeed in healing Donna - and she dies. Which is tragic and annoying because it’s a damn waste and manages to make the utterly terrible racial tropes that have dogged this show even worse. Not only do we have the animalistic mermaids of colour compared to the human Ryn, but now Donna dies without any real characterisation of her own beyond “victim”. Of course, this also follows Decker’s death as well.

Maddie and her dad better watch out

There’s some question about what to do with the body - and Helen offers her secret family burial ground. Ryn isn’t keen about Donna being buried with humans - so Helen reveals she’s a mermaid

Y’know this may be the most blatantly obvious shock revelation in any show I’ve seen so far.

Siren, Season 1, Episode 9: Street Fight

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.

Siren, Season 1, Episode 8: Being Human

This episode is both very moving and emotional… and kind of frustrating.

Nearly the entire focus of this episode is on Sean’s funeral. That would be Xander’s dad, a man whose name I didn’t even know before this. Which is kind of the problem - because we’ve got all of these characters gathering round and grieving and being all emotional and reinforcing their own connections and it’s all kind of weird as a watcher because I didn’t know Sean, I wasn’t even slightly invested in him. In fact, I barely know most of these people and their pain is pretty meaningless to me. I feel like a stranger who just gatecrashed someone else’s wake and I should find some polite way to excuse myself and leave via the back door

And it isn’t just that I didn’t know Sean, there is an issue that most of these side characters are not well developed or important. The plot has focused super closely on Ben, Maddie and Ryn. I’ve seen Ted in passing but the tension between him and Sean’s wife Patty, his history of once being a fisherman himself with Sean, his relationship with Elaine his wife (which seems to have vastly changed since the first episode when they were portrayed as barely tolerating each other). I mean, am I supposed to care about Ted and Elaine? Are they important? Do they matter? Or there’s Cal, who has sex at a funeral and beyond the fact he doesn’t like Ben, do I know anything about this character or care?

We just have a whole lot of emotional moments between characters who haven’t really been established enough for us to really care about. Like Chris saying how utterly traumatised he is by all the mermaid stuff so he’s going to move to Iowa (Or Idaho. I forget which and don’t care enough about this character to check)... which would, I’m sure, matter if I thought of Chris as more than a glorified extra.

Or we have the moment when Patty turns on Ted as working them all to death and the cause of Sean’s “accident” with his pressure which means Ted realises he’s no longer seen as “one of the guys” but Ben stands up and speaks for him because the strained father/son relationship is still there. Or Xan drunkenly talking about “them” taking his dad. Or Helen ominously discussing family history with Ted. I mean all of these moments and toasts and talk about the community are really powerful and would be great in, say, season 3 after we’d spent some time investing in these characters - but there’s no emotional connection here.

Siren, Season 1, Episode 7: Dead in the Water

Ryn has been taken to the police station - by two cops. Ok, I want to see the deleted scene where 8 or 9 police all have their limbs ripped off OR Ryn gets shot - because I don’t see her reacting to the THREAT of a gun being pulled on her (because does she even know what a gun is?) and I fail to see how any amount of cops could restrain her without injury given the whole super strength and hyper aggression.

Sheriff Bishop interviews her, apparently taking her obvious cognitive and communication difficulties to waving her right to a lawyer and Sheriff Bishop needs a swift kick in the yin-yangs for this one. Either he thinks she’s impaired by drugs (his obvious theory) or he is mentally disabled either way she at least needs a competency check not questioning for murder.

Unsurprisingly Ryn confesses everything but doesn’t understand when Bishop asks her who helped her - because he doesn’t believe a tiny woman like Ryn could have done the damage she did (again making me question why she didn’t use her strength when she was arrested). She says Ben and Maddie helped her because they did - albeit not with murder

So Sheriff Bishop calls in his daughter so they can have a serious discussion about how they swore to always tell the truth to each other and how he’s really hurt by her lies and their deep and profound

Also she’s an accessory to murder. Just, y’know, in case anyone was interested? No? Ok

Maddie realises that they need to tell her dad the truth especially since Ben has gone out in the boat with Xander and Ryn is worried that Donna will murder them all as is her plan. First we have Maddie drawing upon her and her dad’s Native American heritage to tell stories about shapeshifting people. And they even have panpipes and drums behind it - really? Oh the cringe the cringe.

Thank gods her dad doesn’t just decide to believe in shapeshifters because he’s Native American - so Maddie dumps some salt water on Ryn to make her arm turn scaly. I think terrible skin conditions are more convincing.

Of course “I wasn’t covering for a murderer, I was covering for a murderous alien sea-creature who responds with violence in the first instance, is super strong, can mind control people and also I may be on the hit side of a military conspiracy” may not necessarily be better?

But back to that boat. So Xander is obsessed about finding and catching a mermaid. Ben isn’t really in for that but he is for stopping the military trawler from catching any mermaids. His plan is… Look, as I’ve said before the characters of Siren are not known for their decision making. He intends to do something which doesn’t involve the military shooting them or the mermaids eating them

Siren, Season 1, Episode 6: Showdown

A lot of this episode is trying to underline the conflict between Ryn and her sister Donna. It’s repetitive but comes down to Donna thinking all humans are bad and should die while Ryn is desperately insisting some humans are good - Ben & co specifically - and that they need the humans help since they’re all starving. Which Donna thinks of as siding with humans above her - mermaids seem to have a very black & white “me or them” mentality since Ryn plays this a lot.

While it’s understandable given the abuse and trauma that Donna has faced, the framing is, as I said last week, uncomfortable because it makes Donna look more violent, less reasonable, more animalistic and more dangerous. Even though Ryn has killed someone it was clear that person was a rapist - it was set up as a sympathetic kill and Ryn as the reasonable one

Through all this Helen, the ex-mermaid, insists they should return to the water. Has anyone even told her about the over-fishing?

Ryn also continues to do weird human interaction things - being all touchy feely with Maddie and when Maddie kisses Ben and says she loves him, Ryn does the same much to Ben’s bemusement. Maddie laughs it off saying she got one of them… again this show was sold on the idea of “bisexual mermaids” to LGBTQ press but it feels a lot more like “mermaid with no idea of human boundaries”.

Ben is working on that over-fishing thing with his dad and surprisingly isn’t shot down. The negative publicity his company is being singled out for isn’t helping and Ben actually has a viable business plan for increased profits and sustainable fishing (aimed at high end retailers) which means they can also spin good PR (with these terrible lax regulations we’re going above and beyond so great advertising).

Surprisingly, since I thought he was going to be the worst - Ted does not seem to be just doing this to placate Ben but is taking it seriously. He also really likes Maddie and encourages Elaine to thaw towards her to try and keep Ben around more. It’s an odd turn around.

Of course, one fishing company isn’t necessarily going to change everything

Especially since the mermaids are being hunted by local law enforcement - and by Decker who is in town. He quickly pings the gang’s radar but it’s clear he’s gone off book. Decker wants to find the mermaids before the navy does and keeps trying to follow various leads

Siren, Season 1, Episode 5: Curse of the Starving Class

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