SIREN – Season 1 Episode 2 – SPOILERS ⁓

Ben Pownall (Alex Roe) protects whatever Xander’s father (Brian Anthony Wilson) might be aiming at in the water by spoiling his aim, making his spear go wide of its target. Hearing what sounds like a mermaid’s cry, Ben dives overboard, finds a device attached to the ship’s propeller, and brings it on board. The device emits the same sounds that Ryn’s sister (Sibongile Mlambo) makes when probed by her American Navy abductors. Ben doesn’t know that, but he deduces that the thing is a lure designed to catch more mermaids. Angry at not being able to catch a mermaid themselves, Xander (Ian Verdun) and his shipmate Calvin (Curtis Lum) settle for taking the probe home. Later Ben surreptitiously takes the device, believing himself better qualified to analyze it.

Possibly because of the lure, Ryn returns to Bristol Cove. She considers visiting Maddie Bishop (Fola Evans-Akingbola) at the local marina, but instead goes to see curio shop owner Helen Hawkins (Rena Owen). With some difficulty, Ryn explains to Helen that she has come back to find her sister. The mermaid tries several foods in Helen’s kitchen and spits out all of them, so Helen goes to the fish market and gets her a large quantity of seafood. This indicates that merfolk are obligate carnivores.

Ben shows Maddie the video of Ryn transforming into a mermaid underwater, and tells her what Helen told him about his his ancestors committed genocide against the merfolk (see episode one). They also visit Helen, bringing along the lure, unaware that Ryn is there.

When the lure is activated, Ryn, who is in the back room, thinks she hears her sister crying out for help and does not understand how that is possible. Eventually she bursts through the locked door and finds the device. With few spoken lines, Powell vividly conveys Ryn’s bewilderment and frustration as Ben tries to explain that the sounds she hears are only a recording. Ryn’s emotional state makes her begin to transform, and with difficulty she brings that under control, retracting the scales that have begun to grow (painfully) on her arm. When Ben asks if she’s all right, the mermaid calms down.

Ben and Maddie promise to help Ryn, and decide to look for Xander, hoping to find out more details about the abduction, and Ryn insists on coming along. They find Xander and Curtis at a tavern outside of town. Ben goes inside and Maddy remains with Ryn.

In the intense and sensual scene that follows, the mermaid investigates Maddie with smell and touch (something she does not do with Ben), and is curious about Maddie’s raven feather tattoo. Maddy tells her the story behind it. “My dad is Haida,” she explains, “They talk about how the raven was the maker of things. They say he put the sun and moon in the sky, brought fresh water and fire to the land. They say he found the first people inside a giant clamshell.” This leads to a discussion about what is real and what is not. Later, when Ben explains to Maddie that he is ‘drawn’ to Ryn, Maddie says she is as well. Ben has heard the siren song, and that might account for his attraction, but Maddie has never heard the song.

To avoid conflict, Ben returns the lure to Xander and Curtis.

At a nearby naval research station, the missing fisherman Chris Mueller (Chad Rook) is sedated and being cared for by Nurse Donna Stevenson (Veronika Hadrava). Mueller, who is not quite unconscious, notices a cellphone in the nurse’s back pocket. Not far away, Aldon Decker (Ron Yuan) is studying Ryn’s sister, who is held captive in a large tank, and forced to submit to the extraction of tissue and fluid samples

When Ryn returns that evening, Helen is asleep, and on Helen’s dresser are drawings illustrating Charles Pownall’s slaughter of the merfolk. The drawings anger Ryn. She picks up a fishing knife, and with unknown intent, walks down Bristol Cove’s main street in the rain.

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Miscellaneous Info

Eline Powell told Kayti Burt of Den of Geek: “In our show, the mermaids are much more animalistic. These are creatures that survive in the ocean. You have to be a little bit fierce in order to cope with that. And these creatures are predators, really. They’re not as perfect or sensitive or beautiful as maybe we’ve seen before, but that’s what makes them exciting. They have a wild side.”

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All 36 episodes of SIREN can be streamed on Hulu.