Siren premiere review: A fish out of water story has legs
The premiere laid out the story for us: We have a mermaid named Ryn who watched her mermaid friend get caught in a fishermen’s net and eventually was taken away by some sort of military/black ops crew to who knows where. Ryn decides that she’s going to come onto the land to see if she can find her friend, but without a grasp of the English language she’s having hard time communicating what she wants. In fact we had one scene where she tried to communicate with a man that she wanted him to take her to the black helicopter she saw her friend fly away in (with the use of a small toy), but for some reason that translated to him that she wanted to have sex, resulting in his death. Oh, did we mention that she’s a predator? Ripped the head right off a shark and ate a ship rat for breakfast. Like we said – this isn’t your typical mermaid story.
There are a few mysteries set up for this season with one of them being how did Ryn get her legs? We are sure there isn’t a giant octopus making trades for mermaids souls in this show, so that’s something that still needs to be revealed like can she choose to go on land whenever she wants? Is this a once a year kind of deal? Can she control giving herself legs or is there something she has to do to make it happen?
The longer she stays on the land the sicker she seems to get, so we are guessing she can only be on land for a short time. Her skin starts turning scaly and her breathing gets labored, but she meets a man named Ben who works with sea animals (to help save them) and he tries to help her. He’s heard the stories of mermaids growing up in this sea town, but it’s all legends and fairy-tales up until now.
Ryn realizes that she needs to get back in the water and transform back into a mermaid (which looks to be a painful and bloody process) leaving the search for her friend for another day. When Ben jumps in the water after Ryn and sees her as a mermaid, she attacks him (in the water a mermaids natural instinct is to kill and he is prey) but he is able to escape. Ben later learns that it was his family that originally wiped out the mermaids after one of his ancestors became obsessed with them – genocide.
CarterMatt Verdict
One of the things that we really liked about this show, (outside of the murderous mermaids of course) is that there is a deeper message here. One of the main reasons that a mermaid got caught in a fishing net in the first place is because the seabeds had been stripped of their food supply and the mermaids have had to come to the surface looking for new sources of food. It has an important environmental message here that goes beyond just entertainment and it’s a message that very few shows are touching on right now – the environment.
If you are looking for something dark and eerie to watch then this is the show for you and we aren’t only talking about the Ryn character (who is pretty terrifying for someone who looks like they’re 13). The writing it’s self is pretty dark too (that man that tried to rape Ryn said she looked like a little girl before jumping on her which is incredibly demented). After watching the premiere this show reminds us of a mixture of the murder and mystery you would find on Riverdale with the dark subject matter of The 100. If Siren continues to stay the course then it’s got us hooked.
What did you think of the premiere of Siren and are you going to continue watching? Leave us a comment in the box below with your thoughts on the show so far.
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