Siren episode 8 review: What is Helen’s connection to Ben’s father?
Farewell to Sean
Sean’s death is affecting everyone in different ways (as death often does), but the person who is the most conflicted over what happened is Ben. He feels completely responsible for what happened to Sean, because he’s the one that lead the team to the slaughter, so he’s dealing with a lot of guilt, anger and sadness over the situation. Because of that, he’s giving Ryn confusing messages, telling her that he doesn’t blame her for this, but that her sister is an “animal” making Ryn feel like she’s done something wrong and that Ben thinks of her as an animal as well.
As it turns out Ben is thinking that way about Ryn, reminding Maddie that Ryn killed the man that tried to attack her, and tried to kill him in the water. This planned attack against the humans and the loss of Sean is making Ben question everything he’s been doing to help Ryn and isn’t remembering that this planned attack by the sirens came about because humans were trying to capture them and perform painful testing on them. With Ryn feeling like she is just an animal in Ben’s eyes, she decides to attend Sean’s wake to pay her respects and learn more about how humans deal with death. When Ben and Maddie see her there, she tells them that while he may think she is just an animal, that she is also part human.
The story the guys are telling everyone is that Sean got caught in a net and went overboard, and while that could make some sense for an inexperienced fisherman, some people are having a hard time buying into this story… especially Helen. Ben tells her the truth and she warns Ben to keep an eye on Xander, because if he finds out that Ryn is one of them he may take out his anger on her. When we see Ryn go up to Xander to tell him that she is sorry for what “they” did to his father we are immediately worried that she’s given too much of herself away and in some ways she did. Ben and Maddie know that it’s time to tell Xander the truth about Ryn and he didn’t take the news well to say the least – also they probably could’ve picked a better time then at his father’s wake. Just like that, their relationship with Xander is on the rocks, that is until Maddie takes care of Xander at the end of the night when he’s so broken down he can barely walk. This is where we learn that he and Maddie once had some sort of relationship.
Related: Catch a preview of Siren episode 9!
Helen’s connection to Ben’s father
The most intriguing moment for Helen tonight was a through a conversation she had with Ben’s father. She told him that she hadn’t “received her check for the month” and immediately we wonder if this has to do with the fact that she’s a siren. We know that Ben’s family is responsible for the genocide of the sirens and we suspect that Helen was one of the sirens that became landlocked during that time, but did she do it because she was trying to survive what was happening or is there another reason? Ben’s father clearly knows more about Helen then has been revealed to us and we feel like this may be hush money to keep their family’s past quiet. There is clearly more to this story since Helen ended this conversation by saying that they are “family”. Wouldn’t it be interesting if Helen was the child of a siren and a human????
Calvin, Chris and Sean’s death
After all that’s happened to him, Chris has decided that he can no longer live in Bristol Cove and wants to be as far from water as possible, so he leaves the group and leaves town – have we lost Chad Rook from the show for good? We hope not and that he will find a way to move past everything and return to our group, but more then that we are worried that with the failed attempt by the government to capture the sirens that they will scoop him up and use him in some way.
Out of the four guys, we haven’t had a chance to get to know Calvin as much as we want to, but in tonight’s episode we did. When the series first kicked off we saw that Calvin was starting off a relationship with a girl named Janine and it seems that it has only grown from there. As a former funeral director we can say we’ve pretty much seen and heard it all at funerals, so while some out there might be surprised that Calvin and Janine were hooking up at Sean’s wake, it’s actually not as uncommon as you might think. People want to find comfort and ways to be close to other people when someone dies and some times that happens in a physical way. Calvin and Janine are growing closer and we hope we continue to see that relationship grow.
Related: If you missed our interview with Hannah Levien (Janine) be sure to check it out here.
CarterMatt Verdict
While most of the season has brought us on a wild ride all over Bristol Cove, what we loved about this episode is that it was contained mostly at Sean’s wake. We had our whole cast together in one place and was able to learn some of the different connections and secrets that are threaded throughout this town – and there are a lot of them! We only have 2 episodes of Siren left this season and all sorts of mysteries are starting to come to the surface. We also saw that a battle is upon us as Donna is back on land with some of the other sirens (including the one that killed Sean) and they are looking for blood.
What did you think of Siren episode 8? Leave us a comment in the box below and share your thoughts on the season so far. If you want to keep up to date with all of our Siren coverage then be sure to join our CarterMatt Facebook page. It’s a great way to connect with other fans of the show and get all of our latest news on the show. (Photo: Freeform)