The Battle Lines Are Drawn
We return to Siren this week with a look at the fallout of Maddie and Ryn’s actions. As tensions begin to boil over and all the pieces move toward one final climactic battle during the mid-season finale, this teen drama ups the pacing and tension to deliver one of the most dramatic episodes of the season so far. Deciding against getting the police involved, Maddie and Ryn begin the episode by ringing Maddie’s Dad, letting him know what’s happened. Exasperated, he agrees to help them and sets about making it look like the drug dealer died from an accident in the hotel room. It seems to be convincing enough but just as he’s about to leave the room, a knock and a handwritten letter changes the entire complexion of what’s transpired. After seemingly striking up a deal with the rogue mermaid last week, Xander begins the episode biting off more than he can chew. Ambushed, he’s thrown into the holding cell of his boat with none other than Levi himself. A fight inevitably breaks out between the two, resulting in Xander phoning Ben in a bid to help them escape. After a scramble to get off the boat, Nicole spots the trio escaping as well as catching a glimpse of the mermaid chasing them. After seemingly recording the incident on her phone, we cut back to Ben who confronts his parents about the ship in the ocean. It turns out they struck a deal with the oil company and in a last-ditch attempt to stop the ocean from being ravaged, Ben pleas with his parents to call everything off. After a few subplots involving the other mermaids and some neat bites of foreshadowing, the battle lines are drawn in the final 10 minutes of the episode. Maddie, Ben and Ryn put into place a plan to align the mermaids and humans together to tackle the oil problem and fight for the ocean’s well-being. With everything hanging in the balance, the episode ends with a big reveal from the ocean and massive question marks over what direction the show is likely to take next week. With a mid-season finale coming in a few weeks time, it’ll be interesting to see where we leave our characters at the midway point. The pacing and general tension has certainly increased there and this looks set to be a trend that’ll follow right through to the midway point. The thematically relevant story around the ocean and man’s impact on this is surprisingly well implemented here and it rarely feels shoehorned which is a nice touch too. It’s not the best episode of the season but it is a very good one and Siren looks set to really kick into gear from here on out.
