I have never been shocked and bamboozled in the way that I was after watching Netflix’s new miniseries Sirens. And I loved it.
I went into this series thinking that I was going to get the same old story when it comes to dramas like this. Julianne Moore’s character of Michaela aka Kiki was going to be the charismatic harpy that destroyed everything in her way for control. Milly Alcock’s character of Simone was going to be this poor delusional girl that needed rescuing. And the one doing the rescuing would be Devon, played by Meghann Fahy. Villain, victim, hero. And I was dead wrong.
Sirens isn’t about which of these women is the villain, victim, or hero in this story. It’s a story about women who are deemed monsters by petty, self-indulgent, ignorant men who can’t take responsibility for their own actions. It’s about blaming women for “ruining lives” by being mentally ill, sad that they can’t have babies, or not accepting a man’s proposal. And in a twisted way, even if you are a woman, you enter Sirens looking for which of these women are the monster. And by the end of the series you realize that they aren’t monsters. These women are trying to survive in a system that consistently works against them.
To properly understand the writing of Netflix’s Sirens, we have to look at the three main women; Kiki, Simone, and Devon.
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Michaela aka Kiki, The Villain
From the jump, there is something ethereal about Kiki. You don’t know what it is about her but you know that people follow her every whim because she says so. As a viewer, you’re immediately wary of her. And there’s intentionality from the director to create a picture that unsettles the viewer and puts them in a position where they think Kiki is the villain. This “ethereal” nature and wariness of Kiki paints every single thing that she does in a light that seems manipulative, cruel, and disconnected from the realities of life.
By the end of the Sirens you realize that she is just another woman who has been demonized by a man that can’t own up to his own faults. She’s a survivor who wanted children and had to sit back as her new husband’s children treated her like garbage with her husband doing nothing to acknowledge that he was an active participant in the cheating that broke his first marriage. Kiki’s also a wife who is desperately trying to connect with a husband who lies and cheats on her with her closest friend. And even within her own home, the only control that Kiki has is the one that her husband gives her and that can easily be taken away as soon as a prettier thing comes along; that prettier thing being Simone.
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In all of her complexity, the number one thing that I love about Kiki is that she truly cared for Simone. And when her best friend and prodigy betrayed her, Kiki was sad. But she was also proud of how much Simone had grown and how she was defining her own life on her own terms. Kiki didn’t go all Desperate Housewives and get revenge on Simone. Kiki understands the game and by the end of Sirens the writing gave us a woman who was done trampling other women to get where she wanted to be in the name of survival. That’s growth.
Then There’s Simone, The Victim
When we’re first introduced to Simone, there’s an intentional disconnect with her character. We’re meant to see her as the selfish sister/daughter who would dare to abandon the sister who had given up everything for her. We’re also meant to see Simone as the victim who is being manipulated by Kiki and this whole Stepford Wives of it all on the island. But as Sirens peels back layers of Simone’s backstory, you realize that she isn’t the victim of this story. You also realize that she can do whatever the hell she wants and that Devon has no moral high ground when it comes to what Simone should or shouldn’t do.
As someone who was in foster care, I get Simone’s anger. Her mother almost killed her and her father ignored her to the point where she was sent to the foster care system where plenty of bad things happened to her. And here comes her sister, initially looking like she cares solely for Simone’s well-being while continuously saying that Simone doesn’t belong there. But the more we watch, the more we understand that Devon wants to be seen but also wants someone to be there in the shitshow that is taking care of her father. And she doesn’t understand what Simone has gone through, that Simone has a different relationship with their father, and how Simone has chosen this life for herself.
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Choice is what Simone has never had in her life and what she gains by the end of Sirens. And I really admire how the show gave us a young woman who was passionate about her job, felt everything so deeply, and was still trying to find her own path. She wasn’t an archetype built by her circumstances or by who her sister wanted her to be. And that intentionality from the writers to the directors is so refreshing because she didn’t get the ending that I thought she was going to get.
I thought she was going to settle for the guy from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. And I even thought that she would go back to law school because reasons. Other shows would take her down this path. But this isn’t other shows. This is Sirens. Simone chose power. And it’s because Simone is no longer just surviving. She’s choosing this life and thriving in it. She’s looking at this world that labels women like her as monsters who devour and she’s saying “Fine. Think of me what you will. And while you’re at it, call the photographer for the Vogue shoot. I would really like to approve the photos before the gala.”
Finally There’s Devon, The Hero
Devon might be the most frustrating character of Sirens. And a lot of it has to do with how the writing took me on a journey where I saw her as the righteous sister calling her younger sister out for abandoning her and their father, and then it transformed to Devon being selfish as if Simone owed her something for taking care of her. Which, kudos to the show for making me cheer for someone before making me actively hope that they crash and burn for their self-righteousness.
All these thoughts on Devon are coming from someone who was the older sibling who had to sacrifice years of her life to raise my younger siblings. I can tell you this, I would have raised them all over again if it meant giving them their best chance. And me wanting to do it all over again has nothing to do with them. My siblings don’t owe me anything, even if I was also put into an impossible situation. That’s why I think Devon was being unfair. Devon was stuck and she didn’t want to fight this battle alone. It didn’t matter that Simone would be in pain because at least they would be in pain together.
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By the end of Sirens, Devon lets Simone go and chooses to stay and take care of her dad because she wants to. She respects Simone’s choice, the fact that they have two different relationships with their father, and then makes a choice of her own free will. It might not be the perfect cookie cutter ending that some viewers will be happy with, especially when that cute guy was ready to sail away with her for a month. But it’s Devon’s choice and which she had been avoiding by indulging in men who painted her as a whirlwind of a monster who devours men and throws them away.
Sirens Knows How You Tell Stories About Women
Sirens is a study on how men and society weaponize our ambitions, sexual proclivities, wants, needs, and throw it in our faces when we’re a little bit too much. When we step a little bit out of line. Or when men need someone to blame when we don’t accept their proposal or first date, when we don’t want to be their side piece, or when we don’t want to be blamed for someone making the choice to distance themselves from their very own children.
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The show is also a study on our own projections when we see women Kiki, Simone, and Devon. From the first 10 minutes or trailer, we were ready to judge them based on what society has taught us about women “like them.” And it took 5 episodes to actually see them for who they are; survivors in the world built to keep them in line, no matter how many freedoms we seemingly gain along the way. And these three actresses brought their everything into characters who felt sometimes otherworldly but were truly grounded in the realities of our fractured world.
So if you’re still on the fence about Netflix’s Sirens, watch it. And while you’re at it, please go and tell Netflix that this is the kind of content we want, poignant and succinct storytelling that tells a whole story arc and doesn’t leave us wondering if they’re going to cancel it after one season.
Sirens is available on Netflix.
