The Mermaid Horror Series That Went From Skinny-Dipping to Full Monstrosity

Freeform’s “Siren” opens with a legend and spends three seasons proving it true. Bristol Cove, Washington, built its name on the story that mermaids once lived in its waters. When a young siren named Ryn Fisher walks out of the sea looking for her abducted older sister, the town’s folklore stops being folklore. The show ran 36 episodes across three seasons, from March 29, 2018, to May 28, 2020.

Ryn Fisher Comes Ashore

Ryn is played by Eline Powell, and the show lives or dies on whether you buy her. She arrives in Bristol Cove hunting for her sister Donna, played by Sibongile Mlambo, who was taken by the local military. Ryn is not a lost princess. She is a predator on land, and the series treats her that way from the first episode.

Marine biologists Ben Pownall (Alex Roe) and Maddie Bishop (Fola Evans-Akingbola) get pulled into the question of what drove this hunter out of the deep. That triangle — two scientists and a creature they cannot classify — is the engine of season one. It works because the show never asks you to find Ryn harmless. It asks you to find her understandable.

The first season ran 10 episodes. Freeform renewed the series in May 2019 for a third season, which premiered April 2, 2020. The network canceled it in August 2020. Three seasons, 36 episodes, done.

Bristol Cove Poisoned Its Own Water

The premise is a pollution story wearing a monster suit. By season two, more merpeople surface in Bristol Cove, driven in by contaminated water and the sonic waves from an oil rig. The town fouled the sea and then acted surprised when the sea answered.

That is the smartest thing “Siren” does. It sets up humans as the aggressors and lets the merpeople’s violence read as retaliation rather than random horror. The show never loses track of who started it.

Ben’s paralysis is gradually counteracted by Ryn’s mermaid stem cells across season two. That plot point does two jobs at once: it gives the human cast a physical stake in the merpeople’s existence, and it makes the boundary between species porous in a way the show can use later. It is not subtle. It is effective.

Tia Builds a Coalition

Season three brings the show’s real antagonist. Tia, played by Tiffany Lonsdale, wants to coerce every merpeople tribe and colony into joining her fight to overthrow humanity. Lonsdale was cast as a new series regular on August 14, 2019.

Tia is a better villain than the show’s first two seasons had, because she is not wrong about the grievance and entirely wrong about the remedy. Ryn’s daughter, carried by a surrogate, has to be protected at all costs while Tia builds her alliance. Meanwhile Ted Pownall finally acknowledges that merpeople exist and starts down a dangerous path — the same one his paternal great-great-great-great-grandfather Charles took.

The generational echo is the show’s cleanest piece of structure. Bristol Cove has been lying about the sea for two centuries. Ted is just the latest Pownall to break.

Helen Hubbell Holds the Town’s Secrets

Rena Owen plays Helen Hubbell, and she is the show’s anchor. Helen holds the town’s history and the merpeople’s secrets at once, and Owen plays her as someone tired of both.

Ian Verdun’s Xander McClure is the local who gets dragged into the fight without a scientific excuse for being there. Chad Rook appears as Chris Mueller. The casting came together fast: Powell joined August 24, 2016, in the role of Po, later renamed Ryn, with Owen cast as Helen the same day. Verdun came aboard September 26, 2016, as Xander, followed days later by Roe and Evans-Akingbola as Ben and Maddie.

That the show found its four leads inside a month is not a trivia footnote. It is why the core relationships hold. These people were cast to play off each other, and it shows.

Too Much War for Three Seasons

Three seasons is not enough for what “Siren” attempts. Tia’s war needs more room than it gets. The show builds a species-wide conflict and then has to land it inside a final season that also has to protect a baby, resolve Ted Pownall’s reckoning, and close out Ben’s stem-cell arc. That is a lot of freight for 10 episodes.

The result is a final season that moves faster than it should and pays off less than it set up. The merpeople politics — tribes, colonies, a coerced alliance — are the most interesting thing the show ever built, and they arrive last.

The show also never solves its central tonal problem. It wants Ryn to be frightening and sympathetic in the same scene, and Powell can do it, but the writing does not always give her the room. When “Siren” leans into the horror of what Ryn is, it is sharp. When it softens her into a misunderstood visitor, it loses the thread that made season one work.

By the Numbers

• Premiere: March 29, 2018 (Freeform)
• Finale: May 28, 2020
• Seasons: 3
• Episodes: 36
• Season 1 episodes: 10
• Season 3 premiere: April 2, 2020
• Canceled: August 2020
• TMDB audience score: 7.7/10 (3,433 votes)

What Siren Got Right

Here is the ranking that matters, and it is a ranking of what the show earned:

1. The premise. A coastal town that profited from poisoning the water and then had to face what lived in it. That is a complete idea, and the show commits to it.
2. Tia. A villain with a legitimate complaint and a monstrous plan. Season three’s best asset.
3. Ryn Fisher. Powell’s performance is the reason the show survives its weaker stretches.
4. The generational Pownall thread. Ted repeating Charles is the show’s sharpest piece of construction.
5. The final season’s pacing. Everything above, crammed into too few episodes.

The cancellation in August 2020 was the right call on the network’s terms and the wrong outcome for the show. “Siren” had a bigger story in it than three seasons allowed, and the proof is that its most ambitious material — the merpeople tribes, Tia’s alliance, the question of whether Ryn’s daughter inherits a war — all arrives in the last stretch.

What “Siren” gets right is the thing most creature shows get wrong. It never pretends the humans are innocent. Bristol Cove earned what came for it. The show knows that, says it plainly, and lets the ocean collect.

Cancelled Too Soon · Eline Powell · Freeform · mermaid series · Siren · TV Review