Siren - Being Human - Advance Preview
7 May 2018
Reviews Siren SJThis week’s Siren is a bit slower in pace than previous episodes, but completely understandable. Bristol Cove has just suffered a major loss in the shape of Xander’s father aka Sean, and the whole of the episode is centred on the town grieving its loss.
To briefly touch on a question asked, yes our trio Ben/Maddie/Ryn are back to sharing screen time this week. However, Sean’s death has really shaken Ben up, and if you’ve watched the promo, then you’ll know Ben makes a questionable comment. Unfortunately that's not the first or last time he does that this week, and I basically spent the whole episode being annoyed with him. Slightly surprising but understandable and I'll of course touch on this more in my post ep review. For now I'll say Maddie is basically the MVP (most valuable player) of this episode. She's there for everyone, knows the right thing to say, when to let a person cool down, and if we can't get the beautiful OT3, then I will totally settle for Maddie/Ryn. On that note there are quite a few scenes involving Ryn this week that are beautiful beyond words, but one scene in particular had me cheering. Ryn has grown so much in such a short space of time. Character progression is my favorite thing about watching TV shows, and this scene is without a doubt one of my scenes of the week.
Speaking of Ryn, as the promo and synopsis suggests, she will be experiencing a new emotion this week. I’m not going to elaborate on what it is, but she does get a lot more screen time this week, including with someone potentially surprising that leads to an unwelcome discovery.
As I’ve already said this week is all about mourning Sean. Some have um, extremely interesting ways of dealing with their grief? I think that’s as good a summation as I can give beforehand but a line in the episode explains that situation a lot better. Xander is understandable extremely messed up over his father dying. They’re spinning a lie to the whole town, including his mum who makes an appearance this episode, and Xander is very much struggling with his guilt over the situation. This of course has him very close to slipping up and revealing what actually happened on the boat, but whether he does or not is something you’ll have to watch to find out.
In one of the earlier episodes a line was spoken that I was curious about at the time, because it did seem so far out left field. This show does nothing without a reason, and that line is brought back this week in the reveal of a previous romantic connection between two characters.
Helen is also back this week! It doesn’t take her long to realize that what happened at sea is not what actually happened at sea. From the promo you’ll know she does issue Ben a warning, but she also shares a scene with another character that hints at a possible connection between them, which I really didn’t see coming. I’m still patiently waiting for payoff on Helen being a mermaid, and this possible connection could play into that. Whilst Helen is around this week, Decker isn’t and the military on the whole is completely absent from this weeks events understandably. Whilst he may not have a physical on screen presence, Decker is still mentioned as a character makes a revelation that is only going to lead to more trouble. Another character also decides it’s high time they left Bristol Cove in the aftermath of the tragedy.
The siren song is once again used this week, but in a surprisingly sweet way. And because Siren wouldn’t be Siren without its killer cliff-hangers (no pun intended), this weeks one will leave you counting down every single second until next Thursday.
‘Being Human’ is a sombre affair that might be viewed by some as filler-ish, but I think after last weeks action packed episode that ended with a life being lost, it is right for the show to take a breather. Regardless of whether or not you care about Xander and his family, the residents of Bristol Cove do. The plot does still move forward, which is the absolute minimum you can ask of any episode of TV and more crumbs are laid in other areas.
You can watch ‘Being Human’ this Thursday at 8pm on Freeform, and if you have any questions that aren’t too spoilery, I will try my best to answer in the comments.
However, with that being said, there’s certain things I won’t be elaborating on. The question of why I was annoyed with Ben will be answered when you watch, and you might have a completely different opinion on the matter to me (which is totally cool).