sea change
Bristol Cove is getting some new residents in season two of Siren
In season two of mermaid drama Siren, Bristol Cove is about to get a bunch of new scaly-tailed visitors. In the show’s first season, the sleepy little town known for its fishy stories got real when Ryn (Eline Powell) arrived looking for her older sister, Donna (Sibongile Mlambo). Actual mermaids, they disrupted the entire town by forcing the revelation of some deep secrets about the human residents, and eventually got sucked into the clash between merpeople and the locals.
With all that drama chummed up, executive producer and co-creator Eric Wald teases, “You get to meet a whole new batch of mermaids who come to land.”
The show’s characters will also be dealing with the repercussions of last year’s season finale, with Ben (Alex Roe) recovering from the pull of Ryn’s siren song; the revelation that Helen (Rena Owen), the town weirdo, is also a tiny part mermaid; and Maddie (Fola Evans-Akingbola) nursing a broken heart over Ben just as her mum comes to town.
“Helen, who is part mermaid, believed she was the only one on land,” explains coshowrunner Emily Whitesell. “So, that may open up some other issues. [Local fisherman] Xander (Ian Verdun) has a tough time of letting go of what’s happened [with his father’s death]. He has emotional upheavals, and ups and downs early on that will morph into other kinds of feelings. There’s big fallout from his dad.”
Wald adds, “Maddie’s mom comes into it and is played by Garcelle Beauvais (Spider-Man: Homecoming). She has a big story arc. And, you know, it’s fascinating because in a pilot you try to plant as many seeds as possible, not knowing which ones will grow. For example, with Ben’s mother (Sarah-Jane Redmond), I put her in a wheelchair and now in season two, it’s a huge source of story for us.”
Asked what lessons they learned making season one that have had an impact on this follow-up, Wald laughs and says it’s not what many might expect. “A huge lesson we learned coming off the pilot was just how to do the mermaids, and that it doesn’t work to do a practical tail. We had a lot of tail issues on the pilot!” he laughs. “But we realised our actors are so great in the tank, so they can be in the water, and the hair moves as it should with no VFX, and then we can do a full VFX takeover for the tail. Yet, you still get the performance and the emotion.”
Whitesell adds that Siren fandom itself has also influenced their story arcs for this second season. “The network listens quite closely to the fans, and cares deeply about how they feel. We try to take that information about what’s really working for people, and what they love, and within our creative ideas, try to do what’s best for the show. We temper the feedback, because Eric really has a vision so it’s also important to stay with that.” TB
Siren returns to Freeform in the US on 24 January, and will air on Syfy in the UK.