REVIEW: Siren – 3.09: “A Voice in the Dark”

Mer-folk grow up so fast. Literally.

Before this episode aired, I just casually thought that next week was the mid-season finale and we had a whole batch of episodes left to premiere later this year. Immediately after this episode, found out I was very wrong. And now I’m very nervous. Next week is the season finale and what could be the series finale if it doesn’t get picked up for season 4. Given the status of all of our characters, umm…I’m fine, it’s fine.

The Little Mermaid – Hope: After some time training underwater with the mermen, Hope has made her first kill and is now ready to be reunited with Ryn! We don’t know how long specifically she’s been gone, but I would say at least a month? Regardless, she’s not a baby anymore, but a small child, like I figured. While I will admit I wasn’t too fond of the mer-baby story-line, with Hope grown and becoming stronger every day, I’m really interested to see what role she’ll play for the merfolk in a hypothetical season 4. Could the show go the Legacies route, and have Hope become a teenager quickly? If she was fully acclimated to land at that point, she would be a force to be reckoned with!

We saw the beautiful reunion between her and Ryn, how curious she was with things like Helen’s shop, and how she found her siren song (her baby siren squeal was precious!). Just when everyone’s getting accustomed to this new little addition, of course Tia had to come in and kidnap her, thanks to Hunter. Which brings me to my next topic of discussion.

Tia’s reinforcing the lesson: don’t answer unknown callers!

“Tia wants what she wants.”: Tia may’ve only had a few scenes sprinkled throughout the episode, but seeing how the entire episode revolved around her weaponized siren song, I would say she made a serious impact. Siren song aside, whenever Tia’s on land, I always love to see how bad-ass she is and how she’ll get what she wants no matter the cost.

I’ve seen a lot of people say they found this episode to be underwhelming. Personally, I found it to be the complete opposite. Tia using the siren as a weapon, and using everyone’s phones to get to them, is downright terrifying. I typically don’t answer phone numbers I don’t know anyway, but now I’m definitely going to be wary. I’m just imagining answering a number I don’t know, and next thing I know, my life is on the line. And when Tia blasted it to all of Bristol Cove and then some, it caused a panic among hospitals. Obviously, the correlation to our current time is a coincidence, but seeing all the affected patients in the hospital, and it being a total frenzy, makes me want to send another thank you to all the healthcare workers out there for being incredible.

I think since Ben destroyed the electrical power that controlled all of Bristol Cove, I don’t think we have to deal with any more victims of the siren song. And with Ryn’s tribe’s echo chamber destroyed (thanks Tia!), will they find a way to save everyone? Man, I hope so.

Freeform

Maddie Bishop deserves better.

Maddie “is love” and needs to be protected: I originally was going to talk about another moment in the episode my last point of this review, but after seeing countless posts about Maddie Bishop‘s character throughout the season, it inspired me to share my own frustrations.

Once again, Maddie is left out from Ben and Ryn’s story-line to handle things on her own. Yes, she chose to stay and look after Xander, I’ll accept that. But when the siren song attack hit, from which Ben and Ryn were off saving the day, Maddie was left to her own devices with hardly any communication from the others. Then she went looking for her dad, to uncertain outcome. And we all know, come next episode, Maddie will get in contact with Robb to see if there’s a way to save the siren song victims, while Ben and Ryn are off (hopefully) defeating Tia. I adore Maddie Bishop, I hated seeing her potential death in the season 2 finale. But, I gotta say, it kind of feels like the writers are just pushing her off to the side, like this whole time she hasn’t been a valuable part of the trio. And if in the season finale, if they truly kill off her father (and maybe even Xander!), who does she have left?

What did you think of Siren‘s: 3.09: “A Voice in the Dark?

The third season finale of Siren, 3.10: “The Toll of the Sea” airs Thursday at 10/9c on Freeform.

The trailer can be viewed below.