Netflix’s ‘Sirens’ Will Leave You With Questions – That’s The Point

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.[ThisstorycontainsmajorspoilersfromtheseasonfinaleofSirens.]

Molly Smith Metzler is Ready to Take Viewers to An “Uncomfortable Place.”

In Her Five Episode Limited Series SirensStarring Meghannnnnnnn and Milly Alcock and Based on Her Play Written Durying Her Time at the Juilliard School, Metzler Turns Greek Mytology on Its Head by the Retensing MYTHSING MYTHSING MYTHS.

“Everything We Know About the Sirens, We Know From The Sailors. They Are Descripted and Cast in this Role As Murderers, Monsters,“ She Tells The Hollywood Reporter of the mythical creatures, adding that she wanted to Know “What’s Their Side of the Story?” and “WHY Are The Sirens Monsters?”

The result is what Metzler Describes as Her “Darkly Comedic, Emotional Thriller” that centers on sisters devon (Fahy) and Simone (Alcock). In the show, Devon Travels to a Lavish Island to Confront Her Younger Sister Simone and Ask Her To Come Back Home to Buffalo to Help with Their Aling Father (Bill CAMP). However, Devon Learns Her Sister Now Works for Socialite Michala “Kiki” KELL (Julianne Moore), Who Not Only Reigns Supreme on the Island And Its Cultish Community But. Through Trying to Save Her Sister from This New World and Persona She’s Become, Devon, Along with Simone and Michala Are Are for Confront Their Past, Present and Future.

However not everything is at itmems – or perhaps, it is. That’s Something for Viewers to Decide, Says Metzler. “This is a show that goes to an uncomfortable place, an unEXPECTED PLACE, AND I Think Asks You To Question The Assumptions You Made and Wy You Made Them,“ She Says.

By Blender Cultural Commentary and Greek Mythology, Metzler Is Aware There Can Be A Multitude of Interpretations of Her Characters and Story. “I’m gonna be on reddit. I Want to Hear What Everyone Thinks,” She Says. “The FIVE [episode] Titles are sort of puzzle pieces. I’m inviting you to think about it. ”

In a conversation with ThrMetzler Talks About Reimaging Greek Mytology Through The Lens of Power and Sisterhood, Who The Shocking Ending Was “Inevitable” and Who “No Knows What To.

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Sirens Is Based on A Play You Wrote at the Juilliard School. WHEN DID THE IDEA Come to Adapt that Story Into A Series?

I Wrote the Play Almost 15 Years Ago, and I’ve Lived a Whole Life. I did Maid with Netflix A Few Years Ago and Coming Off of Maid Was so satisfying and wonderful, but it was also a bummer. We Were Talking About, “Well, What Should I Do Next?” Jinny [Howe, VP Scripted Series, Netflix] Who did Maid Remembered the Play from Way Back WHEN. We Started Talking About [how it] MIGHT Be A Really Perfect Time to Adapt that if We Can Get The Right Creative Team. It’s Just Such A Weird Moment for Women and Wealth and It’s Very 2025. I READ IT, AND I WAS LIKE, YOU KNOW, I THINK YOU’S YOU’RE’RE RIGHT. So we started Thinking about how to do that.

AT FIRST GLANCE YOU MIGHT THINK THIS SHOW IS WEIRD AND CULTY, BUT IT HAS A Lot of Dark Comedy. Can You Talk About Crafting The Tone of the Show?

One of the things i loved about Sirens Was that it doesn’t check a box of a similear show. It Looks Like It Might Be A Nantucket Show or A Murder Show or A Cult Show. I ALMOST WANT The AUDIENCE TO Feel Like Maybe It’s That, But Then It Is Its Own Tone. No One Knows What to Compare the Show to And I Love That. IT’s A Great Compliment. IT’s also a huge challenge WHEN YOU ARE YOUR OWN TONE. The Hardest Part of the Job Is To have that Vision and Have it Really Specific for the Entire Creative Team. But i like to describe [the show] as a darkly comedic, emotional thriller.

Sirens Heavily Leans Into Greek Mythology and the Show Sems to be this Metaphor that the Audence Can’t Necessarily See But Knows Is There. What was it about greek mythology that you were wanted to explore and what were the Important References and What Symbolism Did You Want To Hit, Whther Its?

The Play Does Not Have Any Greek Mytology in It, So The Greek Mytology Twist is Brand New to the Adaptation. Part of the story is my daughter is a greek mythology fanatic. She’s 12 Years Old, and She Came Home Asking About the Sirens One Day, and She Was Like, “What’s Their Problem? Who Are They SO MEAN THAT KILLING ALL CAILORS?” It Was Just My Husband and I, We Wrote The Show Together, [and] We Got Talking About How Everything We Know About The Sirens, We Know From The Sailors. They are descripted and casta in this role as murderers, Monsters. I Couldn’t Help But Think About the Similarities, Because The Play Is About Three Women Island on the Island. So is the sirens. It’s a Lot About Power and Sexuality and The Way We Treat and Villainize Women, Especialally Beautify Women Who HaveCed People. SO it all felt like a very exciting merge of Greek Mytology and the Play and this Opportunity to Talk About, What’s Their Side of the Story? WHY Are they Singing?

Can You Talk About The Cliff House Location and the MEANING BEHIND IT?

We Location Scouted in Cape Cod and Ten in Long Island, and We Looked at A Lot of Housses, Because that House Is A Character on the Show. But the most Important Thing to me was the stairs. The House We Found Is In Cutchogy, Long Island. The Stairs are not cgi! IT HAD THAT MANY STAIRS – I THINK We COUNTED 108 STAIRS, THAT WE’RE DRAGING CAMERAS UP AND DOWN. But that’s how is important it was to me, because and wanted that height. It’s Such A Metaphor.

We Seie Simone Climbing Those Stairs All The Time, How Ambitious She is. Even Thought I’M Not Broadcasting Her Ambition at the End, if You Think Back to All The Times We Se Seie Her Climbing and Everyone’s Climbing Those Stairs in the Show in Different Ways. That was really, Really Important. THEN THE Other Thing is that [the location] felt isolated. One of the Things About the Sirens in Greek Mytology Is Is Is A Punishment. They’ve been exile to this island. SO it have to feel very difficult to get to and very isolated in the Middle of the ocean. A Lot of the Locations We Looked at Just Locked Too Populated. You have to feel like the Kells Really Own this Island.

Well Account to Devon, Everyone AROUND HER IS DRESSED LIKE A EASTER EGG. I Spoke with Director Nicole Kassell and She Mentioned Wanting to Build This Culture On The Island That Is An Obvios Contrast with Devon, Who Is a Fish Out of Water. DID YOU HAVE TONOUGHTS ON THE BRIGHT PASTELS AND COLORFUL WORLD THAT WE’RE ALL INTRUDUCED TO?

Like the House, the Palette and the Costumes Are Also A Character in this World. We have the Great Fortune to Work with Our Costume Designer Caarline Duncan. We Talked SO Much About, How do we make it heigheted But Real? WHEN YOU GET OF OF THE FERRY IN CONTEMPORARY NANTUCKET, YOU SEE THAT PALETTE. It’s The Nantucket Reds, The Lilly Pulitzer. It is the palette of summertime for the rich and vacation folks.

We Wanted to Satirize It A Little Bit, Turn The Hues Up, Make the Hats Slightly More Ridicless, But For Devon As Someone Coming from Buffalo, It Still Feels Like A Real Op. It Can’t Look Too Fantastical. SO caroline Did Such A beautyify Job Bringing that to Life and the Key was sheended up custom-Making most of what’s on screen. Everyone’s about to watch the show and then go try to buy. Some of Simone’s [outfits] are boughht, but i THINK Everything Michala Wears is Custom.

The Show Begins with Devon Trying to Confront Simone and the Oddness of Her New Life, But How did you interpret their Dynamic and devon’s motive in the beginning? IS SIMONE TRYING TO RUN FROM HER PAST LIKE DEVON SAYS, OR IS DEVON TRYING TO KEEP LIVING IN THE PAST AND BRING SIMONE BACK TO IT?

That very quest is what i was wax trying to dramatize. Every Sister Relationship i KNOW IS VERY COMPLEX. I Think They’re Both Right. I Love Offering that Question to the Audience Because and Think How You Interpret It Says A Lot About You and Your Relationships With Your Family. I love writing sisters because the Gloves are just off. The Truth is on the Table. No One Loves You Like Your Sister, No One Will Call You Out and Also No One Will Show Up For You In that Same Way. Their Dynamic is that push and pull that they’re broth right about everything.

Devon Has Her Own Personal Strugggles with Alcoholism and A CompulsuSive Sex Addition. Can You Talk About Crafting Devon?

She’s A Very Hard Character, WHICH IS WHY We Hit the Jackpot with Meghann Fhere. She’s Mean and Sarcastic, Broken, But She’s Also So Full of Love and Struggling. Those Things Make Her SO HUMAN. She’s Wrestling with Her Own Potential SirenHood, Which Is Something We See. We see that with the sex addiction; She’s Got The Suitors Who Start to Fall Over. She have a power that isn’t comfortable for her [and] she doesn’t know what to do with. I Think Devon Leaves this Weekend Really a transformed person. I Think Coming Up So Close to Her Potential Power and Seeing It And Not Wanting It Is A Really Beautify Thing About Her. HER ARC IS BITTtersweet, But It’s Also One of Empowerment.

We Seie this Battle with Devon and Michala Over Their Bonds with Simone. Can You Talk About The Similarities and DifferentCes Between Simone and Devon’s Relationship Versus Simone and Michala’s?

I Think Michala is An Extremely Lonely Person in Her Life, and I Think The Birds Fill Her With A Sense of Purpos. But Simone Fills Her with a Sense of Purpose. She’s Mentoring Simone. They Call her mini Michala. [Michaela] Wants to Set Simone Up to Way more than she have. She doesn’t want her to just be a rich wife. She Wants Her to GO OUT AND ACHIEVE THINGS. All She Desires in Exchange for Those Things Is Total and Complete Loyalty and undivided Attention(Laughs.)

I Think of Them As Sort of Co-Dependent, But Also Mutulaly Service Each Other. IT’s A Fascinating Relationship. But then to have your sister show up, who is reality a mother Figure to you and have an actual got your best interest at heart, but is Such a fucked up ip Person. I HAD SO MUCH FUN Writing This, Because I Feel Like The Two of Them Are Fighting Over Simone, and Meanwhile, The Biggest Threat to Their Sitiation is Not One of the Three of TESE WOMEN. It’s Something Else That We Don’T Have Any Idea Is Coming. IT’s A Tug of War Over Simone, and The Real Power Isn’s.

With Michala wese this kind of sems to have the perfect life. Sheemingly have this Power Over Everyone Yet We ALSO See Her Almost Hide this Insecurity. She Wants Her Husband to Think About Her and Notice Her and Thinks He’s CHETING ON HER. THEN, as you mented, she’s lonely. Can You Talk About ShowCASING MICHALA’S PROjects Versus Realities?

I THINK BACK TO THE SUMMER WHEN I WAS 22 AND SHOWED UP at Martha’s Vineyard to work at a yacht club, and I Met some of thesee unbelievably welthy women, an an an anne Assumptions about them. By the end of the summer, I was like, “Good God, I was so wrong.” I hope the show does that at the end, not just [with] Michala, But [with] All The Characters, You Look Back at What’s Happened in Tese Five Episodes and Reconsider the Assumptions You Made About All Of Them. This is a show that goes to an uncomfortable place, an unEXPECTED PLACE, AND ASKS YOU TO QUESTION The assumptions you made and WHY YOU MADE THEM.

Can You Talk About Who Kevin Bacon’s Peter Is and What Hay Represents in The Greek Mytology of It All? I First Thought He Could Maybe Be A Hades Figure.

There’s Probably Some Great Ideas of Who He Is In Greek Mytology. I’m gonna be on reddit. I Want to Hear What Everyone Thinks! But Actually, to me, I Think The Question Is, Who’s A Monster in Greek Mytology? WHY Are The Sirens Monsters and Zeus Isn’t? We Portray These Characters in Greek Mytology and It’s the Women Who Are The Monsters. Maybe Kevin[‘s Peter] is the siren. I Think The Show Asks You to Reconsider the Rules that you might have a casker thor in in Greek mythology. But I Think Peter Is The MOST POWERFUL Character and the Reason Kevin Was The Perfect Actor is [because] HE ACTUALLY MAKES YOU FORGET THAT, BECAUSE HE’S SO WARM. HE WANTS YOU TO DISARMED AND FORGET How Powerful He Is, But He Does Remind You at the End. It is a bit of a zeus moment, if you ask me.

Later on in the Series We Seie Michala’s Siren Calling to Devon and Devon Is Almost in this Magical Daze While Michala Explands that she sees her and wants to help. DID YOU FEEL Michala and Devon May Be More Similar than they realize with Wanting to be the Caretaker and Hold Everything Buting But NO One is Helping Them? WHAT DID YOU WANT TO GET ACROSS WITH THEIR DYNAMIC?

I like to think of that battub Scene and their final scene on the Ferry, the arc between that moment and that moment. These Two Women Go Through Something Over the Course of This Weekend, and WHERE they come out is more similear than they would have had every guesed. They have more in Common and See each Other in the End with Clear Eyes. That moment in the battub, to me, Michala Says it. She Says, “You Can Always Tell The Motherless Woman in the Room.” ALL THREE OF TESE Characters have lost their Mother in a traumatic way and I Think there’s someting about, “I See You, I Recognize You.” It Just Has to Be Noted That Sirens in Greek Mytology, They Lost Their Mother Figure. Michala Rightfully Sees Something in Devon That She Recognizes, and Vice Versa. They have more in common than simone and her do.

There’s An Episode Called Persephone Who is Known As the Goddess of the Underworld. Who does that apply to? Is it Michala or Simone?

In the Myth, The Sirens Lose Persephone. They Lose Her, and She Goes Off With Hades. The Sirens Get Punisshed by Demetter and Sent to this Island in Exile. So that’s whaty’re in Trouble for, Lozing Persephone, Who’s A Mother Figure to Them. There’s A Lot About their Mother in the episode. Bruce Talks at Lenger About His His Dead Wife in the Episode, How She SHIPWRECKED HIM, HOW SHE DESTROYED HIM. We Hear A Lot About Tese Mother Figures in the Episode, and that’s that’s what is is Called Persephone.

As someone who is not as familiar with greek mythology, i was being so analysis

I love it, and i THINK THAT’S WHY We GAVE THEM The TITLES WE DID. I’m going to be on reddit. I Want to Hear What Everyone Thinks. The FIVE [episode] Titles are sort of puzzle pieces. I’m inviting you to think about it.

The ending of the Series Could Be Shocking for the Audience, Maybe More with Simone. Can You Talk About What You Thought the Ending Said How’s Your Characters Evolved Individual and Their Relationship?

Writing Towards that Ending Was Something We Did with Great Care. I DIDN’T WANT Anyone to See It Coming. But then whohn it comes, i wanted it to feel inevitable. What i love about the ending is that it asks the audience to decide how to feel about it. We Went Through All The Different Takes of Simone on the Cliff at the End, and the One We Chose for the Final Cut Has A Little Bit of A Mona Lisa Smile. Her Face Is A Little Opaque. We chose that one because I think there And there’s a Version that this is bittersweet and painful. I Think How The Audience Interprets It Says A Lot About How they Feel, Probably About Who She Is And Who You Are, And What Home Is To You, And What You Wow Do? I Think She Needs to Survive, and that’s What She Does to Survive.

Do you think of there’s Another World Where Simone would have the Same Fate as Michala Eventualally?

OH, YES. We Start the Series with the Shot of Michala on the Cliff. We End the Series with Simone on the cliff, and you’re on this island. It has this cyclical, Timeless Feel Like this is a tale as old as time. IT’s A Tale As Old As Greek Mytology Time. Women Are Going to Be Cast in this Role. Peters Are Going to Do Peters ( Laughs) IT’s An Old Story. IT’s Right There in Front of Us.

What would you say to the Viewers Who Try to PinPoint Peter as the Villain of this Story or Perhaps Simone?

I would say is what you think is right. It’s Yours to Decide. I Think There Are People Who Are Going to Think Simone’s A Villain, and there are people who are going to think Peter’s a villain, and people who are going to think. I do through the show asks you to look at these five episodes, look at these Characters and reevalue the assumptions you might have a move made about them. I can’t ask you to feel a Certain Way about What Simone Does. All i can ask you is to try to understand it, because if you were in her shoes, and that ferry is leaving to take you back to Certain Trauma and Destitute, what would you do? That’s what i hope people are talking about. I HOPE this is a debate people are having. IT’s A Question That Interests Me So Much, I Wrote A Damn Five Episode Series.

There Can Clearly Be a Lot of Takeaways from this Show, But What do You Ultimately Hope People Take Away from this Series and the Sese Characters?

I HOPE POOPLE SAY THAT IS The MOST BEAUTIFUL PERFORMANCE I HAVE SEEN Ansemble Give in the History of Television, Because Every Time I Watch IT, I Just Canyta Astonis Astonis. THEN I HOPE PEOPLE FEEL THAT THE SHOW WENT SOMEWHERE they DIDNN’T expert, and it made them Think About Things in a New Way [and] THINK About Class in America in a Deeper Way.

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