Freeform’s Siren
Season 2, Episode 13: “The Outpost”
Directed by Amanda Tapping
Written by Cole Fowler

* For a recap & review of the previous episode, “Serenity” – click here
* For a recap & review of the next episode, “The Last Mermaid” – click here
Journalist Ian Sutton (Luc Roderique) is looking into the Clesco Oil footage. He’s got no clue Ryn (Eline Powell) is there on land with Ben (Alex Roe) and Maddie (Fola Evans-Akingbola). The mermaid thrupple continue their relationship unaware they’re under surveillance, 24/7. After they have sex, they get word from Helen (Rena Owen) about Levi (Sedale Threatt Jr.) turning up at her place— all intercepted by Dawn (Shawn Ahmed), the Naval Lab tech.
Very tense to see Ian around the research centre. He and Ryn lock eyes. Will he make the connection? He’s already tailing Ryn and Maddie to the lab. He keeps prodding people at the docks who were on the water the night when the oil rig went down.

On top of everything, it’s “mating season,” made evident by the mermaid’s glowing skin, like a starry sky beneath her skin. She sees Levi’s throat glowing. But right now’s not the time. Ryn hopes for a mermaid pregnancy. They haven’t had babies in a long while. Ben and Maddie do their best to test the merpeople and see if it has anything to do with a general decline in birth rates among marine life in Bristol Cove.
We see Calvin (Curtis Lum) is having trouble with his gambling trouble. He goes to Xander (Ian Verdun), who tells him to get a normal job like everybody else. He also figures out his buddy’s thinking of applying to be a local cop, and tells Xander it’s a good idea. In other male bonding, Ben explains the concept of consent for men and women on land to Levi. The merman is curious, seeing as how men have no say in the underwater matriarchal merperson society. He also suggests Ben could make a baby with Ryn, only that wouldn’t help much for the mermaids. Still, Ben thinks about it— mostly it’s jealousy.

Helen finds out John died in the middle of the night. She wonders if the extended family had something to do with it. She calls Rick (Brendan Fletcher) with her concerns. He lets her know what he told his sister about the “full–blooded ones.” An ideal time for Levi to be alone when Beth (Caroline Cave) comes to the shop. She takes him to see the others.
The Naval Lab examines Ryn. She has a reproductive system like a whale + a shark combo. She’s healthy. Apart from being a mermaid, no abnormalities. She, Ben, and Maddie get word about Beth taking Levi, so this sets them all on high alert.

Awkward when Ryn talks to Ben about the massacre, from long ago. She’ll always be scared of humans, to some degree. She doesn’t know that it was Ben’s family who killed all the mermaids. She’ll “never forget” the pain caused to her people. Will it break her aquatic heart to know the true history? Right now, they go looking for Levi, trying to figure out where Beth took him. They come upon a room full of relics from Bristol Cove history: mermaid bones and tools, among other items.

“Why do humans do things like this?”

“Sometimes,
because they’re afraid.
Sometimes, I don’t know—
angry.”

At the Naval Lab, Maddie is taken to see Commander Kyle (Michael J. Rogers). He’s curious about the “fertility tests.” He found out about the male sample. He’s also got access to that secretive surveillance. He floats the idea of creating “mermaid embryos” in the lab, if they could have access to a male. When Maddie goes home that night she immediately starts looking for bugs, knowing the military are spying on them.

Ian’s “anonymous source” tells him Xan and Calvin were out on the water the night of the Clesco Oil fiasco. He suggests the boys were involved in something bigger and wants proof about the mermaids. He’ll let “eco–terrorism” slide if he’s given info.
LADS— you’re in the shit now!

Helen and Rick track his sister’s vehicle to a ranch. Beth makes it out like she’s the great saviour of mermaids. Her brother’s willing to get her a chance, but Helen isn’t quite as lenient after what she’s found out about her parents. Everything forces Helen to tell them about being “descended from Charles [Pownall]” and his mermaid love child, which throws Beth into an existential crisis.
Soon, Ben and Ryn turn up. A weird ceremony starts. It’s interrupted when Ryn and Levi are ready to mate. Things get violent between the two merpeople. Ben urges they have to get back to the water. Everything gets REALLY FUCKED when it slip outs that Ben is a Pownall. Ryn starts to hear the truth for the first time. Afterwards, she’s angry with Ben for not telling her. Only time will tell if the damage is irreparable.

In desperation, Xan decides to take Ian to the mermaid graveyard.
But things are disturbed. Has something crawled out? Or were people digging in?

“They’ve been watching us”

Great stuff! Love how the series weaves all the plots together so well.
Many compelling things going on, even as Season 2 is winding down.

“The Last Mermaid” is next.