Meghann Fahy, Milly Alcock Defend Finale Choices

[This story contains major spoilers from the season finale of Netflix’s Sirens.]

Throughout Netflix’s five-episode series Sirens, viewers hace watched Devon (Meghann Fahy) try to lure her sister Simone (Milly Alcock) away from the lavish community she now resides in while working for and being uncomfortably close with socialite Michaela “Kiki” Kell (Julianne Moore), who reigns supreme on the island along with her husband Peter Kell (Kevin Bacon). Though determined to convince Simone to come back home to Buffalo to help her with their ailing father (Bill Camp), the series then ends where it began, with the matriarch of the Cliff House standing on the edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean — only this time, it’s Simone standing there instead of Michaela.

After Moore’s Michaela fired Simone as her assistant after seeing a photograph of Simone and Peter kissing (a kiss that Bacon’s Peter initiated, leaving a shocked Simone to run off), Simone went back to Peter and Peter left Michaela. The ending of Simone betraying Michaela by becoming Peter’s new partner could be rather surprising for viewers given Simone and Michaela had a tight-knit relationship. But there’s also the fact that a much older Peter, who is believed to be easy-going and approachable despite his notable wealth, had his sights set on Simone as his new love to begin with.

Meanwhile, Devon left the island sans Simone to return to Buffalo to continue caring for her father. She also saw Michaela departing, and is now left to pick up the pieces, no longer being Mrs. Kell. The ending was one Fahy found “surprising” and left Alcock feeling “really sad.”

“Ultimately, we want Simone to be the person that the audience ends up seeing her as, which is this broken little girl who’s so much more capable than she believes herself to be,” Alcock tells The Hollywood Reporter. “The fact that she chooses the path she’s chosen reinforces that stigma and narrative where she needs a man in financial stability to provide for her. It made me incredibly sad finding out that was the ending.”

Fahy adds to THR, “I was definitely surprised. But the more I thought about it, the more I felt like it was true that Simone would double down, do whatever it took to not have to go back to that place and that Devon would go back and not go with the guy, or anything. think it hurts on some level to see both of them make the choices they make, because you want so much better for them. But it felt right. It felt true they would make those choices.”

Showrunner Molly Smith Metzler says the ending, however surprising, was inevitable. “What I love about the ending is that it asks the audience to decide how to feel about it,” she recently said in an interview with THR. Executive producer Nicole Kassell, who directed the first two episodes, adds that though there is an “impulse” to “hate Simone” at the end, that’s what the show is ultimately exploring.

“Women are blamed for breaking up marriages. Devon’s blamed for breaking up Ray’s marriage, Michael is blamed for Peter’s previous [marriage], but where is the accountability of the men? Historically we are all conditioned to shit on the women who break up relationships. But in Peter and Simone’s case, he’s targeting a woman 40 years younger and he can have more children, he can have this facade or fantasy of longevity in a way that a female can’t just because of your ovaries,” Kassell explains.

“It’s a tale as old as Greek mythology time. Women are going to be cast in this role. Peters are going to do Peters. It’s an old story. It’s right there in front of us,” Metzler says.

Throughout the series, Fahy’s Devon attempted to free Simone from what she deemed a cultish community, insisting she’s a “traumatized little girl running from her past.” That past included losing their mom and growing up with a disregarding father. Simone may have found a new home and identity, but Alcock and Fahy agree that both things they’re fighting for can be true. Simone is running from her past like Devon suggests, but Fahy says everyone is also refusing to respect her choices.

“Objectively, as Millie, I think Simone is running from her past. But as Simone, I think she sees this as a complete survival tactic,” Alcock says. “What is her alternative? She dropped out of law school. She has no money. She’d be starting from ground zero. This is her golden ticket. This is her way out of her previous situation. She’s willing to fight like tooth and nail to be there and to be safe.”

She continues, “Simone, at face value, is really easy to dislike. She’s someone who you’re kind of instantly like, ‘oh my god, this girl is completely insufferable.’ She’s performing chronically to everybody she’s with. She’s completely an inconsistent person; that’s her response to her trauma. Her rebellion is to put herself in a position where she is safe and in an environment where she has a certain type of value and is seen as valuable, because the parental figures in her life never did that. She’s still this sad, lost little girl.”

Devon’s determination to bring Simone back home to help her take care of their dad is palpable given she “genuinely needs help,” Fahy says, but admits Devon is being selfish. “She is sort of refusing to acknowledge her sister’s wants and needs because she wants what she wants. Her sort of refusal to accept what is true in pursuit of her own want and need is part of the negative end of what she’s set out to do by going there to drag her sister back to what is inarguably, a really shitty situation.”

But for viewers wanting a clear answer as to why Simone stays and essentially replaces Michaela as Peter’s wife, Kassell reminds everyone that Simone’s background is the key to understanding. With no family, home or career anymore, Simone had to make a choice.

Kassell reflects, “If we didn’t have that context, she would seem like just pure shit selfish. But that’s where I feel like she’s almost the most honest. Michaela is collateral damage, and she wouldn’t have done that had she not gotten fired. She would have run the foundation. She really would have done a great job as Michaela’s second in command, but when that opportunity went away, and it was either this or that, I understand. I don’t endorse. But when I think about a past that is so unimaginable and this as a path out, it puts me in that uncomfortable place of both wanting to hate her for it, but feeling like I have to understand. As a woman I understand if your whole life has been to escape a horrific background.”

“I think she needs to survive, and that’s what she does to survive,” Meltzer notes.

And the showrunner knows there will be debates about it. “Ppeople are going to think Simone’s a villain, and people are going to think Peter’s a villain, and people are gonna to think they’re all villains,” she adds. “I can’t ask you to feel a certain way about what Simone does. All I can ask is that you try to understand it. 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.”

As for Devon, she may leave the way she came, however she now has a newer understanding after confronting her compulsive addictions and past trauma. She decides to move out and live separately from her dad but still be there to help care for him, just now ensuring she won’t lose herself to do so. She also has an epiphany about Michaela. In a final conversation, she tells Michaela that she doesn’t think she’s a monster, which Michaela also says about Simone. The two then have a mutual understanding and newfound agency as they bid Simone and Cliff House farewell.

“These two women go through something over the course of this weekend where they come out more similar than they would have guessed. They have more in common and see each other in the end with clear eyes,” Metzler says.

“Devin appears to be someone who has a great sense of self, who is unapologetically who she wants to be wherever she goes. But as the series gets deeper, you start to realize that’s a bit of a front, and she’s really using several devices to keep people from getting too close,” Fahy says of her character being forced to confront and find some peace with her trauma.

With Devon and Michaela now gone, the series ends with Simone looking out into the ocean from the cliff. Her expression is inscrutable, but the one thing that is clear is she’s now living her life abiding by her own needs.

“We went through all the different takes of Simone on the cliff at the end, and the one we chose for the final cut, she has a little bit of a Mona Lisa smile,” Metzler says. “I think her face is a little opaque. We chose that one because I think there’s a version where she won — she’s a siren and hear her roar.”

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Sirens is streaming all episodes on Netflix. Read THR‘s interview with director Nicole Kassell about the first two episodes and with showrunner Molly Smith Metzler.