Streaming on: Netflix
Episodes viewed: 5 of 5
The siren call of a luxurious getaway appeals to us all, yet perhaps no-one more so than Meghann Fahy. After she checked into Season 2 of The White Lotus and Netflix's The Perfect Couple, Fahy is on vacation yet again in Sirens, a limited series where something strange lurks behind the glossy façade of wealth.
Sound familiar? As it turns out, there's more going on with Sirens than it first appears. The same is true of Julianne Moore's monstrous Michaela, a childlike yet sinister socialite reminiscent of her recent roles in May December and, of all things, the Kingsman franchise. Michaela's eyes shine a little too bright, her smile is just a little too wide — yet this is still Julianne Moore we're talking about. She's seductive in spite of everything, making it easy to understand why the peppy Simone DeWitt (Milly Alcock) might have fallen under her spell.
Sirens is trashy, yes, but deliberately so, using camp twists to keep us on our toes while digging deeper into uncomfortable truths.
Alcock plays Simone, the younger DeWitt, as a Barbie-perfect assistant whose eye is probably twitching under the stress of it all if you can get close enough to see. But Simone keeps everyone at arm's length, including her sister, when she shows up unannounced after a night in jail. As Devon, Fahy clearly relishes this absolute mess of a character, one described in an early episode as “a transient person carrying hot garbage”. The Drop star has been on a phenomenal run of late, and aside from that scene in The White Lotus, this is her strongest performance yet.
Not everything hits quite as strongly. A few left-field moments are truly unhinged in ways you wouldn't expect from writer-creator Molly Smith Metzler (also responsible for Netflix's Emmy-nominated Maid). But that's entirely the point. Sirens is trashy, yes, but deliberately so, using camp twists to keep us on our toes while digging deeper into uncomfortable truths. Plus, Metzler somehow convinced Moore to say lines like, “Let's go save some wildlife, bitches.” An instant winner on that evidence alone.