Sirens Ending Explained: Is Jocelyn Dead? Did Michaela Kill Her?

Netflix’s ‘Sirens’ blends disarray with the delicate as it follows a pair of dysfunctional sisters over the period of a surprisingly frenzied Labor Day weekend. At the center of this dark comedy show are Devon and Simone, siblings who couldn’t be more different than each other. After their aging father receives a distressing medical condition, to which the latter’s reaction remains starkly undisturbed, the older sister pays her a visit at her place of work: a scenic house on the cliff of an equally scenic island. However, once she witnesses Simone’s life as a live-in assistant to Michaela Kell, the philanthropist who is magnetic in a cult-leader way. As a result, falling for the rumors of murder and manipulation, Devon decides that she must save her sister from the oddly codependent clutches of her employer. SPOILERS AHEAD!

Sirens Recap

Devon has had an awful day in the aftermath of a night spent in lockup. Her father’s recent on-set dementia diagnosis has been causing complications in her life left and right. Worse yet, as her sister continues to ignore her texts, she’s left to deal with the situation alone. For the same reason, the sight of a fruit basket sent by Simone becomes the last straw, compelling Devon to catch a ferry to the island where her sister works. As a result, she arrives at the Cliff House, a lavish estate where Simone works as Michaela’s assistant. This weekend is a big occasion for the Kell family since they’re hosting multiple gala events over the course of the following days. Consequently, the assistant needs to be on top of her game, ensuring that not a single flower is out of place.

Naturally, the sight of her sister, woefully out of place in the mansion’s pastel aesthetic, is not a pleasant one for Simone. Initially, she tries to hide Devon away in the guest room, but she can only keep her a secret for so long from the all-knowing Michaela, who seems to have her eyes and ears everywhere. The woman is surprised to meet Simone’s sister, especially since the latter had never ever mentioned her despite their ridiculously close relationship. Similarly, Ethan, a friend of Michaela’s husband and Simone’s secret summer fling, is equally shocked to learn about Devon and his girlfriend’s life outside the island. It turns out that she has been keeping the less polished parts of her life, like her upbringing in Buffalo foster care and her messy sister, a well-kept secret from her carefully refined life on the island.

Eventually, Devon’s criticisms about her new life become too much for Simone, who wants nothing to do with their dad in any emotional capacity. Therefore, she lets Michaela subtly throw her sister off the estate, with a bribe cheque and tickets to the next ferry. Still, the older sister only grows more adamant about her mission to save Simone from this new cult-ish life. Soon enough, she decides the best course of action would be to infiltrate Michaela’s circle by letting her think she’s another lost soul to be taken under her wing. Meanwhile, the philanthropist grows steadily concerned about her husband, Peter. She’s distressed that he might be having an affair. Around the same time, she also learns about her assistant’s forbidden affair, which sends the latter into an anxious spiral.

For all her assertions of their close friendship, Simone is worried that Michaela would fire her for the offense. Nonetheless, she seems to only be worried about the younger woman’s entanglement with the womanizer. However, her concerns end up being for naught when Ethan returns from his brief disappearance with an engagement ring in his pocket for Simone. Yet, he also has some other less pleasant surprises in tow, namely Bruce, the sisters’ father, and Raymond, Devon’s toxic friend-with-benefits. This mix of unsuited dynamics sends everything into a chaotic spiral. Simone turns down Ethan’s abrupt proposal, only to get unexpectedly hit on by her boss’ husband. This becomes a catalyst in the unraveling of her relationship with Michaela. Yet, once the latter fires her assistant-slash-best-friend, she stands to lose many of her coveted secrets.

Sirens Ending: What Happened to Jocelyn?

Devon establishes Michaela as a suspicious figure in her eyes from early on. To her, she’s the rich woman who has stolen her sister to surround her in idyllic pastels with galas and parties abound. Therefore, when she hears gossip about her rumored involvement in the death of her husband’s first wife, she’s eager to believe the accusations. Before Michaela, Peter was married to Jocelyn, with whom he had two kids, Sarah and Rory. However, ever since their divorce, no one had heard or seen from her, and the kids had always strayed out of their father’s life. Naturally, this compelled everyone to draw up conclusions about his second wife’s involvement in the alleged murder of the first wife.

As the rumor goes, Michaela had taken Joceyln to the cliff and pushed her down its steep incline. Many believe the latter’s corpse to be still floating around out in the sea. Once Devon learns of this rumor from a cellmate in the town’s lockup, she hangs on to it and tries investigating Jocelyn’s case. Thus, this image of Michaela forms as a monstrous opportunity seeker, allowing Devon to believe her sister needs to be saved from her. She further puts weight behind the rumors of Mrs. Kell being a cult leader, insisting she must have brainwashed Simone to turn her into this zombified version that her older sister couldn’t recognize.

Yet, time and again, Simone disproves the latter theory. The younger sister seems to be deeply shaped by the trauma of her abusive childhood with a suicidal mother, a neglectful alcoholic father, and an older sister who did her best. She’s constantly trying to run away from that life and has simply found a safe haven beside Michaela. Eventually, much like Devon’s assumption of Simone’s brainwashing, her beliefs around Jocelyn’s death are also unraveled. In a confrontation with Michaela in the middle of a critical gala, she accuses the other woman of being a murderer. Thus, Michaela calmly but irately explains the truth about Jocelyn.

In reality, Jocelyn is still alive. In the aftermath of her divorce from Peter, she simply sought out some ill-advised plastic surgery that ended up ruining her face. One wrongly placed injection led to necrosis in the cells of her face, turning half of it into dead flesh. Furthermore, she even lost one of her eyes to the surgery’s ill effects, going blind in one eye. As such, she simply prefers to stay out of public as a recluse on her personal island. Therefore, even though Michaela’s marriage to Peter and his subsequent divorce from Jocelyn led the latter to her eventual fate, the former can’t be blamed for the situation. Nonetheless, Michaela’s life and her reputation as a rich man’s second wife inevitably led people to draw nasty perceptions of her.

Why Does Peter Leave Michaela? What Happens to Her?

It isn’t much later after Jocelyn’s real fate has been revealed that Michaela finds herself sharing the same grief. Her relationship with Peter has always been methodical to a certain degree. She’s strategic about the way she keeps things interesting in their relationship, and she scrutinizes even the smallest details to find any signs of trouble. Initially, this seems like another way in which her harsh perfectionism and inner control freak come out. Nonetheless, a different perspective is eventually revealed. Even though Michaela’s life revolves around the Cliff House and its various charitable ventures, this hadn’t always been the case.

Michaela used to be a successful attorney, which is how she crossed paths with Peter, whose company was in the middle of a merger. Even though she tried to hold onto her career after their affair turned into a marriage, it wasn’t long before she gave it all up to handle her husband’s house and fit in with the socialite lifestyle. Yet, in doing so, she gave up a significant amount of her freedom. While the couple were caught up in their whirlwind romance, Peter had made her sign a prenup that left her in an awful position. Any and all assets that she could receive hinged upon whether or not she had any kids with her husband.

However, after years of trying, Michaela eventually had to admit that she couldn’t have any kids. Thus, she’s now stuck in a life starkly different from her old one, without any safety nets beneath her. If Peter decides to divorce her, her entire life will devolve into a mess without her say so. For the same reason, she’s cautious about keeping his attention and concerned about it straying elsewhere. Her fears eventually come to fruition when she learns that her husband had kissed Simone, who continued to keep it a secret from her. Initially, she tries to control this catastrophic situation by firing her assistant to cut her from the Kells’ lives. Nonetheless, this ends up bringing about her doom. The couple’s prenup, though airtight, also has a clause regarding infidelity.

As such, if Michaela can prove through evidence that her husband was unfaithful, then she could exert a right over the Kell assets. Therefore, the photograph she has of Peter and Simone kissing could be her saving grace. Nevertheless, her former assistant informs her husband about it in a vengeful, self-serving plot. This gives Peter, who has long lost his interest in his second wife, the perfect opportunity to end things with her. He uses this apparent breach of trust as the nail in the coffin to pin the blame for their marriage’s end on Michaela. Furthermore, he accuses her of keeping him from his children, when really it was his own decision to pursue another woman during his marriage to their mother, Jocelyn, that put a wedge between them. Even so, he sheds himself of all the blame, of even his momentary infidelity, by painting his wife as a monster, while he trades her in for a new third wife: Simone.

Why Did Simone Tell Peter About the Photo?

Throughout the story, Simone’s friendship with Michaela is at the center of her narrative. Her entire world seems to revolve around the woman, making her happy, and following her many life lessons. She finds a guiding light in her that has long been missing from her life. Simone had a downright traumatic childhood. When she was seven, her mother locked herself in a car with her and tried to kill them both with carbon monoxide poisoning. It was only because of Devon’s miraculous timing that she was able to save her baby sister from certain death. Afterward, in light of their mother’s suicide, their father, Bruce, developed alcoholism and began neglecting his two daughters.

While Devon went off to college, Simone had to stay with her neglectful father, who routinely forgot to take care of her or even bathe her. Eventually, things got so bad that child services intervened and took the young girl away from her family to be put in foster care. Thus, more abuse and trauma awaited her in the system as she was tossed around from one foster home to another. Years later, Devon was finally able to win custody of her and became her full-time guardian. Still, despite the hard work her sister put in to take care of her, Simone’s trauma stayed with her, attached to her family life. As such, she finds a life-saving escape as Michaela’s assistant.

Yet, for the same reason, when Michaela fires Simone, it threatens to ruin her entire life. She holds her new life in a sacred safe distance away from her old one. She can’t fathom the idea of returning to Buffalo, where she will be forced to take care of her demented father, who never once took care of her. This complete lack of options compels her to take desperate measures to secure her future. Michaela’s complete disregard for the history they have together in light of one mistake that wasn’t even made by her further softens the harshness of the upcoming blow. She reveals the incriminating photograph’s existence and location to Peter, intending to ruin Michaela’s marriage. She knows she can exploit Peter’s attraction toward her for her own benefit and steal a new life for herself.

Does Devon Leave Bruce? Does she go on The Trip with Morgan?

By the end of the narrative, multiple characters reveal themselves to be more than their initial impressions. Peter isn’t an innocent, aloof husband, but has really been the one with any actual power from the start. Similarly, Simone isn’t harmless or above dirty tricks in the name of survival, a perspective that also adds nuance to Michaela’s previously controlling persona. However, through it all, Devon remains a steady, reliable nucleus. Unlike the other characters, her true intentions only lie in the love and care she has for others, no matter how reluctant. She wants to save Simone, which seems achievable when Michaela is the villain in her story.

Nonetheless, once she realizes her little sister has cemented herself as Mrs. Kell 3.0, Devon knows she can’t save Simone from herself. Moreover, there’s no real reason for the latter to require saving. She has secured a future for herself that she’s happy with, and it’s time for the older sister to do the same. Yet, for Devon, this doesn’t come from abandoning a past life in search of a shiny new one. For the same reason, she doesn’t go on the trip with Morgan, the ship captain. No matter Bruce’s faults, she isn’t ready to leave her ailing father to his own devices. She has always taken pride in caring for her loved ones, which is what she will continue to do. Still, she takes some lessons in self-love and care from her younger sister. Therefore, she decides to try to steer clear of red flags like Raymond and get her own place to carve out a life and identity of her own outside of her family. In the end, Michaela’s initially sanctioned bribe cheque should be a great way to find this new beginning.

Do the Women on the Island Have Special Powers?

On multiple occasions, the show hints at the possibility that things on Michaela’s island aren’t exactly what they seem to be. Her effortless influence over others is often compared to the extremes of a cult, as Devon continues to believe she’s in possession of some brainwashing powers. Nonetheless, all of this is simply a projection that others, including Devon, pin on Michaela and other women like her. They want to believe that these women have some inexplicable pull over men like Peter that makes them vulnerable to their advances. In time, we see the same happening to the two sisters, whom the men in their lives vilify.

After months of a casual summer fling, Ethan pitches an unexpected proposal to Simone, claiming to be in love with her without even understanding the basic foundation of her early life. He makes up a fantasy in his head of Christmases and children without once stopping to wonder if it fits in with his girlfriend’s plans. Similarly, Raymond blames Devon for his own decisions, insisting that the inexplicable hold she has over him forces him to make bad life choices. Consequently, the women are painted as monsters while the men in their lives get to walk away as innocent victims of their “allure.” In reality, Michaela and the other women on the island hold no special power. In fact, many of them seem to hold no real power of their own at all, as proven by Jocelyn, Michaela, and Simone, whose lives are bent at Peter’s whims.