Aahana Swrup
‘Sirens’ is a dark comedy show that charts an unexpected path from start to finish. The beginning of the show finds Simone and Ethan as a happy couple in a casual summer fling. Simone is Michaela Kell’s live-in assistant, making Ethan the best friend of her boss’ husband, thereby a well-cemented forbidden fruit. Consequently, neither is expecting anything serious from their connection. However, this light, frivolous nature of their relationship takes a sharp turn once Simone’s older sister, Devon, takes the Cliff House by storm, eager to confront the other woman about the odd relationship she seems to have with her employer-slash-best-friend.
Somewhere in the chaos that follows, Ethan decides that a surprise proposal is the best thing he can do to announce his burgeoning feelings for his hook-up-turned-tentative-girlfriend. Therefore, the duo’s fate becomes more precarious than ever, as Simone is faced with a decision she never thought she would have to make. Naturally, the various complicated reasoning behind her answer and what it means for the couple’s future become a point of intrigue. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Simone’s Dark Past Presents an Exciting Change for Ethan
From the minute that Simone and Ethan are introduced into the narrative as a couple, the former seems to have realistic expectations about the nature of their relationship. The latter is at the Cliff House for the rest of his summer and has plans to leave after the Labor Day weekend. The same, paired with his close connection to Michaela, instantly cements him as a fun, flirty fling for Simone. Nonetheless, these plans are quickly put to rest once Devon rolls up to her workplace. Given their recent unintentional estrangement, the older sister knows nothing about the strict boundaries Simone has built around her past life and the new life she has built for herself around Michaela.
In the Cliff House, Simone is Michaela’s right-hand man. She manages the staff and ensures every little detail in her boss’ life is perfect, from her morning jog and neglected daily smoothie to her galas and foundation events. This complete access to control is a stark difference from her old life, in which more often than not, she was a victim of her circumstances. At the age of seven, Simone found herself in a car with her mother, Andrea, who tried to kill them both by filling the vehicle up with carbon monoxide. Although Devon was able to save her, their mother still passed away, leaving them under the care of an uncaring father who was dealing with acute alcoholism.
Soon enough, even Devon left for college, leaving Simone to fend for herself in a house where the only adult responsible for her well-being routinely forgot to feed her. Her father, Bruce, ignored her presence in the house to the point where authorities eventually had to be involved. Yet, even this wasn’t the end of young Simone’s torment. In the aftermath, she was put in the foster care system, where she experienced more abuse and trauma at the hands of her supposed caretakers. Finally, some semblance of normalcy came when Devon, freshly dropped out of college and working multiple jobs for a steady income, managed to get her sister’s custody.
Devon doesn’t spill all of Simone’s secrets on her first meeting with Ethan. Still, she inadvertently lets it slip that her sister was in the foster system and comes from a tough background. This compels Ethan to try to figure out more about the woman he claims to have fallen in love with. Therefore, Simone tells him about her estranged relationship with her father, in little detail, before begging him not to make her elaborate on her childhood. This new image of her that has been excavated by her past ignites something in him that no other summer fling, of which there have been many, has touched. Consequently, he decides to showcase how serious he is about the relationship with an unexpected proposal.
Simone’s Descent From Lover to Monster
Despite their short-lived summer romance, Ethan becomes convinced that he’s in love with Simone. For the same reason, he abhors the implication, made by Michaela and Peter, that he’s only with her for a short while, after which he will leave her like all his other affairs. As such, he makes the leap and flies all the way to Buffalo to ask Bruce for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Naturally, this ends with the father returning to the island with him so that he could meet his long-estranged kid. However, in doing so, Ethan inadvertently brings Simone her nightmare scenario.
Ethan claims to love Simone. Yet, he fails to ever actually listen to her when she’s skirting around her traumatic past. He knows her father is a sore topic for her, but he still flies down to ask him for her hand in marriage. This isn’t done out of some chivalrous intention. Instead, it’s a way for him to fulfill his own domestic fantasies by simply using Simone as the much-awaited placeholder to help him progress in the next part of his life. After years and years of fooling around with younger women, he finally wants to settle down, but only so that he can fulfill the things on his list.
If Ethan had truly cared about Simone, he would have tried to build a relationship with her and learned about her life before jumping into a marriage. On the other hand, Simone knows that a marriage to Ethan isn’t what she really wants. Any confusion she has on the matter gets dissolved when Michaela offers her a position as a chair for the Kell Foundation’s New York branch. Therefore, she easily turns down his self-serving proposal. Naturally, it comes as an unbelievable shock to Ethan, who can’t fathom the idea of being rejected, especially when he’s finally ready to jump into something feet first. As a result, he grows bitter and does a full 180, going from being in love with Simone to painting her out as a monster who led him on and broke his heart.
Read More: What Does Sirens Mean, Explained
