What would you do if your sister, whom you practically raised, suddenly stopped talking to you and moved to a bougie island to work for and live with a suspiciously rich housewife/aviary rescue philanthropist — who is also very likely a cult leader? That’s the question that Meghann Fahy‘s Devon DeWitt has to answer when she ends up on a packed New England island, Edible Arrangement in hand, to confront her estranged sister Simone, played by Milly Alcock, in Sirens. Created by Molly Smith Metzler (of Maid fame), Sirens takes place over a chaotic weekend at the end of summer where the DeWitt sisters are forced to not only face off with their issues with each other but also deal with the mysterious and suspiciously charismatic Michaela Kell, Simone’s boss (Julianne Moore).

What Is ‘Sirens’ About?

When the series kicks off, we quickly learn that Devon (Fahy), the older of the two DeWitt sisters, is sort of a mess. We meet her coming out of jail and frantically texting her younger sister. She takes care of their father, Bruce (Bill Camp), whose memory is failing, while maintaining an affair with her married boss/ex-high school boyfriend, Ray (Josh Segarra). On the other hand, Simone (Alcock) lives on a polished and upper-crust New England island with her boss Michaela (Moore), and Michaela’s husband, Peter (Kevin Bacon). She’s also engaging in a secret relationship with Peter’s best friend, Ethan (Glenn Howerton), but is seemingly living her best life as Michaela’s (or “Kiki,” as Simone calls her) personal assistant.

Dressed up like a Barbie doll and wielding her power over the household staff like a weapon, Simone has Kiki’s ear and the run of the beautiful Cliff House. She keeps her less glamorous past a secret, but all of that comes bubbling up to the surface when Devon turns up at the Kells’ house to confront Simone. Convinced that Simone is in a cult, Devon is determined to stick around and try and extricate her from Michaela’s clutches. However, the reality is far less sinister and, as the truth of Simone’s past and her relationship with her family comes to the surface, the weekend quickly spirals wildly out of control. There are massive shifts in dynamics, harsh words are exchanged, and by the end, it’s hard to tell who is the hero and who is the villain of this story.

Messy Women Are Given Center Stage in Molly Smith Metzler’s ‘Sirens’

What becomes instantly obvious in just the first episode of Sirens is that creator Molly Smith Metzler isn’t afraid to take on a complex and messy female character. This should be no surprise if you watched her previous project, Maid, but in Sirens, Devon and Simone are a different type of messy. Both are very sexual characters, with Ray pointing out that they chew up men and spit them out. Devon uses sex as a coping mechanism, while Simone views her current relationship with Ethan as a summer fling and a potential stepping stone into a better life.

Although Simone is initially very peppy and perfect, her flaws begin to surface when Devon turns up, and we see just how complicated these two women are. On the flip-side, the perfectly coiffed and almost angelic-sounding Michaela seems to be the picture of Goop-tastic perfection — but she, too, is slowly revealed to be a more complex character and far more than some aloof trophy wife obsessed with saving Peregrine falcons and saying “Hey hey,” to her admirers.

Milly Alcock’s performance is informed by Simone’s layered past, and it comes out even stronger on a rewatch, once you understand the source of her insecurities and desperation to keep her new, perfect life to herself. Among the three actresses, who are the highlight of the series, Alcock is the surprise standout of Sirens, displaying Simone’s wide range of emotion and hidden depths. Her scenes with Moore, Fahy, Kevin Bacon, Glenn Howerton, and Bill Camp all prove that, despite her age, she’s far from an amateur when it comes to acting against seasoned performers.

Devon, Simone, and Michaela are given moments where the audience is led to feel sympathy for them, but there are also instances where it is incredibly hard to root for them. Fahy, Alcock, and Moore play their respective characters expertly, willing to lean into the intensity of their characters’ neuroses while also balancing them with more restrained performances that hint at past character moments without giving away every secret.

‘Sirens’ Struggles To Find the Right Tone

However, while its character work is top-notch, what holds Sirens back more often is its strong shifts in tone. When the series begins, there’s an almost ethereal and mythical quality to Michaela and the Cliff House. She seems to have a hypnotic pull on the people around her, especially Simone, but even with Devon. There are visions and prophetic dreams, and moments between characters that never go fully explained but almost dip a toe into horror. This would be fine if the season didn’t quickly descend from those heights into something far more grounded.

As a result, Sirens can feel like two different shows at times. One of them is about the mysterious and potentially villainous Michaela Kell, with a script that dabbles in dark comedy and mysticism, while the other is more of a grounded drama about the struggles of being a woman in a man’s world and the compromises a woman has to make in her life when going after what she wants. The latter is a much stronger story, and it’s how the series ends, but the allure of the former is undeniable.

Some of Sirens‘ most interesting and eerie scenes involve Alcock staring into Moore’s eyes and serenely replying to her, forming a problematically close bond with her, and being called Kiki’s “best friend” (despite the fact that she is clearly an employee). These moments slowly fade into the background as we learn more about Michaela’s past and how she came to be with Peter. It’s slightly disappointing, veering closer to a bait-and-switch rather than an organic revelation. The story lures us in with this weird potential cult leader, but actually, there’s nothing weird about her at all — she’s just the second wife of a rich man who dumped his first wife to be with the other woman.

‘Sirens’ Should Have Been a Longer Show

What ultimately holds Sirens back from being another hit like Maid is that it just doesn’t have enough time to build on the concepts it introduces. Characters deal with anxiety and panic attacks, there are conversations about characters from different socio-economic backgrounds, there’s an upstairs-downstairs thing going on between Simone and the staff, there are mentions of surviving childhood trauma, and there’s a whole conversation to be had about age-gap relationships. Sirens tosses a lot at the wall, and almost all of it sticks, but the wall itself is just too small.

Five episodes are not nearly enough time to fully tell the story that these characters deserve. Specifically, when it comes to Devon and Michaela, there feels like a lot more to mine with these two. Michaela’s past, when revealed, comes as a surprise, and when we learn how similar she is to Devon and Simone and how different her previous life was, it only makes us hungry for more. The same can be said for Devon’s future and her relationships not only with men, but with her father at home. Simone exists primarily at the center of the story with the most nuance and backstory, and many of her actions are the catalyst for major events; however, we don’t get nearly enough of her life from her own perspective. The end of the season hints at a new chapter that might be even more problematic than her previous one, but we’re given no indication of where her life could go.

Ultimately, there’s a lot of potential in Sirens. There are comedic moments that made me laugh out loud, scenes that really made me think and question a woman’s place in society, and instances when you can see just how intricate Metzler’s work on this story is. However, given its small episode count, the series never gets to spread its wings wide enough to soar to greater heights.

Sirens is now streaming on Netflix in the U.S.

Sirens

Molly Smith Metzler’s newest series Sirens shines with its three leading stars but feels cut short thanks to a five-episode count.

Release Date

May 22, 2025

Network

Netflix

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Pros & Cons

• Milly Alcock, Meghann Fahy, and Julianne Moore deliver strong performances with Alcock being the standout of the series.
• The series brings up some very compelling conversation points about women living in a man’s world.

• Tonally, the series takes a shift halfway through the season that weakens it.
• The series is far too short for all the ideas it presents.