Sirens: The Netflix show's real monster, and what it really reveals about female individuality

Sirens is a show that deceives us at the beginning. We think it's a show about cult but then slowly realize it's about something much more real and raw.

This Netflix drama dares to dissect how women who don’t conform, who choose themselves, who are complex, wounded, loud, quiet, angry, ambitious, or simply unapologetically themselves, are quickly labeled “monsters.” And not metaphorically. The entire island in Sirens literally calls Michaela a monster.

You're meant to believe that she is a murderer and had lured Peter into cheating on his first wife and marrying her instead. The island knows she’s powerful. But what they don't know is that she’s spent years protecting others.

Sirens shows us women who have been through fire. These women who have dealt with grief and abandonment are punished simply for surviving it. Meanwhile, the worst behavior of the men in the show is brushed off with a “boys will be boys” shrug.

This show asks us to look at who we call monstrous and why. Let's get into it a bit more.

Sirens: Who’s the real monster here?

As Sirens comes to an end, we realize it’s about how easy it is for the world to vilify a woman for simply existing outside the box. Peter, who tried to kiss Simone while still married to Michaela, somehow ends up with her. Meanwhile, Michaela is left behind with nothing. She is off on the same boat Devon takes to leave the island.

It’s devastating. Because even though Simone now wears the title of Mrs. Kell, she’s not the one who won.

Throughout the show, Michaela, who deeply loved Peter, is painted as a temptress. She is portrayed as the reason Peter cheated on his first wife. Simone, Peter’s next “object of interest,” is viewed as someone who seduced him, just like Devon is treated like bait for men on the beach.

These women are constantly framed as the ones luring men. The idea that these women are somehow monsters float around the show. But none of it is real.

Michaela didn’t lure Peter. He chased her. He chose her. And then, when the island spread rumors that she had murdered his ex-wife, Peter kept quiet. He let the myth grow. He let the woman he claimed to love rot under the weight of suspicion. And when he got tired of her, he moved on to Simone.

Ethan, another prize specimen, calls Simone a “monster” simply because she doesn’t want to marry him. A grown man throws a tantrum and pins his feelings on a woman.

Simone isn’t just taking Michaela’s place. She’s inheriting her curse. The crown of public hatred, suspicion, and judgment. Peter cheats again and again and no one says a thing against him. No one points fingers at him. But Simone is already the next monster in line.

Devon’s story follows a similar arc. She never asked Raymond to chase after her, to travel to the island with her father. All she ever requested was that he look after her dad in her absence. But when things go south, Raymond explodes and calls her the monster. A man messes up and blames the woman closest to him. Because accountability seems to be a foreign word for him.

Sirens dares to ask why are women punished for being complex, while men get sympathy for being mediocre?

In one of the scenes, Michaela asks Simone if she even wants to marry Ethan. She tells her that those men think women like them need saving from men like them. They look at women like Simone, like Michaela, like Devon who’ve suffered, who’ve been abandoned, broken, bruised and they swoop in like saviors.

But they’re not offering love. They’re offering control. And by doing so, they erase the woman at the center of it.

But the women in Sirens see each other. They recognize the weight of grief in each other’s eyes. That’s what makes the ending so heartbreaking and so powerful.

Simone cries as Devon leaves because she knows she’s giving up a part of herself to survive. Michaela sees it too. She tells Devon on the boat that Simone is not a monster, and neither is she.

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