Note: This story contains spoilers from “Sirens” Episode 5.
After a chaotic and emotional weekend that shifted dynamics between Simone (Milly Alcock), Devon (Meghann Fahy) and Michaela (Julianne Moore), “Sirens” closed out its finale with a twist ending that didn’t see the sisters reunite after all.
In the finale, Simone quite literally replaces Michaela as the lady of the cliffside estate after Michaela’s husband, Peter, confesses his feelings for Simone and ends his marriage. Simone stays by Peter’s side while Devon leaves the island with their dad, Bruce (Bill Camp) in a twist ending that shocked Fahy.
“I didn’t see it coming — I was shocked by it, and then it ended up making sense,” Fahy told TheWrap. “The more I thought about it … that feels actually really true that at the end, Simone would choose to do absolutely whatever it takes to not have to go back to her life in Buffalo, and that Devon would make the opposite choice.”
For Simone, choosing to be with Peter is her “golden ticket,” according to Alcock, who said she felt sorry for Simone after learning of her fate. “I think that she loves Peter in a way, but I don’t think she’s in love with Peter,” Alcock said. “Ultimately, Simone, throughout this and throughout her whole life, just wants to be seen of value, and have safety and security and stability, as we all do as people.”
While the finale sees Simone and Peter meet on the beach in a dream-like haze, their conversation is cut off after Simone tells Peter she needs to tell him something — which she later reverses when recalling the conversation to Devon, instead saying that Peter stopped her and confessed his love to her.
“What else does she do? She moves back to Buffalo, she lives with her dad?” Alcock said, adding that Peter is the first man Simone has felt safe with in her life. “It’s not really a question for her.”
As Simone fills Devon in on the whirlwind of events that saw Simone rise from Michaela’s assistant to the new woman of the house, Devon tells Simone that she and their dad will be heading home to Buffalo, saying she’s finally letting Simone go. In an emotional exchange, the sisters agree to see each other in the city in the fall — a plan they both seem to understand won’t be fulfilled.
“I think that they both inherently knew that they couldn’t change one another, and that’s what is so heartbreaking. You can love someone to death, but you can’t live their life for them,” Alcock said.
Fahy noted that Devon comes to the realization the sisters would be parting ways before Simone does, and while that would’ve been a hard pill for Devon prior to the weekend, she forces herself to accept Simone’s wishes. “When Devon stops fighting Simone on it, I think that’s when Simone really realizes … “she’s not begging me to change her mind,” [and] I think that’s kind of the thing that makes her realize, “s–t, this is goodbye,’” Fahy said. “I think that’s a really, really sad thing for them both to come to terms with.”
While a different ending might’ve seen Simone ask Devon and Bruce to stay at the estate and live a comfortable life, Alcock said Simone knew Devon would turn down the offer. And Devon, likewise, knows Simone has no interest in coming home to Buffalo.
“As painful as it was to see both of these girls potentially lose each other again after everything they went through over the weekend, I did feel like it honored both of them in that way,” Fahy said.
The scene, which sees plenty of tears from the actresses, was the last one Fahy and Alcock filmed together, fueling the moment with extra emotions. “I was really surprised that they used that take actually,” Alcock said. “We were both just crying, because it was goodbye to these two characters — it was actually happening in real time. There was a great catharsis and a great sadness to it all ending.”
Simone then gets whisked away by Peter at the gala, Devon heads back to Buffalo with Bruce on the ferry — where she sees Michaela heading off the island as well. Devon sits down next to Michaela, apologizing to her for the murder and cult accusations.
“These two women … were at such odds with each other, and I think it’s a moment of them both sort of acknowledging that they got the other one a little bit wrong,” Fahy said, adding that while Devon identified more with Simone at the beginning of the trip, she and Michaela now see themselves in similar positions as they start from scratch. “When she leaves, she realizes, ‘Oh, maybe I was wrong about that, and maybe I was wrong about Kiki too. She’s not a monster, she’s not a bad person. She’s not that dissimilar from me.”
Devon asks if Simone will be OK with Peter, to which Michaela quickly replies, “No.” Devon simply nods, which Fahy said signifies an acceptance that she can’t protect Simone anymore.
While Fahy said Devon enters the weekend as a “self-destructive, even self-loathing woman who doesn’t really have a lot of hope for herself,” the weekend has profoundly changed her, with Fahy saying “when we leave her, she has faced herself in a way that she has previously not even been close to being able to do.”
After getting home, Fahy believes Devon will stay sober, quit working at the falafel restaurant and avoid seeing Ray and find her own place to live. “As unbelievably insane as the weekend has been for so many reasons, it does offer her a chance to be introspective … and realize that she is proud of herself for the way that she took care of Simone and helped her get through school and helped her get into college, and how hard she worked to make that happen out of pure love,” Fahy said. “The Devon we leave is someone who’s going back home with a better sense of self and more hope for her own future than she had at the beginning.”
As for Simone, Alcock said she achieves her goal of finding security for herself by ending her story with Peter, though Alcock said Simone finds the protection to ensure she doesn’t end up like Michaela.
“Simone is smart enough to know that if she wouldn’t do a prenup or anything,” Alcock said, noting that she’s learned from history’s mistakes. “It doesn’t really matter if Peter’s going to leave her — It’s more about the fact that she doesn’t have to go back to Buffalo … she can leave that life behind. I think that she knows that she’ll be OK, she’ll have enough money to be OK. She’ll get pregnant, so he’ll have a kid with her.”
Alcock predicts that Simone will start a family with Peter and work in the anthropology field while also looking after the estate, saying “She’ll have a hand in a few things — I think that she’ll help Peter run things, so that she knows what’s going on.”
Any loyalty to Michaela, however, has gone out the window for Simone, according to Alcock, who noted Simone will try her best not to think about Michaela, much like Michaela avoided chatter about Peter’s first wife. “I think that she feels a lot of guilt for what she’s done, because she’s not a monster,” Alcock said. “It’s a really uncomfortable place for her to revisit — it’s like a bad breakup, you don’t really want to think about it.”
Whereas Devon comes out of the weekend with a strong self of sense, Alcock notes Simone’s shaky sense of self instead unravels over the course of the weekend.
“I don’t think that Simone knows who she is,” Alcock said. “That’s the saddest thing about her, she’s chronically performing to fit into whoever somebody needs her to be. She’s playing this part [and] she’s so desperate for everyone to believe it.”
“Sirens” is now streaming on Netflix.
The post ‘Sirens’ Stars Meghann Fahy and Milly Alcock Break Down That Twist Ending, Predict Devon and Simone’s Future appeared first on TheWrap.