It may seem redundant for Netflix to order a second series in which a deeply flawed character played by Meghann Fahy is intimidated by a wealthy woman on an idyllic New England island. From an audience development standpoint, perhaps it is. But the limited series “Sirens” is funny, surreal and yet ultimately grounded in emotion enough to put “The Perfect Couple” out of mind entirely by the time the credits roll on this satisfying summer escapade. “Sirens” has a strange cocktail of tones that doesn’t always go down smoothly. Like the mythological creatures that give the show its name, though, “Sirens” — especially the core trio of exceptional actors — exerts a captivating pull that lures you in and keeps you there for its fast-moving five episodes.
“Sirens” is also the emergency code word between sisters Devon (Fahy) and Simone (Milly Alcock), now living separately after enduring unimaginable trauma in their youth. When Devon’s distress signals go unanswered apart from an extravagant Edible Arrangement, she snaps and tracks her younger sibling down to the palatial estate known as Cliff House. That’s where Simone lives and works as the slavishly devoted personal assistant to Michaela Kell (Julianne Moore), a corporate lawyer turned socialite and bird conservationist whose close friends may call her “Kiki.”
Created by playwright Molly Smith Metzler, “Sirens” is technically a follow-up to “Maid,” the memoir adaptation starring Margaret Qualley that became a major streaming hit in 2021. Qualley and Fahy’s protagonists do share a certain profile: they’re both young women whose hardscrabble backgrounds and streaks of bad luck have left them ill-equipped to navigate the genteel enclaves they stumble into. But where “Maid” was meticulously rooted in the everyday grind of American poverty, “Sirens” — adapted from Metzler’s own play “Elemeno Pea,” first written nearly 15 years ago — has a fantastical feel that separates it not just from the creator’s previous show, but from the countless series about extreme wealth and class divides that have sprung up in the wake of “Big Little Lies” and “The White Lotus,” on which Fahy also appeared.
When Devon boards the ferry bound for her sister’s place of employment, a fictional island clearly meant to evoke moneyed havens like Martha’s Vineyard, she’s surrounded by such a ubiquitous uniform of Lilly Pulitzer pastels that the effect is Stepford-esque. The Cliff House where she confronts Simone isn’t just a mansion; it’s a clapboard castle, with its own lighthouse and long, teetering staircase down to the beach. And Michaela herself has a magnetism that seems to go beyond wealth or charisma, leading her acolytes in chants of Rachel Carson quotes and exerting total control over Simone’s life, down to who she dates. Devon minces no words in promptly labeling this arrangement a cult.
This dreamy atmosphere gives both a hint of the supernatural and a mood for the brash, all-black-wearing Devon to stomp all over in combat boots en route to telling Simone she’s “dressed like a doily.” While Simone has run away from their problems and into Michaela’s smothering, codependent embrace — the two of them jointly compose a sext to the older woman’s distant hedge-funder husband, Peter (Kevin Bacon) — Devon is stuck at home in Buffalo, caring for their widowed father Bruce (Bill Camp) as he falls victim to dementia. Devon had previously dropped out of college to care for her sister when Bruce’s chronic neglect landed Simone in foster care, a knotty history that’s created layers of resentment and obligation that have only compounded over the decades.
Fahy is playing ever-so-slightly against type here. The performer’s previous high-profile roles, like a magazine staffer on “The Bold Type” or a contented trophy wife on “The White Lotus,” are largely women who felt at ease in luxury environs. When Devon essentially goes undercover as a Michaela disciple to keep an eye on Simone, Fahy gets to embody a friction between her character’s actual and feigned personalities that’s delightful to watch. Alcock, the Australian up-and-comer who broke out on “House of the Dragon,” shows the cracks that start to form in Simone’s uptight, athleisure-outfitted facade. You can tell when Simone’s blunter, sharper, more natural self starts to poke through in response to Devon’s provocations, and the scenes where the two trade accusations of abandonment have all the harsh reality the rest of Michaela’s bubble lacks. “She makes me sad, Kiki,” Simone tells her boss, by way of explaining why she’s never mentioned her sister. “I don’t want to be sad here.”
Both actors hold their own against Moore, a living legend whose previous TV turns — the Stephen King adaptation “Lisey’s Story” and the acerbic costume drama “Mary & George” — haven’t attained the audience her stature deserves. The reach of Netflix and conspicuous consumption, however absurdist, on display in “Sirens” give Moore her strongest chance yet at a spotlight akin to that of her peers Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon, both of whom have embraced the small screen in recent years. Moore was outrageously snubbed for her role in 2023’s “May December,” and with “Sirens,” she takes a second crack at a woman fiercely defensive of her seemingly idyllic yet scandal-ridden life. (Peter met Michaela while still married to his first wife, whose disappearance is the subject of local gossip.)
There’s nonetheless a difference between vibey vagueness that creates an air of foreboding mystique and fuzziness that obscures key aspects of character and story. “Sirens” has a precise read on Michaela’s relationship with each sister, no matter how uncategorizable. Her extreme closeness with Simone, whose bed she sometimes sleeps in, is all the more unsettling for not being sexual; her face-offs with Devon crackle with animosity and insecurity on both sides. But Peter, and therefore Michaela’s marriage to him, never quite comes into focus. His casual, laid-back demeanor never tracks for a titan of industry; it’s clearly meant to lull the viewer, along with Devon and Simone, into a false sense of security, but misdirection doesn’t work if it’s not convincing in the first place. To the tricky endeavor of gradually developing Michaela from a witchlike antagonist into an actual person, her husband proves a hindrance.
At times, “Sirens” can break its own spell. A running joke about the house staff complaining about Simone’s control-freak tendencies in a group chat verges on the cartoonish, especially since the Kells’ domestic employees — like chef Patrice (Lauren Weedman) and house manager Jose (Felix Solis) — are largely comic figures, without Simone’s emotional complexity. And the Kells’ characterization issues take a cumulative toll, with the series’ conclusion landing with less force than it might have if the couple made more sense as people, the way Devon and Simone do. As a whole, “Sirens” simply has too many tonal switchbacks for all of them to work, even if the ones that land create a unique and thrillingly unpredictable energy. Viewers will nonetheless find themselves under the series’ hypnotic hold. A siren’s song doesn’t have to be note-perfect to get stuck in your head.
All five episodes of “Sirens” are now streaming on Netflix.
