Ben continues to experiment on himself with aquatic stem cells. He’s noticing dramatic changes in his physiology, including sharpened senses, accelerated healing, increased endurance, and the ability to hold his breath underwater for extended periods of time. He began the experiment to help his mom, who was making progress on the same treatment before her supplier was killed by Tia. But there is an edge Ben’s usage now… he appears to be addicted to the way the treatments make him feel, and that could be dangerous. But danger is exciting, as is the potential for Ben to shift into a less wholesome, more self-serving, morally gray person. We’ve seen Ben be the hero, or choose the lesser evil, or do things for the “greater good,” a switch up could be fun.
Maddie—who is grown and only asked Ben about renting the space out of courtesy, since Ben is neither her boss nor her father—shrugged off his rejection, and brought Rob to the marine center warehouse anyway. Rob immediately notices a foul smell (that Maddie is apparently noseblind to), and when they find the freezer it’s coming out of, they open it to discover a body. Ben will have a lot to explain, and if Rob takes a deeper look, Maddie will too. Ben and Maddie have a shared secret, and personal history that complicates every interaction they have with each other and with people who enter their lives. They are a powder keg, and Rob might just be a Molotov cocktail.
Ted, like Xander at the beginning, does not see it for mermaids at all. He’s still processing the reality of their existence, and his increasing agitation with them seems to be leading him down a dark path. He asks Helen to tell him more about them, where they are, and their numbers, and she refuses. She is, after all, the descendant of a mermaid his ancestor slaughtered. And he, like the Pownall of town legend, has the resources to bring great harm to Bristol Cove’s population of mermaids. I can see him setting the whole coast on fire if it meant he could exert even a modicum of control where mermaids are concerned, because they make him feel powerless.
Ted might just provide Tia with justification for whatever horror she plans to visit on the town, and the villain of this season could be tricky to identify. Tia is intriguing because she’s not exactly wrong, and you have to concede to several of her points. But Ted also has real reasons to feel the way he does about merfolk, and even if he ends up going too far, there will be some amount of justification to his behavior. In either case, they wouldn’t be right, but they wouldn’t necessarily be wrong, and I hope the writing explores those nuances.
While Ryn and Maddie are out shopping for the baby, and stumbling into a mommy and me class, Levi and Ryn’s former mer-mate resurface to claim the baby, as is their way. Ryn struggles to let her go, but recognizes the need for Baby to live in the water, and to learn to hunt and fight. Ryn decided to call Baby Hope, as she’s the hope of their people (and their species). Ryn has spent so much time on land, and she wants to keep Hope close, which is a human instinct. Parenting looks different to her kind, and though she keeps with the tradition by letting Hope go, she has a new frame of reference for what motherhood is, and coping with that may be difficult, especially when things are so uncertain.