Siren’s Rena Owen tells what’s ahead for Helen in Season 2

Siren star Rena Owen spoke to Hidden Remote about where Helen goes now that her heritage has been revealed, and what else Siren Season 2 has to offer.

Siren Season 2 has arrived, and the Freeform series hasn’t wasted any time in ratcheting up the tension and suspense in Bristol Cove. Last week’s season premiere was exciting, so what comes next?

Rena Owen, who portrays Helen Hawkins, connected with Hidden Remote to discuss where her character heads now that she opened up to more people about her connection to the merfolk in the first season finale.

She also spoke about how shooting Siren compares to her other roles in the sci-fi and fantasy world, and what other massive franchise she almost appeared in. Learn more about both Rena and Helen in our interview below, then watch a new episode of Siren tonight at 8 p.m.

Hidden Remote: The first season of Siren ended with Helen opening up to Ben and Maddie, but there were clues about her past all along. So did you always know her history?

Rena Owen: It actually goes right back to the pilot. It’s the moment where there’s instant mer-recognition, as we’ve come to call it, between Helen and Ryn (Eline Powell)—and quite a few fans picked up on that. They went oh, it takes one to know one.

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The fact that she had this mermaid shop full of antiquities, she had disdain and distaste for the mermaid ways, the conversation she had with Ben (Alex Roe) about Ben’s ancestors, and that really poignant moment of instant recognition with Ryn, I said to our creators, Helen’s got to be part mermaid or knows something about this whole mermaid world because of how the pilot was written. And they said yeah, she is part mermaid. I didn’t know how it would eventually be revealed.

It wasn’t such a big surprise because some people did pick up on it in the pilot. And then that scene with Ryn, when I’m putting ointment on her scales, she sniffs out mine and reveals that I’ve got scale things going on, on my leg.

Then in episode 5, I tell Donna (Sibongile Mlambo) she can trust me and that I can help her because I’m one of them. The big reveal was to Ben and Maddie (Fola Evans-Akingbola) and to audience people that didn’t pick up on it, but a lot of fans did pick up on it.

HR: Does Helen’s history continue to be part of the story in Siren Season 2? Or is this season more about what happens now for her?

RO: There’s definitely something in the future, and it’s fascinating and it’s a great storyline. It’s also news to Helen. She starts to find out stuff she did not know about her background and it’s a really interesting, really juicy backstory. It brings a whole lot of new characters into our season too, and I think the audience is really going to like it because they’re going to be discovering all this newness along with Helen.

A bunch of new merpeople show up, and we have to do a lot of mermaid wrangling and taking care of the mermaids, and Helen gets a storyline that takes her in another direction and it’s very juicy.

HR: How have you enjoyed getting to do the second season and explore the world of Siren after all that mythology and backstory was set up in Season 1?

RO: It’s great. We all love our characters; we’re all really well cast. You just look at Eline and it’s almost like she was born to play Ryn, and I’m very well suited to Helen, and Alex to Ben, Fola to Maddie and Ian [Verdun] to Xander. It’s just like getting back and having a family reunion.

There’s so much potential and so many stories to be found in this whole new world, and we’re discovering these stories along with the audience, which is pretty cool. It would be a shame to not do Season 3 because Season 2 is a really important season. It’s when shows can live or die, and either they add on to them from the first season or they kind of fizzle out.

But I think [Siren] Season 2 opened so many more doors and it creates more questions. You get a lot of answers, but it also creates a whole lot of new questions.

HR: You’re no stranger to fantasy and science fiction. Last season you played Heveena on The Orville in the episode “About A Girl.” Is there anything in common between those two shows or characters?

OR: What they have in common—which I think any good series does—is the human condition. Humanity. It’s all about humanity. Seth [MacFarlane] is very outspoken about his views, and he puts his views into his characters and into the dialogue. Siren, our writers too, you can see that its a little metaphor for what’s going on in the world right now. Both like to explore and try to expand and better humanity.

This is happening a lot in Siren and it’s one of the things I’ve always respected about the show. It was based on a real environmental issue, where big commercial fishing is stripping the seabeds of all food, which is forcing deep sea creatures to swim closer to the surface to find food. That’s when Donna gets caught in the net and that’s what starts the whole story; that’s what brings Ryn to land. And this is continuing in season 2, where they’re starving. There’s not enough food so they’re having to come to land.

Orville also addresses real-life things that are going on in the world, whether it’s starvation or what’s going on politically. But their stories are happening out in space and ours are happening under the water. Another huge difference between them is our show is a young adult show. We have those elements of environmental issues and such but we still have that Romeo and Juliet kind of love story going on.

HR: You’ve also appeared several times in the Star Wars franchise and guest starred on Angel. Is there any other sci-fi or fantasy universe you’d like to explore, outside of Siren?

RO: I could have done Avatar, but I had already signed a contract for Siren. I’m hoping in the future I might still be able to do something on Avatar. In the meanwhile, during our hiatus, I work for the same network [Freeform] that has the Marvel universe.

Wouldn’t that be very cool? Who wouldn’t want to be in a comic book franchise? James Bond is another one on the list.

Siren airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on Freeform. For more on Siren and other Freeform series, follow the Freeform category at Hidden Remote.