NOOOOOOOOOOOOO GRACE!!!! She can’t be dead dead right? Surely? I know she was really not in good condition last week, but frankly it would be super anti-climatic if she dies off like this. There’s so many things that we want to hear from her, and not second-hand. I fear though because she did tell Mari this was goodbye, so in a sense it did appear that she knew her time was running out. Ughhhh I hate thissssss! Please be okay Grace! I don’t want this to be the last we see her…
Needless to say, it is god awful timing because with Grace’s magic worn off, Rowan’s awake now and he’s stirring all sorts of trouble. Even Lara’s thinking, ‘What is he saying?! He’s mad!’ She’s in a terrible situation now that she’s in her family’s clutches, because they don’t want her to make any contact with Humans, unless it’s for the sole purpose to kill the one she love.
And while Rowan had a touching start with ‘entrusting his light’ to Lara in the beginning of the show, as time went on and the more we learned about Lara’s powers, he had increasingly became a very suspicious character. And sure enough, he has proven he’s not trust worthy, let alone sane. It’s terrible what he (and Lisa) are doing to Lara right now. It’s clear her feelings do not matter to them. But Rowan in particular is completely ignoring the despair and horror that Lara feels about her power. She tells him it’s a cursed thing that does nothing but hurt others, but Rowan doesn’t even bat an eye. In fact it’s so bad, that because Rowan cannot accept the very notion that Lara’s true love is a Human, that he’s exploiting the her failure to find mutual love, and straight up tells her to just kill her beloved. He’s so blinded by his hatred and disgust towards Humans, that he fails to see how much his words and instructions are hurting Lara, BECAUSE LIKE HELL SHE CAN KILL THE ONE SHE LOVES! HE’S ASKING FOR THE IMPOSSIBLE! Seriously the audacity of instead of encouraging her to find mutual true love with a Human, they insist the best way to resolve this is to kill. Talk about peak hypocrisy! They are acting like the very wretched beings they hate with all their heart! This is so messed up!
Bearing all of this in mind, Rowan’s actions raises additional questions to the kind of magic Grace had cast on the surviving Merfolks. Was Rowan and the others put in the coma state really to preserve their lives, or to simply keep them out of the way? If not one or the other, both could very well be true.
We know Humans have done terrible things to Mermaids, case in point with Lisa’s horrific abuse and trauma she was put through. But I can’t help but find it awfully suspicious how Rowan is only telling Lara now that Humans were the ones to blame for her mother’s (Rigmor) death. Up until this point, we didn’t know what happened to her. All we knew is that she was the one who had provided the light for them all, and today they just drop the bomb on us that she had been murdered by Humans.
And you know what’s especially terrible about the timing of this? I can’t help but have doubts about it. Obviously if true this is a terrible thing, and could very well by the root cause as to why Rowan bears such resentment against Humanity… But what makes me hesitant to believe him is because the timing to drop this reveal just comes off as a manipulative tactic to press for Lara to turn against Humans. And if that isn’t enough, there’s also Grace to factor in here. As far as we’re concerned, Grace cares about Humans, that’s why she had warned Mari about what’s at stake for Lara finding true love, and had protected her from harms way. And if the OP sequence has any indication to the backstory that yet to be told, in the distant past, Grace had loved a Human too. So you could say Grace and Rowan are each other’s foil. Both of them are pursuing Lara’s light, but one is encouraging to pursue that true love and the other is advising to kill that love.
We did get another piece of crucially important information about why the dagger wanted The Prince’s soul at the time. Rowan claims it’s because it seeks purification through blood and consumption of that person’s soul. That’s why her heart turned into a blade. Once that’s fulfilled, her blade should return to it’s form of light.
Apart from that shitstorm, they made it pretty clear this week to put all doubts to rest that Lara’s true love is Mari, and she now knows it. And this episode really proved why that is. Mari hasn’t put the word to it, but she loves both Lara and Grace dearly, she had expressed how lonely and heartbroken she is in their absence. That’s why she never gave up searching, even if it meant skipping four days of classes. Her convictions to find Lara was also much stronger than Luca, who had been earnestly looking with her from the start, but there came a point where he got freaked out by all the supernatural stuff that’s happening to the lake. Things like white flowers drifting around Okishima Island, sudden increase of algae in the waters, and incredibly witnessing the white flower actually give birth to aquatic creatures. I mean it’s understandably why Luca freaked out when he saw that, whereas Mari wouldn’t have blinked (especially given how she had reacted when she saw Grace’s true monstrous form). However the important thing that set them apart was that even if it was just for one night, he got cold-feet. He started expressing frustrating about Lara being a part of this whole mess, and was resolved to report her as a missing person to the police. It’s good that he got his shit together the following day, but still, it shows the key difference between the two. Lara needs someone with steeled resolve, and Luca doesn’t have that.
Last but not least, we have to hand it to Mari’s brother for his connections and actually coming to the rescue when they all need it most. For over a month, both Mari and Luca have had no luck whatsoever in getting a boat to reach Okishima Island, and then lo and behold, Yoshiya was able to borrow one from a friend. There’s a catch though: One, it’s super tiny and two, he has to be part of the rescue mission as their escort. However it seems the universe has other plans as just as Mari got on board, Grace’s surviving aid showed up to say,”What took you so long?” and dragged her into the sea. She’ll certainly get a shortcut to wherever Lara’s at– though I’m a little concerned about how she’s supposed to breathe like this? I wonder what trick they have up their sleeve for this situation.
It goes without saying this episode was insane. So much had happened so fast, that I’m still reeling by how abrupt Grace had seemingly died on us (hopefully not!). And Poor Lara, no wonder she’s trying to warn Mari not to find her. She’s doing all that she can to protect her in the only way she knows how to at the moment! Unfortunately for her, we have a stubborn bunch of trio here, but Mari should be fast-tracked to where she’s at, and the boys will have to take the long way by boat. My hope for next week though is that we’ll finally get Grace’s backstory, because regardless whether she comes back or not, I’m starving for it!
It also important to note for the past two episodes, they’ve been continuously hinting about an awakening of one other mermaid. Last week we saw someone looking out from a shell that had been opening, this time, Lara thought she had head someone. We don’t know who it is yet, but it’ll be interesting to see how they might change the tide.
