Considering Sirens is still the No. 1 TV show on the 2025 TV schedule, at least for those streaming with a Netflix subscription, I’m guessing I’m not the only one with a lot of questions about the thriller. One detail you might have noticed is all the women on the fictional island of Port Haven wear the same kind of necklaces.
What’s up with those? Well, I looked into it, and as it turns out the show’s creator Molly Smith Metzler, based on her 2011 play, “Elemeno Pea”, had a very specific reason why they are wearing them. When she spoke with Variety, the journalist asked if the lockets are “full of drugs” or something of that sort. Here’s how Metzler replied:
So, the locket — no, there’s no drugs, but the lockets are a real thing in Nantucket Island. It’s something you can only buy in Nantucket, they’re called basket necklaces, and they usually have ivory from Wales in them. But they’re very expensive, they’re handmade, and everyone in Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard is wearing them.
It’s not a stretch that Sirens would be inspired by wealthy New England beachside communities like Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. As the creator shares, the lockets worn by most of the women in Port Haven are pulled directly from the fashion sense of two similar islands in Massachusetts, and it plays right into the creepy aesthetic of the series itself. As she continued:
It’s a status symbol. You’re not in the club if you don’t have one. Carolyn Duncan made that happen, made all of them happen. It’s a great symbol of having arrived. You have the key, you have the necklace, but it’s a little culty. It’s a little like wearing a cross, like a religion. You know something that everyone else doesn’t.
While there’s clearly some theories ablaze about the lockets being more than just fashion statements, the show’s creator has put that to rest. Perhaps what’s more terrifying is that this “culty” mentality is very much at play in Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard rather than it being made up for the show without any truth behind it.
Molly Smith Metzler is also right about the basket necklaces being expensive. I found one online from Chatham Jewelers for $1,200!
The series creator has also talked about the backstory behind “hey, hey”, which is also inspired by her summers in Martha’s Vineyard where she worked at a yacht club and noticed women would pick up on “each other’s way of saying things.” along with the same expensive necklace to show “status” and an unspoken unity within their ingroup.
It’s details like the lockets that make Sirens one of the best shows to binge-watch on Netflix right now. I knew I was hooked as soon as I saw Milly Alcock’s Simone and Julianne Moore’s Michaela sharing gum (which they really did on set by the way) in episode one. It pulled me in to this fictional community where Simone is so close with her billionaire boss that she’s swapping spit and helping her own with sexts with her husband.
Sure, I definitely was left furious at one character in particular and ruminating on if I want the ending’s loose ends to be tied up, but after learning about the creator’s real-life inspirations, I’m clutching my jewelry a little tighter thinking about the real messages the TV show cleverly touched upon.
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