r/MakoMermaids

When they revised the story after season 1 due to absence of Nixie and Lyla, a lot of plot points ended up going nowhere. One of these is Rita's mysterious past. What actually happened with Harry? How did he die? Character description in now-defunct website states that when they found out that Rita is seeing a landboy, she became a pariah. She then ran away to the land. In season 1, the pod council was definitely planned to be a much more strict and remorseless entity, compared to more approachable and reasonable portrayal of Veridia. What if pod council killed Harry? What if Veridia herself killed Harry to keep the secret? Season 1 workdbuilding definitely had higher stakes, so I can see dark things being planned for the initial plot. There also was an implied parallel between Rita and Sirena, they both fell in love with a land boy. David's character description sounds like he would question things and maybe even find out. Maybe Sirena would have to make a choice to protect David from Harry's destiny. I see also a parallel between Nixie-Sirena and Veridia-Rita. Rita left her best friend to live on land with her loved one. I can see Nixie also being upset tp find out that Sirena wants to stay on land.

In season 2, they carried that conflict to Mimmi-Ondina-Eric instead. However, it doesn't really go anywhere. Rita just counsels Ondina once. Then Ondina doesn't have to make a choice anymore because Eric turns out to be an insufferable idiot who almost genocides his loved one's race just because of his curiosity. In the same epsiode where Rita counsels Oninda (S2 Ep22, Last Dance) they never talk about Sirena's future with or without David. Sirena would also have to make a choice between her pod and David, but the whole episode she acts like an emotional support for others, without her own problems instead. Maybe they wanted to make sure that the audience doesn't recall/expect abandoned plot points from season 1.

What are your theories?

It is obvious that after actresses of Nixie and Lyla left the show, they rewrote the story in many ways and rellaced a lot of planned plots. I was thinking what could be the original plans for season 2. Then it occured to me, a lot of people here seem to think that Evie was originally going to be a lot more Charlotte-esque than she ended up being. Had Lyla and Zac eventually ended up falling for each other Evie could get a lot uglier and do threatening things, just remember how invasive she was interviewing Rita in that S1 episode. What if she would later end up turning herself into a mermaid to compete with them? And just like how Charlotte turned out to have mermaid ancestry, Evie could turn out to be a sea-born mermaid to mirror that! Think about it, Zac and Mimmi do not look anything alike. That plot seems to be a retcon for season 2. Zac does actually look like his land-person parents, so s1 casting was done without that plot in mind. Nixie and Evie however, do look alike somewhat. (In fact Mimmi and Evie also look alike somewhat, maybe they planned to go with that before deciding on keeping the focus on Zac. Without a romance with Lyla, he would be fall out of spotlight if Evie was the "special one"). Evie could turn out to be the sibling of Nixie who got adopted to a land-family instead. Think about Nixie-Evie interactions. The scene where they fight over a shoe and get evie banned from the shop. Wouldn't it make more narrative sense to have Evie fight with Lyla, as they would later fight with Zac? Then in the episode where Sirena makes seashell accesories, Nixie negotiates price to sell them with Evie. Narrative just seems to want to have Evie and Nixie interact, dare I say, in a sibling-rivalry manner. Nixie was also said to be interested in/studying land people for a long time. It would have satisfied the plot point if she turned out to have a land person as her sibling. Was she unconsciously looking for her sister all that time? What do you think? Am I reading too much into it?