As evidenced by the storyline, it appears that every fifty years, one or more young girls are "called" in a way to one of the sea caves.
While the show features a threesome from the early twenty-first century, the same moon pool produced called three others back in the 1950's. Interestingly, the previous three parallel the modern three.
Certain gifts are imbued to each of them for manipulating water, and with phenomenally high power. Cleo can move, shape, and manipulate water. Emma can flash-freeze water. And Rikki can flash-boil water.
Their moon pool on Mako Island transformed the three of them together, as it had done so fifty years earlier with Gracie, Louise, and Julia, and so depended on having a threesome. When Emma was away from home for an extended time, Isabella was brought in to complete the threesome. She had become a mermaid individually at the age of nine at a different sea cave on the Irish coast. Even that area had a three hundred year old mermaid legend. Isabella's gift is to gel and harden water.
Gracie had a boyfriend Max who was deeply fond of her. He explored the island and discovered the three of them in the moon pool. The others were a bit frightened that the secret was broken, but Gracie was relieved that she didn't have to hide from Max anymore. And Max proved to a loyal friend of the three of them.
Julia had in mind to break her secret to her boyfriend Carl, with whom Gracie and Louise eyed with some suspicion. Despite his good looks, they didn't trust Carl. They warned Julia, but she rebelled, saying "Friends don't give friends ultimatums." When Julia confessed all, Carl rejected her. Then a few months later, invited Julia to prove her claim. When she did, he had a camera ready and sought to expose her publicly. Fortunately, Gracie and Louise were nearby and managed to destroy the pictures. But Julia never quite got over the betrayal.
It took time, and they rebuilt their friendship.
But Gracie found the mermaid gift too difficult to live with. Max tried the best he could to show his devotion to Gracie, but perhaps it was the Julia betrayal that pushed her to the edge. Max did some silversmithing, and had a bright idea. He made three matching lockets for them, hoping that it would help Gracie to embrace what she had become.
Louise thought the lockets were a wonderful idea, and used them as a token to covenant their friendship and keep the secret. Gracie accepted her locket for a time, but became increasingly tormented with the thought that she was no longer human.
Gracie enjoyed a bit of a modelling career and was desperate to free herself from the mermaid curse. Before Max, she threw her locket in the moon pool and drove Max away.
The three of them had evidently discovered that taking a dip in the moon pool under a lunar eclipse would suspend the mermaid effect temporarily, until the following day. When a rare planetary alignment came up behind the full moon, Gracie took a chance and jumped in the moon pool. And there she found herself free of the mermaid effect permanently.
Gracie never saw Max again, but she married and had a family, and found recluse telling her own daughter Annette, and later granddaughter Charlotte bedtime stories about mermaids.
Louise and Julia went on with their lives. Louise married and bought a houseboat with her husband. Gracie passed away as a young grandmother of 55 in the mid-nineties. Louise, now a widow, wondered if she would see mermaids again. She stayed on her lonely houseboat, the Lorelei watching Gold Coast. Perhaps she had some knowledge that it would be fifty years from when she became a mermaid. And she wondered how Julia was doing, having not heard from her in some time.
Then one day, when she was 65 years old, Louise noticed an interesting 15-year-old girl selling ice cream at the local Marine Park. Then she noticed that this girl was wearing Gracie's locket! (Emma had found it in the bottom of the moon pool, kept it for a time, and given it to Cleo.) Louise initiated conversation with Cleo, keeping herself a bit mysterious at first.
Louise remembered that when the mermaid effect was fresh, the full moon would play havoc with their powers and cause one or more of them develop a 12 hour "moon fever" and go all "gaga". While Louise had not formally met all three, Cleo was mystified as to how this strange "old woman" knew them so well, and even the names of Emma and Rikki.
Louise tried to warn Cleo about the full moon. If the three new mermaids matched one to one to Louise's group, then Rikki would match Julia's ability to boil water and become a firestarter if she developed moon fever. Louise warned Cleo that Rikki had the most dangerous power of all.
Still, Cleo had trouble comprehending, and one by one, Emma, Cleo, and Rikki discovered what the moon fever could do.
But Louise found herself growing old. She had a weak heart. And her houseboat had become equally worn out. The hull was almost rusted through in places. And she had fallen into debt with mooring fees. The boat was deemed unseaworthy and was being impounded. Emma properly met Louise around this time and tried to help by temporarily boarding Louise at her own home.
Louise had pictures of herself, Gracie and Julia as mermaids, along with her own precious locket that she so deeply treasured. Fearing her boat would be taken and the contents discovered, she desperately tried to take it out to sea. But she had twice damaged Zane Bennett's jet ski, who had heard her say the word "treasure" and was determined to get some compensation.
When Emma discovered in the morning that Louise had left, and her boat was gone, she persuaded Cleo's boyfriend Lewis, the only other outsider who knew their secret, to try looking for Louise's boat at sea. Zane was also trying to catch up.
The Lorelei ran poorly, and was in grave danger of sinking. Zane arrived first, and demanded payment. Louise, was frightened that her critical evidence might be discovered, and she suffered a mild heart attack and collapsed just before Emma arrived with Lewis. As they left to take Louise to a hospital on shore, Zane determined to stay behind with his own boat, hoping to search for the "treasure". But the Lorelei was unstable and began to sink. Zane found himself trapped inside. When Emma saw an explosion on the boat, she left Lewis to take care of Louise and dove in, knowing that Zane could actually drown. Emma saw the boat go down with Zane trapped inside, and she chanced a mermaid rescue, of which Zane caught a glimpse before passing out.
Louise recovered and was able to find a home at a senior's complex.
Later, Emma did a dive on the sunken houseboat and recovered all of the secret pictures, and Louise's locket. Then Louise reviewed all of the pictures for Emma, Cleo, and Rikki.
One day, Rikki happened to notice a matching locket in a jewelery story window. It was being sold as an estate piece. She couldn't afford to buy the locket at the time but did take some pictures of it. Zane was thinking to buy it for Rikki, but his former girlfriend Miriam bought it deliberately to spite Rikki. When Louise saw the pictures, she recognized it as Julia's locket, and since it was being sold as an estate piece, she concluded that Julia had passed away. When Miriam discovered that she could never have Zane, she angrily threw the locket in the cove. Zane recovered it from the water and gave it to Rikki.
Upon holding the locket, Louise gave it back to Rikki. And on realizing that the three lockets could now be together again, she took off her own locket and gave it to Emma, hoping that once again, the three lockets would symbolize the covenant to keep the secret.
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