Maura is a false antagonist in the 2017 film Deep. She's first introduced ambushing the film's protagonist, Deep, with the intention of eating him but becomes a member of the team with a brief moment of betrayal in the hopes of saving the lives of her friends.
Biography[]
Background[]
Maura, unlike Deep, Evo, and Alice was hatched outside the colony in the dangerous waters of a post cataclysmic Earth. Not much is said of her life before meeting the group though she's stated that she's never had a friend, doesn't like to know the names of those she eats (stating that such ruins the moment for her), says she's not into eating lantern fish, and likes to have her tummy rubbed. She also learned of the City of Man enough to know that journeying to it is dangerous and to have heard that Humans where really smart. She was also informed in the past that friends lookout for one another and don't eat each other though she herself never had any friends. At some point before she met Deep, Alice, and Evo Maura came to reside at Steel Mountain or perhaps she is native to that area where she took up residency in a tire.
Deep[]
Maura first spotted Deep from her tire home and looked upon him with a concerned (if not conflicted) and surprised expression before going with her gut, having by that point been without food and social contact for what she states feels like years, coils around him intent on eating the new comer. But when Deep mentions that he has friends her resolve started to weaken and before she even caught sight of the friends Deep mentioned she released him from her coils and returns to her tire crying over her loneliness. When Deep, to the shock of Evo and Alice, suggests that they can be friends Maura informs him that since she wants to eat him that's problematic. Maura begins talking to herself attempting to resolve her conflicting desires; food for her hunger or company for her loneliness.
While she's having a conversation with herself Evo, Alice, and Deep consider leaving while she's distracted and she pulls herself together to introduce herself by name and in turn receive their names. After telling her they are traveling to the City of Man the three start to leave fearing for their lives. Maura cuts them off suggesting that as the journey is dangerous she can provide protection from predators. When Alice states that Maura is a predator Maura informs them that she can protect them from worse predators and promises she will not eat them 100%. After the trio have a frantic dispute over accepting, one ending with Deep approving her offer, she is most thankful and quietly recites to herself as they travel that friends don't eat friends.
Still feeling hunger pains Maura becomes distracted and swims into Evo resulting in a discussion where she assures him that she doesn't find him appetizing due to how she's certain she'd glow where she to eat him. She then agitated by Deep's lack of listening to the group jokes about having him for dinner to Evo and Alice. That night, after they finally get some rest Maura in a fashion befitting her Moray Eel species- swallows the three in her sleep but Alice clawing at Maura's throat on the way down causes Maura to wake up and realize what she's done. Initially in a panic Maura finds difficulty bringing them back up her esophagus but after getting them to help her calm down she manages to get Alice and Deep out and with their help gets Evo out as well. Alice and Evo do not forgive her though Deep in the interest of preventing Maura from becoming openly hostile from the hostility of the other two does.
This incident doesn't leave the groups memory nor her own and she continues to follow them still on an empty stomach. When they are ambushed by a multitude of crabs she sees they are too many for her to take on and eventually gets swept into the dance battle that happens only because Deep managed to get the crab's leader from wanting to kill them to being open to some arrangement where they could pass in exchange for entertaining him. Only in the City of Man does she finally get to eat though it's not what she thinks it is. In the ruins of New York Alice and Evo find a 12 inch action figure of a diver and they find it disturbing but suggest it's a Human. Maura quickly moves in to investigate and after toying with it for a bit swallows the figure proclaiming it not very impressive nor tasty.
This action latter seems to come back to bite her when the group finds it's self in close space surrounded by mannequins in diving suits. Alice quickly comes to the conclusion that Maura ate a baby Human and that the Humans have come to punish them. Maura has the same impression and angerly prepares to defend herself while trying to get Alice to be quite in the hopes they can get past the 'Humans' without them knowing what she's done. But that plan of hers fall apart when Deep apologizes on the groups behalf much to Maura's fearful shock. Though the Humans are fake a chain reaction caused by Deep putting his tentacle on one causes a multitude of crossbow bolts to fly.
After Deep again puts her life in danger, this time by going to an area the group was warned not to go to- resulting an an attack by 'Zombie Fish' brought about by nuclear waste she and her friends get pulled into a powerful current to the waters near Greenland. Alice and Evo finally bring up their grips about Deep's leadership to Deep and Maura chimes in with her own, in regards to how he doesn't listen to anyone else, getting angry enough to state that she should have eaten him when they first met and that they are through being friends as she turns to swim away. But this departure is averted by the arrival of three strangers- a Penguin, a Dolphin, and Walrus.
They invite them on board the Ark-3; a space ship they crew and she's shown where the protein pellet dispenser is before she and the others are shown a video of the Ark Project where she and those she's been traveling with finally see an actual Human. Enough to realize that they hadn't actually encountered Humans before. Darcy, the Penguin, convinces Maura to help him cryogenically freeze Alice, Evo, and Deep so they can escape to New Earth. She can see that he's likely correct in that the group wouldn't listen to reason- especially Deep- and thus try to return to the doomed colony they come from. She tricks them into being captured and joins the crew, taking a place on the bridge during the final hour before launch. However after being seen communicating with Deep Darcy's paranoia kicks in and he tries to eliminate her after he allowed the group to escape which is something they where asking Maura to do.
When she's saved by Deep, Evo, and Alice she helps them attempt to stop the launch and failing that gets ejected along with the other crew and subjects of the ship into Earth's oceans leaving the vessel with only it's autopilot and no cargo. After going to Deep's home colony and helping to save it from destruction she starts a breeding program using the now unfrozen subjects from Ark-3 in the hopes of repopulating the planet. She even finds Deep a mate much to his appreciation.
Quotes[]
- (Maura's first lines in the film) Deep: "Eh, Hi how are you?"
- Maura: "Hungry."
- Deep: "Oh well, maybe I could help with that."
- Maura: "Yeah, stay still so I can get you down in one bite."
- Deep: "Don't you know who you're eating?!"
- Maura: "Nah. It takes all the romance out of it."
- "Friends don't eat friends. Friends don't eat friends."
- "No, jeez you eat someone one time and they never let it go."
- "Shut up sea louse. Are they his parents?" (the band of four find themselves surrounded by hostile looking mainquins in a sunken mall and Alice claims it's Muara's fault. Prior to this line Alice had found a 12 inch action figure in a diving suit which Evo, and Muara thought to be an actual Human. Muara had swallowed the figure whole having been without food for so long. Upon the encounter with alike looking Manquins the group comes to the conclusion that Muara ate a baby and the Humans are here to punish them. Muara in saying this line hopes to keep Alice quite so they can get past the Humans with them not knowing what she believes herself to have done)
- "I might eat you just so I don't have to listen to you." (to Evo shortly after Evo states that he should have just stayed home and died.)
- "I'll tell you what's so wrong, little guy. Me talking about eating Evo when I should have eaten you from the beginning!"
- "If I went for it every time I had a gut feeling, Deep, you'd be working your way through my colon right now."
- "Saving your lives, Deep. That's what real friends do. You'll thank me when we're on the new Earth."
- (caught communicating with Deep by Darcy after she joined his side) Darcy: "Maura, Maura. How could you after all we've been through?"
- Maura: "We've known each other for like 40 minutes."
- Darcy: "Good point. Then I wont feel so bad when I eliminate you."