Dana had a lot to process after everything she had witnessed at the end of Revival episode 1. She’d discovered that her sister, Em, was a Reviver, and also that not all Revivers were harmless. Some demonstrated unimaginable strength and agility. By the time Dana started to process the fact that Em was a Reviver, cops showed up at the barn. Dana explained that she was the one who’d killed the aggressive Reviver, and her sister just happened to arrive at the scene of the crime after hearing gunshots. Meanwhile, Em struggled to make sense of what she was going through. After reviving, she had noticed significant changes in herself, and she didn’t know how to feel about her rebirth.
Spoiler Alert
Did Em die by suicide?
Em remembered waking up in the morning at Bull Falls and throwing up a wedding ring. She had no recollection of how she ended up there, and she assumed that the ring belonged to her lover, Aaron, though she didn’t know why she had it in her mouth. She returned home only to realize that she was a Reviver, which meant that she had died the previous night, but she didn’t remember what caused her death. Overwhelmed by everything she was going through, Em resorted to drugs to numb herself, but to her surprise, the drugs didn’t have the same effect on her. She tried over and over again, but she didn’t get high. Frustrated, she punched the mirror in her bathroom only to find that her wounds now healed within seconds. She used a Swiss knife to cut herself again, and she watched the wound magically disappear. Em wanted to understand how she ended up in such a precarious situation, and she thought Aaron could help her with it, but he chose to distance himself from her.
After Dana discovered Em’s secret, she made it her life’s purpose to uncover the mystery behind her death. Even though she had a lot going on at the station, she knew that her sister needed her. She dropped by Em’s apartment and was surprised by all the dark art in her room. She also discovered a plastic bag full of pills, maybe as much as a thousand. When she asked Em about it, she explained that she needed them to numb herself, but after she revived, the pills stopped working on her, so she was clean at the moment. She added that she got the pills from shady pain clinics, but she chose not to get into the details of how she got the money to buy the pills. Dana was quite sure that Em had died as a result of an OD, but Em didn’t think that was the case. She explained that on their late mother’s birthday, she went to the bridge where she’d died to get some closure, but she felt anxious and got high, and the next thing she remembered was waking up at Bull Falls. Em was sure she didn’t do it to herself, but then who killed her?
Who was Blaine?
Dana had to head out to attend her morning briefing, and she requested Em to wait for her at the station. But the minute Em found Dana’s car keys, she immediately decided to leave. Since the entire department was on the hunt for Arlene, the raging Reviver, it was not easy for Dana to find help. As it turned out, after Em had chopped off a portion of Arlene’s head, it was assumed that she’d passed away. Ibrahim and his team prepared to study her body closely, but when they returned to the room where her corpse was kept, they were horrified to discover that the body had gone missing. The cop in charge of guarding the room had been killed. Soon, it became evident that Arlene’s wounds had healed and she was once again back to her destructive self. She was only calm when she’d entered the maternity ward and held a newborn in her arms. But as soon as she figured out that cops were chasing her, she escaped once again. Wayne was heading his team at the time, and he was surprised to find Blaine with the newborn in his arms. He was a resident of the small town and spoke in cryptic language. There seems to be a connection between Blaine and the Revivers. He mentioned that the gates of hell had opened, and he seemed to be quite ecstatic about it. In the previous episode, Dana’s son, Cooper, had gone missing, and in episode 2 we find out that he crossed paths with Blaine in the woods. Cooper had heard strange noises, so he’d followed the sound and ended up in there. Blaine looks like a suspicious individual with an interest in the occult, and he perhaps believes that the revival phenomenon is a nod from the devil. Well, we’ll have to wait and see how his storyline unfolds.
What aggravated Em’s mental health issues?
Since Ibrahim was the only one at the station who was not involved with the hunt, Dana asked for his help. They started to search for Em together, and it was during the car ride that Dana explained the problems Em had been dealing with. She’d been born with a condition, osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), and as a result, her bones broke easily. She had always been on medication, and she lived a very restrictive life. She struggled to cope with her condition, and it impacted her mental health. Things got worse when their mother passed away. Em, Dana, and their mother were traveling together when their car met with an accident. Em was behind the wheel at the time, and she never really coped with the tragic loss. Two years had passed since the accident, and Em hoped that returning to the bridge where it happened might finally bring her some closure. But it clearly didn’t work. Dana soon received information that Em had ended up in a bar fight. But by the time she arrived at the bar, Em was gone. She had left behind a note stating that she needed space and she didn’t want Dana to keep looking for her.
Why did Em run away?
Em had followed Aaron to a bar. He was with his wife, and he didn’t expect to see Em there. He made it clear that he didn’t wish to get back together with her, but Em clarified that that was not the reason why she wanted to talk to him. She elaborated on how she woke up at Bull Falls on 19th December and threw up his wedding ring; Aaron immediately stopped her. He showed her that he still had his ring on, and he had no clue about what she was saying. All this while, Em was under the assumption that she and Aaron might have met that night, but clearly that was not the case. Aaron stated that Em had texted him and called him after she got high that night. He was afraid that she was going to expose their affair to his wife, so he ended up blocking her number and her email, and since then he’d not received any of her texts. Em didn’t remember texting or calling him the night she was murdered, and she was disappointed that the only person she thought could help her solve her murder was not there with her that night. Through their conversation, Aaron figured out that Em was a Reviver, and just like Dana, he too assumed that she had overdosed. Before she walked away from him, Em requested Aaron not to disclose her secret to anyone. She was frustrated with herself—she was blind to a very crucial detail about her life, she wasn’t able to numb her senses or her thoughts, and she couldn’t even kill herself to escape from it all. She intentionally got into a bar fight to feel physical pain and suffering. A guy came to her rescue, and as it turned out, he was a Reviver too. Rhodey introduced himself and added that he knew Em was a Reviver the minute he saw her scars heal. He was a musician, and invited Em to his show. Em wanted to spend some time away from her family, and she hoped Rhodey could help her get out of town, and he happily obliged.
Was Em murdered?
In Revival episode 2’s ending, after Dana read Em’s note, she decided to continue investigating Em’s murder. She strongly believed that if she followed the drug trail, she would find her answer. It was impossible that Em had the money to afford a thousand pills, so Dana assumed that she was possibly dealing for someone. The only other person she knew who could have introduced Em to a dealer was her roommate, Kay Mathurin. Kay was arrested once for possession of drugs, and Dana was confident that she might have the answer she was looking for. When Dana demanded to know where Em got the pills from, Kay stated that she had no idea. She explained that after she was arrested, she and Em had stopped taking pills and only smoked pot once in a while. Kay added that Em was extremely depressed one night, so she decided to help her get a ‘quick little fix.’ When Dana asked her to narrate what had happened that night, Kay stated that she had overheard Dana and Em’s conversation, so she already knew that Em was a Reviver, and she also believed that she knew the person who’d killed Em. Episode 2 of Revival ends on a cliffhanger. Was Em killed by a dealer? Or was it a common friend who’d promised to help but instead killed Em to seek revenge, perhaps for some past event? It’s all too blurry now, but hopefully we’ll get our answers soon.
