In the penultimate episode of Revival season 1, the obvious starts to feel a little murky now. In the previous episode, after Rose’s body was discovered in the trunk of a car at Blaine’s junkyard, Dana, Em, and May were convinced that Blaine was involved in the murders. But the only question was—why didn’t Blaine get rid of the body if he was the one who’d murdered Rose? So, was Blaine being framed? Well, that is quite a possibility. In episode 9, Blaine expressed his curiosity in understanding what resulted in the revival phenomenon. He’d abducted Ibrahim and brought him to his house. He’d gone through Ibrahim’s diary, but he still hadn’t found the answer to his question. Ibrahim was clueless as well. Even though he’d figured out that the creek water had healing properties, he didn’t know what triggered the phenomenon. Moreover, he considered Blaine a hate monger, and he refused to help him. Ibrahim was concerned when he realized that Blaine actually believed that on revival day, demons had entered the mortal world, and he was the one chosen by God to defeat them.
Spoiler Alert
What led to Em’s psychosis?
General Cale had been searching for Em after the massacre at the Check warehouse, and at the very end of episode 8, the military finally captured her. As was expected, she was brought to the revival detention center. Even though Em was experiencing hysterical psychosis, Cale had every intention of injecting her with a triple dose of the Reviver-weakening drugs. She was determined to bring the town under control, and she believed that the only way to do so was by pacifying the Revivers and removing them from Wausau.
Em struggled with her mental health after she was locked up. The ghost of her mother haunted her, and she started to lose touch with reality. When Rhodey visited Em at the facility, she was reminded of how he’d deceived her, and her mother told her to never trust men because they always tend to break hearts. With one swift move, Em snapped Rhodey’s neck. He momentarily lost consciousness, but he was also a Reviver, so it was impossible to kill him. When Rhodey left the room, Em softly begged him to never leave her again. Nithiya Weimer was called in to have a word with Em and to assess her mental state. Em imagined her mother shaming her for being a home-wrecker, and she repeatedly apologized to her. When Nithiya asked her what had happened to her mother, Em couldn’t keep the secret to herself anymore. She revealed that after Dana got into a bar fight, her mother called Wayne, but he didn’t pick up. That was when Em decided to drive to the bar with her mother, and they met with an accident. Em blamed herself for her mother’s death, and the guilt continued to haunt her. Em was in a fragile state after she narrated the incident. All of a sudden, a soldier entered the room and tried to drag Nithiya out. Em immediately felt the need to take control, and she grabbed hold of him and held his gun to his head. Nithiya begged her to do the right thing, and told her that killing the man would only make her feel more guilty. Em dropped the gun and pushed the man away. She turned around, hoping that her mother saw her make the right decision, but she was not around anymore. As soon as Em confessed the reason behind the constant guilt she experienced, the ghost of her mother left her side. Em never really processed her emotions after the incident, and perhaps admitting her guilt out loud helped her.
Did Wayne and his team manage to stop the Reviver transfer?
When Mayor Ken Dillisch met his wife, Diane, she told him that the military was conducting some sort of painful experiment on the other Revivers. She always heard them scream and screech, and she lived under the constant fear that she would be their next target. Ken assured her that they would never touch her, because he was the one who’d helped the commander identify Em from a surveillance video. Diane was surprised that her husband would choose to risk the life of a child, but Ken repeatedly stated that he didn’t have a choice. She didn’t blame him; after all, they were in a strange situation. She went on to inform him about the commander’s plan to transfer the Revivers to a secret location. Ken immediately figured out that once the Revivers were taken out of the detention center, it would be impossible to track them down. Ken informed Wayne about the situation, and they momentarily set aside their differences and tried to come up with a plan to bust the Revivers out of the facility. After contacting the department of transportation, they learned that the commander planned on loading the Revivers on trucks that would end up at a rail line, and from there they would be shipped to an unknown location.
After Ibrahim had been rescued from Blaine’s house, he joined Dana to help the Revivers escape. He sensed that his colleague, Dr. Carla Morel, was possibly experiencing guilt after watching the Revivers being mistreated and her innovation being abused. And he was right. Ibrahim offered her a chance to do the right thing, and he handed her bottled water from the creek and asked her to inject it into the Revivers. Instead of numbing their abilities, the idea was to heal them so that they could tackle the soldiers and make an escape. Apparently the commander had learned about Blaine’s plan (torching the Revivers), and she planned on doing the same to them.
Wayne came up with the plan of using pyrotechnics to make it look like Blaine’s militia was attacking the facility, and amidst the confusion, they would help the Revivers escape. When Carla injected Rhodey with the creek water, she instructed him to spread the word that help was on the way. Confusion erupted as the pyros started to go off. The soldiers pushed the Revivers into the trucks, and just when they thought they were ready to leave, the Revivers attacked the soldiers. Since the Revivers had already healed, it was impossible for the soldiers to match their strength. While Wayne and his team had managed to free most of the Revivers in the facility, they were yet to find Em.
What secret was Wayne hiding from Dana?
During Revival episode 9’s ending, Ken revealed a secret that left Dana devastated. Wayne and Dana couldn’t find Em, and they hoped Ken would help them track her down. But once Diane was set free, Ken refused to risk his life. As he was about to walk away, Wayne reminded him that he was the reason why Em ended up at the facility. Ken pulled a gun out of his pocket and pointed it at Wayne. He refused to take the blame, especially after everything Wayne had done to put the Revivers in danger. He had authorized inhumane measures to mark the Revivers, and it was only after he’d discovered that his daughter was also a Reviver that he’d finally softened his stance. Dana intervened; she couldn’t believe that the two best friends were ready to argue and fight at a moment when they needed to stay calm and figure out their next move. Ken accused Wayne of being a home-wrecker, and Dana realized that was the actual reason why they couldn’t come to an agreement. As it turned out, the night Patty died, Wayne was with Diane. That was the reason why he didn’t answer the call from the bar, and he ignored Patty’s call as well. Dana couldn’t help but wonder if their mother would’ve been alive had Wayne picked up the call. The truth left her heartbroken, and she struggled to not think about it every time she spoke to her father.
Who Had Abducted Em, And Why?
Wayne received a call from Lester, the good Samaritan of Wausau. He informed Wayne about a couple of trespassers who’d entered his property. This was not the first time Lester had called to inform about trespassers, so Wayne didn’t really pay any heed to it. But when Lester added that a girl was accompanying the armed trespassers, he figured he had to go there to check. When Dana and Wayne learned that the trespassers had been spotted near a church, they deduced that Blaine had gotten Em. At the very end of Revival, episode 9, we discover that Wayne and Dana’s hunch was right—Blaine had had one of his young recruits abduct Em, and she was brought into the church. He announced that Blaine was the mother of Babylon, and she was the reason why the gates of hell had opened, so, as the chosen one, it was his responsibility to send her back.
Now, how did Blaine arrive at this conclusion? Blaine had piqued Ibrahim’s curiosity when he’d mentioned that even though their paths were different, their objective was the same—they were searching for answers. Ibrahim had been desperately looking for an explanation, and he just couldn’t arrive at one. After his conversation with Blaine, he decided to read the Holy Quran, because somehow Blaine had convinced him that the answer might not be limited to scientific explanation and it might well be rooted in religion. Ibrahim wasn’t proud of the direction his research was heading towards, but he didn’t know what else to do.
Is Blaine the bad guy?
After Blaine was arrested and interrogated, Ibrahim spoke in his defense. He was not convinced that a murderer would hide his victim’s body at his own junkyard even after knowing that Dana suspected him. As expected, Blaine didn’t confess to the crime, and Dana didn’t have solid enough evidence to lock him up. Blaine’s father was a scammer who told the people of the town that his son had stigmata and he eventually ran out of town when the cops learned about his trick. Wayne believed that it might have triggered Blaine to act because he was convinced that his father was right and that he was indeed the chosen one. But they couldn’t make arrests based purely on theories.
Dana later came across video footage of Blaine torching Wanda (a Reviver) by forcing her to touch his ‘angel.’ Unlike Jesse Blackdeer or Jordan, Wanda wasn’t absorbed by the glowing creature (referred to as ‘creeps’ in the comics); instead, she was burned to death. Dana wondered if the two creatures were different, but it is also likely that if a Reviver willingly surrendered to the glowing creature, then they had a peaceful death, but if they were forced to touch the creature, it led to a painful demise. Ibrahim had later come to the conclusion that Em’s death had possibly caused the revival; even though it didn’t make sense, he believed all clues pointed at it.
In Revival episode 9’s ending, Ibrahim was seen seated at the church when Blaine welcomed Em. Blaine had held him at gunpoint at the station, and that was how he managed to leave. So, was Ibrahim at the church out of free will, to find out if Em had a connection with the revival phenomenon, or was he held hostage? Considering Ibrahim had always defended Revivers, maybe he will find a way to protect Em, but for now, he seems extremely confused. Also, there seems to be someone keeping a close eye on Blaine’s militia. The moment they spotted a glowing object/creature at the creek, a man shot the members of the militia. Even though it looks like Blaine is the bad guy, there seems to be someone else operating from the shadows. The big revelation will unfold in the final episode and it’ll be interesting to see if the series will follow the same ending as the comics.
