The ending of The Survivors was about unveiling the identity of the person responsible for Gabby and Bronte’s deaths. In the late 2000s, the fictional Australian town of Evelyn Bay was rocked by a storm that claimed three souls: Finn, Toby, and Gabby. Kieran was blamed for the incident because he went to explore the caves despite being warned not to, thereby forcing Finn and Toby to risk their lives. While Finn and Toby’s heroism was remembered by the townsfolk, the story behind Gabby’s demise remained a mystery. Kieran was apparently guilt-tripped into moving out, which he did, and he settled down with Mia in Sydney. On the 15th anniversary of the incident, Kieran decided to pay Evelyn Bay a brief visit, along with Mia and their daughter, Audrey, in the hopes that the townsfolk had moved on. Unsurprisingly, they hadn’t, and it didn’t take a long time for someone—Liam, Toby’s son—to get aggressive with Kieran and remind him about the past. Kieran and Mia decided to return to Sydney as soon as possible, but tragedy struck yet again, as the dead body of a young woman named Bronte was found on the beach. Since Bronte had talked to almost everyone in the town, to learn about Gabby, everybody had to stay put and answer to detectives Pendlebury and Dan. What were the truths that were exposed in The Survivors’ finale? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Kieran’s Truth Bomb
So, a bunch of things happened before Kieran blurted out the truth to his mother, Verity, about why he actually moved to Sydney. For starters, Bronte was doing an art project centered around Gabby, because her death was forgotten by Evelyn Bay, while there was a clubhouse being opened in the memory of Finn and Toby. Hence, Bronte had collected a bunch of photos from the 2000s, especially any that had Gabby in it. Bronte used to develop new photos and store the old ones in the darkroom in the house of the local writing legend and Me-Too-accused, Barlin. Mia was a fan of Barlin’s work. Hence, after getting into a fight with Kieran about how he had hidden the fact that Olivia (Kieran’s then secret girlfriend) had called for Toby and Finn on that fateful day, not Kieran, for 15 years because he wanted to “protect” Olivia from the shaming that he was facing, Mia went to Barlin, who showed him Bronte’s stuff. There, she found a photo that apparently placed Gabby on the same boat that Toby and Finn had used during the failed rescue mission to save Kieran and Olivia.
When Mia conveyed this fact to Trish, Gabby and Olivia’s mother, she confronted Mallott, the investigating officer of the deaths that happened during the storm. Mallott admitted that he did find Gabby’s bag in the boat’s dry box, but he threw the bag into the water to make it look like Gabby had drowned at sea because that would protect the deceased boys’ memory and not make them look like pedophiles. At the Memorial Day football match, where a clubhouse in Finn and Toby’s honor was opened, Trish confronted Verity about this supposed cover-up, which escalated to a very nasty verbal battle. The following day, Kieran asked Verity if they should really consider this angle. Verity was too protective of Finn. Hence, she resorted to sexist and emasculating remarks to downplay Kieran’s doubts; she reminded him how he was responsible for Finn’s death and that he didn’t stick around to help his own mother and father, Brian, pick up the pieces.
Kieran, unable to lie anymore, revealed that it was Brian who had told him to leave in order to save himself from being “destroyed” by Verity. Kieran actually didn’t want to move out of Evelyn Bay, but Brian knew what Verity was made of, and he was sure that she’d ruin Kieran’s life to “get back at him” for “killing” her favorite son. And she’d proven how destructive she was by being antagonistic towards Kieran even though 15 years had passed since that incident. On top of that, she didn’t even know that Kieran wasn’t the one who had called Finn and Toby; she never even tried to learn the truth because she was so busy taking Kieran on guilt-trip-swimming sessions with Sean, who was Toby’s brother, and Liam. Maybe if she’d been kind to Kieran and she didn’t question his masculinity by calling him “Nancy Drew” or a “doormat” (for simply trying to calm an angry Mia), he would’ve confided in her and they could’ve healed together.
A Few Red Herrings
There was a lot of hoopla around the CCTV footage from Surf ’n Turf, the pub owned by Julian, Toby, and Finn’s father, and Liam’s grandfather, where he shouted at Bronte on the night that she was murdered. It was insinuated by Pendlebury that Julian had probably found out that Bronte knew the truth about Toby, how he might or might not have been in an inappropriate relationship with Gabby, and he killed Bronte to stop her from publicizing that piece of news. Well, since Bronte was too busy interviewing people about Gabby, she wasn’t really that good a waiter. On top of that, it was true that she was digging up dirt on Gabby’s death, and since she was “this” close to figuring out that Sean was the guilty party, a fact that Julian was absolutely aware of, she needed to be shut down. But there’s no way of knowing what actually triggered Julian to reprimand Bronte, as seen in that CCTV footage. Maybe he was angry about her lack of professionalism, he was triggered that Bronte’s “trauma tourism” behavior could tarnish the image of Evelyn Bay, or he was trying to protect Sean (who I’ll get to in a bit). However, Julian wasn’t a murderer, at least not in the strictest sense (which I’ll also address in a moment). So, we can call him a red herring.
Another red herring was Barlin. The biggest reason why he was a suspect was because, during his time in Melbourne, he had been accused of sexually harassing a girl. Bronte used to live with Olivia and Trish, but she also spent a lot of time with Barlin. As mentioned before, he had helped her set up a darkroom in his house. He wasn’t liked by the people of Evelyn Bay, especially Ash (Olivia’s current boyfriend and Kieran’s friend), because he had allegedly bought Ash’s grandmother’s house for a piddling sum. Therefore, it was possible that a mixture of all these emotions bubbled to the surface, and in order to let off a little steam, he approached Bronte in his signature creepy way—we all saw how he told Mia that she was “beautiful”—and when Bronte shrugged him off, he retaliated by murdering her. Well, that wasn’t the case at all, because Barlin was with a girl, hopefully age-appropriate, when Bronte was murdered. We’ll never know if he was a sexual harasser or not, but he was definitely not a killer. Coming back to that moment with Mia, though, Barlin was instrumental in uncovering the photos that Bronte had collected from the townsfolk. Out of all the pics, the one she had acquired from Trish showed that Gabby was probably in the caves when Toby and Finn died, and not with them on the boat on that day, thereby somewhat clearing their names. I say “somewhat” because we still don’t know if they were guilty of encouraging a 14-year-old to have beer with them on their boat on some other day.
Although Marco wasn’t present in the finale, the show presented him as a red herring too. Given how crime dramas have a habit of revealing that the boyfriend is the killer, the odds were stacked against the Argentinian for the longest time. We learned that Marco and Bronte had dated each other, and then they broke up because Marco was “a sexist pig.” Bronte had come to Evelyn Bay for her art project. Marco was a backpacker, but it didn’t seem like a coincidence he’d ended up in the same town that Bronte was in. Marco was even spotted visiting Bronte’s temporary workplace and the cafe where she used to edit her videos of Evelyn Bay and Gabby. Bronte’s social media still had videos and pics of Marco and herself, which indicated that she still had some feelings for him. Hence, the showrunners led us to believe that maybe the former lovebirds tried to reignite the flame that had been extinguished by Marco’s misogyny, but things went sideways because both of them were high on the drugs supplied to them by Ash, and then Marco fled after killing Bronte. But that wasn’t the case at all, as proven by the DNA tests, and Marco was allowed to go back to Argentina. It was odd, though, that he didn’t care about the fact that his ex was dead. I understand ending a relationship on bad terms, but not caring for the deceased is indicative of the fact that there’s something else wrong with Marco. Even if he isn’t a killer, people, especially girls, should stay away from guys like him.
Sean murdered Gabby and Bronte
Mia informed Kieran that Gabby’s name was etched on the walls of a secluded part of the caves, along with the day on which she inscribed it. Based on that, Kieran decided to check out that spot with Sean. At the same time, Verity went over to Julian’s house to talk to him about how the police were accusing him of killing Bronte because he had an argument with her right before her death. And she also wanted to talk about Brian being accused of raping and killing Bronte because his hair was found on her body and in her mouth, and the police didn’t even consider the fact that Brian was trying to give Bronte CPR after accidentally stumbling upon her body. Now, the episode intercuts between these 2 interactions—the one with Sean and Kieran and the one with Verity and Julian—to tell us the truth about Gabby and Bronte’s deaths. I’m going to keep it linear so as to make it simpler. So, back in 2009, Gabby was in love with Kieran. She wanted to go to the caves with him and was searching for him. That’s how she came across Brian, who told her to go home because there was a storm warning. Still, she went to the docks, where she met Sean, who told her that Kieran was down in the caves.
When Sean learned that Gabby wanted to go to the caves, he offered to take her there, because he knew the maze-like routes in that place like the back of his hand. Sean told Gabby to keep her bag in the dry box of Finn and Toby’s boat, which was where Mallott found it after it capsized in the storm. After reaching a particularly secluded area of the cave, Gabby etched her name onto its walls and thanked Sean for bringing her there. Sean saw that as an invitation to kiss her, but she didn’t reciprocate, which caused him to get very rude. Gabby tried her best to calm Sean down, but he rushed out of the caves, knowing full well that she didn’t know how to escape the maze. Gabby couldn’t keep up, and she got lost. The high tide came in, and Sean chose to save himself instead of going back for Gabby, who drowned there. Sean confided in Julian, and he told his son to never tell a single soul about all this. Later on, when Mallott, supposedly of his own free will, tried to give Trish some closure by throwing Gabby’s bag into the water, everybody assumed that Gabby must’ve drowned somewhere in the vastness of the sea.
15 years later, Bronte came along, digging up the past because she was genuinely curious as to why Finn and Toby were getting all the attention, while Gabby, who had also died, wasn’t. Bronte’s investigation brought her to that very spot—with some help from Ash, of course—and she took detailed pictures of it. Before her trip to the caves, she’d taken Sean’s torch. When Sean came to retrieve it, Bronte asked if he’d accompany her to the beach, as she wanted to witness the bioluminescent water. After clicking the photos of that phenomenon, Bronte showed the pics from the cave, the ones that had Gabby’s name on the walls. To be clear, there was no way for Bronte to figure out that Sean was with Gabby on that day. There was absolutely no way. Maybe Bronte would’ve assumed that Gabby went into the caves all on her own, got lost, and died when the tide flooded the place. However, since Sean was carrying the guilt of essentially killing Gabby for 15 years, he couldn’t hold himself back, and he killed Bronte with his torch light and threw her into the sea. When he saw Brian walking on the beach, he bolted. That was when Mia and Kieran came across his car while walking back to their house. Brian tried to save Bronte but he was too late. Since his DNA was all over Bronte, Sean framed him by placing Bronte’s camera in the shed behind Kieran’s house, and he wrote “perv” on the doors to seal the deal. And he even scratched off Gabby’s name from the cave’s walls so that no one would find out that she was in there with him.
Evelyn Bay Needed Therapy
During The Survivors’ ending, Sean tried to kill Kieran in the caves, because he knew the truth about how he had murdered both Gabby and Bronte, in the hopes that the waters would hide his crime once again. But Kieran managed to hold his own against Sean. Meanwhile, Julian tried to stop Verity from informing the police, but she got out of his clutches and reached the police station with Liam’s help. Detectives Pendlebury and Dan had already suspected Sean of some wrongdoing because the dirt on the camera had matched the dirt near Ash’s house, which was where Sean also lived. So, when Verity told them that Sean was the real killer, and he was down in the caves with Kieran, the detectives and the entire police force at Evelyn Bay rushed to the caves instead of Ash’s house. Sean was arrested and charged with one count of murder, Bronte’s. Kieran was bruised but alive. All charges against Brian were dropped, and Pendlebury had to accept that her “there are no good blokes in the world” theory was bogus and that Brian, despite a failing mind, had tried to save Bronte. Bronte’s missing laptop was found buried in Ash’s backyard, and the skeletal remains of Gabby’s body were found in the caves. Julian wasn’t charged with anything, because his biggest punishment was watching his son go to jail and his grandson choosing to be with Verity. Yeah, while Verity might’ve messed with Kieran’s head, she positively influenced Liam, which was probably the reason why he didn’t turn out like his uncle and his grandfather.
This whole fiasco had driven a wedge between Mia and Kieran, because she assumed that his return to Evelyn Bay had reignited his feelings for Olivia, which wasn’t the case at all. When Mia realized that, she urged Kieran to stay a little while longer with Verity and Brian and help them with their move to Hobart. Verity welcomed this decision. She needed to do a lot of soul-searching after allowing her mind and heart to marinate in hatred for 15 very long years, and accepting that she needed Kieran in her life was a step in the right direction. Speaking of moving from Evelyn Bay, Olivia was off to Melbourne. She sort of forgave Ash (who surprisingly wasn’t in jail for dealing drugs on a daily basis) for cheating on her with a tourist, but that didn’t mean she was going to spend the rest of her life with him, because once a cheater, always a cheater. After that, Audrey, Mia, Kieran, Liam, Verity, Brian, Olivia, and Ash accompanied Trish as she went to meet Nick and Andrea, Bronte’s parents, near the caves to say their final goodbyes to Gabby and Bronte. Andrea gave Bronte’s art project to Trish, which made it a real full circle moment, as it had a piece of both Bronte and Gabby, two girls who lost their lives to a toxic man whose mind had been polluted by the culture of Evelyn Bay.
That brings me to the question: what’s the point of the whole show? Well, as far as I could tell, Tony Ayres’ adaptation of Jane Harper’s book is trying to say that we can either allow a tragedy to shape our lives or we can learn something from it. Holding Sean accountable for his actions would’ve saved Bronte’s life. If Verity didn’t treat Kieran like a criminal, he would’ve been around to help her while Brian lost himself to dementia. If Olivia had admitted that she had called Finn and Toby, Kieran would’ve had someone to share his guilt with. I don’t know how that would’ve affected the town which was ready to resort to mudslinging for the flimsiest of excuses. However, I suppose a tradition of rules and consequences would’ve motivated the townsfolk to be responsible and respectful. The Survivors is a cautionary tale for every society that’s on a downhill slide, fueled by a general disregard for morality and ethics. Maybe we’ve gone past the point of no return, but it’s never too late to make amends; not for us, but for future generations who still have hope in their hearts.
