TV Review: ‘Revival’ Supports Dead Rights (And Wrongs) In Episode 3
by Mal White
It’s Shark Week in Episode 3 of SyFy Channel’s Revival. Turns out super-strong Reviver Arlene is not the only shark on the loose in Wausau.
Tensions between the town and the Revivers are reaching a boiling point. A visit from the governor confirms there are more Revived than officially recorded. Dana (Melanie Scrofano) learns more about Em’s (Romy Weltman) rebellious side. Dr. Ramin (Andy McQueen) suspects foul play is the cause of Arlene’s (Nicky Guadagni) rampage. Plus an exorcism, punk show self-mutilation, and a breakfast chicken as a little treat.
Readers beware, spoilers ahead.
Revival’s third episode, “Reality Check,” picks up where Episode 2 left off. Em’s high roommate, Kay (Maia Jae Bastidas), tells Dana who she believes killed Em on Revival night. Dana is pointed in the direction of the Check brothers, the local crime family whose mom’s rooster-themed art is included with every drug purchase.
Dr. Ibrahim Ramin continues his hunt for answers to Arlene’s unusual violence and incredible strength. After finding a strange substance in Arlene’s tissue, he and Sheriff Wayne Cypress (David James Elliot) visit her family home the day of her daughter Terry’s funeral. He discovers that her son-in-law, Bob (Derek McGrath), might have had a hand in Arlene’s condition.
Wayne isn’t having it, however. Trying to keep order between the terrified living and the potentially dangerous dead, he continues his mission to force Revivers into camps after the governor approves tagging and tracking all Revived.
This includes Em, whose romance with Reviver Punk Rhodey (Kaleb Horn) deepens. Rhodey’s show features on-stage self-mutilation and regeneration; inspiration for sheltered Em to live a little now she’s immortal. After a bridge jump inspired by The Lost Boys (1987), flashbacks to the night she died give Em clues to her murder. Turns out local radio host demonologist Blaine Abel (Steven Ogg) was on the bridge that night. Blaine’s habit of turning up at the most convenient times reaches a head at Terry Dittman’s (Nora McLellan) funeral, when he casts fireball on Arlene.
We get to spend more time with our larger cast, providing much-needed context and plot-thickening to this wild rural noir. Cooper (Hudson Wurster) gets great screen time defending his Reviver classmate, Jordan (Flora McInroy), from bullies with a well-timed locker door to the face. The sequence shows us the discrimination Revivers face as Blaine’s growing anti-Reviver mob prepares for a holy war.
Reviver rights and wrongs take center stage this episode, as we begin to ask the big questions about their impact on Wausau. Episode writers Marushka Almeida, Noelle Carbone, and Farrell Rose address these questions in a grounded manner, humanizing Revivers who struggle with their lives and deaths. I might just be rooting for Rhodey after he tells Em that those struggling with suicide are not weak, selfish, or bad people.
As promised, Revival continues to deliver an engrossing mystery with great effects and cute comic book Easter eggs (shout-out to Tim Seely and Stefano Caselli’s Hack/Slash). Blaine’s holy war promises to up the ante next episode, but his involvement with Em might mean he’s the biggest shark of all.
