TV Review: The Lost Are Found In ‘Revival’ Episode 8
by Mal White
Jesse Blackdeer’s (Brandon Oakes) journey ends in the trunk of a Blue Cutlass Supreme. From the awakened Reviver in the Heinlein Funeral Home’s cremator in the first episode’s opening sequence to the mysterious Incinerator Man, we come to learn the tragic events that led him to Moore Creek. Revival’s eighth episode goes back to move forward. Interlaced are the stories of journalist May Tao (Katherine King So), Deputy Brent Gunderson (Mark Little), Em (Romy Weltman), and Dana (Melanie Scrofano) with Rose Blackdeer’s (Leenah Robinson) mysterious disappearance.
Two years before Revival Day, Rose was ready to leave Wausau for good. She’d picked an apartment in Chicago with girlfriend May Tao. She’d argued with her father, Jesse, over her mother’s land rights that would revert to the government if Rose left. That night, Rose waited at the local bus stop headed for Chicago when she was approached by a familiar man in a dark blue Cutlass Supreme.
A departure from the established format, Episode 8’s “Rose and a Thorn,” is a touching story of closure. Luke Boyce, show co-creator and the episode’s writer, noted that he wanted to bring peace for Jesse and Rose in a conversation with SYFY Channel.
To help tell this story, the team brought on indigenous consultant Jim Terry, who also consulted on the Revival comic. Comic fans may recognize Terry as an artist from comic books like Vampirella, The Crow, and Tim Seeley‘s Sundowners and Hack/Slash. Together, Terry and Boyce worked to create an authentic representation of the area’s real life indigenous population.
Especially powerful was the tight focus on Rose Blackwater’s face at the bus stop overlaid with the sounds of her struggle. Meant, no doubt, to evoke direct connection to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women movement. A direct mention would have been amazing given the platform and reach the show has.
The episode covers Brent’s motivations and reveals May Tao’s and Dana’s tension as rooted in her handling of Rose Blackdeer’s case. We also get an interesting connection to Blaine Abel (Steven Ogg), who had been corresponding with Rose under the pseudonym “Bear.” We’re presented with a friendly, relatively normal Blaine so distinctly different from his current backwater cult leader routine, you have to wonder what happened those years in between.
The episode ends with several big plot threads for fans to chew on until Episode 9. Turns out, the new Reviver drug the CDC created seems to have skipped trials and gone right into production. Meanwhile, the sacred water in Moore Creek might point to Reviver origins and to the reason behind Em’s murder. We’ll just have to find her first.
