An Explosion in the Woods
REVIVAL – Season 1 – Episodes 4 & 5 – (speculative recap) ⁓
Em
A hooded figure removes a thumb drive from Professor Aaron Weimer’s desk, and leaves it for journalist May Tao (Katharine King So) to find. We see him remove his mask in front of a mirror in a place with a news article titled “Rose Blackdeer’s Classmates Struggle to Cope With Her Tragic Death” on the wall. Later the same hooded figure enters Dana’s house and removes a missing persons report on Rose Blackdeer (address 3954 Hampton Avenue) and an incident report involving a Jesse Blackdeer, (address 101 Unity Drive).
Nithiya
Em (Romy Weltman) tells her sister Dana (Melanie Scrofano) that she saw Blaine Abel (Steven Ogg) on the bridge the night she died. When questioned, Blaine explains that he was in the area of the bridge to tow a car abandoned on Lester Majack’s property. Blaine also saw and heard an explosion in the woods that night. “You saw it,” he tells Em. “The light. Happened deep in the woods. Lit up the night sky in a flash.”
The abandoned car was rented in the name of James Anderson (Professor Weimer’s TA). The car was parked at the hospital during the day. While Aaron’s wife Nithiya (Gia Sandhu) was undergoing chemotherapy that evening (during which she likely removed her wedding ring), Aaron (Gianpaolo Venuta) probably drove to the vicinity of the bridge with the wedding ring. In the “Reality Check” (episode 1.3), Em remembered falling from the bridge after she died, and ‘throwing up’ a wedding ring the next morning. Em also remembered texting Aaron repeatedly that night.
Maia Jae as Kay Mathurin. Jae will also star in Niels Bourgonje‘s upcoming sci-fi feature CIRCLES.
James Anderson’s name and email was also used to purchase a replica of a wedding band.
Because of her altercation with Clarice in “Keeping Up Appearances (episode 1.2), Em has an anger management session and Nithiya is her counselor. In the course of the session we learn that Em’s mother also had cancer.
The Mayor’s wife Diane (Precious Chong) tells her friend the Sheriff that she is a reviver and asks him to exempt her from registration. The Sheriff is surprised and sorry that Diane died, but declines to make an exception for her. The time and manner of her death is not specified, but it doesn’t seem possible that the death of the mayor’s wife in a small town could be kept secret unless she died on Revival Day.
THE CLAW
Jordan and Cooper
While Jordan (Flora McInroy) and Cooper (Hudson Wurster) are reading comics in a tent in Cooper’s backyard, an insect-like chittering is heard and what appears to be a claw (seen only in shadow) touches the outside of the tent. Jordan reaches a hand toward the claw but is stopped by Cooper. The radio in the tent fades in and out. A child’s drawing of something claw-like is visible, taped to the tent wall. (In what seems to be a related event, Blaine’s band of anti-reviver crusaders initiates a new member. The man is sent into a brightly lit tent alone, and, once inside, he reaches toward something bright — which we are not shown — and screams in pain. When he returns to the group his hand has a pattern burned into it. All the others in the room display the same branding on the left hand.)
As Dana puts the children to bed that night, Jordan explains that she doesn’t sleep much since becoming a reviver, but she usually pretends to sleep to avoid creeping out her parents. “You don’t have to pretend here,” Dana tells the girl, “and I’m sorry if anyone made you feel like you can’t be yourself.”
JORDAN: “Well, what if they’re right? I feel like there’s something missing in me.”
DANA: “No. There is nothing wrong with you. You’re special and you are so brave. And if anyone doesn’t think that you are perfect, then that’s their problem, not yours.”
Ibrahim (Andy McQueen) overhears this and asks Dana out to dinner. They go out the following night, and Dana wears something other than her uniform. On the way the the restaurant, Dana gets a text, takes a detour, and heads into the woods gun in hand, leaving Ramin in the car.
Lester Majack (Peter Millard)
Unaware that he plans to meet Dana, Em follows Aaron into the woods. When confronted, Aaron admits taking Em from the bridge but insists he didn’t kill her. Before he can explain further is shot dead by an unknown assailant, then Dana shows up and is shot in the back. The bullet passes through Dana and lodges inside Em (who heals very quickly). Em grabs Dana’s gun and fires twice, wounding the assassin, but not severely. Dr. Ramin hears the shots, finds Dana and her sister, and calls an ambulance. Dana tells him to say nothing of Em’s presence there, and he agrees.
As Dana is being wheeled into hospital, a nurse says her blood pressure is 170 over 92, then tells her father that Dana has ‘significant internal bleeding’.
The last text Aaron sent was to Dana. It read: “Go to the woods behind Pacer’s. I’ll tell you what really happened.”
Kay prepares for surgery
Em has Kay (Maia Jae) dig the assassin’s bullet out of her, dips it in blood from Aaron’s body in the morgue, and plants it in the woods. Ballistics are a match with Deputy McCray’s gun, and when the Deputy is arrested human body parts are found in the trunk of his car.
Anthony Check (C M Punk) calls his brother Andrew (Matt Willis) and tells him: “Got news. Boss is thrilled with the new business opportunity in Wausau and he wants us to help him run it…There’s a problem, though. I talked you boys up enough but ain’t no way in hell you’re running this operation, so you need to get me back over the border. You still play poker with that piece of shit Irish cop?” The ‘Irish cop’ could be Deputy McCray (Nathan Dales), or it might be Deputy Fitzpatrick (Jimmy MacKinley).
Em waiting for Kay to get the bullet out.
Romy Weltman told Dani of PopWire that the line “I had to die to feel alive” (from episode 103) reflects Em’s personal journey in season one. “She really finds herself throughout the season,” Weltman continued, “and recognizes that she doesn’t identify with the identity she’s been given by those around her…Em finds safety being in her big sister’s clothes and hiding in something baggy. When it comes to her hair, Em is literally cutting off the bad memories associated with who she has been over the last two years. She is also taking ownership of her identity and her past.”