Revival had an okay premise. I was drawn to the show mainly because I had such a great time watching In the Flesh, a British TV series about zombies being rehabilitated to be able to rejoin society. It was an awesome series that unfortunately was canceled after two seasons due to budget cuts. While Revival isn’t exactly about zombies in the traditional sense, being raised from the dead sort of puts it into that category. I have to say, the series started off pretty strong. It forced me to binge-watch it. However, it committed one of the most brutal sins I can think of in a TV series, and that is doing too much, too fast, and convoluting things in the last episode or so. Oh, and yes, leaving the audience with a cliffhanger that brings a lot more questions than answers. I believe only certain shows can pull this off and get away with it, but Revival does not feel like one of those shows.

If you’re expecting the series to be heavy on detective work, then you’d be correct. On this part, it was okay, but how they explained things in the last episode was just a cluster mess of a job. Once we found out that those alien-looking creatures were the souls of the Revivers, it didn’t really add much to the story, which I found a bit odd. I think part of it had to do with how not much of this was given more screen time. The Revivers were shown, or at least what people were told to expect, as being completely normal. Yes, they came back from the dead, but somehow they could still lead normal lives due to how they are the same person. I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but if someone’s soul is separated from their body, I would like to think that there would be some, you know, side effects to their behavior? Maybe a play on their emotions would help? The one thing we did get is in the beginning, in which we see a Reviver totally losing her shit and going full-on zombie mode. However, this wasn’t really explored or explained as the series went on. Was it because she lost contact with her soul for too long? Was it because they didn’t drink the magical lake water, which somehow wasn’t explained enough other than us knowing that the souls/alien creatures came through the lake? Hmmm, okay? I guess?

For crying out loud, can we stop continuing to do that religious redneck militia bullshit every time we get a story where something weird and unexplainable comes along? This part was so cringe at times. Like seriously, I feel like they can do a lot better but always choose the easy way out by just going the cringy religious route. Some of the acting was also a bit cringe. Like that military general woman? She definitely did not act nor feel the part. Maybe it’s the writing or the script. I don’t know but it wasn’t good. Melanie Scrofano, playing the role of Dana Cypress, definitely saved the show. Her character’s sassiness and attitude were a welcome change compared to the others. Roma Weltman as Martha “Em” Cypress was cool at first but kind of got irritating as the series went on. Also, and seriously, how the hell did she, a fragile girl with a bone disease, learn to all of a sudden kick so much ass John Wick style? One thing that got me going was the comedy portion. It surprised me at first but it was definitely well incorporated. I was only sad that they seemed to have forgotten about this because it felt completely missing during the second half of the season.

As to that ending, there are so many questions to be asked. The most obvious is how did Em end up with Weimar’s wife in a remote friggin’ cabin by a lake? It was revealed she was the one who told Em to go to the bridge in which her husband tried to kill her by drowning her in the lake, only for Lester to discover his plan and kill him for it. So, uh, is Lester and Aaron the mastermind behind the Revival disaster as it was made for us to believe for the majority of the season finale, or was it Aaron’s sick wife? Which brings the question of just how the hell did they believe Rose and Em were special enough to be sacrificed? Was it any young woman, or was there some sort of requirement because if there was, I totally missed it? Why wasn’t Blaine put in jail? It was shown that after the church incident, he was free to preach again via his radio network. I think one of the biggest questions I have is just what exactly is the bait for me to continue with season two? Obviously, it has to do with Em and Aaron’s wife manipulating her, but to what end? To cure her cancer? What about Em? The final showdown between her and Lester didn’t exactly show her wanting to find a way to reverse Revival Day. Is she going to the dark side in the next season?

Oh, and finally, for the love of everything we hold dear, can the characters please stop getting kidnapped every other episode!