‘Revival’ Boss Warns ‘No One Is Safe’ in Finale, But Expect Answers About Em & Revival Day

This thrilling drama has brought the dead back to life in Wausau, Wisconsin. They’re mostly normal, albeit with special abilities, like healing from new wounds quickly. But they shouldn’t get too comfortable.

In the August 14 finale, “No one is safe,” warns exec producer Aaron B. Koontz. “There have to be stakes. You can’t feel like people definitely can’t die.”

At the center of the story, amid all the supernatural mysteries, is the Cypress family — Wayne (David James Elliott) and his daughters Dana (Melanie Scrofano) and Em (Romy Weltman) — and their strained relationships, especially in the wake of Em becoming a reviver. Below, Koontz teases what to expect in the Season 1 finale and how it will end.

We know that revivers have the ability to heal themselves, and we saw Em heal Dana. Are there any other ability that will be revealed in the finale?

Aaron B. Koontz: Part of our goal here is to say that just as soon as you think you have an understanding of what revivers can and can’t do, we’re continuing to add more layers. It’s a nesting doll of reveals and things, and that will continue to happen throughout the season and even in the future.

Are the answers regarding those abilities coming in the finale?

A good portion of that will be answered. Yes, kind of partially, if that makes sense.

Naomi Peters/Lavivier Productions/SYFY

The description teases that the horrifying truth behind Revival Day is revealed. What can you preview about that?

There are two massive answers that are coming with the finale. One is you’re going to learn who killed Em. We’re not holding that beyond this season. That has been our central mystery. And then the other that you will learn, at least partially, is what caused Revival Day. And so you’re going to get a big piece of that information of what caused Revival Day as well.

Those are our two biggest questions, and we wanted to essentially reward people for a Season 1. We didn’t want Season 1 to end with the same lingering questions. We’re asking a lot of questions. And every time throughout this season, we’ll answer a couple questions — usually we’ll answer one or two, but we’ll ask three or four more at the same time, and eventually that would get frustrating. So thinking about how Luke [Boyce] and I wanted to structure this, we did want to reward the audience of going through the ups and downs of that with some real answers here in Episode 10.

There’s been conflict throughout the season between the characters. What can you say about how Dana, Wayne, Em, and Ibrahim (Andy McQueen) react and respond to these reveals? Is there a divide?

Yeah, there’s an aspect here of, what’s going to happen with the Cypress family? Are they coming together or are they fracturing? And I think that there’s hints of what’s happening there, and some of those questions will definitely be answered.

Also, when you think about Ibrahim in particular, he is kind of a fish out of water from the start, just being a CDC [scientist], a man of color, a Muslim man coming to this small town. But then he also is just getting thrown into crazier and crazier situations. He’s asked to lie to the police, and he says right there in [Episode] 5, “I’m not good at this. This is not what I’m good at.” Ibrahim is very much getting thrust into this whether he wants to or not, and that definitely is going to have some conflict.

And the same with Wayne, who set in motion when he called the governor some pretty big things [with] these camps. That is a scary place. Now his daughter’s public enemy number one. And that’s a very conflicting place for him where he wanted to get revivers out of there. And now he has to deal with the reality that the people he was afraid of, probably to protect his daughter, are now his daughter. It was a fun layer of conflict to have within a character, and seeing how he’s going to wrestle with that was a fun thing for us to explore.

Dana and Ibrahim’s potential romance keeps getting interrupted, but he is being drawn more and more into the Cypresses’ world. So how defined is their relationship in the finale and what can you tease about where it leaves them?

Yeah, there’s a lot of interruptions, both literally and figuratively, to what could clearly be a progressing relationship there. When you get to the finale — I mean, there’s so much action that really happens, in [Episodes] 6 coming in through 10 — that they need to take a moment to breathe. But I think that there is a moment in the finale where we’re trying to understand what their future might be. So it is still very much set up and something that we’re thinking about, and not only just in how Ibrahim wants to protect the Cypresses, but he’s developing a relationship with Em. He’s developing a relationship to help Em. But this all started and he says it in Episode 5, “I’m not here for you, I’m not helping you, I’m helping her.” And that continues. But then he starts to develop a relationship, a platonic one, with Em, trying to protect her and help her on behalf of Dana. And that continues to be explored. There’s a scene that I love in Episode 10 that deals with this, a very, very adorable scene, I will say.

Lavivier Productions/SYFY

Dana keeps getting seriously hurt. Is she once again in danger in the finale? Is it someone else?

I will say the stakes are very much raised in the finale. Dana is definitely in danger. No one is safe, I will say at the end. The stakes have really been raised as of Episode 7, [with the] military presence that comes in, and General Cale [Konima Parkinson-Jones] from the comic, setting martial law in the town and searching for revivers, taking them physically from their homes, very prescient. And honestly, it’s disturbing. I mean, I’m reading the news, it’s just so paralleled right now and very scary, scary, scary. But this is what’s happening in Wausau now as a result.

We have to deal with the repercussions of Em who’s a reviver in a town who’s very scared of revivers due to the Arlene [Nicky Guadagni] situation and just more the idea that they can heal all of this. And regardless of the Check brothers —they’re not great folks — she murders a number of people. I mean, she’s obliterating people in this warehouse and there are ramifications for that, whether justifiably or not. And those ramifications are going to come to a head and continue to be a thorn in the Cypresses’ and everyone’s side, even Mayor Dillisch [Conrad Coates], going into the finale here.

The finale logline also teases that the truth comes at a devastating price. What can you say about that?

What I can say is that no one is safe. No one is safe. We understand that we’re building to something that has to kind of crescendo. There have to be stakes in a show like this. You can’t just feel like nothing can happen or, well, these people definitely can’t die or these people can’t go away, whatever. I think everything is on the table and the audience should be prepared and aware of that.

What else can you preview about the finale?

This is a show about the Cypress family first and foremost. Yes, there are creatures in the woods and supernatural things and people coming back from the dead. But for us, one of the central questions was, will the Cypress family heal? And I think that that’s something that we wanted to focus on. And in the finale, it’s really about Dana and her sister. I think the conversation in the car in Episode 1 with Dana and Em is one of my favorite scenes of the show, and that is going to come back around. There’s information in that conversation that’ll come back around here in Episode 10.

But then I’ll also say that just from a fun standpoint, when Luke and I were writing this episode, we talked about paralleling the pilot. And so there’s a lot of seed centers similar in how they’re being structured and a lot of callbacks. So for people who are paying a lot of attention to those first few episodes and some things that happened there, it’ll be a lot of fun to see how we’re calling back and how we’re kind of playing, not necessarily homage to our own show, but it’s a fun thing to play with scenes and moments that get recreated with new context after all the events that happened through these 10 episodes.

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What can you tease about how the finale ends, and how it sets up a second season?

We will learn what happened to Em, that I can promise you, but within that, there’s a bigger mystery at hand within this, right? Again, it’s a nesting doll and there’s going to be another pretty big revelation beyond just what killed Em, what happened to Em.

The ending is going to be pretty shocking. I think the last moments will have people leaning forward and maybe a couple, “Wait? What? Did that just happen?” It could be a lot of fun. We’ve already seen reactions of people working on the show as we’re finishing that episode right now that have been doing that. So it’s been really fun to see. It will tie itself up — I’m proud of the way it ties up — but it’s also going to get you to want to go back and maybe rewatch some episodes and realize some things that you didn’t know were there the whole time.

I was going to ask if there’s a cliffhanger, but based on what you’ve said, the answer is yes.

A little bit, yeah. I mean, there’s a cliffhanger in the sense that there’s a new revelation, but at the same time, I think the biggest mysteries are going to have a good conclusion. You’re going to feel like you’ve got some good answers. I think that was very important. But then there is also one more reveal at the end that will be left for open for interpretation for what people think, and I can’t wait to hear their theories.

You said there’s a big revelation beyond what happened to Em and then earlier we’re getting the truth of behind Revival Day. So is this a third revelation?

Yeah, it is something that is tied to those two things that you might not have realized was tied to those two things.

Revival, Season 1 Finale, Thursday, August 14, 10/9c, Syfy