Posted in: SYFY, TV | Tagged: revival

Revival Showrunners Discuss Blaine, Em & Planning for Future Seasons

Revival showrunners Aaron B. Koontz and Luke Boyce discussed Steven Ogg's Blaine, Romy Weltman's Em, and looking ahead to future seasons.

With season one of SYFY's Revival in the books, there's still a lot of story creators and showrunners Aaron B. Koontz and Luke Boyce want to expand upon the mysteries surrounding what happened in the town of Wausau, Wisconsin with the town dead, who are brought back to live with miraculous regenerative powers and at the center of the investigation is Martha "Em" Cypress (Romy Weltman), one of the Revivers. Her sister, Deputy Dana Cypress (Melanie Scrofano) is trying to get to the bottom of the supernatural threat while their father, Sheriff Wayne Cypress (David James Elliot) faces looming fears from local townsfolk and the US government that have taken interest in the Revivers. Boyce and Koontz spoke to Bleeding Cool about one of the town's most charismatic residents in Blaine Abel, who operates as not only a town tow truck driver, but also became a religious leader and podcaster, how Steven Ogg's performance expanded the character beyond the Tim Seeley and Mike Norton original Image Comic design, and how Em's next phase as a Reviver taps into season two possibilities.

Revival Creators Aaron B. Koontz and Luke Boyce on Steven Ogg and Em Cypress' Journeys and Season Two Plans

Regarding Steven's character, Blaine, how much of his character was on the page that drove his performance? Were there any maybe figures he drew additional inspiration from?

Boyce: I would say Steven brought a lot of that character when he came. We had a certain version of Blaine that crossed over, but the voice especially changed when Steven came on board. It was something that we collaborated on with him. He had a belief about how Blaine would talk, move, and things like that, and we loved it. We went back and rewrote a lot of stuff in early episodes to refashion that version of Blaine that Steven was bringing. I will say, even in the finale ("Rend the Veil") for sure, some inspirations came from when he's singing in the church, which was Robert Mitchum's character from 'The Night of the Hunter' (1955).

Koontz: We talked about (developing Steven to look like) Nick Cave was kind of like a thing. We almost dyed his hair black at one point,

Boyce: That's right.

Koontz: The idea that he was someone who was misunderstood, I think, is the thing about Blaine, is that even like he's a tow truck driver, preacher, right? What does that mean in a small Wisconsin town? He's not this backward,s ignorant individual. He's articulate, and he understands, and he's worldly. He has interesting viewpoints that might be distorted, he is very confused, and he has obviously been through some shit when you start to learn about things that have happened with his father and all this as the son of a preacher man that he was.

I will say part of what appealed to Steven Ogg and what appealed to us to work with him was the layers of Blaine that we don't get to go as in-depth with. You learn in episode eight ("A Rose and a Thorn") that he gave the reward money (to help solve Rose Blackdeer's murder) to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women's Fund. It's like, "Okay, there's something off," and he says that with Rose, he felt seen. What does that mean? We only get to touch on that.

These are things we hope to peel back more layers in future seasons, but we also like the idea of creating a character that is, in effect, "The Big Bad," right? He's the big bad the whole season, but he's not the bad guy. He's a misunderstood person, which I think the best villains are just misunderstood, right? They're not just evil, and Blaine didn't kill anyone. There's going to be some aftermath with Wanda (Marcia Bennett) and what happened there with a Reviver, but Blaine doesn't kill anyone. Blaine was someone who had conviction, right or wrong, and set out that path. We were able to peel back some interesting layers with Steven and do this differently than the comic, but still tie in some of the great stuff Blaine was in the comic as well, within that.

I know that Romy, on the other end of the spectrum, is working her deal as Em, and there was such a dynamic Cypress family, and then she's coming into her own. You are put into an interesting position as we set up for season two. I was wondering if you guys talked to Mike and Tim about where it can go from here, regardless of whether it follows the traditional comics trajectory, or do you have your own things planned?

Boyce: We talk to Mike and Tim all the time. They have been part of our dialogue from the very beginning. We brought them into the writers' room at one point, and we've talked to Tim, specifically about ideas we have in season two and on. They're a creative voice that we want to honor because they started this thing, and we love the comic, and we want to do well with it. We fashioned this season to tell a lot of that story so that we could, in future seasons, start to tell more original stories in this world.
The intent is to still go back and see how we can play with other stories from the comic, other characters, storylines, things like that, and we have that intent. Even with their creative input, we want to tell original stories in this world. We want to achieve this balance and mix that we hope to do, and we have ideas for multiple seasons is definitely the intent there, with their blessing as well.

Koontz: They're going to be involved in everything going forward, just as they were in season one. Even though the central mystery of who killed Em has been "solved," right, with still lingering threads we have at the end, there's still more to the Revival Day mystery. There's still more to the Revival comics that already exist. We are going to take, repurpose, and weave into a new central mystery that we're going to add in season two, that's very exciting.

We'll work with them on it, but then still weave in stories, things that were touched on that weren't completely finished, because there is great "side quests" as we would call them that happen in the comics that we want to still play with in future seasons. There is a lot there that we still think we can do while still taking stuff from the last issue. There are so many other issues before that that we can now make happen later, and change the order in which some of these get on earth.

Season one of Revival, which also stars Andy McQueen, Hudson Wurster, Lenore Zann, Gianpaolo Venuta, Katharine King So, CM Punk, and Konima Parkinson-Jones, is available to stream on Peacock.

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