The finale of The Survivors dealt with revealing the identity of the person responsible for Gabby and Brontë's deaths. In the late 2000s, the fictional Australian town of Evelyn Bay was hit by a storm that claimed three souls: Finn, Toby, and Gabby. Kieran was blamed for the incident because he went exploring the caves despite being warned not to, forcing Finn and Toby to risk their lives. While Finn and Toby's heroism was remembered by the townspeople, the story behind Gabby's demise remained a mystery. Kieran was apparently compelled to move away, which he did, settling with Mia in Sydney.
On the 15th anniversary of the incident, Kieran decided to visit Evelyn Bay briefly, along with Mia and their daughter, Audrey, in the hope that the townspeople had moved on. As expected, they hadn't, and it wasn't long before someone—Toby's son, Liam—became aggressive with Kieran and reminded him of the past. Kieran and Mia decided to return to Sydney as soon as possible, but tragedy struck again: the body of a young woman named Bronte was found on the beach. Since Bronte had spoken to almost the entire town about Gabby, everyone had to stay home and answer to Detectives Pendlebury and Dan.
Stars: Yerin Ha, Miriama Smith, Jessica De Gouw
So several things happened before Kieran spilled the beans to his mother, Verity, about why he'd moved to Sydney. For starters, Bronte was working on an art project centered on Gabby, because Evelyn Bay had forgotten her death, while a club was being opened in memory of Finn and Toby. Bronte had therefore collected a ton of photos from the 2000s, especially those featuring him with Gabby. Bronte used to develop new photos and store old ones in the darkroom at Barlin's house, the local writing legend and accused "me too."
Mia was a fan of Barlin's work. So, after arguing with Kieran about how he had hidden for 15 years the fact that Olivia (Kieran's then-secret girlfriend) had called Toby and Finn that fateful day, not Kieran, to "protect" Olivia from the humiliation he was suffering, Mia went to see Barlin, who showed her Bronte's things. There, she found a photo that apparently placed Gabby on the same boat Toby and Finn had used during the failed rescue mission to save Kieran and Olivia.
When Mia told Trish, Gabby and Olivia's mother, this happened, she confronted Mallott, the investigator of the deaths that occurred during the storm. Mallott admitted to finding Gabby's bag in the boat's dry van, but he threw it into the water to make it look like Gabby had drowned at sea, as this would protect the memory of the deceased boys and not make them look like pedophiles. At the Memorial Day football game, where a clubhouse was being dedicated in Finn and Toby's honor, Trish confronted Verity about this alleged cover-up, which escalated into a heated verbal argument. The next day, Kieran asked Verity if they should really consider this possibility. Verity was overly protective of Finn. Therefore, she resorted to sexist and belittling remarks to downplay Kieran's misgivings; she reminded him that he was responsible for Finn's death and that he didn't stay to help his mother and father, Brian, recover.
Kieran, unable to lie any longer, revealed that it was Brian who told him to leave to save himself from being "destroyed" by Verity. Kieran didn't want to move from Evelyn Bay, but Brian knew what Verity was made of and was sure she would ruin his life to get revenge for killing her favorite son. And she'd proven how destructive she was by being hostile to Kieran, even though it had been 15 years since that incident. Besides, she didn't even know that Kieran hadn't been the one who'd called Finn and Toby; she didn't even try to find out the truth, busy taking him swimming with Toby's brother Sean and Liam to make him feel guilty. Perhaps if she'd been nice to Kieran and not questioned his masculinity by calling him "Nancy Drew" or "doormat" (for trying to calm an angry Mia), he would have opened up to her, and they could have healed together.
There was a lot of fuss surrounding the security camera footage from Surf 'n Turf, the pub owned by Julian, Toby, and Finn's father, and Liam's grandfather, where Liam yelled at Bronte on the night of her murder. Pendlebury suggested that Julian had likely discovered that Bronte knew the truth about Toby, about his possibly inappropriate relationship with Gabby, and that he killed her to prevent her from publishing the story. Because Bronte was too busy interviewing people about Gabby, she wasn't exactly a good bartender. Besides, it was true that she was investigating Gabby's death, and since she was "on the verge" of discovering that Sean was the culprit, something Julian knew perfectly well, it was necessary to shut her up. But it's impossible to know what prompted Julian to reprimand Bronte, as seen in the camera footage. Perhaps he was angry at her lack of professionalism, worried that Bronte's trauma-tourist behavior might damage Evelyn Bay's image, or he was trying to protect Sean (whom more later). However, Julian wasn't a murderer, at least not in the strictest sense (which I'll also discuss shortly). So we can consider him a red herring.
Another red herring was Barlin. The main reason he was a suspect was because, during his time in Melbourne, he'd been accused of sexually harassing a girl. Bronte lived with Olivia and Trish, but also spent a lot of time with Barlin. As mentioned, he had helped her set up a darkroom in her house. The people of Evelyn Bay didn't like him, especially Ash (Olivia's current boyfriend and Kieran's friend), because he had supposedly bought Ash's grandmother's house for a paltry sum. So, it was possible that a mixture of all these emotions surfaced, and to vent his anger, he approached Bronte with his signature creepy touch—we all saw how he told Mia she was "beautiful"—and when Bronte ignored him, he responded by murdering her.
Well, it wasn't like that at all, because Barlin was with a girl, hopefully of the right age, when Bronte was murdered. We'll never know if he was a sexual predator or not, but he definitely wasn't a murderer. Going back to that moment with Mia, Barlin was key to uncovering the photos Bronte had collected from the townspeople. Of all the photos, the one he obtained from Trish showed that Gabby was likely in the caves when Toby and Finn died, and not with them on the boat that day, thus, to a certain extent, clearing their names. I say "a little" because we still don't know if they were guilty of encouraging a 14-year-old girl to drink beer with them on their boat another day.
Although Marco wasn't present in the finale, the series also presented him as a red herring. Since crime dramas often reveal the boyfriend as the killer, the odds were against the Argentinian for a long time. We learned that Marco and Bronte had dated, and then broke up because Marco was "a sexist pig." Bronte had gone to Evelyn Bay for her art project. Marco was a backpacker, but it didn't seem like a coincidence that he'd ended up in the same town as Bronte. Marco was even seen visiting Bronte's temporary workplace and the coffee shop where she used to edit her Evelyn Bay and Gabby videos. Bronte's social media still featured videos and photos of her and Marco, indicating that she still had feelings for him.
Therefore, the showrunners led us to believe that perhaps the former lovebirds tried to rekindle the flame that had been extinguished by Marco's misogyny, but things got complicated because they were both under the influence of drugs Ash supplied them, and Marco went on the run after killing Bronte. But that wasn't the case at all, as DNA evidence proved, and Marco was allowed to return to Argentina. However, it was strange that he didn't care about his ex's death. I understand that a relationship ends on bad terms, but not caring about the deceased is indicative of something else wrong with Marco. Even if he's not a murderer, people, especially girls, should stay away from guys like him.
Mia informed Kieran that Gabby's name was carved into the walls of a secluded area of the caves, along with the day she inscribed it. Based on that, Kieran decided to explore that location with Sean. At the same time, Verity went to Julian's house to talk to him about how the police were accusing him of killing Bronte because he had an argument with her right before her death. And she also wanted to talk about Brian accusing him of raping and killing Bronte because her hair was found on his body and in his mouth, and the police didn't even consider the fact that Brian was trying to perform CPR on Bronte after accidentally stumbling upon her body. Now, the episode intercuts these two interactions—Sean and Kieran's and Verity and Julian's—to tell us the truth about Gabby and Bronte's deaths. I'm going to keep it linear for simplicity's sake. In 2009, Gabby was in love with Kieran. She wanted to go to the caves with him and was looking for him. That's how she met Brian, who told her to go home because there was a storm warning. She went to the dock anyway, where she met Sean, who told her that Kieran was in the caves.
When Sean learned that Gabby wanted to go to the caves, he offered to drive her, knowing the labyrinthine paths there like the back of his hand. Sean told Gabby to put her bag in the dry box on Finn and Toby's boat, where Mallott had found it after it capsized during the storm. After reaching a particularly secluded part of the cave, Gabby carved her name into the walls and thanked Sean for taking her there.
Sean interpreted this as an invitation to kiss her, but she didn't reciprocate, causing him to become very rude. Gabby did her best to calm Sean down, but he ran out of the caves, knowing full well that she didn't know how to escape the maze. Gabby couldn't keep up and got lost. High tide came in, and Sean decided to save himself rather than return to find Gabby, who drowned there. Sean confessed to Julian and told his son never to tell him about this. Later, when Mallott, supposedly of his own volition, tried to give Trish some closure by throwing Gabby's bag into the water, everyone assumed Gabby must have drowned somewhere in the vastness of the sea.
Fifteen years later, Bronte appeared, digging up the past because she was genuinely curious to know why Finn and Toby were getting all the attention while Gabby, who had also died, wasn't. Bronte's investigation led her to that very spot—with Ash's help, of course—and she took detailed photographs. Before her trip to the caves, she had taken Sean's flashlight. When Sean went to find it, Bronte asked him if he would join her on the beach, as she wanted to witness the bioluminescent water. After taking the photos of the phenomenon, Bronte showed him the ones from the cave, the ones with Gabby's name on the walls. To be clear, Bronte had no way of knowing Sean was with Gabby that day.
No way. Perhaps Bronte would have assumed Gabby went into the caves alone, got lost, and died when the tide flooded in. However, since Sean had been carrying the guilt of killing Gabby for 15 years, he couldn't help himself and killed Bronte with his flashlight and threw it into the sea. When he saw Brian walking along the beach, he ran off. That's when Mia and Kieran came across his car while walking home. Brian tried to save Bronte, but it was too late. Since his DNA was all over Bronte, Sean framed him by planting Bronte's camera in the shed behind Kieran's house and wrote "pervert" on the doors to seal the deal. He even scrubbed Gabby's name off the cave walls so no one would know she was there with him.
During the Survivors finale, Sean tried to kill Kieran in the caves, knowing the truth about how he murdered Gabby and Bronte, hoping the waters would hide his crime once again. But Kieran managed to fend off Sean. Meanwhile, Julian tried to stop Verity from informing the police, but she escaped his grasp and arrived at the station with Liam's help. Detectives Pendlebury and Dan already suspected foul play from Sean because the camera footage matched the footage near Ash's house, where Sean also lived. So, when Verity told them Sean was the real killer and that he was in the caves with Kieran, the detectives and the entire Evelyn Bay police force went to the caves instead of Ash's house.
Sean was arrested and charged with one count of murder—Bronte's. Kieran was bruised but alive. All charges against Brian were dropped, and Pendlebury had to accept that his theory that "there are no good men in the world" was false and that Brian, despite his weak mind, had tried to save Bronte. Bronte's missing laptop was found buried in Ash's backyard, and Gabby's skeletal remains were found in the caves. Julian wasn't charged with anything because his biggest punishment was seeing his son go to jail and his grandson choose to be with Verity. Yes, while Verity may have hurt Kieran, she had a positive influence on Liam, which was probably why he didn't turn out like his uncle and grandfather.
This whole fiasco had created a rift between Mia and Kieran because she assumed his return to Evelyn Bay had rekindled his feelings for Olivia, which wasn't true at all. When Mia realized this, she urged Kieran to stay with Verity and Brian a little longer and help them with their move to Hobart. Verity welcomed this decision. She needed to do some serious soul-searching after letting her mind and heart be steeped in hatred for 15 long years, and accepting that she needed Kieran in her life was a step in the right direction.
Speaking of moving out of Evelyn Bay, Olivia was heading to Melbourne. In a way, she forgave Ash (who, surprisingly, wasn't in jail for drug dealing on a daily basis) for cheating on her with a tourist, but that didn't mean she was going to spend the rest of her life with him—because a cheater, a cheater. After that, Audrey, Mia, Kieran, Liam, Verity, Brian, Olivia, and Ash accompanied Trish to meet Nick and Andrea, Bronte's parents, near the caves to say goodbye to Gabby and Bronte. Andrea handed Bronte's art project to Trish, which made it a real departure, as it included a part about Bronte and Gabby, two girls who lost their lives at the hands of a toxic man whose minds had been contaminated by the culture of Evelyn Bay.
That brings me to the question: what's the point of the whole series? Well, as far as I know, Tony Ayres's adaptation of Jane Harper's book tries to say that we can allow tragedy to shape our lives or we can learn something from it. Holding Sean accountable for his actions would have saved Bronte's life. If Verity hadn't treated Kieran like a criminal, he would have been there to help her as Brian spiraled into dementia. If Olivia had admitted to calling Finn and Toby, Kieran would have had someone to share his guilt with. I don't know how that would have affected the town, which was willing to resort to slander for the flimsiest excuse. However, I suppose a tradition of rules and consequences would have motivated the townspeople to be responsible and respectful. The Survivors is a cautionary tale for any society in decline, driven by a general disregard for morality and ethics. We may have passed the point of no return, but it's never too late to make amends—not for ourselves, but for future generations who still harbor hope.
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