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“The Returned” recap (1.9): Dynamite

Previously on The Returned, Victor continued his descent from merely a creepy kid to a full-on sinister mind-murderer, and Nikki tried to her best to get Julie to see it. Helen learned more about the dam (and how to destroy it) with the help of a lot of tequila shots and her feminine wiles. Simon re-returned after Tommy shot him in cold blood in Rowan’s living room.

29 Years Ago

Helen is reading about the recent murders of Victor and his mother in the newspaper, but her husband, George, is like, “Babydoll, don’t read that-it makes you so emotional.” Helen is undeterred, however, and responds that not everyone can be as oblivious as George is. She thinks the murders are just the beginning of some dark times in their town. Also, she wants to know when she can get out of the psych ward, because the people here are legit crazy and she doesn’t want to end up like them.

George tells her that the damage from the fire wasn’t as bad as they originally thought, so he’ll talk to her lawyer and try to work something out. In the meantime, however, she has to stay and get the help she needs. Helen does not think she needs help, but George reminds her that she blew up city hall so maybe she does. Helen’s like, “You’re damn right. And I’d do it again.” George is, shockingly, not comforted by the turn their conversation has taken, and leaves.

While Helen is fake-swallowing some pills a nurse gave her, an alarm goes off. The dam has broken, and the staff is trying to herd everyone upstairs to the roof. Helen follows the crowd at first, but then breaks off from them and goes out the front door. She sees a rush of dark water cascading toward her in the distance, and, just a few seconds later, a wave comes crashing at her.

Present Day

Helen is out for a late night joyride in the woods with someone named Greg. He saw her at the Dog Star and knows she can hold her liquor, so he pulls out some airplane bottles of vodka as he drives. Helen and Greg drink up just as they arrive at their destination: an active mine, complete with live explosives. Helen finally cracks a genuine smile, because blowing things up is her number one favorite hobby (just a hair above making religious allusions in her monologues).

Back in town, Julie studies the front page of the newspaper; the main headline is about Tony, his confession, and subsequent suicide. She brings the paper over to Victor and asks him if he hurt the man (Tony) last night for her. Victor pauses from his creepy coloring to smile at her. Julie! What in the actual fuck? I know I’ve said this before, but you have got to get rid of that little demon kid!

Simon, meanwhile, is up and around again as though he hasn’t died twice like a regular old Buffy Summers. He’s at the community center, processing some of his feels with Peter. I guess knowing that the love of your life wants you to stay dead is kind of a downer, huh? Simon asks Peter if he can crash for a few days, but Peter is not very sympathetic. He thinks Tommy will know to look for Simon at the community center, and also he’s hosting a bus crash memorial. It’d be in poor taste to flaunt a returned dead guy around some grieving parents, and we all saw how well they responded to Camille (answer: not well at all and two of them killed themselves).

Simon’s like, “Way harsh, Tai,” and starts to storm off, but Peter stops him mid-hissy fit. He gives Simon the keys to a donated van and some money. Simon doesn’t want to leave his daughter, but Peter tells him that he can start over and become anyone he wants to. Peter knows a little something about that concept, you see.

Across town, Rowan is on the phone trying to do some last minute wedding planning while Chloe watches cartoons downstairs. She’s chatting on the phone like, “Yeah, I know that Tony confessed to being a serial murderer and then killed himself mere hours ago. However, I did give him my deposit months ago and we have guests arriving any minute now, so…” She hangs up quickly once she realizes Chloe is gone, and looks outside just in time to see Simon putting her into the front seat of a van.

In the van, Chloe wonders where they’re going and why her mom isn’t with them. Simon tells her that they’re just playing a game. Rowan, meanwhile, is frantic as she follows them in her car. She tries to make a phone call, but, flustered, drops the phone. When she reaches to pick it up, she almost hits another driver head on. She swerves out of the way, but crashes into a telephone pole. In a daze, she gets out of the car and tries to run after the van, but since she isn’t Robert Patrick in T2 she does not catch up to them.

Tommy arrives on the scene a little later, chest puffed out and ready to kill Simon as many times as he has to in order for him to stay dead. He tells Rowan not to worry, that they’ll find Chloe, and he orders the other cop around a bit. The cop, Mark, asks for a description of the suspect. Rowan and Tommy confirm that it was Simon, the guy that Tommy just recently shot and killed. Mark obviously thinks they’re both nuts, but says he’ll put the bulletins out.

In the van, Simon tries to convince Chloe that everything is fine and they are going on a big adventure. He suggests they go to the beach, and Chloe reluctantly agrees. It doesn’t seem like beach weather at all to me, but whatever Simon. Up ahead, Simon sees the red and blue flashes of a police car, so he turns off the road to avoid them. Probably he should’ve thought this plan out a little more thoroughly.

Meanwhile, Lena and Camille do some more sisterly bonding. Camille is whining because Hunter & friends are posting about her on Facebook. She’s all, “Ugh, my life is so hard! They think I’m, like, a witch or something-just because I came back from the dead and then kind of maybe made some people kill themselves. And they posted a picture of my open coffin! It’s basically like they posted nudes of me! This is all because Hunter wouldn’t let me give him a blow jay.” Lena is way too nice, and tries to comfort her sister.

Elsewhere in town, Nikki has tracked down the neighbor of a woman who died in a fire more than ten years ago. The neighbor believed that the fire wasn’t caused by a gas leak, as the police thought, but was started by a little boy her neighbor called Eric. Eric was a creep and he didn’t talk. Eric is Victor. Nikki calls Julie, but Victor picks up and doesn’t say anything. He hangs up after a few seconds.

At the community center, people are bustling about to make sure everything is ready for the impending memorial. Peter approaches the two parents who hate Camille the most to thank them for all their help. They’re like, “BTW, we don’t think that witch Camille or anyone in her family should come tonight. Honestly, no one can stand to look at her face and she made our friends kill themselves. You understand, right?” Peter responds all, “Biotch, they weren’t gonna come tonight anyway.” And then he snaps in their faces, gives them the whatever symbol, and storms off.

He doesn’t get very far, however, before he sees Tommy creeping around his cabin and trying to peer in the windows. Tommy’s like, “How dare you help Simon! When I kill someone, they’re supposed to stay dead!” Peter pretends like he doesn’t know how Simon got the van, but Tommy accuses him of siding with all of the returned people, and then the two of them get into a tussle. Tommy tells Peter that he is starting to see what he truly is-a lying piece of shit. Peter thinks that’s pretty rich coming from the guy who lied to his fiancée for literal years. He asks Tommy if he’s planning on charging him with a crime, otherwise GTFO.

Over at the mine, our random drinker and driver from earlier, Greg, gives what is probably the best compliment anyone could ever receive. He literally says to Helen, “Damn girl, you screw like the world’s gonna end.” Romance isn’t dead, you guys. As Helen gets dressed, she asks for that tour he promised her. He didn’t think she was serious, but then tells her about how they have a bunch of stored explosives and – hey wait, has she seen his keys? Greg may play fast and loose with DUIs and STDs, but Helen is now starting to creep him right out. He decides it’s time to drive her home, but Helen has other plans-she straight up bashes his head in with a rock.

Back at the community center, Camille shows up to whine at Peter. Pretty sure it went like this:

Camille: Meow. Everyone thinks I’m a killer and I blame you because I can’t take responsibility for my actions!

Peter: ?»\_(Òâä)_/?» My bad. People aren’t ready for the truth, I guess. IDK if they’ll ever be.

Camille: You can’t give up on me! Meow.

Anyway, over at the Dog Star, Lucy shows up now that she’s out of the hospital. Jack is getting rid of Tony’s things around the bar, and Lucy speculates about whether Tony was really the killer. Lucy, if you were wondering, does not think Tony attacked her. Jack is feeling pretty feisty, so he asks if the voices in her head told her that. Lucy’s like, “Haha, good one. But for real though, haven’t heard them since I went on about your dad. That was weird, huh?” Jack doesn’t want to talk about that. Lucy’s about to hit the road as she always does, but Jack stops her. He’s like, “Welp, I know you were scamming me the whole time, but being with you actually made me happy. Let’s make out.” Then they make out.

Helen, meanwhile, takes dead (I think dead?) Greg’s keys and opens up the storage shed. She digs around a bit before, bingo. There’s a fuckton of dynamite. I know that Helen is obviously insane, but I truly, truly love her.

Simon and Chloe are having a kidnapping/daddy-daughter day over by a lake somewhere. You promised the beach, Simon. Dad strike 1. He tells her that he loves her a lot and doesn’t want her to grow up like he did, not knowing her real dad. Chloe’s like, “If you love me so much, why did you leave me? Take me home plz.”

Rowan is trying any lead she can think of to find Simon and Chloe, so she goes to the twins’ house to talk to Camille. Lena tells her that Camille isn’t home, and they actually don’t know where she went. Rowan asks her to call if they find her, because Simon kidnapped her daughter. She also warns Lena that if Camille is anything like returned Simon, she should be careful.

As she’s leaving the house, Rowan gets a call. It’s Simon, and he wants to give Chloe back. He says he’ll bring her to “the place [he] left [her].” I think he’s kind of left her a bunch of times now, so hopefully she knows where he means. Also, I think Chloe is eating a corndog in the van, and it’s so hilariously random. Like, where’d he even get her a corndog? So great.

At her apartment, Julie is taking a shower, but we don’t even have time to dwell on that right now-because Nikki shows up and runs into Victor on the stairs. The lights flicker and suddenly Julie is there too, but now fully dressed/dry. Nikki tries to tell Julie that she’s not safe with Victor, but VisionJulie starts saying horrible things to Nikki. She tells Nikki that she didn’t protect her before, so how could she do it now.

RealJulie is still in the shower, however, and she seems to realize something is off. VisionJulie keeps berating Nikki, moving closer and closer, until she finally reaches her and pushes Nikki down the stairs. RealJulie comes out into the hall at that point and sees Nikki unconscious down on the floor and Victor standing at the top of the stairs. Julie runs down to help Nikki, and I’m really glad she’s a doctor right about now, because Nikki is not looking great.

At the church, Chloe is sleeping on Simon’s shoulder in a church pew while they wait for Rowan. The pastor comes out and he seems pretty unfazed by the appearance of a dead guy in his church. Simon asks if he’s in hell, because he died and now has to watch everyone he loves move on. The pastor doesn’t answer, because Rowan shows up and Chloe runs to her. They hug, but Rowan tells Chloe to go with the pastor for a minute while she deals with AngelDaddy. She smacks him a few times, while the pastor makes a phone-presumably to Tommy to let him know they have Simon.

Rowan is like, “Listen, deadboy, you gotta stop doing this shit. My heart is set on Tommy, even though we have an emotionally abusive relationship and he might still be spying on me.” Simon agrees that he is definitely the best guy for her to marry, because that Tommy is really just a stand up fellow. Chloe runs back out and asks Simon if he’s leaving, and Simon tells her that he’ll always be her angel and will look out for her even if she can’t see him. Tommy and the rest of calvary roll up just after Simon leaves. Tommy wants to send some men around back to catch Simon, but Rowan asks Tommy not to kill him (again), because he’s really gone this time.

At the bus crash memorial, Camille shows up with Peter. Oh my god, these two are just the worst. Peter invites Camille up in the middle of his speech, and basically yells at everyone for shunning her. Real sensitive, Peter. The mother who hates Camille gets up and argues that the thing standing up there isn’t really Camille. Peter explains that he knows this girl is truly Camille because, PLOT TWIST, Peter is a returned too! He died 29 years ago.

So, what do you guys think? Did Peter die in the flood? Did his grifter buddy murder him? Is Nikki going to be alright? How much more creepy can Victor get? Is anyone in the world worse than Camille? (I’ll answer that one for you-no.) Let me know here in the comments or on twitter @jennalykes before next week’s season finale!

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