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“The Returned” recap (1.1): Unexpected Reunions

When I first heard about the French show The Returned (Les Revenants), I was definitely intrigued. Dead people returning and the promise of lesbian characters was enough to reel me in. I sat down last night to watch the first episode and I can already tell this will be my new obsession.

A bus full of school children is driving through the scenic mountain countryside of France. Why, nothing could ruin this beautiful day. Oh great, here comes teacher wrecking a perfectly good field trip with a test. I used to hate teachers like this. Aren’t they aware that field trips should have nothing to do with learning? Camille takes off her headphones and apathetically grabs her copy of the test. This day can’t get any worse.

Apparently I spoke too soon. This show certainly knows how to start off with a bang. We are not even two minutes in and we are already exposed to the sights and sounds of an entire class plummeting off the side of a dam. Cut to present day inside a large estate perched within the mountainside, a butterfly comes back to life and bursts through the glass of the shadow box it had been displayed in. I smell foreshadowing. Nope, that’s my frozen pizza burning. I got caught up in the show and didn’t hear the timer.

The butterfly floats past an elderly gent asleep in a chair who is soon awakened by a knock at the door. Meanwhile, Camille casually climbs up a grassy hill at night unaware that she was a passenger on the death bus. I assume she is either a well-put together zombie or has the ability to regenerate a la Claire Bennet from Heroes. Next we enter an establishment called The Lake Pub. In a back room, a middle- aged man is paying a twenty-something for an act that involves disrobing as they leave through the bar. A group of friends notices their exit and asks their red-headed compatriot, Lena, if her Dad is seeing Lucy again. I don’t think there is enough beer in the bar to fix her evening after witnessing her Dad post-coital.

Lena’s Dad then arrives at a group meeting which is already in progress. If it is for sex addicts, he will definitely need to share this evening. Turns out it is a support group for parents of the children involved in the horrific bus crash. At the same time, Camille continues her journey along a busy road; she slowly approaches a town in the distance that suddenly loses power. The power returns minutes later and we cut back to the group meeting where they discuss the design of a future monument in honor of the bus crash victims. The group leader, Pierre, opens the floor to Lena’s Dad, Jerome, who proceeds to shit all over the monument calling it pointless and ugly.

Camille eventually returns home and her mother, Claire, comes down the stairs calling out for Lena. She sees Camille preparing a sandwich in the kitchen and stands frozen staring at her. Camille apologizes for being late and explains it wasn’t her fault. She woke up near the dam and had to walk the whole way home. After her Mom stares at her and responds with one word answers, Camille retires to take a bath upstairs. While trying not to have a heart attack, Camille’s mother puts her room back in order and removes a creepy shrine with a picture of twins. Holy crap, Lena is her identical twin! And it appears several years have passed since the accident. Claire then calls Pierre, the group leader, and when he doesn’t answer, she calls Jerome, her ex-husband.

The elderly gent, Mr. Costa, calls Julie to come over and give him some type of medical treatment. He seems very agitated and asks her to hurry. As she leaves, she lets a curly haired stranger enter through the security door, which is always a good idea. He thanks her and asks if the door code has changed. Uh oh, Julie, another reanimated corpse. Keep walking. He proceeds upstairs and knocks on Julie’s door only to be confronted by an intrusive neighbor with wailing cats. He is looking for Adele and is very confused when Miss Nosy has no clue who he is talking about.

Jerome arrives at Claire’s house and opens the bathroom to door to view Camille in the tub. She angrily yells at him to get out, thinking her Dad has lost his mind. As her parents try their best not to crap their pants, Camille comes downstairs and asks if she should see a doctor since she must have had a blackout. She then inquires where Lena is and Claire nervously says she is at a friend’s. Cut to Lena pounding back shots while trying to forget that her Dad solicits prostitutes at her favorite watering hole. Meanwhile, Mr. Costa is getting his “calm down” shot from Julie. When she inquires about a noise in another room he insists he is alone and she leaves. Once she is gone, Mr. Costa slowly walks down the hall past younger pictures of him and his wife. And surprise, guess who is at the kitchen table? And she hasn’t aged a day.

As Julie waits for a bus, the creepiest kid since Children of the Corn appears behind the glass partition of the bus stop. She boards the bus and McEerie follows suit.

Our curly-haired stranger now shows up at The Lake Pub, still on the hunt for Adele. Lena happens to know her, but says she works at the library. She offers to take him to where Adele lives if she buys her a drink. At this point, he will be lucky if she can make it across the parking lot, let alone all the way to Adele’s house.

Back to Jerome and Claire, still reeling from the night’s events. Pierre arrives and it seems that he and Claire have a little something something going on. He lies to Camille and says he is a doctor here to examine her. She calls him out on being a shrink, says she is not mad and asks for them to leave so she catch up on the sleep that has been eluding her. Pierre offers her something to aid her into slumber land. Julie disembarks from the bus and her little friend isn’t far behind. Once upstairs in her apartment, she sees the little weirdo standing in the grass below her window vacantly staring. He disappears when she looks away and then there is a knock at her door. She opens it to find him standing there with that vacant stare again. This kid is really starting to unnerve me. He stays silent through her questioning and then Miss Nosy enters the hall to see what is going on. Julie lies and says the boys name is Victor. Miss Nosy tells her of the handsome stranger looking for Adele. Julie informs her that she was a previous tenant and this is not her “dating name” as the neighbor has suggested. I don’t think Julie is really the dating type. She has more of a shut-in vibe to me.

Pierre tells Jerome that he should stay with his divorced wife to help Camille. They will eventually need to explain to her that she has been gone more than a few hours. Lena and the curly haired stranger make their way to Adele’s place. They are both confused as to why they have never met, since they frequent the same bar and were both born in the area. They part ways and he ominously stares into Adele’s home and she looks in the mirror. He knocks on her front door and calls out her name, causing Adele to have a mental breakdown. She screams for him to leave her alone, than slumps to the ground. Her young daughter approaches and after hearing her voice through the door, the curly haired stranger departs.

Back at Julie’s, “Victor” is going to town on a bowl of rice while she continues to question him to no avail. After threatening to call the police she backs down and lets him stay the night. At The Lake Pub, Lucy heads out for the evening and begins her walk home. She is attacked by a man in a hoodie and repeatedly stabbed in the abdomen in a very unnecessary close-up shot.

Lena returns home and is about to sober up real quick. She sneaks up the balcony and then hears a familiar knock on her bedroom door. The door opens to reveal her sister and both go into a state of shock. As Lena cries and Camille screams, their parents run upstairs to console them. Mr. Costa is having an interesting end to his evening as well. He douses old photos with lighter fluid and throws a match on the pile starting a blaze in the room. He turns to reveal his wife gagged and bound to the base of his bed and then flees the house. Later when police and fire report to the incident, they identify it as arson but find no one in the home. The police inspector on the scene returns to his home to find his wife, Adele, in an almost catatonic state. She tells him it has started again and she thought it was over. Implying she has seen her former lover before. Mr. Curly arrives at his own grave and we learn his name is Simon and he died in 2002. Cut to workers in an office outside the dam, they are reviewing data that the water level is on a continual decline. As one worker views the reservoir with binoculars he spots Mr. Costa on the edge of the dam. Before they can stop him he takes a header off the side.

Lucy is shown lying dead in a pool of her own blood the next morning. Julie watches “Victor” as he pretends to sleep. Lena, Camille, and Claire sit silently while Jerome stares blankly out the window. As the camera pans around the house it fades back to four years earlier. Camille complains to her parents at the breakfast table that she doesn’t understand why she has to go on the trip but Lena can stay home. They say she is sick and to get moving. As they all leave the house, Lena watches them go then opens the door for a boy to come inside for a little hanky panky. As they make out on the bed she jokingly asks him what if he can’t even tell them apart and what if she is Camille. So, it may be possible that Lena is really (un)dead and Camille has been pretending to be Lena for four years. Mind blown. As one of the twins begins to have sex, the twin on the bus feels what she is feeling. She freaks out and runs to the door insisting to be let out. The distracted driver looks back to the roadway and what in the hell! It’s “Victor” in the road way looking creepy as ever. The bus swerves to avoid him and plummets off the side.

The Returned airs Thursdays at 9 pm ET on the Sundance Channel.

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