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“The Returned” recap (1.6): Hearing Voices

Previously on The Returned, we found out that Tony killed his brother Adam, the town serial killer/cannibal. Also, Victor (real name Henry) knows that Peter (real name Elton from Clueless) killed him and his mom, and he’s not happy about it. Lena busted out of the hospital and confronted Camille about being, like, totally heinous and also dead, before running off into the woods, passing out, and being found by Adam. Most importantly, Nikki made out with an attractive and naked woman, but was thwarted by cliterference in the form of a potential lead about Victor.

One Year Ago

Lucy jumps out of the cab of a logging truck and right into the parking lot of the Dog Star. She sees a “help wanted” sign, and it’s a match made in heaven. She starts waitressing and, soon after, banging Jack. Mid-sexing, she starts telling Jack that Camille, his daughter, is talking to her. Her death was quick, Lucy says, but Jack responds pretty much the exact way you’d imagine a man would respond when you bring up his dead daughter randomly mid-coitus.

That’s the end of sexy times, and Jack leaves.

Present Day

Lucy is flat-lining in the hospital. The team of doctors try to revive her, but are unable to and call the time of death. Just a few moments later, she sits straight up, gasping for breath-very much alive. Lucy is obviously confused; she doesn’t remember being attacked. The doctor explains that she lost a lot a blood, slipped into a coma, and went into cardiac arrest an hour ago. Lucy’s like, “Uh, Doc? I don’t feel very stabbed.” So the doctor goes to examine her wounds and:

Back at the twins’ house, Jack is on the phone with the police, but they don’t seem to care that a very injured patient left the hospital and is now missing. Camille’s at the table, chomping down on some food, not a fuck left to give about her sister, like, “Well, at least Lena’s not dead. Not like I was. Am I right guys?”

Camille then proceeds to tell her parents that the twins can feel each other, like that time Lena broke her ankle, or the time Lena fucked a boy while staying home “sick” from school. Camille! Shut up, you are the actual worst! Claire is finally starting to realize that Camille is maybe a demon, and she finally acknowledges that Lena is also their daughter. Thank goodness. #TeamLena all the way.

Speaking of Lena, she wakes up in Adam’s cabin, luckily unstabbed for the time being. He explains that he found her and couldn’t leave her there, but didn’t want to take her to the hospital since it looked like she was running away from there. She asks him for pain killers or whiskey, but Adam says he has something even better. Oh god, it’s totally going to be something weird, isn’t it?

Back at the hospital, Sheriff Tommy is questioning Lucy about what she remembers of her attack. Not much, is the answer. Tommy produces a picture of Simon, and asks if Lucy knows him. Lucy says she met him once, but not in a stabby kind of way. Tommy keep pushing it, all, “But he could have stabbed you, right? I mean, like, he probably did? In fact, I should arrest him just in case?” Lucy’s like, um sorry, no. She also hears weird whispery noises in her head. Outside the hospital room, the doctor tells Tommy that in his professional, medical opinion, “This shit is weird, bro.”

Now that Claire has decided to, you know, be a good parent, she’s super committed to finding her daughter. Step one: visit friends who might have information about Lena’s disappearance. She shows up at Lena’s friend’s apartment, and the girl invites her in even though she’s really, um, tired.

Claire asks the friend if anything was weird the last time she saw Lena, and the friend is like, “Besides the fact that she seemed totally out of her mind and she was spouting nonsense? Nope.” Claire wonders if she has a new boyfriend, perhaps? The friend, bless her little stoned heart, answers more truthfully than you should ever answer a parent, all, “I mean, I’m not saying Lena’s the town bicycle, but-well, you get the picture. She wasn’t with anyone last night, though!”

Lena may not have been with anyone last night, but she is currently still with Mr. Murderer, Adam. He is using a mortar and pestle to grind up who even knows what, probably some peyote to take Lena on a spirit murder quest, if I had to guess. He tells her it’s “nettles, mostly,” and he puts it on Lena’s zombie back wound. They chat about their fucked up relationships with their siblings, and how they should both be dead, actually. Much bonding, very friendship.

Over at the police station, Nikki fills Julie in on the Victor situation: No, they haven’t found him yet, but they do have a homeless woman (aka Helen) in custody, and witnesses saw her with Victor. Nikki asks Julie if she’ll talk to Helen, which seems like it should be against some police-rules, but I guess it is not. Julie is DTC (that’s down to chat, if you’re not hip to the lingo).

Julie tells Helen that she was George’s doctor, and she saw photos of Helen around his house so she believes that Helen is who she claims. Julie asks if she remembers dying, and Helen does; she describes how terrible the flood was. She also tells Julie that Victor/Henry (Vic-ry?) was murdered, and she implores Julie to think about why people are coming back to life instead of how.

On her way out of the station, Julie is stopped by Nikki, who wants to know if she seriously believes anything that crazy biotch said. Julie, in fact, does believe Helen, at least in part because she sort of hopes that she’s a Returned, too. Then, at least, she could explain why she hasn’t been able to feel anything since her attack. Nikki tells her, vehemently, that she did not die. She tells Julie that she was there and she watched Julie fight and survive, and asks her to feel her heart.

Meanwhile, Peter has driven Vic-ry out to a cemetery. Peter provides us with some exposition: he and his buddy were young and had wanted to see the country, but ran out of money. It was supposed to be a simple robbery, but when they found Vic-ry’s mom at home, Peter’s friend killed her without warning. Peter assures Vic-ry that his friend died a slow and terrible cancerous death, and that he has felt guilty and tried to make up for it ever since.

Peter hopes Vic-ry can forgive him, but if not then Vic-ry should just shoot him right here, right now in the cemetery. And then he pulls out a gun! Jesus, Peter has no chill at all. I can think of, off the top of my head, at least like five alternatives that don’t involve anyone shooting anyone. He holds the gun out to Vic-ry, but then a masked figure comes out from the woods and takes the gun. He holds it to Peter’s head and pulls the trigger, but, surprise-it doesn’t fire! Surprise #2: There is no masked man! Peter was having a Fight Club moment, I guess. And surprise #3: The gun is still fully loaded.

Lena wakes up in Adam’s murder cabin, and her back wound is feeling way less zombie-like. She calls Claire, all, “GOD mom, I’m FINE. Just leave me alone, OKAY?” Claire’s like, “TBH, I just decided to be an actual parent, so I’m pretty new at this, but I feel like you should be in a hospital? I don’t, I’m sorry for being terrible.” Lena’s like, “Well, apology NOT accepted, goodbye!”

Camille also happens to be on the phone at the moment. She’s leaving Ben a message that sounds like this: “Ohmygod, can you believe what Lena said last night? What a whackjob, right? But, like, speaking of words that end in -job: call me back because I’ll totally give you an HJ.” Downstairs, her parents fight. Claire wants to know if Jack has been aware that their daughter is an alcoholic slut. Jack counters that Lena’s an adult, and she’s just livin’, man. Just L-I-V-I-N. Also, maybe Claire should go light some more candles in her Camille-shrine, because she doesn’t know how to exist as anything other than a grieving martyr. Oh snap, so many shots fired.

Lena pokes around Adam’s place and borrows a dress that belonged to his ma. Adam contemplates murdering her for a hot second, but is interrupted by Tony’s arrival. When Tony asks if he’s got someone in the cabin, Adam tells him it’s Ma. He’s a terrible liar, but somehow Tony believes him when he says that their ma never wants to see Tony again because he killed her son. The mother/son dynamic in this family feels… off-kind of Bates-y.

Tony drives away and Lena realizes that Adam is Tony’s dead brother. She asks him how long he’s been back, and if he died because he was sick, because that’s what Tony told everyone. Adam says that he wasn’t sick, he was just a bad person. Lena doesn’t think he’s bad-he carried her and took care of her. Oh god, they’re going to have sex. So many reasons this is a bad decision, I don’t even know where to start.

Back at the community center, Peter is taking the bullets out of his gun and generally contemplating his existence, but he’s interrupted by a knock at the door. It’s Claire. She’s pretty depressed, so probably they should have sex, too. More bad hetero decision making, basically.

Camille is just hanging around at home alone and surfing the world wide web – looking up sex stuff, probably-when there’s a tap at the window. It’s Ben. Camille leads him back into her room, and Ben is weirded out because he hasn’t been in there since she died. He’s like, “Hold up, this is getting freaky.” But Camille’s like, “No, listen-I was just on the world wide web, and I am going to give you the best blow j ever.” Ben realizes that it’s actually Camille, and he emphatically does not want to engage in questionable sexual activities with an underage zombie. FINALLY someone has some sense.

Julie is standing on the ledge of her building’s roof. Excuse me while I have a panic attack on her behalf real quick. Okay, I’m back. Julie’s thinking about jumping when she hears a door open behind her. It’s Victor. She hugs him and asks him if she’s dead like him. He says no, that she’s not like him, she’s a fairy that will protect him. She doesn’t think she’s a fairy, but she decides to just go with it anyway. You know, as you do.

At the hospital, Lucy starts hearing whispers in her head again. It sounds exactly like that episode of Buffy where she hears everyone’s thoughts (“Earshot,” if you were wondering), but luckily for Lucy, the voices seem to stop after just a moment. Jack comes in the room, first wondering if Lucy saw Lena, but then, as an afterthought, he tells her he’s glad she didn’t die. He’s also not mad about the fact that she lied about communing with his dead daughter and took a bunch of his money, it’s all water under the bridge!

She’s like, “On that note, I was 100% lying before, but since I woke up I actually am hearing voices. What a coincidence!” To prove her point, she grabs Jack’s hand and tells him that his father is there talking to her. He’s sorry he was a drunk and left Jack without a dad, and he’s also scared for him now, according to Lucy. Jack is thoroughly freaked out. Same Jack, same.

What did you think of this week’s episode? Let me know in the comments or on twitter @jennalykes.

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