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“The Returned” recap (1.7): Reunited (and it feels so good)

Previously on The Returned: my poor, damaged little snowflake Lena is a horrible judge of character, so she decided to bone Adam (who is a serial killer-just in case you forgot about that). Nikki and Julie got to second base. (OK, OK-that didn’t actually happen, but it did seem like they were reconnecting a bit.) Also, Victor came back to Julie’s place just in time to potentially stop her from jumping off the roof.

One Year Ago

Rowan is cleaning the house meticulously and restocking the fridge with fresh food, when she sees Simon’s reflection in the microwave. His broody face unnerves her, but she reacts as though this isn’t the first time she’s seen him. She drops Chloe off at the police station, thanking Tommy for watching her on such short notice, claiming her sister has the flu. Before she leaves, Rowan tells both Chloe and Tommy that she loves them very much. Tommy is suspicious.

To complete her suicide preparation, Rowan writes letters for both Tommy and Chloe. She’s changed into a black dress when she sees Simon again. He tells her that she is a total garbage person. She’s a bad mother and, according to GhostSimon, she’s going to ruin Chloe and Tommy’s lives.

Back at the station, Tommy calls Rowan’s sister to check in on things. No, the sister tells him, she is not sick and no, Rowan is not coming over. Tommy races home to find Rowan unconscious on her bed next to an empty pill bottle.

Present Day

I guess Rowan is still really going through with this wedding to Tommy, huh? She talks about the seating chart in bed with him before transitioning to ask if there are any leads in Lucy’s stabbing. Tommy tells her they’re working on it and they kiss goodnight, but Tommy shuts it down before it can go any further.

Over at Julie’s apartment, Victor is taking a bubble bath/splashing Julie. This is the first time I can ever remember seeing him act like a kid and not a creepy demonic entity-plus he is getting Sandrine Holt‘s T-shirt wet-so I kind of like him in this moment. They are interrupted by a knock at the door. It’s Nikki. She was worried, and Julie tries to play it off like no big deal, but Nikki is like, “Fuck it,” and then:

Before things can get too heated, Julie pulls away to tell Nikki that Victor is back to stay. In her head, Nikki quickly does the math: (hot Julie + making out + potential sex) > (creepy Victor x time spent around the apartment). She deems this an acceptable tradeoff, so they kiss some more. Julie whispers that she missed Nikki. (I didn’t say “awww” out loud, YOU DID.)

Meanwhile, Mother of the Year Claire sneaks out of Peter’s bed in the middle of the night to walk-of-shame it on home. Oh look Claire, there’s the teenage daughter you left alone! Camille’s like, “So, while you were banging that guy who isn’t Dad, I tried to give Ben the best blow j ever. He realized that I was dead, though, and, like, wouldn’t even let me do any over the clothes stuff! GOD, MY LIFE IS SO UNFAIR!” Claire tells her it’s going to be okay. Uh, there’s kind of a lot about this situation that’s not OK, Claire, but sure.

Like mother, like daughter: Lena is also getting out of bed post-bad-idea-sex, but she’s looking for her guy instead of leaving him. She finds Adam’s murder souvenir room, and hears a car approaching. It’s Tony. Lena is like, “Boy, am I glad to see you! I found Lucy’s necklace! Does your brother happen to be a serial killer?” Tony gets all crazy-eyed:

Lena’s like, “Oh shit, I’ve made a huge mistake.” She cries that she won’t tell anyone, but Tony grabs her and drags her back inside the murder cabin. Oh sweet, sweet Lena-if you make it out of here alive, you really need to reevaluate your life and your choices.

After his semi-brush with statutory ghost zombie rape, Ben really wants some fucking answers. He brings some friends to the cemetery to dig up Camille’s grave, but when they open the casket they find it full of dark water. Ben, showing more common sense than most of Rosewood combined, snaps a few pictures of the grave before the fuzz show up to bust them.

At the station, Tommy attempts to play the role of both good cop and bad cop, because it’s pretty late at night and no one else is around.

“Hey guys! Why don’t you just tell me what’s up?”

“Did you know what you did was a felony and you could get the death penalty???”

“But, seriously, were you guys just joshing? Tell me what happened and this all goes away.”

“Okay, I’m going to count to three and then you’re all going to fucking prison!”

Tommy gets all the way to two and three quarters before Ben breaks and tells him that Camille’s body wasn’t in coffin. Ben thinks that Camille is back from the dead. Tommy does not like the sound of that news, because he’s already had to deal with one returned person and that one was banging his fiancée.

The next day, said banger of Tommy’s fiancée shows up at Chloe’s camp. Simon tells her that he’s coming to pick up her and her mom that night, but she can’t tell anyone else because it’s a secret. Simon skedaddles away right quick when a camp employee approaches, because he is definitely giving off a Stranger Danger vibe.

Officer Tommy comes a-knockin’ on Claire’s door looking for her “niece, Alice.” (You can actually hear the quotation marks as he talks.) Along with winning Mother of the Year, Claire must be in the running for Best Liar Ever. She’s like, “Uh, yes, my niece, uh, Alice is out. With her friends-I mean with Lena’s friends. She is my niece.” Tommy can obviously tell she is lying because he is not a complete idiot, but he goes, “Whatevs. Just bring her to the stations ASAP with her ID so I can ask her some Qs.”

Back at the park, Victor is creeping on Julie and Nikki from the playground. Chloe bounds up and asks Victor if those are his two moms, because she knows a girl with two moms, so she’s totally hip to it. Chloe, you cute little thing, I could just pinch your cheeks. Victor says no, his mom is dead. Chloe’s like, “Oh, that’s all you got? I’m hip to that, too-my dad was dead, but now he’s back.” Victor tells her that he’s dead too, and adorable Chloe wants to know if he’s an angel. He shakes his head no.

Meanwhile, Claire and Peter have decided that since Tommy knows about Camille, the only logical solution is to just start telling everyone what happened. Jack disagrees, but that’s just too darn bad. There’s only room for two pseudo-parents in this house, Jack, and you lost your rights when you gave away Camille’s college money in exchange for sex/”psychic convos” with Lucy. Peter sets the scene with some life/death musings for the support group, and then Camille comes out right on cue.

One of the other parents is pissed off that Camille came back instead of her daughter, because her kid was nice and Camille was a total bitch. Camille storms off, but, you know what? The truth hurts, kid. Peter follows her and finally gives this little shit some real talk. She’s flailing about on her bed, like, “No one understands! They all hurt my feelings and my life is so hard!” Peter tells her to stop being so fucking selfish, because at least she has a life again and she should try to help them. CAMILLE IS JUST THE WORST.

Adam finally made it back to the murder cabin, and he’s brought some lattes and scones, or something. What a guy! He’s not very happy to see his brother there. Tony tells him that Lena knows about the murdering, but she’s a good person so Tony doesn’t want Adam to hurt her. Adam’s like, “Listen, I’m 100% over killing women. I could see how you might think I’m not, considering how I tried to murder Lucy a few days ago, but that’s behind me now. I’m a new man, and it’s all thanks to you!”

They bro hug it out, and Tony asks what they should do about Lena. Adam says he’ll take care of it, and he cuts Lena free from the table she’s tied to. He apologizes for Tony and asks her not to tell anyone about him. Lena says that she won’t, but I’m hoping she just said that because she didn’t want to get murdered and not because she thinks she can fix him.

Back at the support group, Camille has come back downstairs. Now, instead of being an insolent brat, she lies through her teeth to the other parents. She tells them, vaguely, that she “felt” all of their kids and they were all happy. Jack is just like, “Y’all, this is fucked up,” but Claire goes, “You just don’t understand how to be a parent, you should take notes from me.”

Meanwhile, Helen is hanging out at the dam, you know, as you do when it’s the thing that killed you one time. Some kind of educational tour group grabs her attention (engineers? construction-type people? professional dam experts?), and she just waltzes on up and starts answering the tour guide’s questions. The construction of the dam was fucked, basically, and a bunch of people got rich off it while other people died. Helen tags along with the tour, and ends up back at the bar with the guide.

They chat about the dam some more, and they flirt, and then Helen wants to dance. You guys, Michelle Forbes is really a pleasure to watch. Helen is bonkers, for sure, but I find myself wanting more scenes with her just to see Forbes completely go for it. Helen again brings up her opinion that the town had it coming and perhaps the dam shouldn’t have been re-built.

She’s like, “Well, if someone wanted to destroy it again, I bet they could, right?” And the tour guide is drunk and Michelle Forbes is pretty so he goes, “Sure, if that someone climbed exactly 9.5 meters into the Southwest Diversion Tunnel of the dam with a bomb, that would probably take care of it.” Mmmhmm. Let’s all keep this scene in our pockets for future reference, okay?

Back at her apartment, Julie is in the middle of brushing her teeth when Nikki comes into the bathroom to mack on her. (Do people still say “mack on” anymore? Whatever, yolo. Related: do people still say yolo?) OK, now, I like this scene for many reasons:

  1. Beautiful women.
  2. Beautiful women kissing.
  3. Character development.

(in no particular order…)

BUT I really, really wish Julie had spit or rinsed her mouth out. Did they just start making out with toothpaste in there? Anyway, moving on. One kiss leads to another and next thing you know Nikki is topless and straddling Julie in bed. She starts to kiss her way down Julie’s body, but Julie stops her when Nikki gets near her stomach.

The tension of the moment is written clearly on Julie’s face; it’s evident in her deep, steadying breaths and the eye contact she can’t make. She hasn’t had sex- hasn’t even let anyone get remotely close to her-in such a long time. So, Julie’s scared, and she’s self-conscious, and she’s nervous, and she has this handy visual representation of all her trauma in the scars on her stomach. Nikki asks Julie to trust her, and then kisses those scars reverently. It’s a lovely scene, an important scene, and I only wish it had been given a little more room to breath.

Of course, that’s the moment Victor the Voyeur decides to creep on up and watch. Nikki is pissed. She tells him to scram, which he only does after Julie also asks (more nicely). Pro-tip ladies: Shut the bedroom door before going down on each other.

Across town, Simon shows up at Rowan’s house, ready to swoop in and whisk his family away! Ruh roh for Simon, though, because Chloe told Rowan about his plan. Simon avoids a police officer stationed outside and comes in the back door, confused as to why Rowan and Chloe aren’t packed and ready to go.

Rowan has had just about enough of his bullshit. She tells him that she knows he committed suicide. Simon says he doesn’t remember that. Rowan is like, “Welp, that’s what you did. On our wedding day, the day I told you I was pregnant, you killed yourself.” Simon says he’s sorry, but sorry doesn’t really seem like enough in this situation.

Tommy walks in with his gun raised, in true cop fashion. Seriously though, in light of recent actual real life events this scene feels almost too real. It’s unnerving to see Tommy shouting at an unarmed man before pulling the trigger. Simon drops to the ground, and it looks like we might find out next week if the Returned can die twice.

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