Flashback to 29 years ago and some exposition about Peter’s
death and we see a much younger Peter and his murderous friend (wait, if Peter
died 29 years ago who come he’s aged so much?). Peter’s friend is completely
indifferent about killing Henry (Victor) and his mother. Peter is done and
decides to leave – which means murderous friend pulls a gun and, in the ensuing
struggle, accidentally kills Peter
In the present Peter is packing – he has been asked to
leave and isn’t happy about it. Fellow murderer Tommy decides to arrest Peter –
he has charges, but let’s be honest, Tommy cares about grudges, not the law and
he hates all things Returned
In prison Claire visits him wanting answers – and Peter
lies some more, claiming to have died during the dam flood. Claire is pissed –
not so much about the lying but because Peter threw Camille to the wolves to
try and buy acceptance for himself. She calls him a coward who used her
daughter – and rightly so.
At the Winship house some friends of Lena show up showing
that not everyone agrees with the insults against Camille and invite them both
to come swimming, though Lena is wary. At the swimming hole the guys who
attacked her on facebook are there – and apologise. It seems to go well with
Lena making up with generic cute boy whose name I don’t remember and then they
break out the magic mushrooms because nothing can go well – Lena is pissed
because while Camille may have been born at the same time of them, she’s still
16.
But they don’t actually do anything – perk of being
undead. Unlike to her friends, including Hunter with a knife – he announces
Camille isn’t human and cuts her to prove she doesn’t bleed. She does. Everyone
thinks this is out of line and, after pushing him to the ground, chase after
Camille who has run off (unsurprisingly). They look for her well into the night
before Cute Guy finds her; he’s all concerned but still steps back from her
attempt to kiss him – she asks why, why Lena and not Camille. He’s stark in his
answer – Lena wanted sex, Camille didn’t which is all that mattered to him, but
he has changed since then, especially after the bus crash. She decides to go
for sex, rather ignoring everything he’d just said, but then, so does he. Of
course Lena sees all. And Adam sees her.
Cute guy Ben dies either during or after sex. Wow Camille
now has the worst losing-her-virginity story ever.
A new woman comes to town asking questions about the
weird black outs and the Winships. Yet MORE Ominous. She tracks down Claire –
she is Clara and she does a podcast; she’s a journalist who wants to do a story
about zombie Camille. Claire shuts that down
Lucy is still hearing voices as she looks at the ominous
mural commemorating the dam flooding before she goes to the bar which Jack is
getting all ready for Rowen and Tommy’s wedding (since they hired it a while
before). She tells him about hearing voices that warn of terrible things to
happen. She wants to warn people but Jack, rather sensibly, points out how well
that will go.
More ominousness has the soon-to-be-bride Rowan being all
weepy in the priest because she senses something is wrong (you’re about to
marry an arsehole Rowan, that’s what’s wrong). The wedding goes ahead with lots
of ominous feeling. Noooo Rowan, kick him in the yin-yangs and run out the back!
Alas she doesn’t take my sage advice and they are married and have their reception in the bar during which Jack and Lucy dance. Which is when Claire arrives. The Winship women have awesome timing. Claire leaves and Jack follows (as Lucy tells him to)
Then all the power goes off
Julie has taken Nikki to a hospital and she isn’t dying,
thankfully. Happy Nikki isn’t going to die, Julie leaves, dragging Victor with
her. She tells him that trying to kill people is bad and he turns the radio on
in response. Ok correction – killing people is bad unless they’re kids who pull
crap like that, then it’s axe murdering time!
Instead she takes Victor to his old home, where he was murdered, taking him to the cupboard he hid in. She forces him to confront his memories – and the hard truth that his mother isn’t coming back and no fairy will protect him. And they can no longer be together. Victor cries – and a hooded man grabs Julie. She recognises it as one of Victor’s creepy powers and speaks to him about letting her go adding “you don’t belong here any more.” Both the hooded figure and Victor vanish.
Julie goes back to Nikki to tell her that Victor left and
it’s over – and they kiss.
Except another woman sees Victor walking alone by the
side of the road and takes him in.
Helen, and all her bombs, hallucinates her dead husband
George who agrees with her that the town is terribad wrong. This is not
reassuring. She gives Simon, who is walking out of town, a lift and he realises
something is badly wrong when, after a puncture nearly throws them off the road
(creepy town is creepy) he sees her stash of explosives. She knocks him out to
keep her explosives secret.
She goes to the damn and enters the tunnel-like corridors
to plant her bombs as the lights go out (because woo-woo). The power goes off
in many places all over town including the police station where Peter is locked
up – and when Cara comes to interview Peter for her little zombie story. She
tells him of other events in other places and times when the dead returned –
all before these towns were destroyed, ceasing to exist along with everyone who
lived there.
Woo-woo continues to thwart Helen’s attempts to blow up
the damn even as the town-wide powercut also gets ominous black water drains –
and Lucy hears more scary voices this time about Rowen with a message: “he’ll
be here soon, when he comes you need to listen.” “He” would the man whose baby
she’s carrying
Yes she’s pregnant. Yes with Simon’s baby. Simon runs towards town – even as he sees a huge wave of water wash over it… and then doesn’t. Ok, prescient vision is now a thing for him it seems.
So ends the season finale of The Returned and I have to say I’m pleasantly surprised. When this
series started I didn’t really hide the fact that I wasn’t a big fan of the
series so closely mirroring the French original. It was too similar which meant
it was shaky for someone who had already watched the original since it relies
too much on mystery and suspense (when we already know what’s going to happen)
and it was running on a theme and atmosphere that the French series had not
only already done – but had done a lot better
But the show vastly improved when it began to divert so
strongly from the original. By becoming more action orientated, with a lot more
events, a lot faster story progression, a lot more storylines and generally so
much more happening it became its own show and a good one. While the French
show was absolutely excellent at a super tense, spooky atmosphere that had a
slow, ominous build that made it one of the creepiest shows you could watch,
the American version dropped the atmospherics (which it wasn’t pulling off) and
aiming and more overt, ominous foreshadowing and events. And it worked, was
good, it was different while still having a core.
This version was also much better on inclusion. There are
more POC on the show both in terms of minor roles (like the pastor and the
policeman) and major roles like Julie (the French Thomas and American Tommy
were both POC). It’s still a very white show – but it is considerably less so
than the original
Julie and Nikki’s relationship is also more prevalent.
They had a touching relationship in the French one but it wasn’t quite so overt
nor so sexual (but, equally, I think French Julie was much more fragile and she
and Nikki were having to move much slowly because of that) and it was great to
see Nikki and Julie come together in the end and have that be a happily ever
after for their arc. I liked Julie and Nikki a lot.
I don’t like Rowan’s storyline because it has heavy
elements of “required relationship” all over it – when I think the best result
to would have been to avoid both. I don’t like Helen’s storyline because it
lacks development to make it more than “raaawr crazy person is dangerous and
crazy.” I don’t like that we have some dubious sex trope as well – the sexual
serial killer targeting women, Lena taking her shirt off every five seconds and
having a love triangle with her sister and Camille sexing someone to death and
Lucy being attacked after her sex-worker con is exposed – there’s an element of
sexual punishment here. Bad sex choices (have sex while sister on bus?
GUUUILLT! Sex while 16? DEAD SISTER, DEAD LOVER! Be a lying sex worker? SERIAL
KILLER!)
So… after a very shaky start and with some definite
ongoing issues, I find myself interested
in a second season
