Wednesday, January 20, 2016

The Returned, Season 2, Episode 3: Morgane



In case we were in any doubt, Milan is a very very very bad man.

A flashback to 35 years ago we find that Lucy and Morgane were hooking up and Milan (with some kind of nebulous connection to Lucy) took exception to this. For her “sins” he threw her in a basement until she died. When Morgane arrived Milan threw him in as well

Milan is officially not a nice man. This also explains why, in the present, Lucy is terrified of Milan (and psychically ware of them) and instantly attracted to Morgane when he returns, though he does seem rather zombie-like.

Not convinced? More evil evidence – Léna decides that after arguing with her dad the best thing to do will be to crash at Serge’s place. Because who do you turn to in your hour of need if not your friendly neighbourhood serial killer? Serge wants rid of her asap because Milan is scary. Milan decides he wants to “save” Léna by murdering her. Serge the serial killer objects and Milan tortures him.

Serge tries to fake it but Milan is more savvy than that and stabs her – demanding Serge finish her off. He shoots Milan instead which would be nice but I rather think he’ll just be back again soon. Serge takes Léna’s injured body to the Departed zone and dumps her on Camille and Claire’s lawn

This whole storyline stinks of redeeming Serge the serial killer who targets women. And it’s a very very bad smell indeed.

Simon is, thankfully, not too jealous about Lucy and Morgane, he’s more focused on Adèle who is despairing and conflicted about her new baby that Chloe has dubbed Nathan. It doesn’t help Adèle that Chloe is talking to Simon and knowing stuff that only Simon could know, turning Adèle even more paranoid though, by the end, she does seem to accept her child

Oh look, Simon’s back to romantically stalking his beloved Adèle. Is there any wonder that she has so many problems when every man in her life who has ever pretended to care for her thinks stalking and controlling her and monitoring her is the way to her affections. She needs some better men in her life. Or no men at all.

It doesn’t help that Lucy believes that Nathan is the key to something (no doubt a bad thing).


Over at the Departed zone, Camille and Claire continue to butt heads. Camille gives Audrey and Estéban a brief undead 101 (never sleep, always hungry) though most of it comes down to “I don’t know” including why most of the Returned are acting like zombies. Camille, who has all the tact of a rhinoceros on meth, tells Estéban about his parents committing suicide and he goes for a bit of a ramble, leading to more clashing with Claire and Camille and another brief visit from mystery guy from last episode.

Helping Hands also continues to be creepy – not even hiding the coltishness. Jérôme continues to resist though he’s also going off the rails (like just about everyone else on this show – everyone on this show is 2 seconds away from complete melt down). They have Toni prisoner and it doesn’t take long for them to make it clear they’re willing to hold him by force if they need to.

On to more emotional drama with Julie and Louis/Victor. While last episode it looked like Victor’s mother was less than pleasant – well now, we have the return of Paul, Victor’s brother – and they seem to be getting on well. In fact, Julie now looks a bit helicopter-parenty and over-protective. She plans to leave since she isn’t needed, especially after Victor tells her he wanted her to stay because she needed him – or she’s all alone. To double down on the cruelty he reveals that Julie was pregnant when she was attacked, she lost the baby and “the baby was better off dead”.

Given that level of nastiness it’s no surprise that Julie walks into the lake. I dearly hope she will return because I’ve no nice words for tragic lesbian suicide.

And to the actual plot I really really realy want to see advanced – the actual answer to all the mystery. Because it’s a mystery show we only get teeny tiny snippets: there’s a great big hole that Berg found. It’s big. And it’s a hole. Their military sensors of sensorness all mess up.

Last week there were also lots of ominous bodies found tied to trees: 21 of the 22 missing police officers. All shot.