‘Why so much suffering?’
For a show often characterised as meditative, mysterious and slow-moving, The Returned frequently manages to cram a lot into its episodes. Consider this week’s instalment, which managed to burn through a fair chunk of plot, drop some hefty revelations and even find time for not one but two dream sequences, all the while smartly touching on themes of belonging, alienation and – naturally – death. Things are teed up very nicely for next week’s finale – but can we expect some sort of resolution this time around, or another divisive ending?
‘I don’t hurt people – I save them’
I’m kicking myself somewhat for not putting two and two together and linking murderous Milan to the ‘circle’ that did for Simon’s parents. After all, given the way that he spoke about offing people – “cleansing” Lucy of her sins, for example – it’s not too hard to imagine Milan as leader of a death cult. In the flashback we see him continue with this rather biblical language, promising his fellow members of ‘the circle’ – among them Berg’s father, Etienne – safe passage to “a place where death has no meaning”. The reason for this mass suicide? To escape the “suffering” caused by the destruction of the dam.
Of course, the devastation brought on by the dam’s bursting could have been avoided entirely had Etienne, the dam’s architect, listened to the words of Victor, who instructed him to stop its construction. (It was interesting to note that young Berg seemed to believe Victor, while his father didn’t). Victor, of course, was an onlooker at the mass suicide in the forest, which the gendarmes were close to foiling – they managed to get to the children of the circle (including Simon) before they were dosed with sleeping pills, but failed to stop the adults from killing themselves (Pierre excepted; more on that later).
But was Victor just an onlooker at the mass suicide? Milan suggests an alternative scenario when the pair meet in the army barracks back in the present day. “You told me to do it,” Milan says, before noting that he felt Victor’s “presence” in the forest. To Milan Victor is some sort of god-like figure who “gets to decide” whether people live or die, and has the power to summon the dead back to the land of the living. Certainly it’s not beyond the realms of possibility – we once again witness the extent of Victor’s powers this week when he apparently makes a police officer shoot a soldier – but it’s a possibility that Victor himself flatly denies.
Whatever the truth may be, I can recall few characters currently on TV who are as beguiling and heartbreaking as little Victor. His central tension – a desire to belong and the personal circumstances that make him incapable of doing just that – continues to be depicted in increasingly tragic ways, this week coming in the form of a dream sequence at the beach, where Julie is drying the hair of a little boy – the son she never had, perhaps – while Victor looks on from a distance.
‘You look so lost’
Also receiving a dream sequence this week is Julie, who we see waking from a mortuary slab after being kissed by Ophelie. If the subtext seems obvious – love rescuing Julie from death – it’s not something Julie herself seems to take on board: she rebuffs Ophelie’s offer to help her find Victor, and instead heads off alone. It’s rather fitting that poor, doomed Julie ends the episode locked in the basement of the Helping Hand, where Pierre keeps the Revenants: she’s always seemed more at home with the dead than with the living. Might she finally join their ranks next week? Victor’s latest flash, which shows her being shot by Milan, would suggest so.
Still in the basement of the Helping Hand are Audrey and Sandrine, despite Sandrine’s attempts to convince Pierre that her daughter isn’t the monster he thinks she is. It almost works: Pierre does seem to lose his resolve a little when Audrey recalls meeting him while she was still alive, and only an intervention from Frederic prevents him from going completely soft. Might Pierre lack the resolve to follow through on his threats against the Revenants, just as he was unable to take his own life at the ‘circle’? On that point, it was chilling to note another sighting of the Helping Handers forming their own ‘circle’ – kudos to everyone in the comments who spotted them in that formation earlier in the series. Could they be preparing for an event similar to the one that took place in the clearing 35 years before?
Meanwhile, Camille and co finally flee from the village of the dead, though not before Camille is faced with the difficult task of choosing between her family and Virgil, the boy she loves. That she opted to go with her family surprised me a little, given how she has slowly seemed to separate herself from them over the course of this second series. As it turned out, it wasn’t a wise decision: the family are apprehended by the army while leaving the town. Thankfully Victor’s intervention – cutting the power, and causing the officer to kill the solider – allows them to make a swift exit. Where do they go from here though? And what of baby Nathan? Just as Adele, Simon and Chloe were looking to make a swift exit of their own, they headed to his crib and found it empty. The culprit surely is Lucy, who believes Nathan will show her and the rest of the undead ‘the path’. Perhaps he’s better off with them given that he’s started to rot. Gulp!
Notes and theories
- Berg was finally reunited with Etienne this week, though the occasion was soured somewhat by the fact that Etienne seems to have lost his memory entirely.
- No Serge and Toni at all this week, though surely they’ll make an appearance in next week’s finale.
- Thomas died from a gunshot wound to the shoulder, fired from the gun of one of his colleagues. The work of Victor?
- According to Lucy the undead that “get left behind end up like the ones living in caves”. Presumably the creature Audrey glimpsed in the forest was one of these cave-dwellers.
- Mr Lewanski is finally dead. I can’t quite help but feel we never got the information we needed from him.
- Decidedly not dead, meanwhile, is Mme Costa. I loved her nonplussed expression in the face of all those confused doctors.
- Nice to hear Mogwai’s rendition of What Are They Doing In Heaven Today? in Julie’s dream sequence.
