Although this episode ostensibly concerns the hunt for Twitter-savvy, scumbag-executing vigilante Callum Marwood, it’s also about the enduring bond between DCI Luther (Idris Elba) and DS Ripley (Warren Brown).
Skins fans who are expecting a Cassie episode of daydreaming, drugs and quirkiness could spend the entire hour waiting for a “wow!” or to hear some reference of Sid, but neither transpire. 2013’s Cassie is something of a surprise, and the drastic development of the character will certainly divide fans.
Fans of French drama will be aware that there’s not been a great deal of sex in The Returned – far less than in your usual Gallic goings on – but that’s changed this week.
It’s manna from heaven for fans of John Luther’s coat in this episode (surely the greatest villain we’ve yet to meet in the show is a killer with a fetish for grey tweed outerwear) as a search of his house by anti-corruption cops Stark and Gray reveals not just one but a whole rack of them.
If last week’s Series 7 opener seemed a little slow to Skins fans, it certainly picked up the pace in the second part of Effy’s two-parter, Skins Fire. Right from the off we see a strangely relaxed Effy; the most human, flawed, approachable we’ve ever seen her, so we know something’s going to go horribly wrong.
New Year’s Eve. Always a letdown. But this December 31st, whether you’re having every atom of your privacy invaded in a club so packed that it resembles a box of sweaty styrofoam peanuts, or you’re sat at home with a sherry, waiting to salute the clock at midnight, think on this: it could be worse. You could be in an underpass, caving in your cannibalistic brother’s head with a crowbar as he tries to eat Catwoman’s pancreas. ‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot’?. Ideally, yes.
Luther polarises opinion like a Marmite commercial starring Russell Brand. To some, it’s the only home-grown series that can hold its own against European crime heavyweights like Spiral and The Killing. To others, it’s a car crash of cop clichés; only the herculean efforts of Idris Elba in the title role holding together a show which looks stylishly gritty on the surface but lacks substance where it counts – all woolly grey overcoat and no Kickers.
If you turned Episode 4 of The Returned into a drinking game, with the rule of having a shot every time someone discovered a secret, then by the time the credits rolled you’d be lying unconscious on the floor, being eaten by your cats Mme Payet style.
And so the third series of Sky1’s man-fuelled drama – starring John Simm (Doctor Who), Philip Glenister (Ashes To Ashes), Max Beesley (Survivors) and Marc Warren (Hustle) – comes to an end, in typical Mad Dogs style with thrills, laughs and a Dwarf Zombie.
Last week The Returned felt like a police procedural with a David Lynch haircut. This week it has the aura of a soap opera wrapped about it. A weird soap opera but a good one, similar in result to if Rod Serling wrote an entire week’s worth of Neighbours. ‘So Paul Robinson’s cursed false leg was an allegory for America’s relationship with Communist Cuba? Wow…’.