But time’s relative. What has been weeks to us has only been a matter of days to the people in the Alpine town with no name (punny suggested names: Bi-scare-itz, La HorroRochelle). So while we on this side of the screen may be used to disgusting scars or undead townsfolk, it’s still all shockingly de rigeur to them. Everything’s relative.

Talking of relatives, this week we find our very own brothers grim, Toni and Serge, wandering through the peculiarly endless woods without a breadcrumb trail. Toni looks like a sweating bag of kebab meat in search of a skewer; the kind of chap who appears in the first 10 minutes of Casualty with plans to scale a local landmark after a curry lunch, or carry a hod of breeze blocks on a hot day, and whose heart promptly explodes. Surprisingly it doesn’t, not even as he and Serge swim across the depleted reservoir and he watches his brother go under.

Obviously it’s not the last we’ll see of Serge. Given Camille’s coffin, there’s some cryptic connection between the returned and the water. We’d guess they were made of reservoir water were they not so painfully obviously constructed from atrophying people-meat. There are more scars on show than a touring prosthetics troupe doing a Walking Dead tribute. Victor’s forearm looks like the victim of crepe making accident; and Camille has a blemish on her cheek that will likely spread so fast that she’ll resemble a Harvey Dent cosplayer by the time the credits roll on the finale next week.

Fortunately none of them are quite as gruesome, or as peckish as Simon, whose perfectly sculpted abs are turning from something you’d grate cheese on into something that looks like they were shredded in an epilation gone horrifically awry. As for peeling off part of his wound and eating it? Well, thank goodness it wasn’t his oft-flashed cock that had been ravaged by mysterious scars. TV’s come a long way, but no one’s prepared to spend their Sunday night watching a Frenchman cannibalise his penis like a cheap piece of charcuterie.

Far away from any penises, Laure helps Julie and Victor escape town, only to find that the road keeps looping round, bringing them back across the dam. The road is a Mario Kart circuit of terror (yes, even more terrifying than Ghost Valley 3 on the SNES); looping on a Möbius strip around the town and bringing the driver back to a place of scars, both psychological and edible. A place where a new squad of returned have convened…

And so, once more, we’re trapped by a new thread of questions. But isn’t it about time we had some answers? Please. Something. Anything. Because right now it looks like they’re all actually dead and this is all an Alpine purgatory: an undead reflection of the flooded town.

We’ll stick with you as long as you want, Monsieur Gobert – just don’t pull a Lost on us.

Aired at 9pm on Sunday 21 July 2013 on Channel 4.

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