Season 2 hasn’t pressed quite as hard on the scar of body horror like Season 1 did – no keloids, no chomped stomach linings, no one eating bits of themselves – but this week ‘Esther’ reminds you of the gory glory days of The Returned with a pass back down the underpass.
10 years before current events, Serge attacks, kills, and partly cannibalises (not necessarily in that order…’shudder’) a young girl named Esther in the underpass. A horrific reminder of how shocking and gruesome the show could be when it first aired. If only she’d listened to little Victor’s warning…
Oh, Victor. He’s not been as scary this season, has he? Even with his future-predicting nightmares. He’s been normalised, the fear of mystery taken away from him as we’ve learned about his past, his family.
Except everything we think we’ve learned about him is completely wrong. As Mr Lewanski, tells Julie, he was just a boy who arrived at the door one day and sat down at the table. A Midwich Cuckoo in the nest. Exactly as he did with Julie last season. It’s a terrific sensation, having everything you knew as a viewer fall apart in front of your eyes.
Just like that, creepy Victor’s back. A boy we have no origin for, and know nothing about, save for the fact that he has an acute sense of justice. Still on the hunt for Julie, he and Mme Costa are attacked by two of Pierre’s boyband militia, one of them panicking and shooting Mme Costa dead (well, dead again). Cue Victor using his Midwich Cuckoo powers to make the shooter jump out of a window. Good luck returning from that.
Speaking of returning, the body of Adele’s ex, Thomas, is found (good on those people who found him because I’d genuinely forgotten he’d existed), and Adele begins seeing ghostly visions of him. Like all exes, he’s talking shit about who she’s now with. But did Simon really kill him, as he says? Side note: I wouldn’t mind seeing more of Thomas given that his scene brings with it some of Mogwai’s best music.
Everyone else is just following the dead around. Toni and Serge, attempt some conciliation and forgiveness from Esther, but it’s really more a connecting thread to carry us from Victor’s warning to her, to Mr Lewanski’s warning that Victor isn’t his son.
More satisfying following ensues as Jerome, Jerome’s Beard, and Berg pursue some of the returned through the woods and amazingly manage not to be seen, even though they’re as STEALTHY AS THIS SENTENCE. They’re led to the undead village, where Jerome’s reunion with the rest of his family proves to be a touching moment in an otherwise unremittingly bleak hour.
But however bleak it is, you keep coming back to The Returned. Because although its plot is as opaque as a dam wall, and its characters’ lives as enjoyable as an unslippered foot standing on a LEGO brick of ennui, it is still high-carat quality drama, shot with an artist’s eye and filled with actors who make even the least consequential scene something to lift your eyes from the subtitles.
But with only two episodes left can it be all those things and give us some answers? Or will it also remind us of the glory days of Season 1 by keeping us starving for answers?
Aired at 10pm on Friday 20 November 2015 on More4.
> Buy Season 1 on DVD on Amazon.
What did you think of this week’s episode? Let us know below…