However no one gets to forget their acquaintances in The Returned, least of all rotund Toni. He buried his sibling Serge alive to stop him chewing his way through the populace. But you know the old cannibal joke about keeping a good man down. Rather than dining in at his usual venue, Serge takes Lena ‘to go’; back to his Countryfile torture-porn cottage.

There he tends for her and gazes at her scar with the same look of self-loathing and hunger that kids these days must give a big plate of Turkey Twizzlers – ‘Ooh I’ve been told I shouldn’t eat them but gosh, they look so tasty, surely St. Jamie won’t smite me if I try just one…???’. And as if that wasn’t enough he essentially starts to marinate her in a wild nettle dressing under the pretence of curing her scar. Her delicious succulent scar. It’s what being an injured sheep in Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s guest room must be like.

Lena’s not the only houseguest this week, though she is the only one who might end up served with a side salad. Burglarious Baked Alaska-alike Pierre invites Simon to stay with the Seguret family. Seguret is clearly French for ‘frown’, given that the entire family perform half of all communications through neatly executed forehead crumples. And yet no one stops to frown at the possible consequences of granting underage but sexually awakened Camille some alone time with an excruciatingly handsome stranger who’s suspected of murder.

Fortunately Camille’s focussed on a thoroughly Hollyoaks-y snaring of Frederic, and Simon’s too busy trying to steal his hairstyle soulmate Adele away from Thomas. It’s an acquaintance neither Adele nor her daughter are keen to resume. Simon is dead to them. But not dead enough to Thomas, who re-deadens his competing suitor with a shot to the chest. It would be a dramatic moment were it not for the fact we already know the revenants can’t die: post-War austerity MILF Mrs Costa intimates as much to Julie, and Victor proved it by flopping from a window several weeks ago.

Oh yes, Victor. You again. Simultaneously adorable and terrifying, like a lamb reciting the Necronomicon. Does he have the power to conjure up people’s greatest fears, and is he the reason 36 animals drowned themselves in the reservoir? Or was someone just trying to make soup on a mass scale?

We’ve no time to ponder. Mogwai’s soundtrack slides in, eliciting a Pavlovian response in us as we salivate for answers but get only cliffhangers. Lucy Clarsen is awake, though what this adds to our understanding of the mystery is ambiguous. It’s another piece of the puzzle. Let’s hope that when it’s all eventually pieced together, it’s not a New Year’s Eve scale letdown.

Aired at 9pm on Sunday 7 July 2013 on Channel 4.

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