The Returned (French supernatural drama on Channel 4)

Anyone watching this? Saw the first three episodes over the weekend. Small town in the French alps, afflicted with various tragedies over the years, where the victims of those tragedies just turn up several years later and start going back to their normal lives. Creepy devil child, dismembered dogs, stabby serial attacker, vague Twin Peaks vibe. I'm on board and intrigued.

Yeah was going to bring it up here. This is v good imo. Nice soundtrack by Mogwai too. Lovely night-time light and backdrops and stuff all the way through.

Couple people on Twitter talked this up over the weekend and I got interested.

Likewise, really enjoying this. It's a 'remake' (in a loose sense, as far as I can tell) of a film also called Les Revenants ('They Came Back') from 2004, which I think was mentioned on a thread about variations on the zombie myth a while ago.

Loving the way it's shot and paced; very slow and ruminative, which lots of emphasis on emotional reactions. Great casting of the red-haired sisters. Soundtrack very nice and subtle; I'm almost tempted to buy the album of it.

So many questions after three episodes: what's with the stomach-eating? Who is the little boy? How long has he been 'returned'? What's with the reservoir level falling?

The little boy is a bit different isn't he? Like he seemed to cause the bus crash - is he even "returned"? I think he's meant to be something really sinister.

I vacillate between thinking he's really sinister and really sweet. The fact that the bus crash was four years ago and he doesn't appear to have aged suggests he's either been 'returned' for ages, or else he is something different, aye.

It's not just the bus crash people are returning from though, like Simon got hit by (or jumped in front of) a car - there's the wife of the old guy who killed himself, the dodgy killer guy whose pal owns the bar.

What was the thing with all the flies on it under the sink that Lena's mum discovered?

Yeah, people are returning from different incidents over a long time-spell - 30 years for the old guy's wife, 4 for Camille, 10 for Simon, presumably 7 for the serial killer dude. But they've all returned at the same time, apart, possibly, from Victor.

I thought that was a dead possum or something (I know you don't get possums in France...); certainly a small-to-medium furry animal, with its stomach pulled out.

The thing with all the flies on it appeared to be a dog's head, possibly the same dog that the bar manager found on a meat hook and later attacked him. Weird that she just left it there and went about her business, but then I suppose she's got a lot on her mind.

Glad people are enjoying this anyway. Agree it's amazingly filmed, every outdoor shot is a thing of beauty.

Love the feeling of being at the beginning of an awesome TV series by the way, so many mysterious threads winding around.

Yeah I guess it could be some kind of cyclical thing that happens with the water in the reservoir etc.

The guy who runs The Helping Hand seems kind of suspicious too, like I get the sense we're not meant to trust him.

xpost so is Camille responsible for the dog's head?

I'd forgotten about the dog attack. The C4 announcer last night did say "watch it again on 4OD; you'll be surprised how much you missed!" So I might.

Loving this show ATM.

i like the subtitling too - it's not always a literal translation but it often works better

This is the first subtitled thing on one of the old four channels in a long time, isn't it? Post The Killing etc I think it's a really interesting move - you can't watch this in the same way as you would a UK or US drama, with your iPhone or iPad in your hand, distractedly tweeting along, listening but not necessarily watching with 100% attention. I think it's definitely making me watch in a different way.

I thought that maybe the lesbian catwoman nurse was pregnant when she was stabbed by the serial killer dude, and Victor was her fetus, returned. But I guess everyone else seems to be returning at the same age they disappeared?

Visually, it seems that "Let the Right One In" was a huge influence on the cinematographer - a lot of the same subtle lighting tricks.

But yeah - this is really great three episodes in.

it's a cool gimmick that they subtitle the ads with french.

Did Lucy, the girls stabbed in the first episode, definitely die?

Yeah, I loved the ads in the first add break of the first episode, which were in French!

Lucy was still alive when they removed her from the underpass, which considering she'd been lying there all night with multiple stab wounds and a chewed liver is weird in its own right. Last thing I heard she was still alive but I can't remember if the police were then talking about it being a murder.

esp loved them subtitling the lyrics to "Get Lucky" with French

They always refer to a 'serial killer', but there's not been mention of who else he killed? Only the attack on Julie and now Lucy?

I've just seen that it's been re-made by ABC in the States as "The Resurrection." I hate kneejerk "the damned Americans remake everything and it's going to suck" stuff, but something about this makes me nervous...

This is very good.

Placeholder for when I've watched all three episodes currently on 4od. ITT are we doing no spoilers and what broadcast schedule would we be doing that by if we are?

I think it's only airing in the UK at the moment, on Sunday nights at 9pm, Channel 4. Seems like spoilers after the initial airing are generally acceptable in rolling TV threads around here?

This sounds really good. C'mon you god damned torrent sites, deliver!

i love this show, it gets stranger and stranger and i really cant predict whats going to happen in future episodes. great and gripping tv drama. it doesnt abide by normal tv cliches either, like when the parents find camille back in their house they dont cry and hug her and fall to their knees like most characters in tv dramas would. they just clam up and are speechless and dont know what to do. makes it more credible and chilling really.

Found a copy of original French season through, um, alternate means. After two episodes I'm all in on this - I'll try to keep in sync with the thread. Loving the uneasiness in this and the Mogwai soundtrack goes with the atmosphere like Carpenter/Howarth.

Rewatched the first episode last night to see if we could pick up on anything we'd missed, but I don't think we did, especially. We were rapt throughout again though, which is kind of remarkable given that we only watched it the other week and we're now on episode 3 in the regular broadcast cycle; it just cemented the chronology of things a little more.

When Lucy was left in the underpass after being stabbed they showed a dog wandering in and sniffing around her, so when the police said someone had tried to eat her liver I assumed it was the dog. But the police assumed it was the attacker, and then said the attack seven years before was exactly the same, liver eating n all. So was the dog just a red herring?

Third episode seem to have the most "what the... what was... wait..." moments. The thing in the bin, the (imagined?) scissor attack, a reflection in the mirror towards the end, the demon child's drawings (one of them clearly referring to Toni and Serge: a large man holding a shotgun and someone next to him holding a knife).

What was the reflection in the mirror?

The scissor attack thing was really weird and hard to explain.

Towards the end Claire was in the bathroom and you briefly saw a reflection when she opened the bathroom cabinet; you saw it again when she shut it and it was obviously er jerome or pierre, i just wondered if it was someone different the first time. Maybe not but I will check.

I was watching that closely expecting a shock but as far as I remember it was nothing first, then her husband. Could be wrong though.

The bar manager's dead brother is the stabby guy, right? But then he also appeared to turn into the creepy kid as well.

yeah whether he turned into the kid or what happened in that scene at all is very vague.

I know the show is plenty nuts but serge turning into the kid seems a little too o_O to me. But the 'plausible' explanation, that she had a hallucinatory panic attack, isn't entirely satisfying either.

i guess it could be something else that is neither of those two.

oh yeah *takes off binary specs*

So, up to date with it now.

Is the man who went to barman's house and there was the dog bit, but he isn't the barman - is he definitely the man who stabs lucy and julie in the underpass? Wasn't quite sure.

I wondered if the stabber was some sort of being who stops people from being resurrected? Is he killing them in a magical way to stop this, cf burying a vampire upside down or at a cross-roads?

I also wondered if the little boy was something to do with this. I don't know, and I like not knowing atm.

I love the butterflies in ep 1 and the wolf in ep 2.

my favourite tv show in ages (and we have been spoilt in recent times ... ).

love the whole small rural town with dark social undertones slowly coming to the surface.

which is very twin peaks - i.e. aside from the weird stuff, there is the day to day small town politics ..

Is the man who went to barman's house and there was the dog bit, but he isn't the barman - is he definitely the man who stabs lucy and julie in the underpass? Wasn't quite sure.

serge, the barman's brother, definitely the attacker.

ok there was no funny reflection at the end of ep 3. but another question: who was the woman in mr costa's flat in ep 1? he tied her to the bed and then lit the place up but the fire brigade found no body, and then in ep 2 she was in the diner where simon beat up the waiter.

i mean yeah she was prob his wife but where is she now?

Thought it was her you saw looking furtive at her husband's funeral?

She turns up at his funeral looking confused

I'd like it if not much of Costa's story was revealed, just that little vignette

I've kept meaning to watch this, but as that would entail using 4OD I haven't been able to summon up the enthusiasm. But as most of the series I've been watching have finished (Orphan Black, Mad Men, Hannibal), I'll make the effort and start digging into this. Just love this kind of stuff when it's done well.

This is a good show. I'm slightly nervous about where they will take the story now they've built up the atmosphere so successfully - are they going to try to explain everything? The stuff about Lena's scar seems important too, though I'm not sure what it means.

4OD is pretty terrible - enforced adverts and it likes to stop working about 3/4 of the way through. Mind you it gives me fodder for 'worst tv adverts of the moment'.

adblock works though?

I think they're explicitly pairing up each of the returnees with some painful consequences (Mrs. Costa returns -> Mr. Costa kills himself, Simon returns -> Adele looks likely to break down again, especially if Thomas leaves her, Serge returns -> goes back to attacking/killing people, maybe Victor and Julie's neighbour, maybe Camille and Lena's scar?). It's obviously a theme of the series (in a "be careful what you wish for" vein) but I hope it's not part of the plot, with some causal being at the bottom of the lake motivated by revenge or general malevolence.

So, I watched all three episodes back to back today, and, yeah, I liked it. Didn't love it, though. The dialogue (translation?) isn't the best, but it's nicely stylish and sombre, and has a few decent chills. Strongly reminiscent of Let the Right One In in tone and mood and muted performances, as well as environment: cramped flats, dimly lit underpasses, grey concrete; and the surrounding countryside lurks ominously.
It's not as feverishly off-kilter as Twin Peaks, but I do like how mysterious and seemingly inexplicable things can happen at any time.

The more I watch, the more I'm reminded of Donnie Darko.

For one thing, it's an antidote to a lot of recent terrible films and TV, which totally waste the opportunities afforded by the supernatural.

The by now conventional plague of lol zombies totally misses the horrible idea at the heart of the vodoun zombie myth, that someone you know turns into a shell.

This isn't zombies, but it brings something of that personal horror back imo

In the Flesh, recently, pushed that idea a bit more.

Well well well

'He won't talk'

Still nothing new about her that got stabbed in the underpass, except she's some sort of clairvoyant.

The depth of the lake seems to be very important, but it's not clear why. What's down there?

Do we know the name of the village, btw?

Do we know how many episodes this thing is?

Do we know why even though the french accent is supposed to be sexy it's always funny when they say they're going to "the lake poob"?

so helping hand dude was one of the balaclava guys who shot victor? but seemingly the one who tried not to have him killed?

and what's the story with lena seemingly mirroring the murdered girl?

it's all quite cool and confusing but i fear that they may be doing that lost thing of setting up incredible mysteries in the opening series which will ultimately be impossible to explore in a satisfactory way.

this is based on a film, right? maybe someone who cares less could investigate and report back with whether or not it'll be worth investing any more time in this. no spoilers.

is it going to have a few seasons? like how far has it gone in france?

wiki says 8 episodes this season & season 2 scheduled for next year

Do we know the name of the village, btw?

Was wondering if it's significant that nobody ever mentions the name of the town

Also a wee bit disappointed that the adverts werent' subtitled last night

So I watched the whole series on DVD when it came out in France a few months ago - best French series ever by far (not saying much I know). I don't wanna spoil it for everyone here so I'll refrain from commenting too much - but yeah a second season is definitely on the way.

The depth of the lake seems to be very important, but it's not clear why. What's down there?

Maybe I misinterpreted this, but I thought the idea was that the water was actually rising and nobody knows why - they checked the dam for cracks/leaks but everything's fine. Did I get that totally wrong?

i think its that the lake's going down & the water level in the power station's going up?

The level was falling, but then in last night's ep one chap said they "don't know where it's coming from" and another guy said it's ok lol "the power station won't get flooded", cut to shot of an apparently waterlogged power station. Very confusing. I suppose this would make sense if the falling level has corresponded with water level rises downstream from the dam, but this is far from clear, and you'd think someone else would have noticed.

xp

it's indeed the latter - water rising on one side, drying up on the other

I've heard something about having to wait two weeks for next episode?

Also - apparently lucy's clairvoyance happened during sex?

When Jerome & Lucy were together at the start of the first ep one of them said "it can't work every time", maybe that's what they were talking about.

Aha!

Then again, there's loads of things that can't work every time..

Aye, maybe he'd asked her to iron the trousers we saw him putting back on. Although if my iron didn't work every time I'd definitely buy a new one.

I'm sure I saw animals or something moving when they did the shot over the power station. Also the opening credits appear to show some kinds of beasts submerged in water.

Helping Hand dude was always going to be dodgy. Never trust a faithful best friend/confidant with no discernable plot function. Get the feeling the other balaclava dude might have been Serge.

I think I mean Jerome there.

the opening credits contain a lot of stuff actually

So the explanation for Julie's stabbing hallucination in the previous ep may be that Victor was projecting visions onto Mrs. Payet and Julie received them too? It hardly happened to everyone in the building (or you'd have more than one suicide) but maybe Julie is susceptible due to her bond with Victor or her past trauma.

Interesting how all the returned are ending up in the shelter. Are we going to have a Pierre episode soon?

so helping hand dude was one of the balaclava guys who shot victor?

Yeah that's right - me and my wife reckon the two balaclava guys are definitely Pierre as a teenager and a younger Mr Costa (we paused cos we're sly and he's got the same eyes).

Just rewatched episode 1 again and it has some crazy level of detail going on that we totally missed the first time round eg:
- one of the photos that Mr Costa burns is a class picture of a slightly younger him stood next to two red-haired twins
- the butterfly that escapes from the glass case has a label underneath it giving the scientific name of the species. The species is Victorina stelenes

Interesting re Mr. Costa - with the 35-year gap and him looking a lot older than Pierre in the burglary scene, he's pretty much the only character we've seen who's old enough.

He's also the only character whose response to the return of a dead loved one has been to tie them to a bed, set the house on fire and jump off a dam.

What we can't figure out is who has summoned up the return of Simon through thee olde sex magick with Lucy. The rest of the returned departed fit in with people that could have been willed back by men using her services (Camille/Jerome, Victor/Pierre, Serge/Toni, Mrs Costa/Mr Costa).

And Lucy herself - was she someone that was back from the dead?

We don't rrust Thomas at all btw, we know he's no good cos the guy playing him was a rotter in the last series of Spiral too.

People seemed to know Lucy in the first episode, so I assumed she was not a returnee. Would be a bit surprised if they all came back to town on the sex magick express (but who knows?), feel like there's a darker revenge/punishment idea going on though I'm not sure how it fits together (who's punishing who?).

Actually I've been thinking Thomas might turn out to be an ok (but controlling) guy - though that's mostly because what we've seen so far hasn't been that flattering.

Also: do we think that Jerome actually caused Lena's injury, or are they covering something up?

We were looking at Lucy's character profile to remind us who was who and it says "This angel-faced young girl got off a bus one year ago and found herself a job as a waitress at The Lake Pub". Can't remember whether this has been revealed yet or not, sorry if I've just unwittingly let the dead cat out of the bag.

I'm fancifully hoping that Lena is actually sprouting a pair of butterfly wings.

Think we were told at one point that Lucy had about a dozen men who visited her, so it's likely to not just be Jerome who has summoned up the return of someone in this way (if that's how the whole mechanism works).

Huh, hadn't thought about that angle at all. Could be, could be...

Does nosy lady with cats commit suicide or does victor go and kill her? Doctor woman goes out and reminds him to lock the door, he could slip out that way.

If it was him who caused the bus crash then he can't have been returned by lucy sex magic because the bush crash was before lucy came to town?

Lena going into the tunnel. No, don't go in the tunnel. But she sort of had to. But will he kill her or do the scars somehow mean he doesn't have to?

Yeah the way people keep going into the tunnel at night is the least believable part of the whole story imo.

My read on cat-lady is that Victor(?) somehow caused her to hallucinate being attacked and stab herself to death - we saw this happening to Julie but Victor "saved" her.

I think the idea of the tunnel is that the small town is built in such a way that there is no way to avoid it

for those who understand French, there is an official interactive website with a few clues and extra pieces of backstory: http://lesrevenants.canalplus.fr/#!/

If it was him who caused the bus crash then he can't have been returned by lucy sex magic because the bush crash was before lucy came to town?

Aw, and I really liked the Lucy theory till you reminded me of this.

I am also worried that this programme is setting up for a poor payoff. If it turns out to be satisfactory, I will be overjoyed.

One thing about the lights going out in the town (has anyone noticed a specific pattern to when this occurs btw?) - maybe the water escaping from the lake is not so much about what might be revealed by the dropping water level, but what will be covered up by the waters rising downstream e.g. the power station flooding, which will obviously plunge the town into darkness for a good long time.

> I think the idea of the tunnel is that the small town is built in such a way that there is no way to avoid it

like watford.

that said, if there'd been stabbing in it it would be a lot better lit and cctv'd up to the eyeballs by now.

but i guess this is the same town that puts a power station in an area at risk of flooding.

i thought the lights going out was a local phenomenon, caused by proximity to one of the returned (streetlights, the one in the bathroom where victor was hiding, a couple of other cases). the town-wide blackout was a power station thing and has only happened once iirc.

i don't believe the returns will be entirely because of lucy, not at all. it would be boring and also why would they play their hand so quickly?

agree with most of the credibility stuff, though for me the most insane bit was when adele was having a big public dream sequence with simon and assuming nobody else could see him, but nobody seemed to notice this which kept her theory safe until such time as the plot needed to debunk it.

there was a blackout when camille first walked into town and another one when simon made his escape from the police. possibly there had been a powercut when victor and his brother (?) were playing with torches and talking about demons under the bedspread before they got killed, but it feels like there's some sort of connection with the darkness theme there at least.

i don't believe the returns will be entirely because of lucy, not at all

don't think they're entirely because of her, cos yes, she wouldn't explain the appearance of victor in the past, but she definitely seems like some sort of node. can't understand why the police investigation into the murder isn't yet focussing on looking into her other clients, but maybe that'll happen all in good time

I get the sense that the returns have been happening for a very long time but have been covered up in some way.

Like, not constantly, but every few years there's a spate of them?

I wondered if some people return and go away again and then return. Not sure if this theory has already been discussed. Like maybe that's why Mr Costa knew what was happening.

There don't seem to be any old buildings in the town, everything's relatively new, which is very weird for a town in the middle of France.

Also all the returned seem to eat ravenously and never sleep.

yeah and you can see a church steeple in the water too when it showed it this week.

argh I'm dying to take part in the discussion here! Must refrain

Revenge would seem to be a fairly plausible motivation. Camille against Lena for breaking her promise and inadvertently causing the bus crash, Victor and Stabby McGee for their murders - and if Mr Costa tried to kill his wife a second time there's no reason to suspect he might not have done so in 1973. Simon died a violent death under oblique circumstances too. I like the idea that they have been brought back for revenge but don't necessarily know what they are supposed to be getting revenge for, at least initially.

Camille and Lena didn't really cause the bus crash, did they? It swerved to avoid Victor standing in the road.

bus driver's moral reflex was wrong. kill victor, save the kids.

keep driving

buy kids ice creams at next service station. all forgotten.

Camille totally distracted the driver, though. Might have been able to break earlier, etc.

I was on a bus in rural China once. The coach in front of us (probably had about 60 or 70 people in) span off the road, flipped over on its side and crashed into a mountain. The driver of the bus i was on honked his horn, shouted what i assume was abuse out of the window and drove on without even slowing down. That's the kind of attitude you need.

Just wanted to say that the last episode has put this series up as being about the best thing on the box right now. I'm not into madly speculating on all of the goings on, though; I'm happy to just let the mystery unfold.

I couldn't help it. I made a nice meal, disassociated for a bit, and then shotgunned the rest of the series in one night. I have banned myself from posting anymore on this thread.

Could you find it with subtitles or was your French good enough?

i found it with subtitles

There don't seem to be any old buildings in the town, everything's relatively new, which is very weird for a town in the middle of France.

It's plausible that the original town is at the bottom of the reservoir and they built the new one at the same time as the dam. Hence the steeple etc. Dunno if this will turn into a plot point though.

Simon died a violent death under oblique circumstances too.

We only have Thomas' word (and not even that, actually) that it was suicide - who knows if he's telling the truth or just trying to turn Adele away from Simon.

Any tips on where? Mainly cos 4OD is such a dire user experience. xpost.

We only have Thomas' word (and not even that, actually) that it was suicide - who knows if he's telling the truth or just trying to turn Adele away from Simon.

i had assumed it was prob a suicide to begin with.

first google result here

Yeah I've found the whole thing subtitled, only downloaded the fourth ep though because I want to watch it as it unfolds on TV.

The subtitles are fine fwiw but whenever there's an accent or other special character then the names are garbled, which makes it slightly more difficult to follow, although you can usually hear the names anyway,

We only have Thomas' word (and not even that, actually) that it was suicide

The drawing by Simon's daughter also possibly corroborates the suicide theory (presumably no-one had explicitly told her that her dad had shot himself in the head)

That's what I meant by "not even that" - Thomas just says it wasn't an accident and then we see the daughter's drawing.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

We need to know more about these flesh-eating cats too btw.

Camille against Lena for breaking her promise and inadvertently causing the bus crash

So on the bus, did Camille actually feel Frederic's hands on her when he was in bed with Lena? Or is it a psychic thing? Doesn't Lena try to escape from hospital when Camille is trying it on with Frederic in the pub? Does she appear to feel something, or does she just wake up? Or neither of those things? Sorry for being thick, I'm going to have watch these again!

i don't believe the returns will be entirely because of lucy, not at all. it would be boring and also why would they play their hand so quickly?

I sometimes wish programmes like this would at least play some of their hand a little bit quickly, so that I know whether their idea of a decent resolution matches mine, and I know whether I should keep watching or not. As someone else mentioned above (could even have been you), I'm a lot warier nowadays of programmes that promise a huge payoff to a massively creepy buildup, because nine times out of ten they don't deliver. I'd like there to be some answers to something soon.

"It was all a dream"

"i used to read Les Inrockuptibles"

Can't remember the last time I was so taken by the cinematography of a TV series - the way the whole thing is shot is so clinical and eerie. The show would have been much less interesting had it been shot in a more traditional way. Some of the scenes in the final episodes are breath-taking.

http://newgifs.com/images/full/les-revenants-fabrice-gobert.gif

btw i feel like i have always loved Frédéric Pierrot. the fact that he was in one of the very first scenes guaranteed i would stick with this.

I know what you mean, Trish, but the resolution is only part of the enjoyment for me - if the resolution turns out to be somewhat unsatisfying that will make me think it's a less good series in retrospect but it will have left me with 7.5 hours of enjoyable (sometimes thrilling) telly, which is cool in and of itself.

Tim I feel you are hinting towards some broader, more existential point with that post.

How dare you suggest anything of the kind?

Now I'm frightened of whatever's under the water AND whatever's going to happen in the big blackout when the power station floods, thanks guys

Maybe the mysterious scar on Lena's back is somehow connected with the mysterious dam crack. Or maybe it isn't. I don't know

The cast of the U.S. remake (man, I *hate* this ubiquitous kind of promo shot):

http://www.sorozatguru.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/the-resurrection-492x354.jpg

I watched all of this last night. Won't spoil but imo it runs out of steam a bit as it goes. Maybe that's cos of watching a few in a row.

xp kid not creepy enough us remake who gives a shit goddamn

yeah was gonna say - now way that kid will bring the eerie creepines of Victor to the table - but whatever really

feel bad for basically hi-fiving a kid for looking weird.

also for spelling 'hi' like that.

I wouldnt say he looks weird though - give him some modern clothes and a new haircut and he'd blend in anywhere.

this suggest the american remake is based on a book

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_%28U.S._TV_series%29

(that's Resurrection aka The Returned aka Forever)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Returned-Jason-Mott/dp/1848452144/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_2

but the plot is decidedly different. french tv series based on french film (based on...?)

Nobody?

So, they're always hungry, but they've lost their sense of taste and aren't affected at all by what they consume? Camille necked all that vodka but didn't seem to get drunk, and didn't Mr Costa's wife say something in the diner like 'the food's not great but at least it fills you up'?

haha yeah.. makes me think of Pierre's odd comment about the beds in the Helping Hand. "they're not good beds, but you'll sleep very well in them".

This show is so fucking good.

Thinking about the animals in the lake...what if they died first time round when the village was flooded, then reanimated "12 hours ago" but found themselves underwater and drowned? This theory relies on revenants, or animal revenants at least, being able to die a second time.

Otherwise we've got some evil thing out there that we haven't seen yet.

There was that wolf strung up in Stefan / Toni's place in ep 1 which came back to life, and which he then managed to kill, right?

Yeah. Mrs Costa's advice to Julie suggests the opposite though. Maybe animals can die but humans can't, because Thomas Aquinas something something or because the writers just decided it that way?

The other big mystery at the moment is why is Serge uncharactistically tending to Lena?

Must have something to do with the scars.

When he was putting the nettles on her I thought you could see him struggling with his killer instinct

Victor to helping hand man - 'You didn't try' (to save him). And he didn't.

i thought that Serge identifies Lena with his mum to some extent. Maybe she had similar wounds?

So have the returned literally risen from their graves? Has anyone thought to check the graves to see if their bodies are still there or what?

When he was putting the nettles on her I thought you could see him struggling with his killer instinct

oh bigtime, he obv gets off on injury or something and was practically slavering. to me it's just the idea that he is trying to be different this time, difficult and all as it is.

And I want to know what those animals were running from

Not reading the thread past a certain point, because I haven't seen E5 yet, but I binged last night on the first 4 and this show is amazing amazing amazing.

I guess Victor could have convinced the animals to run into the lake. Dunno why though.

oh bigtime, he obv gets off on injury or something and was practically slavering.

I couldn't watch him touching her after a bit, I was worried he was going to put his fingers inside the wound and it was all going to go a bit Cronenberg.

my gf has a theory that the returned are unable to kill.

this show is pretty great btw

yeah I've been wondering about that too

so is victor making people confront and relive (and possibly with different solutions) key moments in their life? thinking about the return of pierre's crim sidekick, the nurse struggling with a spectre of the scissors murderer

Oi American networks! Leave this one alone. It is perfect and your bland remakes are getting shittier every time.

That US remake of the killing was awful, real euro toy town aesthetic

Every day is quirky christmas

Yeah, I don't think the US version is a strict remake. Basically the only similarity is that a person has mysteriously returned 32 years after he died. It's odd that the show's already gone into production and the book isn't even released until later this year.

Just finished E5. I'm starting to hate all the dead people.

Yeah they are all kind of acting like dicks. Especially Simon. Like, what are you not getting about this situation here dude?

Lucy is one of the dead, right? That's why her wounds are healing? And perhaps why she can commune with the other side?

I dunno about Mr Castro's nurse, though. That would be some Sixth Sense shenanigans.

Castro, I mean Costa.

I'm kind of pro-Simon being a dick when you consider what the police dude's been up to.

Julie must be dead too I think. Something strange about her demeanour and the way she survived that stabbing.

don't think she needs to be dead for the story to work (would rather she wasn't unless there's a *really* good explanation)

(Weird: can anyone tell the difference between the various DVDs of this currently on Amazon?)

Julie must be dead too I think. Something strange about her demeanour and the way she survived that stabbing.

I am getting the is Gaius Baltar a cylon? type vibe from Julie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAH6Zt30n58

Can't wait until folks catch up. Really want to talk about this...

I just finished #6, which I think is the one airing on Channel 4 tonight? I can't decide if I just want to jump ahead and watch the final two or pace myself so I'm in line with the speed of the thread.

Dammit, I went ahead and watched all the remaining episodes, and I got to the end, and now I'm trying to process it, and Elvis Telecom is the only other person who knows what happens and I have to wait another two weeks to sort things out.

*drums fingers on desktop*

At least it's already confirmed there will be a second season.

Confirmed but still a year away at least

> Has anyone thought to check the graves to see if their bodies are still there or what?
> ― paolo, Tuesday, July 9, 2013 8:11 AM (6 days ago)

they have now 8)

yeah i've seen it all too, looking forward to us being able to chat about it.

> (Weird: can anyone tell the difference between the various DVDs of this currently on Amazon?)

one's the film (£9), one's the french edition of the tv series with no subtitles (£33), the other is the english edition of the tv series (out in september, £19)

So when will all the episodes have aired in UK? When can we start discussing and anticipating S02?

that was #6 of 8 (Adele next, possible spoilers in the name of ep 8)

So... who were all those folks stood round the fire at the end of that one?

And who did Lucy see hanging himself? It definitely wasn't Simon, right?

Her vision was inter-cut with Esteban's parents but it's not clear what she was seeing.

I'm not sure who it was, but that sequence did suggest a link between Simon and Jerome. One is dead, the other ~apparently~ alive, yet Lucy behaves the same way with them both.

Holy shiiiiit, what an episode.

Camille thinks she's doing good, but her meddling backfires in stomach-churning fashion when the couple she comforts hang themselves in an attempt to reunite with their dead son.

ok i somehow totally missed this!

a really dark twist, that.

Haha Camille is one hell of a character. Curious to see how the series will deal with the aging of all the young actors during that two year gap

Thanks Koogs.

lost a me a bit, this episode

'lost' being the key word there.

do feel its going to go into that kind of groove.

the fact people cant get away.

Seems like a lot of new stuff to put into a penultimate episode; not being able to leave the town, the returned kinda rotting away (although Victor was doing this the ep before, I guess.) What are the brothers up to?

So. The next ep, I'm guessing will be the Helping Hand dude, right?

I didn't even know there was going to be a second series until now.

Also: Mogwai doing some fine, fine work here.

i'm going to be really bummed if there isn't some resolution by the end of series 1

I fear you will be bummed.

just to let you know i'm totally posting that in 'ilx out of context'

> the returned kinda rotting away (although Victor was doing this the ep before, I guess)

isn't this what's up with lena?

Yeah, but apart from that we don't think she's dead, do we?

Stevie - thanks, I'm honoured.

maybe they all are...

i'm going to be really bummed if there isn't some resolution by the end of series 1

― There shouldn't be a thread for Dennis Perrin tweets. (stevie), Tuesday, July 23, 2013 5:39 PM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I fear you will be bummed.

― kraudive, Tuesday, July 23, 2013 5:42 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Be glad there's a 2nd season.

My interpretation of what's going on with Lena is that since she's a twin, she shares some sort of quasi-physical linkage (whether it's genetics, or...) with Camille. As Camille rots away, the part of Lena that's "Camille" is rotting away too.

Hmm, trapped in an isolated town with a dwindling food supply and a load of dead people who are literally hungry all the time. Probably isn't going to end well.

The bit with Simon eating his own flesh was beyond disgusting.

I actually lolled when he popped it in his mouth :)

looked like liver

tasted like chicken

Have been enjoying the mordant and half-bored input of Mrs Costa who has obviously seen it all before *sighs*

I know that being lost in the woods in an old trope, but Toni and Stabby Man walking in circles in the woods struck me as being a bit Blair Witchy.

and the way he was dragged down?

Hope the next episode centres around Mrs Costa actually, her flashback would probably illuminate a lot.

Episode name is The Horde. Further details here but minor spoilers, including one detail which confuses me not a little: http://www.tvguide.co.uk/detail.asp?id=4473710

Would put quite a lot of money on Jerome being the masked killer at this point.

Still backing Mr Costa for that. Maybe those killings were part of a purge of an earlier wave of returned folk? Do feel like Jerome has got some pretty dark secrets though.

The constant cigarettes outside. If there's one thing French people distrust it's apologetic smokers.

i watched two episodes, told my gf i'd rewatch them with her and we'd watch the rest of the show together but ummmm now i'm on episode 8 so

hooked iow

lol I bet you won't mind watching them all again. I finished a couple weeks ago and I already feel like I could do that.

haha that is exactly how i justified it to myself

still feel a little bad

http://meatandeducation.redmeatinfo.com/sites/default/files/images/mint_humbug.jpg

French subtitles on the ads during the first break.

This is a dumb question but was the village you saw at the end the old one that was being exposed as the water went down or was it the new one being flooded by the leaky dam?

i thought the new one but i think i had to rewatch it a few times and pause it and stare.

so presumably lena is going to be pregnant with serge's baby.

Who killed Mrs Costa
Who killed Victor
Why was Victor standing in the road when the bus crashed
Did Victor make Julie try to kill herself, before saving her
What is Lena and Camille's psychic connection
What was the deal with Lena's scar
What is Lucy's psychic deal, and is she dead
How did Simon die
Why didn't the dead want Serge back along with all the others
Why did Serge disappear underwater
Why are the dead decaying
Why did they come back
Whhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

I assumed that Serge was trying to kill Toni by swimming out into the middle of the lake knowing that only one of them could drown, but he didn't seem to want him dead in the last episode.

I watched again and it's not certain but it looks like he didn't dive under, but was pulled.

http://www.askafrenchman.net/what-is-gallic-shrug/

Bof.

Although I think far too much was left unanswered, I grudgingly respect that some questions sort of resolve themselves without the answers having to be spoonfed. The drowned animals, they were running from the horde I suppose. The rotting meat that Camille's mum found in the bin - Camille getting a bit desperate waiting for tea time?

Got to say I'm slightly disappointed with the ending - seemed like it was turning into a fairly standard zombie thing, with the survivors all holed up and being besieged by the horde. Can't wait for season 2 though

Yeah if there were hundreds of returned, presumably all with the same amnesia, why did only a small handful of them actually try to go back to the town and their former lives?

so many questions!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVbhOZjSuic

but yeah, roll on season 2

maybe the american series will answer some questions (despite being only tenuously connected, if at all)

Yeah if there were hundreds of returned, presumably all with the same amnesia, why did only a small handful of them actually try to go back to the town and their former lives?

I thought that most of the horde were killed when the first dam broke though. They couldn't go and get on with their former lives because the old village was underwater.

I tried to find a full synopsis of the film, apparently all the returned gathered together at night for some secret plot but I couldn't find out what exactly.

xp oh yeah. bummer.

Another couple of questions:

Why did Mr Costa try and kill Mrs Costa when she came back?
Why did Toni kill his mother?
Why do the dead want to have a big get-together anyway?

I liked the siege scene, at least the way it was done with having the shutters come down and remaining inside, only hearing the sounds of the attack outside. Though it would have been more effective if it had been more drawn out than just hearing the sound of a few shots fired then banging on the shutters. And knowing there's a second series on the way meant that I wasn't expecting answers and reasons for everything, in fact I'm happy to be left guessing. The mystery is the whole point of it.

I don't think Toni literally killed his mother. xp

Why did Mr Costa try and kill Mrs Costa when she came back?

'cause he was FREAKED THE FUCK OUT

of course the manner of mrs costa's death may have some bearing on this.

I can't remember if someone here mentioned this, and am too lazy to scroll back up and see, but re: Mrs Costa's death - she tells three different people three different things. We know the dead can die again (re-die?) So maybe it wasn't her first reappearance to Mr Costa. He could have bludgeoned her or thrown her off the dam, torching the house seems pretty final.

The connection between the dead and the water has so many interpretations, and the appearance and disappearance of the dead is obviously connected to the water levels dropping and the dam bursting again. Did the police return too, or did they take the corpses with them for snacks?

Wait - do we know the dead can re-die? Who re-died?

Simon for one

well he re-undied anyway

Yeah Simon was shot but he didn't stay dead. The only time we saw something come back to life and stay dead, iirc, was the wolf in the lads' taxidermy room.

I was prepared for a lack of closure, I enjoyed the grossly elongated sense of eeriness for itself, I think.

I think the horde missed some element of "so what?". They're coming to get us! They are going to tickle my car until I give them this child! They are going to stand outside out Helping Hand Centre until we offer up our (previously) dead! EEK!

Yeah Simon was shot but he didn't stay dead

What was Victor doing between appearing before the bus crashed and following Julie home? Four years is a long time for a young boy to be wandering around on his own.

I see - I thought you meant we saw the dead die again and stay dead - it seems the opposite is true, that once they come back they keep coming back. We agree, I think.

They keep coming back but at the same time they are slowly decomposing

Actually, the decomposition seems rapid. Simon had ten years to rot away. Victor had 34. Yet they all seem to have just started the week of these events.

Simon was only resurrected that week, wasn't he? Victor has been hanging around longer, but I wonder if he died and returned again. It's difficult to believe he'd just be allowed to wander alone for years. Though he does have those powers none of the others seem to have (Lucy's don't count because she had them when she was alive).

Tracklist from the soundtrack album:

1. Hungry Face
2. Jaguar
3. The Huts
4. Kill Jester
5. This Messiah Needs Watching
6. Whisky Time
7. Special N
8. Relative Hysteria
9. Fridge Magic
10. Portugal
11. Eagle Tax
12. Modern
13. What Are They Doing in Heaven Today?
14. Wizard Motor

Hmmm, cryptic

Lucy's don't count because she had them when she was alive

But was she alive when she originally showed up?

what happened to the big spotlight on the roof that was used ?

the horde sure did tidy everything up after themselves ...

i have the soundtrack lp and half of it doesn't feature in the tv series.

plus, didn't they write it well in advance? so they wouldn't've known plot details.

also, cue ledge and his limmy fact

(currently £8 from fopp btw)

Fridge Magic obv refers to Simon's escape from the mortuary chiller amirite?

I'm not paying £8 for a limmy fact.

I don't like the music as much as I thought I would.

limmy fact:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3J8FYKZ52w

(free of charge to ilxors)

Limmy Killjester, oh yeah, that warty bloke from Motorhead

Wizard Motor is great. It's probably my favourite Mogwai album since CODY but that's not an enormously high bar.

i find it suffers from being a soundtrack and therefore a bit light.

http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-returned/26626/does-this-hold-the-answers-to-the-returned%E2%80%99s-mysteries

i'm sorta afraid the horde will just now become a zombie version of THE OTHERS or something, and the both spooky and emotionally fucked elements of dead ppl resuming their former lives will all disintegrate and be left behind and the show will become something else, but idk, i'm probably just scarred still by LOST and projecting a lot of really stupid apprehensions onto this show.

No thats exactly what i fear as well and why I was disappointed in the finale. Also I repeat my earlier point wit all the young actors in season 1 I fear they will drastically change the perspective / fast forward / rewind so as to to shake up the whole cast

really didn't like the last episode. too many lingering shots of the actors faces looking emotional (pouting). it was like twilight or something.

Lucy's don't count because she had them when she was alive

But was she alive when she originally showed up?

Was Lucy definitely dead? Did she get killed by Serge?

And now I can finally talk!

Desperately unsure about where things were left off. Come to think of it, I was desperately unsure at the end of Twin Peaks... I would like to believe that the writers can bring it on home so-to-speak in season two.

I don't think the finale was at all like just another zombie thing. For one thing, they were barely there at all. The whole point of the horde was to divide the town and the scene where they separated was pretty emotionally intense.

Totally unbothered by the lack of resolution as well, I want this to continue for a good few seasons.

Presumably the second series will introduce horde members as characters, which will go further back into the history of the town.

god this show is fantastic! i more than trust the creators to carry on into s2

One important thing from that link that DavidM posted - Mr Costa was the mayor at the time of the original dam failure, so he would have borne responsibility for those deaths. I do think he is a central character in this whole thing, cos he was also the twins' teacher. Maybe Victor stepped in front of the school bus thinking that Costa was on it too? Or at least in order to hurt those that Costa cared for?

Best bit in the last episode was Thomas telling that one cop to stay outside and not let anyone in, then closing the door on him and locking him out. Yeah, cheers guv!

yeah, some of the basic human behaviour is ludicrous - you sort of don't notice it due to the supernatural elements of the show distracting you.

Isn't that because a) Thomas is a dick and b) the plan was to gun all the Returned down once the blinds had closed?

for some reason i thought thomas was on the outside and he was telling the guy on the inside not to let anyone in? i guess i mis-saw

He was inside with Adele and her zombie foetus, undead and unborn

I didn't really get why they weren't demanding Serge (and his mother) join them - maybe because he's already enacted his revenge mission?

although thomas was on the inside i bet in his head he was listening to staind's "i'm on the outside".

I didn't really get why they weren't demanding Serge (and his mother) join them - maybe because he's already enacted his revenge mission?

― Matt DC, Tuesday, 30 July 2013 11:55 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hmmm... maybe he's already "joined" the horde and is as such allowed to tootle off on his own a bit?

The idea that each of the returned has a revenge mission is an interesting one (not sure what Cecile's is, fwiw? Revenge on her sis for nicking the object of her affections?)

yeah when she said "there's one more" i thought she was talking about serge, not the zombie fetus

maybe they recruited him for a mission when they sucked him under the lake.

Here's a question: is it possible to terminate a zombie pregnancy?

this show = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QUVNcQdTxo

Struggling to remember if the people from the town know anything about Serge, other than Julie, Toni and Lena. He's mostly been away from the rest of the action and Toni kept pretty quiet about him.

Part of me is still wondering whether the two twins swapped places, and whether Camille is actually Lena and vice-versa. But I don't know what I'm basing that on.

Could be misremembering, but the police knew about him because they went up to their house to arrest him. Forget who it was that ID'd him in the first place.

xp I keep on thinking that as well, I'm sure the first ep left it open. But no evidence beyond that, and they've always managed to react convincingly to having their names called even in moments of extreme stress.

Part of me is still wondering whether the two twins swapped places, and whether Camille is actually Lena and vice-versa. But I don't know what I'm basing that on.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, July 30, 2013 8:31 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

when the twin 'reveal' happened at the end of that episode there were hints that they might have switched?

is there anything in the fact that we don't actually know what happened to lena after she saw the horde? just a quick skip to her showering at home.

Part of me is still wondering whether the two twins swapped places, and whether Camille is actually Lena and vice-versa. But I don't know what I'm basing that on.

i thought it was suggested in the bathroom scene of the last ep when the undead twin said: 'you called me camille...even though you know i'm not her'

What was Victor doing between appearing before the bus crashed and following Julie home? Four years is a long time for a young boy to be wandering around on his own.

I've been thinking about this and I remembered that Victor appeared again after the butterfly (and remember the species was Victorina stelenes) escaped from Mr Costa's framed collection, so could he have been hiding out as a butterfly?? That obviously links in with the old belief that lepidopterans are the reincarnated souls of the dead, but then you have Simon's escape from the police station where there was a suggestion that he and Lucy had temporarily transformed into butterflies. And there's the whole thing about being trapped behind glass (the butterfly collection, Simon in his cell, Victor in the car) and maybe that relates to people being trapped under water?

I wonder if Serge's revenge mission had anything to do with Toni, and now that Toni is dead, will Serge and Mammy Serge just disappear?

i just wanna say nobody does emotional cruelty on screen quite like the french

I think the reason the horde didn't want Tony is cos he's not part of their project, whatever the heck that is. The same weird mechanism has brought him back to life, but he and (to a lesser extent) Toni are outsiders and separate to the rest of the village and they've got their own story to work through (crazy mother thing, Serge stabbing women in their stomachs etc). Much like the dog that got stabbed and came back to life - not a part of the horde's plan but still under the same spell (which could suggest that maybe the horde haven't returned to exact their revenge, but maybe they find themselves in a position to take their revenge because they've been returned to this world? i.e. there's a deeper magical logic at work and what people do when they come back is perhaps incidental). Don't think that Serge returned to kill Toni, cos if anything he was trying to stop Toni dying at the end.

I think the zombies ignite the worst fears of their "victims". The nurse feared being reattacked, Toni out of guilt to see his brother come back for revenge, the little girl to see her mom die, Thomas to see adele bang her ex lover, etc

I wonder if Simon shot himself in a similar scenario to Toni's death? Except other suicides (Costa, the nosey neighbour lady) don't seem to have back, so maybe not.

If this is a revenge thing then there are any number of candidates to take Serge down.

Neighbor lady was technically a suicide, but it was obvious that Victor was pulling her strings, right?

some of the theories are really getting convoluted now imo.

Yep, just like with Toni xp

im gonna need to stay off this thread, this is like lost. maybe serge is the horse????

otm

Just caught the last two episodes of this. Not disappointed on the whole but it was strange how they ditched the feel of the rest of the series (small stories that looked to be about personal vendettas) and turned it into something else, something kind of zombieish. The "deportation" scene was gripping though, the strength of the characterisation that was built up really paid off imo.

Also loved the soundtrack - I listened to it a bunch earlier in the year even before I watched the show. The Goblinesque theme that played when Julie/Laure/Victor got stuck on the dam was very effective.

I actually lolled when he popped it in his mouth :)

― click here to start exploding (ledge), Wednesday, July 24, 2013 8:06 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Me too!

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/10601220.Mystery_over_dead_animals_found_in_Worthing_lake/

this is coming to the sundance channel in america next week. fyi to any americans.

Oh cool, I might watch it again.

Starts tonight!

America you should watch the fuck out of this show.

I haven't read anything saying it would be, but I have this horrible fear that it might be dubbed. Because America.

its subtitled. exact same version that ran on channel 4

american remake in the works

America you should watch the fuck out of this show.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 31 October 2013 19:38 (Yesterday)

this.

american remake in the works

Are you talking about Resurrection on ABC? It's similar in one respect, but totally different in every other.

lol i just heard it was based on the returned but apparently it's a different the returned

there is an american remake of this in the works, tho

http://cdn.fd.uproxx.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/NIKKI-FINKE-large.jpg

Can't wait for second season 2 even though I know that I will inevitably be disappointed (didn't much like the direction which the finale suggested)

So much of this show is tied up in its particular sense of place, I can't imagine even a great American remake having quite the same peculiar eerieness.

I loved this show but found the end of season 1 just pushed things into True Blood levels of ludicrousness. Concerned the next one will jump the shark completely. That first episode is so great though - really understated, more about people's reactions to their returned loved ones than the supernatural properties at work.

No way did this get anywhere near True Blood idiocy, even at the end.

I actually stayed with TB for something like 4-5 seasons. I relished the campiness and the "oh boy, they've really gone crazy this time" before giving up. But the Returned felt so refreshing at first. Like those zombie movies where you're only peripherally aware of the undead threat and the real conflict is among the normal people having to overcome them, The Returned was brilliant and subtle. Just hoping they rein it in a bit, that's all.

I didn't like the turn it took in the last episode at all, but I don't see how they can go back to the small domestic stories that were the best thing about season 1.

Can we get spoilery on this thread? Tbh I thought they could have milked the domestic drama a good deal more and maybe throw in some more flashback stuff

Spoiler seal was broken a long time ago.

Yeah I think there should be a separate thread if American viewers don't want to know what happened.

This show is so good it deserves a thread.

Oops, did that accidentally, clearly there was a thread and I found it.

I love this show, although I haven't watched the last episode yet so maybe they ruined everything.

last episode takes the show in a new direction - IMHO
Curious as to when season 2 will appear

first episode was by far the best, as with a lot of these three-part gritty dramas.

(wasn't it 8 or 10 episodes?)

god, you're not wrong - it was 8 episodes. i distinctly remember it being shorter than that, but i was also watchign southcliffe at the same time.

yeah these kind of shows can never really live up to their initial pormises - the first couple of episodes struck this very elegiac note of haunted loss but then the show turned into something slightly different

it's inevitable, but i was impressed that they stretched out the initial phase (when nobody had quite realized what was going on) for as many episodes as they did. the first four or five are just perfect.

i thought this was the most consistent show of its type since twin peaks tbh

^agreed. just watched the last episode last night, loved the final shot. so i guess the setup for the season 2 is 'the horde' all living in the old previously-drowned village, with the living stuck on the hill?

crucial previously unasked question: was the zombie-ish zombie in the bathroom drinking water from the toilet? or...?

some interesting theories upthread, i wondered about the twins switching places when they were initially revealed but then forgot about it, and assumed the remark camille made in the last episode about 'even though you know i'm not her' referred to her being a different, undead version of herself. i don't know what the switch would even affect if it were true, except for another reason to for camille to be jealous of her sister's life (which seems to have faded anyway).

for some reason all the unanswered questions & mysteries don't bother me in this show, since they seem to be done for emotional/visceral effect rather than to keep you hooked on the plot.

This may have been posted upthread, but here's the US version, er...it's not a remake exactly, but the premise is the same. The French series is based on a film, and the US series is based on a book and not the French series or film. Anyway, an excuse to watch Kurtwood Smith is fine with me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MFrquHzlWA

this on netflix instant now

so so so good. so many questions tho, wish i'd been taking notes, might be one of the only shows i'll end up rewatching almost immediately.

SPOILERS
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i thought it was weird that victor kept referencing his dead parents, but there's no mention of his dad in the flashbacks (the mother refers to "her" room/bed, not "ours") and victor never talks about seeing his brother again, even though he must have also been shot. also not clear at all why pierre and the other guy were in that house murdering everyone.

why are simon and camille and victor and that toilet-drinking guy all rotting but apparently not serge or mrs costa or lucy?

starting this and hoping it's better than TOTL. had high hopes for this sundance stuff!

currently being driven crazy about this guy cause he looks like 99% the same as some non-french actor i can't remember

http://fr.web.img2.acsta.net/r_640_600/b_1_d6d6d6/medias/nmedia/18/92/60/65/20371186.jpg

i might just be thinking of david costabile but i swear there's a closer match

robert wuhl?

john malkovich?

He looks like a warped version of Tom Hanks.

nearly 3 in and i'm disappointed, this is like half a good show and half a CW drama that isn't interesting

i watched the movie shortly after it came out on DVD, i don't remember much from it except that it was (also) disappointing and possibly a bit bigoted in its precious immigration allegory (if that's what it was going for -- could never really know). apparently this is the second time in a row i've hyped myself up for a well-tempered-and-possibly-a-little-eerie story abt dead people coming back and attempting to reintegrate only to be met with this hodge-podge of mystery shit and CREEPY CHILDREN ugh. i blame nearly everything i've ever read about either the movie or show which described it as the former

but seriously even with mogwai there are so many shots that feel like they came out of secret life of the american teenager

The high point of the season is in the middle imo, so it will get better for you before it gets worse.

tbh if you don't like it after three episodes, I don't see how the rest of it would change your mind

yeah that's what i'm thinking too but i'll probably watch the rest anyway

the parts that i think are really good are mostly just the three actual cases of returned people. esp the twins. this is why i think this idea keeps getting rehashed (a novel! a tv adaptation of the novel! an english adaptation of the tv adaptation of the novel!) even though the original film wasn't a big deal and wasn't any good -- the simple idea of dead people coming back and trying to reintegrate into their families and into society offers a ton of possibilities for stories and character dynamics that haven't really been explored. it's almost easy to make this shit interesting. but every time they do it they just have to add all this silly pointless shit that doesn't belong and suddenly i'm having LOST flashbacks

the simple idea of dead people coming back and trying to reintegrate into their families and into society offers a ton of possibilities for stories and character dynamics that haven't really been explored.

agreed. and i hate how the show boils down into classy horror tropes, or even exposes (?) how the returned returned to life. i was more interested in the domestic complexities of, what happens when your dead sister comes back to life?

kid's pee coming out of closet
now it's blood

^ this incredible shot really deserved its 90-second slow pan

just finished this, totally in love with it. almost every episode was so pitch-perfect. loved the pacing, the feeling of gradual convergence as all these storylines came together, loved how the finale answered some questions but raised even more.

might argue for camille as creepier than victor. victor played into a lot of classic creepy-child tropes but he's more vulnerable than malevolent, and even if he has this power to make people...see things that might result in them killing themselves, i don't think he quite has a handle on it - see his conversation with mme costa, his "i didn't mean to do it" re: chloé. i don't think camille is malevolent either but she's like the midpoint between simon (very human in his emotional demeanour, single-mindedness, need to pick up where he left off) and victor (preternaturally "creepy") in that she acts completely normally, exactly like you'd expect a teenage girl to, at times, but at others just seems that little bit too poised. the camille/léna plot was certainly the best of that season, and i loved how it didn't end in confrontation but reconciliation and a partnership you feel is now much stronger.

anyone feel like undead simon's intensity and refusal to take no for an answer might reflect something dysfunctional in that relationship when he was alive? adèle seems to have a need for codependency that's evident in her relationship with thomas as well.

thomas is a cunt and i hope he gets a nasty comeuppance soon. controlling, selfish, stupid. the way he sold everyone but his own precious family out in the last episode, ugh. funny that he seems to be analogous to rick in the walking dead. all cops are bastards.

mme costa's over-it snark is much appreciated and i hope to see more of it in the next series. she seems to know what's up but is generally uninterested in telling people.

think it was abundantly clear from the minute julie hopefully raised the possibility that she was dead that she totally isn't. lucy otoh...dead already when she first arrived? or really just a sexual clairvoyant?

anyone feel like undead simon's intensity and refusal to take no for an answer might reflect something dysfunctional in that relationship when he was alive?

this is certainly what i was thinking

currently being driven crazy about this guy cause he looks like 99% the same as some non-french actor i can't remember

Not sure if this is what you were thinking, but my first instinct was "Wait, Fred Armisen's in this?"

http://funnyandspicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/The-Front-Desk-With-Fred-Armisen-Vow-of-Silence-300x255.jpg

I enjoyed the series pretty much all the way through, though I agree with the consensus disappointment at the way it broadened into something more genre predictable in the last few episodes. Like a lot of these weird-tale series, it keeps piling on elements that don't necessarily seem connected or well-thought-out -- the twins' telepathic bond, the creeping skin disease, the way Julie, Laure and Victor/Louis are unable to actually drive out of town ... starts to feel like whatever supernatural trope serves the needs of the immediate plot point. Still, great atmospherics, interesting approach to the whole idea of the undead.

On the lighting, I thought this was interesting, from the Guardian (apologies if it's mentioned upthread):

Based on a 2004 film of the same name, Les Revenants was given its distinctive feel partly by the director's decision only to film between 4pm and 9pm – "Fabrice always wanted it to be dusk", said Thiam

My wife and I finished watching this yesterday. I really wanted to like it, and the first couple of episodes were moderately intriguing, but the payoff was a flabby script, bad acting, editing a two-hour movie into an eight-hour endurance test, and finally a bunch of questions that were rendered too boring to bother answering. The Alps were pretty, though.

yeah i thought this started off so well but we never even watched the 10th episode, it had become pretty clear they didn't know what they were doing

It tails off very badly, and never really fulfills the promise of those first episodes. But those first episodes are excellent.

It is far from flawless but I still enjoyed the full series myself. It is still remarkably better than a hell of a lot of series from last year so I forgive it's faults.

OH I'M SO GLAD THIS THREAD POPPED BACK UP. I put some cranky comments on the Netflix one but this is much better.

Are you talking about the terrible ABC series Resurrection? I think that is from a different source but it is fucking appalling.

I don't think Resurrection is so terrible. It's just a different thing altogether.

I couldn't take that ridiculous concept that the returned kid shows up in some Chinese province. They just buried him too deep durr! Some really rubbish sub X-Files type shit.

The most recent episode revealed all the "resurrected" are showing up at some particular degree of longitude/latitude from Arcadia, though...very Lost-y, but not random.

Everyone is assuming that this show is going to a really conventional and boring place based on what they've seen in other shows but we don't actually know what Season 2 is going to be like at all.

I'm not assuming that.

Yeah I know, you just don't particularly like it, which is a different thing. What I'm getting at is the "this started off really well but I have misapprehensions about the direction suggested by the final episode" when we don't actually know if it's going to go in that direction.

Also people are really burned by Lost, every time a new show appears that layers loads of mysteries on top of one another, the assumption now is that the writers don't have a clue how to resolve them. Admittedly that's often vindicated but I have enough faith in this case.

Here it is: http://tvline.com/2014/04/29/ae-the-returned-adaptation/

Carlton Cuse, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

FFS why bother? Especially after all the other pointless remakes that are universally unloved.

definitely don't get the "bad acting" complaints, and i think it's way too soon to say for certain whether the writers don't know what they're doing - they haven't even tried to give us "answers" and have never even emphasised that as a priority

ahaha cuse is perfect

Just wanna say I really liked this show beginning to end. This is especially exciting to me because I don't think lex and I have ever liked the same thing before.

I really liked the early parts of this (establishing eerie premise), was bored by central parts of it (where is it going? + v humourless, sense of stasis), LOVED the final stages (ie didn't think it tailed off at all - vicious moral decisions, suggestion of portcullis coming down between different decisions made by different people).

hope the next series is a substantial progression from the final events of S1, rather than a replay of uncertainty.

watched the first episode of this and it was promising, but am really wary that the reason its gotten so much good press is that its 'classy' and 'subtle' (read: meandering), which arent bad things to be, but those seem to be part of their own set of boxset tv cliches now. my fear is that its going to be directionless and atmospheric at the expense of real drama or anything of much note happening. im all for subtlety, just not ponderously so.

obviously, i hope im really wrong.

The overall plot may not be up to scratch (imo, others will disagree) but the human drama and characterisation are compelling throughout (imo etc).

Take a shot every time someone says 'lake poob'.

About time. The teaser trailer for series 2.

https://youtu.be/NRABgDs-VD0

Wish I'd re-watched season one before the new episode

has it begun again?

It aired last night I presume, it has been on the torrentz for 15 hours.

Was first aired on Friday, repeated last night. It's on e4 or more4 or one of those rather than a channel anyone watches.

Will be on whatever ch4 are calling their iPlayer this week.

Debating whether I remember enough from last season to take the plunge on S2

Not entirely sure I'm going to bother with S2 - I liked how the first started a great deal, but it had sort of mostly turned into nonsense by the end of the season.

agreed. the initial episodes were wonderful but i grew less enamoured the more it took shape and became less about the impact of these people coming back from the dead and more scary zombie show

Judging by the first episode of S2, it's going to continue to be about character I think. Having said that I found the opener a bit ponderous, too many threads quite widely scattered.

Where were Camille and Lucy and the others meant to be, by the way? In another town?

watched the first three eps of the new series tonight, i thought it was great. relentlessly bleak. tho it has a few problems as per matt's question - i also wondered where the characters are, and like basic things like the military not believing the story about the returned - i feel like they're kind of writing around huge holes in the plot that they don't want to reveal yet or haven't got an answer for, but they are doing so quite deftly, for now.

watched the s2 premiere and found it insanely boring tbh

Yeah the premier was a drag but it's got going very nicely by episode three - a couple of real WTF moments in that most recent one. Problem is that unless they establish that some people can actually just die and never come back, there's not much of a sense of jeopardy right now.

They have made the classic mistake of spreading the cast out too thinly, a couple of characters seemed to have just vanished from the screen as well, although I'd forgotten that the police had mysteriously disappeared in the season finale. The stuff about Vincent's murder is pretty compelling - I like the idea of using the undead as an opportunity to shine light on dark incidents in a town's history.

Is there a Vincent? I'm not correcting you, I just can't remember who that is. I agree that all the backstory stuff is great. Though I have occasionally thought that quite a lot of people have died in this town, especially young people. Wouldn't most revenants just be octogenarians pottering around?

I'd completely forgotten who that Madame whatever was - not much point to her - and like you I had to read Wikipedia to get an idea of what happened at the very end of season 1.

The whole thing looks incredible, there aren't many shows I've seen with such beautiful shots.

I guess the big question now is why some of them are those ashen-faced zombies and some seem to know they are revenants and are sad about this.

Sorry I meant Victor, not Vincent.

ah cool - i genuinely wasn't sure if there was a character called vincent or not!

It was implied in the last episode that the revenants are mostly people who died before their time for whatever reason. With a bus crash, a flood and a family of serial killers in the town that's going to rack up to quite a lot.

Given that no one can leave the town and most of the people who could flee already have, I'm not sure how they're supposed to be living. Like how do any of them have jobs, or buy food, or whatever, at this stage?

that's exactly what i was thinking. it isn't quite in lost territory yet but it wouldn't be a long trip for it to get there.

Just watched ep 2, with the ruined dam. Is that the same dam that is also entirely intact and has people driving back and forth over, or is there another dam I am unaware of?

guess they rebuilt it?

what? when? this wasn't a flashback. berg, the new investigator in the town with mysterious flooding but a definitely intact damn, drives down an abandoned road and finds a ruined dam.

dam, damn

was it destroyed in the past? i don't remember that.

There was a dam that broke in the 60s or 70s (when Victor was alive) but they built a new one

ah right. one mystery solved!

Yeah unfortunately that mystery isn't meant to be solved until episode 3 so mini spoiler there.

ep 1 : bored me and i was debating whether to go for the rest.

end of ep 3 : hooked.

really enjoying it, just wish ch4 had the whole season on demand so i could just watch it all over a weekend.

just caught up.

oddly i heard 3 versions of 'what are they doing in heaven today' yesterday, two on the show and another on last week's world on 3 (bela fleck and abigail washburn)

Caught up, much sinister. Started laughing when tony and serge's cabin was invaded by a bevvy of beauties, stopped laughing pretty quickly. I'm enjoying all the factionalism and intense relationships (serge and milan, christ) without worrying too much about where it's all going.

did anyone keep up with this? finale was kinda crappy i thought but s2 generally was v good.

i have just watched the last two episodes and made a mental note not to watch series 3 if such a thing ever happens.

watching series 2 in the US, hasn't finished yet. Read online somewhere that they knew there wasn't going to be a series 3 so they had to wrap things up with series 2 finale, which resulted in a bad ending? Not there yet for us in any case.

yeah you'll see it when you see it but imo it did feel a bit rushed.

shame as i think at times this show has been brilliant, the relentless gloom it all, the beautiful, desolate cinematography, and the subtlety of some of the themes.

yeah, i watched this to the end.
as you say, it looked gorgeous.
however, early on in s2 i came to realise that a lot of it was people walking.
lots and lots of walking, and then a reveal.
not sure how i feel re the ending, but i wont say anything until the US crew have caught up.

yeah people walking and nothing happening, people sighing, it was just relentlessly grey. i quite liked that about it.

the personal relationships in it were also prob better and more organic than most shows

agreed re the focus being about relationships as opposed to action.
it was definitely something to watch in the autum/winter months.
it totally suited the recent grey/dark weather.
i really enjoyed it.

if there is a s3, then apparently, it will be a different setting/scenario.

http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/the-returned/news/a673549/there-could-be-a-third-series-of-the-returned-says-creator-fabrice-gobert/

This was definitely best when the mystery served to drive the relationships, unfortunately in the finale they decided to foreground the mystery and turn all the returned into warm milk zombies, even big psycho Milan. Still, I'm a sucker for a (kinda) happy ending.