The Returned aired its third episode tonight that revealed a little bit of Julie’s past and allowed Rowan to finally realize that Simon was actually back from the dead. I know I’ve been recapping the episodes before I get to the review in my previous posts, but I’m going to try out just reviewing the episode this week. Not that I don’t love writing the recaps, but I want to make sure people actually read them if I’m writing them. So if you’re reading this let me know what you want to read! Just a review? Or a lengthy recap with my commentary and a review.That being said, let’s get to the review!
Victor
You know, for an episode called “Julie,” there sure wasn’t a lot of Julie in the episode. We finally got to see her attack in the tunnels. She was walking home from what I believe was a Dia de los Muertos Party (her date was Nikki the cop!). her attack played out pretty much exactly the same as Lucy’s from the pilot episodes, so I believe we are being led to believe. We learn a little bit more about Julie’s history with Nikki (she didn’t visit her after the accident) but not much headway is made there, which is disappointing.
After Julie’s neighbor Annie (aka Crying Girl) accuses Victor of being an illegal alien and tells Julie she will report her to the police, tension ratchets up. I find it a little hard to believe that Annie would really care that much if Victor was an illegal, but whatever. The episode ends with Victor going over to Annie’s apartment while Julie is out shopping, so I can only assume he is going to kill her. Hopefully we’ll find out next week! That’s it for Julie this week, though. I’m failing to see the point of the episode titles if the episodes don’t feature the titular characters in most of the scenes like the French version did. But it may just be a side effect of having shorter episodes. I like Sandrine Holt as Julie and I think her grief after being told at Mr. Goddard’s funeral about Lucy’s attack was really heart-wrenching, but I’m going to need to spend more time with her to legitimately care about her, and The Returned is not letting us do that.
Camille
Camille actually got the most interesting things to do in this episode. After convincing her mother to take her shopping at a mall out of town, they just so happen to run into Kris, a mother of another child who was killed in the bus crash. Camille improvises and tells the woman that she is Lena’s cousin Alice. This proves to be a brilliant idea, as it will let us see Camille outside of her house.
Lena, on the other hand has problems of her own. She has a scar/cut on her back that keeps getting bigger. Not sure if the cause of that scar will be the same as it was in Les Revenants, but I kind of hope they do something different with it. Later, when Camille shows up at the bar to see Ben, Lena freaks out When Ben walks in to comfort her she immediately jumps his bones and then realizes that her scar has gotten much larger. Whoops.
Claire and Jack, meanwhile, had a discussion about bringing their family back together and they kiss. Alright.
Simon
About halfway through the episode, I was getting really frustrated with the fact that Rowan still didn’t understand that Simon was real. I was afraid they would drag that on for at least another episode. I am so happy that wasn’t the case and Lena helped her realize she wasn’t hallucinating Simon. Unfortunately, she ended up still making out with him as Tommy spied on her with the security cameras he installed. Speaking of, can we talk about how creepy that is? I’m not sold on Tommy as a character because he’s just kind of douchey. That’s not Kevin Alejandro’s fault, but he’s definitely not that likable of a character (which is maybe the point).
One good thing with Simon’s story is that it finally gave Peter some of the spotlight. It’s clear he’s actually a genuinely nice guy and Jeremy Sisto had a nice moment in the car with Mat Vairo. He also reveals that Simon was hit by a car the day he was supposed to marry Rowan. Her discussion with him at the library leads us to believe it may have been a suicide.
Helen
We get to see Michelle Forbes again! She has about five seconds of screentime but she is overlooking her husband’s funeral (who threw himself off the dam in the pilot). At the funeral, we learn that Helen died when the dam burst 29 years ago.
Tony
Tony is a new member of the Returned. We don’t know much about him, except for the fact that he is Adam’s (the bartender at the bar where Lucy works) brother. He also likes to kill animals, so you can bet your bottom dollar he has something to do with the attacks in the tunnel. Adam’s reaction to Tony was nothing but sheer terror, so Tony is clearly a dangerous person.
This third episode of The Returned moved the plot along (slowly, very slowly) some more. Revelations were made for Rowan and Julie, but i still can’t help but feel a little cheated out of the fact that Julie was barely in an episode that was named after her. I don’t really feel a connection with most of the characters because I don’t think we’ve got to spend enough time with them to form an emotional connection. The French version was very similar to this, but at least it had haunting music and was pretty to look at. Unfortunately I cannot say the same about the American version. It’s not bad, it’s just kind of there and it feels like it’s spinning its wheels. Here’s hoping it picks up a bit in the next few weeks.
Random Notes (some spoilers for Les Revenants below)
- Jack lets Camille smoke. Good parenting, Jack!
- It’s getting really difficult to review the show without mentioning Les Revenants all the time. This version really needs to start deviating STAT.
- That being said, I hope I’m doing an alright job of sounding surprised at certain plot points so as not to spoil future revelations in the series. Bear in mind that as of now the show is pretty much an exact replica of its French counterpart, so while I may sound surprised at some of the things I talked about above, I wasn’t.
- I like that they mentioned the dam bursting all those years ago, but I’m guessing the American version will not be including the plot point about the lake water level slowly dropping. I don’t that has been mentioned at all, has it?
