The Returned

Series one, episode five
The ‘Twin Peaks’ analogies feel ever more apt. As in David Lynch’s mouldbreaker, the increasingly surreal developments of ‘The Returned’ come with no guarantee that all will be explained. But the show’s own peculiar internal logic somehow makes it work.

Tonight’s trawl of the lake brings up some truly macabre goodies, although people seem more baffled than scared. And the living are starting to seem even more dysfunctional than the dead – they may not be integrating very successfully, but it’s a community bound together by so many secrets and lies that the walking corpses might be better off out of it. Why is the serial killer tending so carefully to Léna? Was Victor that creepy when he was alive? What happens when you kill someone who’s already dead? It may be best not to expect quick answers – or possibly any answers at all.