Les Revenants (The Returned) - Season 2

Six months have passed since a large number of deceased people enigmatically returned to life in a remote French mountain town, followed by part of the town flooding. Most of the population has fled and the army has arrived to investigate what's going on, but the local population is reluctant to help them. Meanwhile, the Returned (and a few living allies) are living in a suburb cut off from the rest of the town by floodwaters...but a second batch of Returned have arrived, including some of a more hostile and murderous bent.

The first season of Les Revenants aired on Canal+ in France in 2012. After a belated three-year delay, during which the series won over cult audiences in Britain and America via broadcasts on Channel 4 and Sundance, its second season has arrived. Surprisingly, as the showrunner indicated that they had a three-year plan during production of the first season, the final episode of the season does wrap up the story and most of the characters pretty well. That certainly doesn't mean everything is answered, but it does give a sense of closure in case the show does not return.

The second season comprises sequences sent in the present day, six months after the flood, and flashbacks to several points in the past. Most of these surround the collapse of the local dam in 1977 and the subsequent inundation that killed more than a hundred people. Unexpectedly for such a low-key show, at one point we actually see the accident take place in full force, with some astonishing CGI shots of the destruction. It's a moment that wrongfoots the audience in all the right ways, and more follow.

The second season is bleaker and more paranoid than the first. The army and a newly-arrived engineer are asking questions that none of the locals want to answer for fear of sounding like lunatics, or endangering their loved ones (living or dead). No-one is sure who to trust, especially as the floodwaters have broken up several families. However, the Returned themselves are becoming divided. The return of Milan, Serge and Toni's murderous and deluded father, causes significant problems, as does the birth of Nathan, the son of revenant Simon and the still-living Adele. Julie has dedicated herself to looking after the enigmatic child Victor, but when his mother and brother both return as well she finds herself shut out of his life.

There are many stories in the second season, but at its core it is the story of Victory, the unusual child with the terrifying thousand-yard stare, and Julie, the bruised, battered and defiant survivor of one of Serge's serial killer sprees. Julie is further devastated by the (apparent) loss of her lover Laure during the events of the Season 1 finale, but she tries to find redemption in Victor. When that is taken away, she is plunged into despair, but recovers thanks to a friendly nurse and an old man in the hospital who holds the key to Victor's past.

It's at this point that the series does what you'd never expect it to do: it unlocks the past and gives us lengthy explanations and flashbacks showing Victor's life before, during and after the flood. This rewriting of the backstory we learned in the first season could risk feeling forced or a retcon, but works beautifully. It both explains why the dead are coming back (if not quite how) and how the situation can be remedied, and what the consequences might be if it isn't fixed. The young Swann Nambotin has to do a lot of dramatic and emotional heavy-lifting to make these pivotal scenes and he delivers in spades. Céline Sallette's performance as Julie is heartbreaking, and remarkable as she has to portray despair and emotional numbness but still be compelling to watch.

Elsewhere the show falters a little bit, apparently having issues with returning castmembers: I get the impression in early episodes that they thought they could get Alix Poisson back later on as Laure and then realised they couldn't, so killed her offscreen, which doesn't really track with Julie's comments in early episodes. Other major characters from the first season also have limited screentime in the second (such as brothers Toni and Serge). But otherwise the show handles its cast extremely well, particularly the story of the twin sisters Camille and Lena which provided us with the emotional core of the first season and pays off well here. The only characters who do feel really short-changed are Adele and Simon, particularly the completely baffling ending to their story which feels like it goes against what is established elsewhere in the series.

It wouldn't be Les Revenants if characters sat down and gave us a long explanation about what is going on, and they don't here. But by the end of the second season enough information is given to put together a reasonable conclusion about what has happened and how it has been resolved...and how it might happen again, as a couple of minor plot threads are left dangling for a future third season. If that does happen it will be a very different show, and at the moment feels completely optional.

The second season of Les Revenants (****½) is wonderfully well-written, fantastically acted and beautifully shot, complete with stunning cinematography and an even better musical score than the first year, again by Scottish band Mogwai. The series will be released in the UK on 11 January 2016 (DVD, Blu-Ray) and is available in the USA now on Amazon On-Demand.

LES REVENANTS wins International Emmy Award for Best Drama

French drama Les Revenants (aka The Returned in the UK and USA) has won the International Emmy Award for Best Drama.

The drama was made by and airs on Canal+ in France, with Channel 4 repeating the show in the UK and the Sundance Channel in the United States. Canal+ begin shooting the second season early next year and it will air in the autumn of 2014 in France. The UK and USA are both planning their own versions of the drama.

This is the second year in a row that France has won the award, with Canal+'s crime drama Braquo winning last year.

THE RETURNED to debut tonight in the USA

The Returned (aka Les Revenants), one of the SFF TV highlights of the year, will start airing tonight in the United States. It will air at 9pm on the Sundance Channel. If you have access to it, I definitely recommend checking it out. It's definitely one of the strongest SF TV shows of this year.

Season 2 of The Returned will air in France in 2014, with Channel 4 in the UK expected to air it shortly afterwards.

Les Revenants (The Returned): Season 1

In a small mountain town in a remote part of France, the dead start returning. Camille, a 15-year-old schoolgirl killed in a coach accident, returns home to find her twin sister is now four years older and her parents are separated. Simon, a musician who cannot remember how he died ten years ago, returns to discover his fiancee and daughter are living with another man. Serge is a serial killer, himself murdered, but now alive again and eager to resume his crimes. One of Serge's would-be victims, traumatised for years by the incident, finds a little boy who is also one of the returned, and must look after him whilst her own life falls apart. None of the returned know why or how they have come back...but it is merely the first sign that something much bigger and more dangerous is happening.

The Returned (Les Revenants in its original French) is a gripping, slow-burning drama series which is based around a simple premise: what if the dead come back to life? Not as zombies or ghosts, but living, breathing human beings with no memory of what happened to them and no explanation available for how this has happened? The reactions of families, loved ones and friends is mixed and varied: some treat the returned as horrific freaks, others try to adjust to the reality of the situation and others (including a local, canny religious leader) see it as a sign from God. The returned themselves are bemused and confused by the situation, but - in a possible clue to what's happening - all seem motivated by unfinished business from their former lives.

At the same time, the show develops other mysteries. The water level at the local dam is dropping, to the alarm of its staff. A previous dam on the same site collapsed in 1977, flooding a neighbouring village and killing more than a hundred people. Does this have something to do with what's going on? And how is the water reappearing in random locations in the area, such as at the local power station?

The Returned is keen on giving out the mysteries, but not on providing grand, over-arcing answers to everything (with at least three seasons planned and only airing at two-year intervals, we may be in for a wait for some answers). Instead, the show prefers to pose a question and then develops it over the course of several episodes. We get answers, but these may be complicated by other factors, or lead to fresh questions. Sometimes a single flashback or a line of dialogue may suddenly connect several elements together and lead to moments of revelation. The series is small in scale for its first half or so, but then becomes more epic in later episodes when contact with the outside world is cut off by a power failure. This late development kicks the series into a higher gear and introduces an extremely tangible sense of threat and menace to proceedings that carries the show through to a powerful cliffhanger ending.

The series is extremely character-focused, and both the writing and acting is superb throughout. The show has a strong focus on younger characters, such as Camille and her twin sister Lena (and the idea of twins separated and aged differently is an extremely powerful and disturbing one, handled well), and the actresses (Yara Pilartz and Jenna Thiam respectively) absolutely sell the idea of them being siblings and caught up in extraordinary events. 'Victor', the young boy adopted by the traumatised nurse Julie, seems to be at the heart of many of the mysteries in the series and is played with at times disturbing intensity by Swann Nambotin, whose thousand-mile stare makes the skin crawl. Flashbacks to his life before show a completely different, more emotional and 'normal' boy, and Nambotin's ability to switch between the two modes is phenomenal. Céline Sallette is also extraordinary as the damaged Julie, a character in denial about how badly her near-murder has destroyed her life until her encounter with Victor allows her to rediscover her humanity. Put like that, it sounds trite, but Sallette's performance (and that of Alix Poisson as Julie's former lover, Laure, desperately trying to reconnect with her) powerfully sells it.

The rest of the cast is also excellent, with the series' ability to use the big mysteries to illuminate the more human character moments being inspired. In this regard, as well as others, there's a little bit of Lost in the show's DNA, though the show is a bit keener in giving out answers to questions in the first few episodes. However, the show does occasionally resort to the same cheap tricks Lost used: characters sometimes completely fail to communicate with one another and will almost deliberately refuse to ask the questions any sane human being would in that circumstance in the name of tension. I can also see a question of who gets to control the town's supply of firearms might become a big question in the second season (as it was in the second season of Lost, somewhat tiresomely).


Still, the show benefits from sharper writing and better acting than its American forebear and the mysteries are different enough to raise more interesting themes and questions. The tone of the show is also very different, being darker and far more tense: David Lynch and Twin Peaks feel like more of an influence in that regard. The cinematography is also stunning, with the beautiful scenery offset by a decision to film daylight scenes only around dusk, resulting in a desaturated colour palette that adds to the creepy atmosphere. Backing everything up superbly is the haunting minimalist soundtrack by Glaswegian post-rockers Mogwai, which complements the visuals perfectly.


Season 1 of The Returned (****½) will be released on an English-subbed DVD in the UK on 9 September. Unfortunately, despite being shot and shown in HD, no English-language Blu-Ray release is currently listed. The DVD is also not for sale in the United States, though that might change after release. Season 2 will be shown in France in late 2014.