The fascination with the dead returning is something that has permeated through almost every aspect of pop culture. One of the most popular shows on TV right now is of course The Walking Dead. The Walking Dead is, as previously mentioned, not a great show but it's effective. People like zombies, or more accurately, people like seeing people kill zombies. But what if the dead rose and they looked...exactly like they did when they were alive? Not covered in gore, not missing limbs or vital organs, not groaning and biting their former loved ones, just simply their regular selves?
That concept is explored in the French television show The Returned or Les Revenants if you prefer. It is set in an idyllic small mountain town in France that sits at the foot of a lake. Four years previous, a bus carrying 38 schoolchildren plunged off a cliff, killing all of them. The accident cast a pall over the town, it's impact still felt years later as the town and the families struggle to move on. We see the stress of a grief counseling session and how it takes it's toll on the surviving parents. The group struggles to drum up enthusiasm as one woman announces that she is pregnant again, and the father of a girl named Camille, who we will meet, copes with his grief by sleeping with one of his young waitresses at the bar he owns and showing up late and scoffing his way through the meeting. He receives a call from his estranged wife requesting his presence at home and everything changes from there. A mysterious young boy follows the town doctor around, a handsome young man wanders around town looking for his wife, as she doesn't live or work where she used to, a young woman returns home and frightens her distraught grandfather. They all show up exactly as they were that day four years ago, not having aged, unaware of their death, even wearing the same clothes, as if nothing has happened, wondering why everyone around them is acting so strange. The question always posed by zombie fiction is, How will we as survivors cope with a world that has changed? This show asks the question, How will the returned cope with a world that has moved on? And that distinction is much more fascinating to watch.
The Returned is, simply put, a creepy show. The little boy known as Victor is about the most eerie child I've ever seen on screen. The band Mogwai does the music and creates a moody soundscape that works perfectly for the dark, chilly goings-on. The returned seem to be able to move about as they please, disappearing and reappearing at will. They also wreak havoc on the electricity grid of their small town, lights they pass under flicker and the entire town is plunged into a blackout apparently at the fateful moment of return. As the show progresses, we'll see how the interactions will affect everyone and if the first episode is any indication, how the returned are mysteriously, inextricably linked to some of their surviving counterparts. And how the schoolchildren aren't the only ones returning. The best story so far is the relationship between Camille and her sister, once twins whose actions on that day four years ago put this whole thing in motion who now have to live with each other again, as strangers. Throw in serial killings that evoke similar murders from the past, Twin Peaks-ian levels of the darkness and secrets that lie in a small town, and an ability to create a dialogue about just what the repercussions of a situation like this would really be and we have an extremely compelling, smart, interesting show.
Quite predictably, there is an American version of this show coming soon to ABC called Resurrection, that will almost definitely not be as well made. It apparently will focus more on the religious aspect of this phenomenon, something that is only very briefly touched on in this show in a scene of dialogue between Camille's parents. The Image Comics series Revival has a similar story, where the dead came back to life for one day in rural Wisconsin but they don't come back completely normal and with the revival comes all manner of darkness on the quarantined town, both human and supernatural. This is immensely more interesting than just the last bastion of humanity hacking at rotting corpses with shovels and samurai swords while also doing battle with each other. Having to adapt and live again with someone you had known to be dead and gone and the innate struggles and horror that will come from that makes for quality viewing.
On a quick side-note, The Returned is yet another in a long line of shows that have been imported from Europe for consumption by fans of quality, epic, cinematic television. Series like Luther, Sherlock, The Fall and Wallander have all been brought to American screens with great acclaim. Two shows, Jane Campion's Top Of The Lake on Sundance and BBC America's Broadchurch, both shows about small towns (near bodies of water, interestingly enough) in the midst of an out of the ordinary violent crisis are this shows most recent counterparts. The Returned aired on French television last year but will begin showing on Sundance Channel Thursday nights starting on Halloween.
