The Returned Episode Five Serge Et Toni

SPOILER ALERT

After four seemingly unrelated episodes, things are slowly beginning to come together.  Narratives are aligning and characters are beginnign to connect.  Firstly, there's Serge and Toni who have grown to be some of the more interesting characters.  At the series' beginning, Toni was nobody speical, just the manager of the Lake Pub, but now that it has been revealed that he is the older brother to a serial killer, he is a much more intriguing character.

Just like the other episodes, Serge et Toni begins with a flashback of the titular characters.  Seven years earlier, we see Serge attack Julie.  She only survives by Toni's intervention who knocks out Serge and takes Julie to the hospital.  Toni then takes Serge home to stop him from hurting anyone else.  How does he stop him? By burying his brother alive.  The Returned is certainly getting dark, isn't it? Whilst all of the narratives engage with family, Serge and Toni's is the most poiggant.  Toni kills his brother to stop him from killing anyone else.  I can see Toni's logic here, but one can't help but think that burying somebody alive is an incredibly cruel thing to do to your brother even if he is your brother.  If anything, I think this episode teaches us how even the most innocous people are capable of evil acts.

Fast-forward to the present-day and it is revealed that upon discovering an unconscious Lena, rather than stabbing and eating her, Serge takes her home and nurses the scar on her back.  He goes so far to hide her identity from Toni.  Why is Serge doing this? Is he trying to atone for his sins? What prompted him to start killing in the first place? This has yet to be revealed, which I feel is a mistake.  Having a serial killer, who isn't necessarily the antagonist, as part of your main cast, can be risky, as you're in dnager of romanticisin his actions.  If Serge's motivations were clearer, we might be able to understand the character better.

Speaking of antagonists, another thing that this episode does is create a moral ambiguity around every single character.  Originally, I thought that Piere was the villain, but now I'm not so sure.  With Serge being a serial killer, it would be logical for him to be the antagonist, but with how he is protecting Lena, I'm not so sure about her that either.  Simon who hitherto has been one of the "good" characters forces himself upon Adele.  Jerome, Lena and Camille's father, who seemed well-intentioned but bunbling was revealed to have once hit Lena.  Even Thomas who as a police officer who you would expect to br erigteous and honourable is less than apologetic when Adele and Chloe confront hum about the cameras he installed to spy on them.  Essentially, every single character is portrayed as morally grey, which I think is realistic.  In real life, people are multi-layered and not everyone fits easily into "good" and "bad" categories.  I have always said that the characters and their relationships is one of the best things of the Returned and this episode proves it.  The characters are as morally ambiguous as they can be.

Boy, oh boy, there is no character more morally ambigous than Victor.  Since he literally appeared out of the darkness, I have never been quite sure whose side he is on, despite loving the character.  Although, what I can be sure about is that there is something definitely off about this kid.  After being taken from Julie, who I will discuss later, he is brought to the Helping Hand and Pierre.  In thie episode's scariest sequence, Victor, upon realising Pierre's involvement with his death, confronts him about it.  Pierre desperately tries to defend himself saying that it was his partner's fault and he tried to stop him.  Victor doesn't believe him and conjures up a hallucination of the burglar who murdered here.  However, this time, Pierre fights against this image.  This sequence is terrifying and shot well.  Victor's heightened emotional state leads to the entire town losing power (can we expect anything less from such a creepy characer) which means that his confrontation with Pierre was lit by moonlight.  This scene was atmospheric and utterly engaging.  The fear on Pierre's face seemed real and it was great to see Swann Namboutin do something more than stand around looking creepy, although he does do this brilliantly.

Episode by episode, we are finding out more about each character and Serge Et Toni  is no exception.  In this episode, we find out more about why Julie is so closed off.  After she was attacked by Serge and driven apart from her girlfriend Laure, she lost all passion for her life and began to wonder whether she was had died in the attack and was one of the Returnees herself.  To test this idea, she decides to jump out of her apartment window, but luckily, Laure finds and stops her before it is too late.  This was a minor scene, but a powerful and revealing one.

However, the standout star in Serge Et Toni is Yara Pillartz who plays Camille.  Whilst I have been harsh on her and her teenage rebellions, I think I was being overly-critical.  She is just a regular teenager with regular teenage problems, plus the fact that she has come back from the dead.  This epsidoe sees her teaming up with Simon, who comes to stay with her after the police step up their investigation to find him.  Simon wants Camille to convince Adele and Chloe to skip town with him.  Afteer the pair fail to meet him, Simon goes to confront them.  However, Chloe secretly rats him out to Thomas who comes along and shoots him...well I was about to say dead, but is it possible to die twice? Anyway, sufficed to say, Simon is in a bad way at the end of the episode.  Camille helps Simon in exchange for masquerading as her ex-boyfriend to make Frederic jealous.  Why Camille is so attracted to Fredieric is probably one of the show's biggest mysteries considering that he isn't the brightest.  Camille's tactics work and jsut as the pair are getting it on, she confesses her true identity.  Frederic, doing the right and honourable thing, immediately leaves, leaving Camille to greive alone.  Pillartz's performance is to be applauded here.  The heartbreak on her face is obvious and the scene is painful to watch, but done very well.  It is lit by candlelight making everything very intimate.  It comes at a logical time too.  Even someone as brainless as Frederic is bound to realise who Camille was sooner or later.  She couldn't hide for much longer.  

I was also glad to see the storyline of the dam losing water, which has been of the more lacklustre narratives, being expanded upon.  In some stunning cinematography, animals are shown to be floating suspended in the lake.  IT is later revealed that the animals drqoned being so scared of something that they ran into the water to kill themselves.  In maybe not the smoothest exposition, Adele explains to her students that their current town was built on the remains of an old town that was submerged when the old dam burst.  Was this was led the animals to kill themselves or is there something more sinister afoot? It was great to learn more about the town's backstory, which is atmospheric and eerie in itself.  I have always thought that the dam losing water is the over-arching narrative of the series and it was nice to see it take centre-stage.  It also emphasises another important theme of this series: memory and the past.  All characters including the town itself have had enigmatic and backstories and sometimes there isn't any escaping from your past.

More is revealed about Lucy Clarsen.  If you can't remember who she is, then you're not the only one.  In the first episode, she is attacked by Serge whilst walking home from work.  When not working as a barmaid in the Lake Pub, it is revealed that she is a medium.  But not your average, run-of-the-mill medium.  Lucy can only speak to the dead when she's having sex.  Why? Who knows? There is certainly no doubt that the writers are creative.  At the episode's conclusion, Lucy is shown to be waking up from her attack.  Is she one of the Returned now? Comment your answers below.