''The Returned'' (french: Les Revenants) is a French supernatural

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

television series created by Fabrice Gobert, based on the 2004 French film '' They Came Back'' (''Les Revenants''), directed by

Robin Campillo Robin Campillo (; born 16 August 1962) is a Moroccan-born French screenwriter, editor and film director. He is known for his work on films such as '' The Class'' (2008), ''Heading South'' (2005), the French zombie film '' They Came Back'' (2004) ...

. The series debuted on 26 November 2012 on

Canal+ Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...

and completed its first season, consisting of eight episodes, on 17 December. In 2013, the first season won an

International Emmy The International Emmy Awards, or International Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. Bestowed by the New York–based International Academy of Television Arts and Sci ...

for Best Drama Series. The second season, also comprising eight episodes, premiered on 28 September 2015 on Canal+. It premiered in the UK on 16 October 2015 on

More4 More4 is a British free-to-air television channel, owned by Channel Four Television Corporation. The channel launched on 10 October 2005. Its programming mainly focuses on lifestyle and documentaries, as well as foreign dramas. Content When ...

, and in the US on 31 October 2015 on

SundanceTV Sundance TV (formerly known as Sundance Channel) is an American pay television channel owned by AMC Networks that launched on February 1, 1996. The channel is named after Robert Redford's character in ''Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'' and, w ...

Premise

In a small French mountain town many dead people reappear apparently alive and normal, including teenage school bus crash victim Camille, suicidal bridegroom Simon, a small boy called "Victor" who was murdered by burglars, and serial killer Serge. While they try to resume their lives, strange phenomena take place: recurring power outages; a mysterious lowering of the local reservoir's water level, revealing the presence of dead animals and a church steeple; and the appearance of strange marks on the bodies of the living and the dead.

Cast and characters

Main characters

;The "Returned" * Yara Pilartz as Camille Séguret, 15-year-old girl killed in a bus accident four years earlier, and younger Léna * Swann Nambotin as Victor/Louis Lewanski, 8-year-old boy who died 35 years prior * Pierre Perrier as Simon Delaître, 23 years old, died the day of his wedding to Adèle a decade earlier * Guillaume Gouix as Serge Garrel, a serial killer who was killed by his brother Toni seven years earlier * Ana Girardot as Lucy Clarsen, murdered waitress * Laetitia de Fombelle as Viviane Costa, 45 years old, wife of Michel Costa, died 34 years earlier * Ernst Umhauer as Virgil, teenager murdered 35 years ago (season 2) * Armande Boulanger as Audrey Sabatini, daughter of Sandrine and Yan, classmate of Camille who died in the same bus accident (season 2) *

Thomas Doret Thomas Doret (born 10 December 1996) is a Belgian actor, best known for playing the role of Cyril in ''The Kid with a Bike'', and as Coco in ''Renoir''. Life and career Doret was born in Seraing. His father is a warehouseman while his mother is ...

as Esteban Koretzky, died in the bus accident (season 2) *

Mélodie Richard A ''mélodie'' () is a form of French art song, arising in the mid-19th century. It is comparable to the German '' Lied''. A ''chanson'', by contrast, is a folk or popular French song. The literal meaning of the word in the French language is " me ...

as Esther, a young woman killed seven years before (season 2) *

Michaël Abiteboul Michaël Abiteboul is a French actor. Filmography Theatre References External links * {{DEFAULTSORT:Abiteboul, Michael French male film actors Living people 21st-century French male actors Year of birth missing (living peop ...

as Milan Garrel, father of Serge and Toni, who died 35 years earlier (season 2) * Vladimir Consigny as Morgane, boyfriend/client of Lucy's, died 35 years earlier ;Others *

Jenna Thiam Jenna Thiam (born 19 December 1990) is a Belgian actress. She is known for the French series '' The Returned''. Early life Thiam was born in Brussels. She wanted to be an actress from the age of four. She took a course in acting in New York at ...

as Léna Séguret, Camille's twin sister, now 19 *

Anne Consigny Anne Consigny (; born 25 May 1963) is a French actress who has been active since 1981. She received a César Award nomination for Best Actress for her role in the film '' Not Here to Be Loved'' (2005). She is also known for her role as Claude in ...

as Claire Séguret, mother of Léna and Camille *

Frédéric Pierrot Frédéric Pierrot (born 17 September 1960) is a French actor. He has appeared in more than 120 films and television shows since 1986. He starred in the film '' Tell Me I'm Dreaming'', which was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the ...

as Jérôme Séguret, father of Léna and Camille, now separated from Claire * Jean-François Sivadier as Pierre *

Grégory Gadebois Grégory Gadebois (born 24 July 1976) is a French actor. Life and career He studied at the CNSAD in the classroom of Catherine Hiegel and Dominique Valadié. He was a member of the Comédie-Française The Comédie-Française () or Théâtre-F ...

as Toni Garrel, brother of Serge * Clotilde Hesme as Adèle Werther, Simon's former fiancée * Brune Martin as Chloé Delaitre, 9, daughter of Adèle Werther and Simon Delaitre *

Céline Sallette Céline Sallette (born 25 April 1980) is a French actress. Career In 2012, she was nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actress for her performance in ''House of Tolerance''. In 2016, she was a member of the jury for the Un Certain ...

as Julie Meyer, a doctor who finds and cares for "Victor" * Claude Leveque as Michel Costa, elderly widower of Viviane Costa, who is attended to by Julie Meyer *

Samir Guesmi Samir Guesmi (born 7 October 1967) is a French actor. He has appeared in more than 90 films and television shows since 1988. Filmography Actor Filmmaker Theatre References External links * 1967 births Living people French male f ...

as Thomas Mézache * Alix Poisson as Laure Valère * Constance Dollé as Sandrine Sabatini *

Jérôme Kircher Jérôme Kircher (born 21 November 1964) is a French actor known for ''A Very Long Engagement'' (2004), '' Louise Wimmer'' (2011) and ''Café de Flore'' (2011). Biography Born in Paris, Kircher is a stage actor and was a student of the Conserv ...

as Father Jean-François *

Laurent Lucas Laurent Lucas (born 20 July 1965) is a French actor. Life and career A student of the Charles Dullin school, Lucas soon became one of the most admired young performers in the Strasbourg National Theatre. He first emerged on the scene with his r ...

as Berg

Recurring characters

* Bertrand Constant as Bruno * Matila Malliarakis as Frédéric * Guillaume Marquet as Alcide * Franck Adrien as Yan Sabatini *

Carole Franck Carole Franck (born 1970 in Paris) is a French actress. Filmography Dubbing Theatre References External links * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Franck, Carole Living people French film actresses French television actresses Actresses from Par ...

as Mademoiselle Payet *

Laurent Capelluto Laurent Capelluto (born 16 March 1971) is a Belgian actor. He has appeared in more than thirty films since 1999. Filmography External links * {{DEFAULTSORT:Capelluto, Laurent Living people Belgian male actors Magritte Award winners ...

as the army major * Alice Butaud as Madame Lewanski * Pauline Parigot as Ophélie * Nicolas Wanczycki as Lieutenant Janvier *

Aurélien Recoing Aurélien Recoing (born 5 May 1958) is a French actor and stage director. Personal life Aurélien Recoing is the son of (puppeteer), and the brother of (director and translator), Blaise Recoing (actor and musician), and David Recoing (pianist, ...

as Etienne Berg

Episodes

Season 1 (2012)

Season 2 (2015)

Production

The series was shot in

Haute-Savoie Haute-Savoie (; Arpitan: ''Savouè d'Amont'' or ''Hiôta-Savouè''; en, Upper Savoy) or '; it, Alta Savoia. is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France, bordering both Switzerland and Italy. Its prefecture is Ann ...

, mainly in the city of Annecy, and in Seynod,

Menthon-Saint-Bernard Menthon-Saint-Bernard (; frp, Menton), commonly referred to simply as Menthon, is a commune on the eastern shore of Lake Annecy in the Haute-Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in Southeastern France. In 2018, it had a populati ...

Poisy Poisy (; frp, Pouêzy) is a commune in the Haute-Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France. It is part of the urban area of Annecy.Cran-Gevrier Cran-Grevier is a former commune in the Haute-Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France. On 1 January 2017, it was merged into the commune Annecy. Geography Cran-Gevrier is in the west of Annecy. Part of th ...

Sévrier Sevrier (; before 2017: ''Sévrier''; frp, Sevrî)Décret n° 2017-149
7 February 20 ...

Annecy-le-Vieux Annecy-le-Vieux () is a former commune in the Haute-Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in southeastern France. On 1 January 2017, it was merged into the commune Annecy.Veyrier-du-Lac, and Semnoz. The dam, which plays an important role, is the Barrage de Tignes. The first season of the series was filmed in April and May 2012. It was directed by Fabrice Gobert and Frédéric Mermoud. The second season of the series was directed by Fabrice Gobert and Frédéric Goupil. It was originally to be filmed in February and March 2014, for screening from November 2014. However, delays in the writing process pushed filming back until the second half of 2014, and broadcast began in 2015. The synopsis for the second season was released in August 2014, which confirmed there would be a total of eight episodes. Filming for the second season ended on 7 April 2015.

Music

The series' music was composed by the Scottish post-rock band

Mogwai Mogwai () are a Scottish post-rock band, formed in 1995 in Glasgow. The band consists of Stuart Braithwaite (guitar, vocals), Barry Burns (guitar, piano, synthesizer, vocals), Dominic Aitchison (bass guitar), and Martin Bulloch (drums). Mog ...

. The band's guitarist John Cummings said in an interview with ''

The Quietus ''The Quietus'' is a British online music and pop culture magazine founded by John Doran and Luke Turner. The site is an editorially independent publication led by Doran with a group of freelance journalists and critics. Content ''The Quietu ...

'', "They wanted us to start writing it before they started filming it. They described it as inspiring them, they wanted some kind of musical mood in place before they started, so we were working a bit dry at first ... we'd (only) seen the first couple of scripts in English". The band released a four-track sampler of the music ( ''Les Revenants'' EP) on 17 December 2012, the day of the showing of the final episode. A full-length soundtrack album, '' Les Revenants'', was released on 25 February 2013. In August 2014, it was confirmed that Mogwai would also write the soundtrack for the second season.

Reception

The series has been critically acclaimed. On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the first season holds an approval rating of 100% with an average score of 9.2 out of 10 based on 39 reviews and a critics' consensus of, "A pleasant change from typically gory zombie shows, ''The Returned'' is a must-see oddity that's both smart and sure to disturb". The second season of the show holds a rating of 95%, with an average score of 9.1 out of 10 based on 20 reviews and a consensus of, "After a long wait, ''The Returned'' is back with more of the chilling, deliberate, and masterful storytelling that made season one a spooky success". ''

Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...

'' said the series marked a resurgence in the fantasy genre with the dead appearing out of nowhere, trying to regain their lives where they left off. '' Libération'' said the series recalled the atmosphere of ''

Twin Peaks ''Twin Peaks'' is an American mystery serial drama television series created by Mark Frost and David Lynch. It premiered on ABC on April 8, 1990, and originally ran for two seasons until its cancellation in 1991. The show returned in 2017 for ...

'' by David Lynch. In France, viewing figures averaged 1.4 million over the eight episodes, on

. For its American showing, the series received a 92 out of 100 rating from

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which averages critics' reviews, based on 28 reviews. The second season received an 82 out of 100 rating based on 11 reviews. During a visit to Paris, Stephen King remarked on being a big fan of the show and later

tweeted Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

about it.

Accolades

In 2013, for the 41st

International Emmy Award The International Emmy Awards, or International Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. Bestowed by the New York–based International Academy of Television Arts and Sci ...

, ''The Returned'' won for Best Drama Series. For the

18th Satellite Awards The 18th Satellite Awards ceremony, honoring the year's outstanding performers, films, television shows, home videos and interactive media, was presented by the International Press Academy at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Century City, Los A ...

, it received a nomination for Best Television Series or Miniseries, Genre. In 2014, it was awarded with a Peabody Award. It received a nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Movies, Miniseries and Specials for the 2014

TCA Awards The TCA Awards are awards presented by the Television Critics Association in recognition of excellence in television. There are eleven categories, which are presented every summer towards the end of the organization's summer press tour. Due to ...

. Fabien Adda and Fabrice Gobert received a nomination for Best Screenplay for the episode "The Horde", for the 2013

Bram Stoker Awards The Bram Stoker Award is a recognition presented annually by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) for "superior achievement" in dark fantasy and horror writing. History The Awards were established in 1987 and have been presented annually since ...

International broadcasts

Season 1 was broadcast in the United Kingdom from 9 June 2013 on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

. It was the first "fully subtitled drama" on the channel in more than 20 years and was screened in French, with English subtitles. First announced under the English name ''Rebound'', the title was amended to ''The Returned'' prior to broadcast. The channel made a feature of the subtitles by broadcasting a specially commissioned advertisement break in French with English subtitles. In the United States,

began broadcasting the series' first season on 31 October 2013, before picking up the second season on 11 January 2014. The series began airing in Australia on

SBS Two SBS Viceland (stylised as SBS VICELAND) is an Australian free-to-air television channel owned by the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). It began as SBS TWO on 1 June 2009, and was branded as SBS 2 between 2013 and 2016. On 8 April 2017, SBS ...

on 11 February 2014. In Canada, the series debuted on 26 April 2014 on

Space Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually cons ...

. In advance of the second-season premiere, the first two episodes of the season received an advance preview screening at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, as part of the festival's new ''Primetime'' platform of selected television projects. The second season premiered on 16 October 2015 on

in the United Kingdom and on 31 October 2015 in the U.S. on SundanceTV.

International ratings

Season 1

Season 2

Home media release

The first season was released on DVD in France on 20 December 2012 and in the UK on 9 September 2013. In the United States, the first season was released on both DVD and Blu-ray on 11 February 2014 and the second season on 17 December 2019.

Adaptations

In May 2013, it was revealed that an English-language adaptation was in development by

Paul Abbott Paul Abbott (born 22 February 1960) is an English television screenwriter and producer. Abbott has become one of the most critically and commercially successful television writers working in Britain, following his work on popular series such as ...

and

FremantleMedia Fremantle (; formerly FremantleMedia) is a British multinational television production and distribution company based in London. Fremantle takes its name from Fremantle International, acquired by predecessor company All American Television i ...

, with the working title ''They Came Back''. In September 2013, it was revealed that Abbott was no longer involved with the project and that A&E would develop it. In April 2014, A&E ordered 10 episodes with

Carlton Cuse Arthur Carlton Cuse (born March 22, 1959) is a screenwriter, showrunner, producer, and director, best known for the American television series ''Lost'', for which he made the ''Time'' list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2010. ...

and

Raelle Tucker Raelle Tucker is an American playwright, television writer, producer, and showrunner, best known for her work on HBO's ''True Blood'', Netflix's '' Jessica Jones'', and for the Facebook Watch series '' Sacred Lies'', which she created based on Step ...

as executive producers. The series premiered on 9 March 2015 and was cancelled after one season.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Returned, The 2010s French drama television series 2012 French television series debuts 2015 French television series endings French horror fiction television series French-language television shows Nonlinear narrative television series Peabody Award-winning television programs Serial drama television series Live action television shows based on films Television shows set in France Zombies in television Canal+ original programming French supernatural television series