Spoiler alert: This blog contains spoilers for episode six of Sky Atlantic’s Fortitude
Just when things seemed to be getting way too complicated in Fortitude, with old murders, new murders and various unexplained psychotic shenanigans, this episode offered us some much-needed flashbacks. From the party hats and tinsel, we can guess we were taken back at Christmas, when a hammered Billy Pettigrew fought with Eric outside the Blue Fox while the Russian, Uri, passed out drunk in the snow.
DCI Morton, meanwhile, is dressed for arctic exploration as he dons his search and rescue parka with the furry hood and heads for who knows where.
When Dan comes looking for his procedurally correct nemesis he finds a disconsolate Elena, mopping the floor. She tells Dan that Morton pulled up the carpet in Pettigrew’s room, arousing his suspicions anew. “There’s nothing there. He can’t prove anything”, says Dan, strongly hinting that his involvement in Pettigrew’s death could have an illegal tinge.
Meanwhile at the taxidermist’s, Henry is having his blood taken in order to baptise the tupilaq/voodoo doll thingy. Terry the taxidermist (Tanita Tikaram’s brother, fact fans), produces the effigy and says it must be put near the boy while he sleeps. He also mentions that the magic of the tupilaq is unpredictable and that it can return to hurt the sender if the magic it goes to fight is too strong. So you can add black magic misfortune to the list of things the people of Fortitude can look forward to on top of all the illness, murder, freezing weather and crazy next door neighbours.
Back at casa Allerdyce, horrid Markus presents Shirley with a funnel and some plastic tubing because she’s too ill to eat the normal way. Throughout this episode, she gets iller and iller but her mother, the local doctor, doesn’t seem overly concerned. She’s the same colour as concrete! That can’t be good. And talking of ill people, Ronnie Morgan seems to be coughing rather a lot. Add him to your stricken list. How many more of Fortitude’s residents are going to succumb to this mystery illness? When the crook buying Ronnie’s pilfered mammoth tusk rips him off, he realises it’s time for him and Carrie to head home.
Back in his dark room, Henry develops a picture of a severed arm (owner unknown) handcuffed to a pylon. Whose is it? Are these the significant handcuffs that belong to Uri? Was someone shackled and left out in the cold as polar bear food? This is starting to look very unpleasant indeed.
Morton takes a big risk in confronting Uri over the stolen scan picture. He wants to make a deal with him but Morton’s bargaining chips are few, particularly when Uri says he knows who killed Pettigrew. He shows Morton the bullet he found at the scene of Pettigrew’s murder and blames the whole thing on Eric. But that sounds more like a personal grudge than actual solid evidence.
Despite the dreadful goings on, Fortitude still knows how to throw a party and the townspeople gather at the Blue Fox to see off the departing miners from mine 7. Dan’s impassioned speech to the assembled crowd is touching as he tells them they all need each other and they must take time to get over what happened. Ingrid and Petra decide this means they need to sleep with as many people in the bar as possibly before closing time.
On our final visit to the Allerdyce residence this episode, Shirley is suddenly awake and lucid. Oh dear. We’ve seen this before. She suddenly appears in the kitchen, trance-like and ashen and then horrible history repeats itself. The camera certainly didn’t flinch during what shall hereafter be known only as The Fork Incident. When Shirley did what she did to that poor woman’s mid-section I must admit I mostly looked away but it did become apparent that, rather than flesh-eating, Shirley was actually vomiting something into the stomach cavity. Look, I did say don’t eat while you’re reading this.
So there we have it. Not so much a serial killer as a mystery zombifying plague which turns its sufferers into bizarre flesh-tearing drones with a penchant for puking into badly injured people. I actually dread to think where this is going next. Isn’t it smashing?
