“The worst thing is the killer’s in your own home, watching television with you,” says Dan to Hildur. Have a look at the person next to you. Do they have easy access to kitchen equipment? What a nice way to further unsettle us, Dan. Thanks for that.
Vincent starts this episode in an upbeat mood when he is handed a posthumous letter from Stoddart that authorises his dissection of a polar bear. For a boy more used to poking about inside dead badgers, this is clearly an exciting prospect. When he finally saws the head off said bear, one known for attacking and partially eating its fellow bear, he and Natalie start poking around in its brain and discover that levels of a particular thing are unusually high. They resolve to test Shirley’s brain (well she doesn’t need it) and Liam’s spinal fluid to look for a pattern. Could they all have the same disease?
Jules and Frank bring Liam home from hospital despite the uncertainty surrounding his murderous behaviour. Just to be on the safe side, Hildur confiscates all of their passports so they can keep the unpredictable, murderous little scamp on the island. I can’t help thinking this is a bad idea but then I suppose we don’t want him running around, eviscerating half of northern Europe with a vegetable peeler.
Morton deduces that the bullet found near Pettigrew came from a very old gun and there’s only one person who fits the description “very old” in this town. So now he knows Henry wielded the deadly weapon on that frozen beach. But we knew that from the very first episode.
Henry takes the finished tupilaq to Liam and the kid seems genuinely pleased to see it. A bad sign if ever there was one. With that, the old man leaves Fortitude with nothing more than a gallon of vodka and his Walkman for company. We find out that he plans to head up to the glacier, listen to concertos and, ultimately, blow his own brains out.
And lest we forget, all of this time the creepy school teacher, horrid Markus, has been trussed up and gagged by an angry Frank Sutter who is letting him stew before having another crack at interrogation. He is a man possessed.
While the torture continues, Jules tries to repair the tupilaq which has burst during an altercation with Frank, causing blood to ooze from its innards. But then she hears Markus’s screams and bursts in to find Frank about to unleash hell. She is weirdly calm at the sight of all the blood and horror and soothes Frank by talking to him like a child. He follows her meekly home while Markus lies, relieved but terrified, on the floor.
Henry and Dan share a last and quite touching conversation. The old man says that when he came to Fortitude it was pure and clean and now it’s “all got shat on”. He adds, “Fortitude is going down the toilet.” That’s putting it mildly, Henry. The confessional mood continues when Dan says that what he did, he did for love, not out of any gain or advantage. Henry says he’s never known love and he and Dan embrace. This is goodbye. Henry looks up at the security camera one last time, and is gone. There is a real depth to the friendship between these two.
Shortly after this, we see Henry standing at the top of a peak on the glacier, calling out to the mountains and the bears and smiling. He’s ready to die. He makes a pitch on the ground and sits down with his camera. Is he making one last picture before his own final credits? And will he be able to do the deed before Morton, now very keen to speak to him after seeing the pictures in his dark room, catches up with him?
Hildur, meanwhile, tells Dan that the hotel project is falling apart. The mainland has all but cut them off, the drilling won’t now start and the building contractors have cancelled their contract. Dan tries to bolster her with compliments but her grip on events is loosening as the whole town begins to unravel.
Amidst all of this despair, Ronnie Morgan is still behind that door, eyes like gob-stoppers and gaping at the air in front of his face. How long before he goes postal and starts looking for the potato masher?
