Spoiler alert: This blog contains spoilers for episode nine of Sky Atlantic’s Fortitude
As we pan over that vast, jagged glacier towards Henry’s make-shift encampment, we can see he is preparing to end it all in the place he loves best, surrounded by nothing but howling winds and a relentless blizzard.
DCI Morton is hot on his trail but soon finds his vehicle stuck in deep snow, unable to go back or forward. So presumably he must continue on by foot.
Back in London, his colleague is concerned and tries to get a hold of him but can get no reply. Eventually he leaves him a voicemail confirming what we already suspected: the treasure that Uri and Max have been so keen to plunder is a vast mammoth graveyard under the ice. All that ivory, just sitting there waiting for someone to dig it up and make a fortune. But is it all too good to be true?
Jules nervously visits an understandably livid Markus, in the hope of appeasing him after the terrorising he received at the hands of her now quite unhinged husband, Frank. Markus tartly informs her that “consequences are inevitable” and who can blame him. But when the cops arrive to pick up Frank, it’s not, as we suspect, to bang him up for the attack, but to ask his and Jules’s permission to perform a lumber puncture on Liam.
Back at Carrie and Ronnie’s house, the white-eyed patriarch lolls in the airing cupboard while Elena tries to talk to Carrie about the possibility that her dad won’t be coming home. If only they knew!
The Sutters steel themselves for Liam’s lumber puncture, which proves traumatic for all of them. Jules holds steady but Frank flounces off, unable to watch his son suffer any longer. After all of that, his results don’t match Shirley’s and they still can’t pinpoint why they both went bonkers with a kitchen implement.
It’s bad news for Jason who we discover bloodied and incoherent in his bath at home. The bathroom resembles a butcher’s slab and his knuckles have clearly been used to pummel something. Will he shortly be seen rummaging in the kitchen drawer for a melon-baller?
Elena sits outside Carrie’s door, opening up to her about going to prison, stabbing that man and losing everything she held dear. Carrie makes peace with the offer of a bag of frozen peas and asks Elena what she was just talking about. “My memories,” she says enigmatically. Ronnie remains googly-eyed in the cupboard.
Hildur and Dan are at the lab, discussing the possible outbreak of infection and Hildur decides to tell the locals there’s a rabies protocol in place, thus preventing anyone leaving or coming to Fortitude. This infuriates Jules when she tries to do a runner with Liam while Frank is out at the supermarket.
Finally, Morton catches up with Henry and he tells the old man he knows all about what Dan did and why Henry shot Pettigrew. So Henry shoots him! I feel like I say this a lot, but I did not see that coming. “This is totally unacceptable,” yells Henry rather unreasonably. “Look what you made me do!” he adds as Morton bleeds out onto the snow. Henry’s dying anyway but now it’s a race against time to raise help for a wounded Morton. All vehicles are either stranded or out of gas and Morton’s hopes of getting home for Christmas start to look slim.
Markus quietly liberates Shirley’s body from the research centre and takes her off to the water for a Viking burial. It’s a truly emotional scene that shows Markus’s tender side, despite all the obsessive, nutty behaviour. I think I actually managed a few moments of feeling sorry for him in this episode and that says a lot for Darren Boyd’s excellent performance.
Out on the glacier, Henry relents and radios the police station. He tells Dan (who we now know to be his secret son, remember?) that the jig is up and he must now decide whether to save Morton or not. What a decision. Dan hovers between good and evil, unsure of which way to jump. Low on morphine, Henry finally decides his time has come and shoots himself in the temple, spattering blood on the white snow as he hits the deck.
It’s a truly emotional ending this week with Shirley’s touching farewell and Henry’s lamentable end. While the pain is over for him, poor Morton now lies bleeding and losing consciousness as Dan appears to have decided upon a course of action. But will he get there in time to save his colleague?
