Spoiler warning: this recap refers to events in episode 10 of Fortitude
‘It’s not a new hotel we need, it’s a bigger morgue’
For several episodes, Fortitude has felt like two distinct shows battling for the viewer’s attention: one a detective drama, the other a supernatural thriller. That’s never been more so than in tonight’s penultimate episode: the first 20 minutes played like a pitch-black revenge drama; the final 20 minutes a Cronenbergian body horror. The skin-crawling closing scene is another which will stay with me long after the series finishes, but does at least set things up nicely for next week’s finale.
An inspector calls
First things, first: RIP Inspector Morton. Your belief that you could survive a bullet wound to the stomach in the middle of a glacier, while admirable, proves ultimately misguided. Dan’s mad dash to find the DCI comes too late, with the sheriff turning up just as the last lights are flickering in Morton’s eyes. Still, in a sense, Morton gets what he’s after: the truth about what happened to Billy Pettigrew on that fateful night several months before.
Cue a flashback, which – even by Fortitude’s standards – seems especially hellish, all lurching camerawork and discordant music. It confirms what quite a few of you BTL predicted: that Pettigrew was fed to the bears by Dan because of something he did to Elena. After his fight with Eric, shown in a previous flashback, Pettigrew asks Elena to bring some ice up to his room where he overpowers her and handcuffs her to the bed. Elena is able to stabhim in the back – which explains the bloodstained floorboards that Morton noticed had been replaced – and call Dan, but Pettigrew manages to pull the knife free. What happens next is thankfully left unshown, but the implication is clear, both to us and Dan, who drives Pettigrew to the place where the polar bears roam, and chains him to a pylon.
“You and me are the same,” Pettigrew tells Dan on the journey to the frozen wastes, before graphically describing what he did to Elena, and what he assumes Dan has always wanted to do to her. It’s those words, rather than the sight of Pettigrew getting torn to pieces by the bear, that seem to haunt Dan. He doesn’t seem remorseful at all about what he did. “What did you feel when you fed a man alive to a wild beast?” Elena asks him, following Dan’s full confession of his crime. “I felt complete,” he replies.
Prime suspects
Meanwhile, on what seems like an entirely different show, Natalie and Vincent continue to hunt for the cause of the sickness. Vincent – in an impressive act of quickfire deduction that I didn’t entirely buy – figures out that all the attacks featured the assailant trying to “put something in” their victims, and remembers that Stoddart’s dog had a mucus-like substance on his muzzle when Vincent found the professor’s corpse. Might he have been eating what little Liam vomited into the professor? Only one way to find out: hack open the dead dog and rummage through its intestines.
The pair eventually find a tiny larvae, and surmise that, if the dog has something growing inside of it, so too might Dr Allerdyce, who has been developing ominous lumps all episode. Vincent goes to inspect Allerdyce, and is greeted by a swarm of angry flying insects bursting from her mouth. What are they? My money’s on some variant of bees or wasps, given the buzzing noise and the fact that Vincent is seemingly stung by one. Whatever they are, you fear that Vincent is a goner, though it was very noble of him to lock himself in with the swarm rather than let them out to wreak havoc on the town. Though they still might, given that Ronnieremains lying in that cupboard.
Secrets and lies
Throwing caution to the wind, Yuri and his little mate Max steal the town’s big drill and head off to the glacier to search for the treasure, with Eric in hot pursuit. Can’t see this ending well for everyone, especially given the brief shot from next week’s episode involving a Mexican stand-off.
Supernatural sightings
What happens to the infected after they carry out their unpleasant attacks? Going by Jason’s agonised reactions, they’re certainly aware of the horrors they they’ve perpetrated. So is it a case of them being conscious while they carry out the act, but unable to stop their bodies from doing it?
Notes, quotes and the rest
• Last week I mentioned that Fortitude’s second series is still up in the air. I probably should have added, that if there is a second series, it won’t feature the same cast.
• Morton feels like a man who, ultimately, remained elusive to both us and Fortitude’s residents. Only after his death did we learn that he had two children.
• Could anyone make out what Morton said to Dan just before he died? I heard “... you’ll never be at peace,” but couldn’t quite decipher the words before that.
• Elena doesn’t look well in the clips from next week’s episode. And who was that leaving a pool of blood as they were being dragged along the floor?
• Natalie’s a PJ Harvey fan, because of course she is.
• “There’s a horrorshow in my head,” Jason tells Natalie. “And everyone’s invited,” he doesn’t add.
• I was strangely tickled by the way that Frank chirpily replied “110%,” after Elena asked him how he was during an incredibly gloomy kitchen scene.
• In case you missed it, here’s an interview that Fortitude creator Simon Donald did with Vox, where he discusses the show’s most shocking scenes. The money quote, regarding that infamous incident with the fork: “My wife got phone calls after that episode from friends: ‘You must leave him. Get out of the house.’”
