SPOILER ALERT: Don’t read on if you haven’t seen series one, episode six of Fortitude.
Read the episode five blog here.
“We’re a few hundred people gripping onto a rock in the Atlantic Ocean”
You might say, given that its very first scene featured a polar bear devouring a man alive, that we were suitably warned: Fortitude was always going to be a place where nasty things occurred. Yet, I can’t be alone in feeling that tonight’s climactic scene – shown in full expurgated detail, the camera lingering on every ungainly hack and slash – took events to a level of intensity that I wasn’t prepared for, nor was entirely comfortable with. Even in an age of TV where scenes of extreme violence are routine, it felt excessive, almost Gaspar Noe-ish in its unwillingness to leave anything to the imagination.
Still, discomfiting the audience, you suspect, was the intention. Fortitude is pressing on into darker, weirder territory, and isn’t afraid to unsettle or repulse viewers along the way. I’m both excited and nervy about what the show might deliver next.
Prime suspects
No doubts over who committed the town’s latest murder. Shirley’s slaughter of her mother, Dr Allerdyce, was, in a sense, a copycat killing, near identical as it was to the murder of Stoddart. It also indicated, contrary to my suggestion last week, that Liam was the sole murderer of Stoddart as Shirley completed her killing without any outside assistance. Like Liam, Shirley clubbed her victim over the head with an object before going at him with a kitchen utensil – this time a fork, and like Liam, she placed her hands inside her victim, after slitting open her stomach. But this nastiness merely turned out to be surgical prep work for Shirley’s big finish, as she – brace yourself – vomited a clear liquid studded with black bits into the gaping cavity.
For those who haven’t already closed their browser window in disgust (and I really don’t begrudge those who have), let’s scrutinise this grotesque sequence of events. As was the case with Liam, Shirley was exposed to the mammoth remains and then became ill. That illness seems to create a trance-like state in its victims, prompting them to commit a ritualistic act of slaughter. But what about the vomiting? An attempt to pass on the disease, you’d presume. But why do so into the bodies of people you have already killed? Maybe it has something to do with the law about the decreased not being permitted burial on its land? An attempt to spread the disease beyond Fortitude’s frosty borders perhaps?
In contrast to all this weirdness, the issue of who killed Billy Pettigrew looks positively humdrum. It seems to be a straight choice between Eric, who we saw in flashback squaring up to a drunken Pettigrew over a slur he made about Hildur, and Anderssen, who fired the shot that put Pettigrew out of his misery. Either way, the likelihood is that which ever one of them did it, the entire police unit is involved in the cover-up.
That’s certainly the opinion of Yuri, who witnessed the fight between Pettigrew and Eric, and says he found the casing of a bullet belonging to a gun used by the force at the crime scene. He also claims to have been told to keep quiet by Anderssen, who has been using pictures of Pettigrew’s remains to intimidate him. They don’t do things by half round here.
Of course, whether we should take Yuri’s words at face value is another matter, given that he’s a pretty shady character himself. We know, from the flashback, that he’s aware of just how valuable Pettigrew’s chart is – worth a cool £1 million, apparently. Might he know even more than he’s letting on?
An inspector calls
A relatively quiet week for Morton, who spent much of the episode on the trail of Yuri. Given the information he gleaned from the Russian about the Pettigrew cover-up, you suspect he might be busier next time around though ...
Secrets and lies
After several weeks of smouldering looks, the Trish-Hildur-Eric triangle is finally brought out into the open, as Trish angrily reveals the sordid details of the affair to the governor. She and Eric have been at it since the solstice party, apparently. (I’m guessing, given that Fortitude seems entirely made up of bed-hoppers and deviants, that the solstice party is a pretty lively affair.) A glimmer of hope for Anderssen, meanwhile, as he and Elena finally talk. Might her argument with Frank push Elena into Anderssen’s clutches?
Elsewhere, the interminable Ronnie and Carrie subplot continues. This week they finally make it to the escape boat, only for its captain to threaten them with a gun and take off with their valuable mammoth tusks. All that’s left for Ronnie to do now is return to Fortitude with his tail between his legs. If he even gets that far: his injury seems to be getting worse.
Supernatural sightings
What, apart from the possessed woman being sick into someone’s stomach, you mean? Henry and the taxidermist pressed onwards with their protective tupilaq, boldly ignoring the fact that the Inuit taxidermist performing the ceremony is a complete novice at this shamanism lark. Their hope is that tupilaq will inoculate the Sutters from evil spirits, though given the goings-on elsewhere in the town this week, they aren’t the only ones needing protection. You’re going to need a lot more blood, Henry.
Notes, quotes and the rest
• Doctor Allerdyce’s horrible demise looks a fairly open and closed case, though it should be noted that she was threatening to report Hildur and Anderssen over the latter’s violent assault of Frank.
• Markus was probably the one deserving of a forking, not Allerdyce, after his unpleasant force-feeding of Shirley. What a rotter.
• Central to the identity of Pettigrew’s killer, you suspect, is the photo developed this week by Henry. It showed Pettigrew’s severed arm handcuffed to a jetty. Way back in week one, you might recall, Yuri got very animated on finding a pair of handcuffs in the police station. But were they Anderssen’s, or Eric’s?
• Jules presumably isn’t dead after her binge last week, though is conspicuous by her absence this time around.
• Will we ever find out what that pig-in-the-hyperbaric-chamber business was all about?
