It’s over. The parasitical wasps are (we hope) going up in smoke never to return. Although there’s no sign that the boffins have worked out where they’re coming from and Yuri is still down that big hole in the ice, getting stung by the latest batch. A cheery thought to leave you with as you wave Fortitude goodbye.
We rejoin Natalie and Dan at the lab, gathering flammable gasses while the unfortunate Vincent remains locked in the isolation room with the wasp-spewing doctor who is now presumably dead. The brave young research scientist opens the valves inside the hospital room so Nat and Dan can pump it full of flammable gas, rendering him human toast. Poor Vince. Against all the odds, he survives the ensuing explosion when Natalie performs an emergency tracheotomy on what’s left of his neck.
Out on the glacier, Yuri and Max prepare to start drilling for what they think is a bumper payday. “What do you think the treasure is?” asks an excited Max, little knowing the horrors which await them. Who else was shouting madly at the TV at this point? Don’t dig, you mad, greedy fools.
Natalie tries to explain the wasps to an uncomprehending Hildur. She says these wasps have never been in contact with humans before, suggesting they have been in the permafrost for a very long time indeed. “So we have to find Jason,” says Dan. No one mentions Liam. He definitely isn’t over this yet either.
When Eric finally catches up with Max and Yuri, a scrap ensues and Yuri quite sensibly points out that Hildur was always crazy to think she could build a hotel on an ever-shifting glacier. It’s the most sensible thing he’s said all series. This brief moment of clarity soon passes, and now Yuri’s treasure is going to turn out to be a face full of killer wasps. He lowers himself to his certain, waspy doom.
All of this time, Elena has been getting visibly ill, throwing up, sweating and looking like a bowl of tepid porridge. She’s next. The poor girl gets back to Carrie’s house and barely makes it to bed before collapsing in a sweaty, shaky heap. She just manages to put handcuffs on herself and throw the key across the room before passing out. She knows what’s coming.
In the cold storage unit, the wasps buzz around the mammoth corpse as Eric, fully suited up like a beekeeper, chucks petrol all over the place and the team fire up flamethrowers to burn out the danger. In slomo, the flames consume the huge carcass as they all watch. But do they know this beast is just one of many?
Eric and Hildur sit in the car and have a heart to heart. He calls her “my only love” and tells her he misses her, but she’s as unyielding as an iceberg. Until he slams the door, then she signals to him with the car horn, tears streaming down her face. They kiss passionately. Is this a reconciliation or just a temporary state of affairs because they’re ALL GOING TO DIE OF WASPS?
A concerned Carrie makes the possibly fatal mistake of unlocking Elena’s handcuffs, leaving her in the house with two rabid, maggot-incubating zombies, if Ronnie is still behind that door with his weird white eyes. As the horror begins anew inside Casa Morgan, Dan makes a desperate dash to the house to stop rabid Ronnie from attacking the woman he loves. That would be the woman who is jabbing a big pair of scissors into a poor, innocent teenager.
Poor Dan cries as he pulls the trigger and stops Elena in her tracks. We leave her vomiting and presumably dying on the floor as Dan walks away with Carrie in his arms in slomo. At this point I have reached peak wasp, peak zombie and actually, if I’m honest, peak everything. Make the horror stop now.
Dan climbs up on to the hill above Fortitude for the final time to survey the chaos. Fires burn all over town as they try to contain the infection, and Elena lies on life-support in hospital as Dan’s voice is heard lamenting: “I think about you all the time.” The camera swoops away over the glacier with its cruel beauty as we leave the survivors to come to terms with the devastation.
And we know Fortitude won’t be back. Personally I think they should torch the whole place, scoop up the ashes and blast them into space. Just to be sure. It was an absolutely exhilarating ride, but I think I need a nice quiet sit down with a cup of tea. And I’m even more scared of wasps now than I was before.
