Fortitude recap: season one, episode eight – is it science, or supernatural?

SPOILER WARNING: This recap refers to events in episode eight of Fortitude.

Read the episode seven recap

‘All that snow, the icicles, the reindeer, don’t let that mislead you: this is not Christmas’

It certainly isn’t DCI Morton. Fortitude gets nastier and nastier, and the sense that something far deeper than mere human malice is at play grows stronger. The animals are turning on each other, and so too are the humans, with another moment of graphically grim violence tucked away near the end of this week’s installment.

Prime suspects

Are the strange goings on in Fortitude a product of science or the supernatural? It’s been a question the show has teased us with for weeks. In recent episodes the supernatural seemed to have the upper hand. But this week, on Stoddart’s instruction, Vincent and Natalie carry out tests on a cannibal bear, and find evidence of pollution and environmental toxins in its body which could be a catalyst for its “aberrant and psychotic” behaviour. Might something similar be happening to Fortitude’s residents? It seems a bit of a leap to me, albeit a logical one, but Vincent and Natalie plough gamely on, sawing off the top of Shirley’s skull and removing her brain. Which we see in unflinching detail, of course, as is the show’s custom.

Lo and behold, Shirley has the same high levels of toxins in her system. But to prove their theory, they’ll need a sample from the other assailant, Liam. Recognising that scooping out the brain of an infant, albeit a murderous infant, is a massive no-no, Vincent instead suggests a marginally less invasive procedure: extracting some of the boy’s spinal fluid. It remains highly dangerous and Natalie has her doubts, but Hildur is willing to let Vincent press ahead. Quite how this newcomer, whose life experience amounts to dissecting a few badgers, has found himself in a position where he’s essentially calling the shots, I’m not entirely sure.

The only caveat is that the Fortitude authorities must get permission from Liam’s parents. That seems quite a big if, given that one of those parents is the recalcitrant Frank, a man who still doesn’t believe his son even did that horrible thing to Stoddart, and is unlikely to be enamoured with the idea of jabbing a big needle into him. Frank instead believes that the attacks are the work of one man, Markus, and here sets about getting Shirley’s erstwhile feeder to confess his crimes. In doing so he treats us to Fortitude’s latest “hide behind the sofa” moment, pulling out Markus’s fingernail with a pair of pliers. Horrible stuff. He’s about to go further, preparing to drill a hole through Markus’s hand, before Jules thankfully intervenes.

If only someone had done the same when Robbie was clobbered last week. He’s still lying undiscovered in the boiler room of his home. As with Stoddart and Allardyce, the attack doesn’t seem to have been instantly fatal: Ronnie is still visibly breathing when we see him this week. Not that he looks terribly well: his eyes have rolled back in his head, and there’s a quiet, terrified gurgling noise coming out of his mouth. Grim.

View image in fullscreen

An inspector calls

Morton and Anderssen’s buddy schtick didn’t last long, did it? Our intrepid DCI is firmly back on the Pettigrew case this week, and determined to find the necessary evidence to implicate the gruff sheriff. Anderssen, however, isn’t budging, responding to Morton’s incisive questions with a smile and suggestion that Morton accepts there are “some things we’ll never understand”.

With Henry, Anderssen is far less elusive. “What I did, I didn’t do it for gain, I didn’t do it for advantage, I did it out of love,” he tells him. But love of whom? Elena, perhaps? (We did see Pettigrew leering over her in that festive flashback two weeks ago, remember.) Either way, we should hopefully find out soon enough: Morton’s now got his most conclusive piece of evidence yet: a picture Henry took of Pettigrew’s severed arm.

Henry, meanwhile, has packed a flask of vodka and a cocktail of pills and is off to die on the snowy wastes. If this truly is the end for Henry (and it might not be, given there was a brief shot of him in the “next week” sequence), I can’t say I’ll be too sorry. For all of Michael Gambon’s gifts, the show has perhaps given him a little too much freedom to scenery chew – possibly because Henry isn’t really all that compelling a character. He refuses to actually further the plot by revealing anything, and his cod-spiritualist pronouncements, treated with the utmost seriousness by the show, have just largely sounded a bit daft. Still, I quite liked his Tom Waits-ish rendition of Abide With Me .

Secrets and lies

Despite receiving a text that literally said “I’m leaving you” last time around, Eric still hasn’t quite got the hint. So Hildur goes further. “It’s not that I can’t forgive you, it’s that you’re not my man any more. He’s gone,” she tells Eric, a message that even he, lunkheaded as he is, can’t misinterpret. Hildur’s greater preoccupation seems to be with the demise of her ice hotel, whose backers have pulled out in the wake of all the Fortitude nastiness. It’s a disappointing development, sure, but as Anderssen gruffly points out, people are hollowing out other people’s guts with kitchen utensils, so perhaps that should be her focus.

Supernatural sightings

Little Liam finally is finally released from the research facility, and receives a welcome home gift: Henry’s much vaunted tupilaq. Unfortunately, one look at the thing and Frank is hurling it against the wall, breaking it to bits in the process. Now there are no spirits protecting the house (if there ever were), and Liam looks to have reverted back to his demonic ways, writhing about like the creature out of Ring. Be very afraid.

Notes, quotes and the rest

• We haven’t seen Allerdyce since she was carted off for treatment. Might she be showing the same strange symptoms as Ronnie?
  
  
• Another person we haven’t seen in a while is Jason, though that ominous shot of him in the closing credits suggests he’ll play a bigger role next week. He’s one of the few people who has been in direct contact with the mammoth remains without, as of yet, showing signs.
  
  
• Spotted amongst Pettigrew’s personal effects - a car rental brochure. Was he looking to make a quick getaway, perhaps?
  
  
• Arctic hares have a sense of humour, according to the taxidermist. They certainly look funny.
  
  
• Henry looks set to break Fortitude’s mortal law: you cannot die on the island. It’s a real thing in Svalbard. Here’s a BBC article about it.