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Fortitude Episode 12 signals the end of ‘Eldorado In The Arctic‘ – bad acting, random accents and disjointed storylines. Yes, it’s the 1992 soap all over again!
Vincent’s still trapped inside with Dr Allerdyce and she’s looking none too clever. Being a doctor won’t help her now.
Worst still, those flies aren’t flies – they’re parasitic wasps. Yes, the truth comes out now while the scriptwriters are scratching around for ideas to try and find some meaning for bringing this tosh to our screens… And they’re stinging the man to high heaven. And when Natalie asks Dan how they can kill them without killing Vincent, you know instantly that it’s game over for him… well, it should be. Depends on whether he’s signed a contract to appear in any future series.
He spies a way to release gas inside the room – burn off enough and problem will be solved. Sort-of. It just requires Vincent to set things in motion amongst the CGI wasps and blow himself up. Couldn’t have happened to a bigger sap. A big explosion, everyone diving for cover – except Vincent who resigns himself to his fate and holds up a lighter like Nicolas Cage holding up the flare in similar desperation towards the end of The Rock, a quick tracheotomy later and the man is saved. All the wasps are dead and as for the good doctor… no. She’s gone.
Michael Obiara and Yuri are out and about with the ice drill searching for specific co-ordinates when Eric turns up and ends up in a Mexican stand-off with the Russian, while Obiara buggers off on the cop’s skidoo. An attempt to get one over Eric results in Yuri coming off worse as his gun clicks and he gets a bop on the nose for his trouble. A stupid attempt at a punch-up later and once they’ve finished willy-waving, Yuri declares it’s impossible for the governor to build her glacier hotel because the glacier keeps moving. So a drunk notices that, yet all the architects in the world didn’t?!
They continue to beat each other into next week – Yuri thinking nothing of losing a couple of teeth in the process, despite clearly having a full set when he’s seen lying down on the ground. It turns out, you see, that Pettigrew was killed for the map he’s just brought out into the open, and that’s the treasure he’s looking for.
Sending himself down the well, Yuri proves that the winch wasn’t well-made as the cable snaps and sends him plunging down to the bottom of godknowswhere. Good, what a dick that guy is.
Hildur catches up with Jason, but he’s not saying much. For no apparent reason, they meet in the now-seemingly abandoned supermarket. He eventually speaks to tell her where she can find the mammoth.
Natalie declares that the wasps are prehistoric creatures known as “ichneumonidae”. They stayed buried in the permafrost for many a moon, then thawed and found somewhere to hatch out inside a host after a wasp injects eggs into the human bloodstream, the eggs develop, they compel the host to find a victim, who hacks up their stomach, vomits inside , larvae develope inside the doctor and then more wasps erupt later on. Markus doesn’t believe her theory, however, and blames himself.
Elena is seen praying to a praying statue whilst chucking up outside. Well, she’s been stuck in a house with Rotting Ronnie for what seems like weeks. She then heads back to the police station where she was quizzed by Dan about seeing anyone, as well as having any plans to leave Fortitude. She also ‘sees’ Frank, asking for her forgiveness. Her brain’s gone a bit weird, clearly.
She takes herself home and handcuffs herself to her bed – what if she needs the loo??
Go to page 2 to see if she needs a whiz! (and for more thoughts on the episode, plus a look at all those storylines which went nowhere!)
The mammoth carcass can be seen to be the cause of all the problems, so Dan suits up and goes in to coat it in petrol, while someone else gets to work with a flamethrower… Since it was locked away and needs quarantining, quite why they bring it out into the open is anyone’s guess. Once this is done, Jason declares that Ronnie’s in the house… before blowing his brains out, off-camera.
And back there, Carrie returns, finds Elena on the ‘Pat and Mick’ and unwittingly uncuffs her from the bed. Alas, in the time it’s taken the girl to get a glass of water for the Spaniard, she’s vanished post-haste! Then, FINALLY, she heads for Ronnie’s room, but Elena’s lying in wait and knocks the girl out. Why? God knows. I doubt even the writers do.
Oh, it’s time to jump the shark again – that’s it! Elena is the new Shirley and is about to hack open Carrie. She manages one strike before Dan turns up and blows her away. That’s his potential love life with her up the swanny!
Vincent will be fine, but as for Yuri, well, he landed in a cave full of mammoths and buzzing insects. Oh dear…
Ronnie’s house is burned down – with him nowhere to be found, and Dan looks on in constant bewilderment.
Stupidly, someone decided to hospitalise Elena while Dan does his thing of looking on, moaning about how she’s all he sees…
And that was it. The end. WTF?!!
For a town which had no crime before this series started, they’ve had their fair share now!
Hopefully, we’ll see much more of Verónica Echegui (Elena) in the future, as I’d like her to play Catherine when the make the TV series of Kate Russell‘s novel, Elite: Mostly Harmless.
Storylines which went nowhere:
- Why was Markus fattening Shirley up? Okay, so he was a feeder, but, so?
- The whole shaman business – utterly preposterous and went nowhere.
- The time when Morton talks about working in Lockerbie when the plane was brought down in 1989, and they had to pick up body parts, taking pictures of what they had, until they had fill them all… and how they couldn’t piece together a whole person out of them all… er, where was he going with this? It’s another of these conversations that just have nowhere to go.
- Why didn’t Markus prosecute Frank for the pain he inflicted upon him when he was dressed as The Stig?
- And as for Liam? Who cares.
So there you have it – Fortitude‘s cod-Nordic Noir attempt is finally over. At last!
One of the most overhyped and terrible shows I’ve ever seen – it was more ‘Nordic Noir meets Acorn Antiques’.
The only good acting came from the scenery and the theme tune was sung by someone who didn’t seem to know when to raise or lower her voice. A second series is apparently not planned, but I guess it depends on the ratings. On the plus side, more people have read these reviews/moans lately than most other posts of mine, so my pain is your pleasure.
Roll on Series 2! (hopefully not)
Fortitude is available to pre-order on Blu-ray and DVD ahead of its release date of June 1st.
Overall Score: 0/10
Director: Sam Miller
Producer: Trevor Hopkins
Screenplay: Katie Draper and Simon Donald
Music: Ben Frost
Cast:
Dan Anderssen: Richard Dormer
Elena Ledesma: Verónica Echegui
Natalie Yelburton: Sienna Guillory
Vincent Rattrey: Luke Treadaway
Jason Donnelly: Aaron McCusker
Carrie Morgan: Elizabeth Dormer-Phillips
Frank Sutter: Nicholas Pinnock
Eric Odegard: Björn Hlynur Haraldsson
Governor Hildur Odegard: Sofie Gråbøl
Liam Sutter: Darwin Brokenbro
PC Ingrid: Mia Jexen
Petra: Alexandra Moen
Yuri Lubimov: Emil Hostina
Max Cordero: Michael Obiora
Ronnie Morgan: Johnny Harris
DCI Morton: Stanley Tucci
Henry Tyson: Michael Gambon
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.
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