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Fortitude Episode 8 begins in the aftermath of Shirley vomiting into her Mum’s stomach, and she’s now outside… in the FREEZING cold, barefoot and bloodstained. Whatever she’s been doing in the interim, it’s happened offscreen, which is rather a swizz given how Sweet Fanny Adams has happened ONscreen for the majority of this dirge!
So, when the next scene begins with Hildur assuring two prospective investors: “I can assume you that nothing that has happened will, in any way, jeapordise your investment“, you know she’ll be proved wrong within minutes, especially when she gets a call from Dan with the news about the near-dead Doctor. Yes, somehow she’s not actually dead yet!
Rather than make proper tracks for home, after the boat/tusks fiasco last week, Ronnie and his daughter, Carrie, ridiculously let themselves get caught up in a storm. Meanwhile, Morton persists in spending forever and a day getting to the bottom of the Billy Pettigrew situation and quizzes Henry on it, who paints a picture of a ne’er do well in the vicinity, but the conversation never goes anywhere before Morton is called away to the Doc Allerdyce situation. Markus was the last person to see Shirley, who’s now missing, and he’s questions by Morton and Dan who sound like they want to trip him up…
PC Ingrid, and the other female cop whose name I’ve forgotten, go off to a break-in at the supermarket and find it’s caused by Shirley – as if we couldn’t guess – who’s now passed out on the floor (too much cake, probably), and the only other person present is Carrie. Fuck knows how she’s sprinted all the way from godknowswhere, when she was with her Dad, to nip to the shops. Ah, and I’ve just realised that Petra is the other cop and, to cap it all, I’ve mixed up Petra and Ingrid a lot throughout my reviews. Hey ho…
Oh, and one other problem is solved, too: Shirley’s (brief) reign of terror is over, because she actually died of a heart attack in the store. Hurrah!
For some reason, Dan then goes to pick Elena’s (tiny) brains about Shirley’s actions, to not much avail, but afterwards it causes her to pretend to cry, as all crap actresses do.
Frank jimmies open a window into the Allerdyce home and nicks a stack of photos that show Markus has been trying to fatten Shirley up, again as part of the plan to set him up to take the fall. In fact, Morton and Dan get him back in the interview room and break the news that his girlfriend’s dead. For some reason, they’re trying to bring in the fact that Liam is Markus’ pupil. How the hell is that relevant??
Again, in another seemingly random scene, Henry is back with his Shaman friend, Tavrani, for no real purpose.
Ronnie makes it back home – seemingly, grimacing like an injured Cheshire Cat, grinning away, and finds the projector switched on, showing an old family video featuring the late matriarch of the household. He feels a movement in the room, suspects it to be his daughter, but the haunting soundtrack tells us something grim is about to happen… And someone, just off-camera, thwacks him in the head with a blunt instrument.
Elsewhere, Hildur dumps Eric by text (I’ve been there), Ciaran Donnelly and friends are metering out justice to Russian workers, who they believe is behind all the weird shit that’s going on – so that’s just wasting time in the script, and in a town hall meeting, after animals are said to be losing the plot, everyone starts shouting, Eric calls Henry the c-word, and the old headcase farmer from Detectorists literally shoots himself in the foot.
Hildur then finally shows her face again, and as everyone is making demands of her, the scene ends. Brilliant(!)
While Elena and Carrie are trying to find Ronnie, Dan knocks on the door for a chat to keep a check on them, but just as they’re shooting the shit, Carrie screams as if Jimmy Savile’s found his way into her bedroom, and she claims she’s seen him… Ronnie, that is, not Jimmy Savile. Hang on, is this Elena’s home or Ronnie’s? Carrie knew where the key was, but Elena’s acting like it’s hers.
Mysteriousness next happens, when Markus is disturbed in his house (yes, he looks disturbed in the head, anyway) by Top Gear’s Stig, holding a cricket bat. Something also spooks Elena back where she is, but let’s get back to Markus, who’s now wearing the Stig’s helmet… which means the baddie’s taken theirs off. Who is it??
It’s Frank Sutter! And he snarls, “Now pay attention. Because it’s my turn to take the lesson. It’s truth time, you fucker!”
There’s bucketloads of lame dialogue in this episode which I can’t even be bothered to detail, and in fact I can’t even get excited about this episode’s big reveal. Did Frank kill everyone? I’m beginning to wish he’d bump he off, too.
For the initial double episode, I gave them 5/10 overall, then with no progression to speak of, I dropped it a point to 4/10 for ep.2, and like a crap kidnapper, I’m going to ransom this show one point each week, until either it drops to zero or it seriously ups its game! Well, the idiocy of what’s onscreen in Fortitude Episode 8 is at least giving me some minor interest, and there’s just 4 more episodes to go, so I may as well see it out…
Fortitude is available to pre-order on Blu-ray and DVD ahead of its release date of June 1st, and the next episode is on Sky Atlantic on Thursday at 9pm.
Overall Score: 1/10
Director: Hettie Macdonald
Producer: Trevor Hopkins
Screenplay: Ben Richards
Music: Ben Frost
Cast:
Dan Anderssen: Richard Dormer
DCI Morton: Stanley Tucci
Henry Tyson: Michael Gambon
Governor Hildur Odegard: Sofie Gråbøl
Frank Sutter: Nicholas Pinnock
Elena Ledesma: Verónica Echegui
Ronnie Morgan: Johnny Harris
Natalie Yelburton: Sienna Guillory
Vincent Rattrey: Luke Treadaway
Markus Huseklepp: Darren Boyd
Shirley Allerdyce: Jessica Gunning
Eric Odegard: Björn Hlynur Haraldsson
Liam Sutter: Darwin Brokenbro
PC Ingrid: Mia Jexen
Petra: Alexandra Moen
Carrie Morgan: Elizabeth Dormer-Phillips
Ciaran Donnelly: Jonjo O’Neill
Tavrani: Ramon Tikaram
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.