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Fortitude Season 2 Episode 2 begins with an unknown drifter talking incoherently while staring at something in the distance… a bear… carrying something… a reindeer calf, but…. he’s got no eyes! How does he smell? TERRIBLE! (or something)
Meanwhile, Dan is in hospital with acute alcohol poisoning, possibly antifreeze! Has he been drinking Bart Simpson’s wine?
Douglas Quaid had the least to do in this episode, as his boat is grounded due to Governor Sofie dropping the fuel duties, so everyone’s using his data to find the expensive crabs and make a fortune. Why he didn’t get a headstart on them – given that he was seemingly the only one to actually know this was happening – wasn’t explained. He also moans that there’s no insurance claim available to him for his boat. Is that because he’s spent it, or he didn’t keep up with the premiums? Again, this wasn’t clear. The only thing that was is that he wants to take his sick wife for treatment for her illness. Aside from that, the writer must’ve knocked Quaid’s scenes out on his break, this week.
Meanwhile, Petra and Ingrid head off with Eric to find the owner of the murder implement that caused someone to… y’know, die. In the man’s house they find jars of mustard and chili sauce but…. NO HOT DOGS!!! AAARRRGGHHH!! That means he’s a wrong ‘un, and never mind the pictures of headless corpses they also find, yeah?
PC Ingrid also finds a belt with “R” on it, which she keeps hidden for reasons not yet explained…
Elsewhere, Natalie wakes a sleeping and battered Vincent with the news that she’s meeting up with a hermaphroditic reindeer foetus. Nice(!)
Doctor Neela Rasgotra from ER is studying a strapped-down rat in Natalie’s lab when a wasp flies in…. She’s confused (but then I was confused last week in thinking it was a mosquito when it’s a wasp), watching it stab the rodent, so pops it into a petri dish for safekeeping… but no, she’s complicit in this shenanigans, yet… “everything about this place has me shi -tting in my pants in the expectation of some hurtling, environmental catastrophe”. Nah, we’ve got all the “man-made global warming” doommongers to do that, haven’t we?
Oh, and you thought Elena was dead? She’s alive and unwell and in Natalie’s lab! Technically, she’s in a coma, but even silent and still, she’s exhibiting an acting ability that’s head and shoulders about most of the rest of the cast!
Onto part 2, and this is when Ken Stott gets to condemn Governor Sofie for dropping fuel subsidies in episode 1, which has led to her not no longer being Governor, such is her faux pas.
Lamont in the pub says the headless corpse must be a murder due to the clean cut at the neck. And since everyone’s being paranoid, the bar plays Black Sabbath’s Paranoid over the speaker system… or is that an early tribute to the band’s forthcoming final gig?
Meanwhile, Barman talks about a drunk who frequents the bar, spouting supernatural nonsense… so that’s the guy we saw at the start, clearly.
Elsewhere, that polar bear’s spotted slouching around outside in Fortitude. And it’s smarter than the average bear – it even swiped my pic-a-nic basket!!!
But before long, it’s been spotted and Douglas Quaid’s going to take out the trash! Well, it was terro -rising a child inside the school, putting bigger frighteners on the kid than (insert ’70s celeb name here).
Governorless Sofie goes to see Dan in hospital, who surfaces once he hears he talk about Elena not being brown bread… although he’s a bit Pat and Mick, himself, as he’s convulsing in bed. How pleasant(!)
PC Ingrid tracks down Rune’s (Quaid’s son) big sister, challenging her on the ‘R’ belt. The important question is – why did she steal a load of carrots? The impending veg crisis? No, “bad things come at night” and “You need to see what’s coming”. Err…
In a big for screen time in this part, Neela reads Snow White to Elena, but then, in a supernatural-style moment, the Inuit appears out of nowhere in the lab, the lights go out, THEN they come back on… but he’s gone! EEEK!! Now that WOULD get me “shi -tting in my pants” to use her vernacular.
In the final section, and with ol’ Polar bear on the mortuary slab, he shows to be well-fed, so why was it stalking a child? And Vincent’s still upset about the return of wasps, but Neela reassures him with the news that the wasps are extinct after last week’s explosion…. and Natalie gives a very UNreassuring glimpse back to Neela(!)
Erik links the headless corpse with the spineless husky and something about blood diamonds, before he and Governorless Sofie share another ‘Eldorado’ acting moment with stilted dialogue.
Both Dan and Elena have woken up simultaneously as if in synergy… until Neela knocks her out again. What’s her game, eh? Didn’t she take the hippocratic oath in her aforementioned US medical drama?
Almost finally, Petra drinks some sort-of whisky from the headless corpse’s container, but since it’s not whisky, and since she needs to flush her mouth out with water, why does she push the clear liquid into her mouth with her rubber-gloved hand? Surely, that’s not hygenic? But then the stuff in the can turns out to be ‘reindeer juice’. Huh?
Almost completely finally, PC Ingrid tracks down Rune, while Erik tracks down what he thinks is a fridge full of the juice in the shopkeeper’s shop, but… it doesn’t. Phew! Oh, hang on, it contains a head, instead! And it’s not chock-full of heady goodness… but Erik also suffers a head injury for his trouble, as a shopkeep knocks him out cold.
Fortitude Season 2 is available to pre-order on DVD, but the release date is yet to be confirmed (I doubt it’s December 31st, as Amazon currently claims – that’s just a placeholder)
Score: 3/10
Director: Hettie Macdonald
Producer: Trevor Hopkins
Screenplay: Simon Donald
Music: Ben Frost
Cast:
Governor Hildur Odegard: Sofie Gråbøl
Michael Lennox: Dennis Quaid
Natalie Yelburton: Sienna Guillory
Vincent Rattrey: Luke Treadaway
Eric Odegard: Björn Hlynur Haraldsson
PC Ingrid Witry: Mia Jexen
Petra: Alexandra Moen
Freya Lennox: Michelle Fairley
Rune Lennox: Edvin Endre
Dan Anderssen: Richard Dormer
Tomak: Gershwyn Eustache Jnr
Vladek Klimov: Robert Sheehan
The Fiend: Mark Field
Bianca: Jessica Henwick
Dr. Sarinda Khatri: Parminder Nagra
Axel Fersen: Joi Johannsson
Yeva: Eloise Smyth
Erling Munk: Ken Stott
Lars Ulvinaune: Rune Temte
Dr Adebimpe: Jude Akuwudike
Lamont Bailey: Steve Toussaint
Lars Ulvinaune: Rune Temte
Tomak Bowzyk: Gershwyn Eustach Jnr
Yeva Podnikov: Eloise Smith
Peggy Nan: India Brown
Harald: Jaiden Keen
Dag Tannar: Gilly Gilchrist
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.