“50/50”
©2015 Sky/Tiger Aspect Productions
Fortitude: episode 1 recap
Fortitude: episode 2 recap
After last week’s more sedate episode, I was hoping the investigation would pick up pace in the third installment, unfortunately the episode felt like a filler as we discover very little to move the story along.
DCI Morton snoops around in the deceased Stoddart’s home, unawares the shady Russian is lurking downstairs waiting for his moment to steal a document on Ground Penetrating Radar with Pettigrew’s name on and the words “Max 2.5”. Not quite sure what the document means but the Russian is stealing the document for someone else. He later swipes it out of Morton’s hotel room while no-one is looking.
Meanwhile, Sheriff Anderssen (Richard Dormer) is quietly seething when he sees Frank (Nicholas Pinnock) emerge with Elena (Verónica Echegui) after their night of passion. And he’s not the only one as Frank’s wife Jules (Jessica Raine) is angry that her husband hasn’t been to see their son Liam since he got injured. When Liam has a seizure she demands that he go and see their son but instead he gets on a boat with Anderssen to search for Ronnie (Johnny Harris) and his daughter Carrie (Elizabeth Dormer-Phillips) who have gone on the run.
After discovering Jason’s brother Jonjo has been attacked by Ronnie and an unopened prescription found at his house reveals that he’s on anti-psychotic medication, the police come to the conclusion he’s dangerous and off his meds. They find his abandoned boat but no sign of Ronnie or Carrie. Instead Ronnie has gone back to the store where he’s keeping the dead Mammoth to saw off his ivory tusk in the hopes to sell it to buy their escape. When Ronnie returns to his daughter – who he left in a heated wood cabin – he explains that they have to run because the police will think he killed Stoddart because of his link to Jason, and that he’s not prepared to let them separate them like the authorities tried to when he had a breakdown after the death of Carrie’s mother.
Both Sofie Gråbøl and Stanley Tucci don’t get much screen time this week but what they do get sizzles with the mischief of a carefully manoeuvred game as each try to suss the other out. DCI Morton rattles Governor Hildur by revealing Trish thinks she is behind the murder of Stoddart after deleting the phone message. “Well, I ask myself what scenario is more likely, a conspiracy involving a governor and a sheriff and a very lucrative glacier hotel, or some poor bastard off his meds has a psychotic episode in a strangers house” Morton weighs up. When the governor pushes for his opinion he answers “50/50.” Although, I think it would be too obvious to be the governor, it’s still interesting that despite what’s happened and how it looks she’s still prepared to go ahead with her plans for the hotel going as far as to submit Stoddart’s report that he was going to change.
Henry and Andersson have a heart to heart about the man he shot and his guilt, Anderssen answers “no Henry. It was my doing, my fault, my responsibily”. When Henry asks “so tell me how?” Anderssen replies “I can’t.” A photograph of the two together seems to imply they were once close. Later when Morton comes to ask questions and play a recording of the phone call in the bar, Henry denies it’s his voice. Has he had a change of heart about Anderssen?
Eventually the tension between Anderssen and Frank finally hits boiling point when Eric (after flirting with Jules Sutter) discovers Frank’s bloody shirt in the bathroom bin. After testing confirms it’s human blood, Anderssen barges into Elena’s room and attacks Frank in the shower, with DCI Morton and the rest of the police witnessing the fallout.
This week’s strange / confusing scenes goes to Darren Boyd, whose character Markus appears to have a bit of an obsession with watching his girlfriend Shirley (Jessica Gunning) eat. If the clip of next week’s episode is anything to go by, he’s purposely trying to overfeed her.
