'Broadchurch on Ice' was the jokey way that people dismissed Fortitude when it debuted earlier in the year, and you can see why. On the surface, it looked like Just Another Crime Drama, except this time with a remote Arctic setting to differentiate it from all the rest. But if watching Fortitude has taught us anything, it's that you need to be very aware of what lies below the surface…
As finales go, this was a strange one. But then, what else would we expect from a show like Fortitude? Unfortunately, the curious way the finale unfolds leads to something of an anti-climax. It's just as well Fortitude was renewed for a second series, as there's now a feeling that it owes us a bigger finish.
After last week's skin-crawling developments, Vincent is trapped in a hospital room with a swarm of what are confirmed to be parasitic, prehistoric wasps. Some quick thinking between himself, Natalie and Anderson leads them to instigate a gas explosion, wiping out the wasps. It's a little implausible that Vincent would survive such an explosion, but at least the show makes it ugly, and if he survives into next season, he will surely be horribly disfigured. There's some great work from Luke Treadaway and Sienna Guillory, who have made an increasingly superb duo throughout the series' run.
Elsewhere, Eric tracks Yuri out onto the glacier, where they have a pleasingly low-key punch-up that's marred by some sloppy writing, turning the characters into idiots for the service of the plot. Eric wilfully dropping his gun to let Yuri get the drop on him? Sloppy. Yuri - who was admittedly drunk - descending into the hole in the ice, all alone, knowing that the equipment was faulty and leaving the man he'd just beaten-up up there at liberty to screw him? Even sloppier.
This at least afforded us the brilliant image of the promised "elephant's graveyard" of dead mammoths, although the sense of Yuri's 'be careful what you wish for' comeuppance at finally finding his "treasure" could perhaps have been played up a touch more. As a side note, does Yuri's presence down there imply a further outbreak of wasps on the horizon in the future?
The other major aspect of the finale was Elena succumbing to the same psychosis that caused Liam and Shirley to go mad, this time with innocent young Carrie at risk of having her chest torn open. The emotional climax of the season comes when Anderson arrives in the nick of time, and has to make the gut-wrenching decision to shoot the woman he loves. After all, rather his metaphorical gut be wrenched than Carrie's literal one.
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The tension as Carrie moves through the house while Elena succumbs to the parasite ramps up supremely well, offering one last brilliantly effective horror-movie sequence. There's great work from Verónica Echegui as she manages to convey Elena's internal battle between the parasite's compulsion to hurt Carrie and her own maternal instincts to protect the girl, while Richard Dormer's howls of anguish at what Anderson has to do are devastating. It's just a shame that the rest of the finale doesn't quite reach such heights.
The principal problem is that it just doesn't feel like much of a finale. Granted, some big things happen, but for the most part it never ups the ante in the way you might expect.
Take, for example, the weeks and weeks of glimpsing poor Ronnie Morgan locked in a room, slowly being eaten alive by wasp larvae. There were the sounds of faint buzzing behind the door, and hints of a swarm flitting across the light cast through the keyhole. Surely this was building up to someone finally opening that door and all hell breaking loose? Nope. The door remains locked and they just burn the house down. So what was the point of teasing it so heavily?
For that matter, what was the point of Morgan's trip across the ice, losing the tusk, cut hand, etc? None of it came to anything. Henry going through all that to make a Tupilak doll for Liam? Again, it amounted to very little. And with the show making a point of showing Vincent and adorable police officer Ingrid embroiled in a budding romance, should she not have gone to visit him? We see nothing of how this has affected her.
The ensemble cast and the meandering nature of Fortitude's plot were, for the most part, a boon for the show, but the series ultimately boasted too many strands that amounted to too little, and the writing will need to be a little tighter for season two. It's possible that elements like the tusk, Vincent and Ingrid, etc, will be further explored next year, but that doesn't make series one feel any more rounded.
To be a bit more positive, Darren Boyd's Markus - arguably the most captivating and fascinating character on the show - was gifted perhaps the best material in this last hour. Markus threatens consequences on those who've wronged him, for the second episode in a row, but never delivers them - in what is yet another unsatisfying strand - but he does also get the best of the episode's dialogue.
While Natalie explains that Charles Darwin named this particular species of wasp as proof against a benevolent God - because how could a benevolent God create such a nightmare creature - Markus counters that the wasps aren't proof of a lack of God; rather that we are.
What he suggests is as neat a summation of the series as you could hope for. The wasps wreak unspeakable horrors and devastation upon the world, but are ultimately unthinking creatures, merely trying to survive because that's all they do. They were made that way. The people of Fortitude, however... the horrors that they enact on one another are entirely their own doing. The many shots of the town being purged by fire are highly symbolic, as the townspeople strive to burn away any memory of their own tortured pasts: their own diseased actions.
Of the sprawling cast of Fortitude, Darren Boyd's career-redefining work as the creepy feeder Markus was perhaps the biggest revelation and the standout performance, though Sofie Gråbøl also did good work as Governor Odegard. While Hildy didn't always have a lot to do, Gråbøl definitely made her moments count.
On the whole, Fortitude was an excellent piece of television, a stealth horror series masquerading as a crime drama. The setting would have made it worth a look on its own - and the stunning cinematography and scenery on display throughout justifies that with ease - but the show utilised its obscure setting far more than we might have suspected.
The plot, as it developed, with its mammoth corpses and ancient parasitic wasps, could not have unfolded anywhere else on Earth. That the show actually committed to its setting and used those potential avenues is incredibly daring. You never knew what to expect with Fortitude, and that's a great thing. The notion that nothing ever dies out on the ice - that our actions are preserved, repercussions inescapable, and the eventual unearthing of sins inevitable - was inextricably linked to the frozen setting.
If Fortitude's finale didn't quite deliver on its promise as a series climax, the series itself was, while not perfect, a truly refreshing change of pace. It was bold, and brutal, and boasted a phenomenal ensemble cast. It's a show that threw outlandish, otherworldly elements right in alongside genuine human drama and intrigue. As hard as it was to watch at times, Fortitude wasn't something you could ever take your eyes off.
