Critical popcorn

**MINOR SERIES 2 SPOILERS AHEAD!**

Fortitude is back this Thursday night on Sky Atlantic and we’ve had a sneak preview of early events by seeing the first two episodes of series two. What can we expect? Well, first of all let’s look back just in case you didn’t manage to catch it first time around.

This slow-burning psychological thriller is set in Fortitude, a quiet picturesque town hidden in the Arctic that’s undoubtedly unlike any other place on Earth. We join our characters in a small community who are scientific biology researchers out in the freezing temperatures, ship workers out on the seas or folks trying to build an ‘Ice Hotel’ which would be a tourist attraction unlike anything else in the world. We learn early on that because of its location and people, the town has never suffered any kind of serious crime until… there’s a rather brutal murder. From here the series takes you on endless unexpected twists and it may just all lead back to a prehistoric mammoth they dig out of the ice.

Season two kicks off some time after the huge finale events (can you believe it was 2015?!) and although the people who stayed are obviously haunted by what they’ve seen, they are all trying to get on with their lives and back to normality. But, of course, Fortitude still has plans for them and this time a beheaded body turns up and we see (not really a spoiler because I know nothing yet!) a mysterious stranger on the road who’s possibly got something to do with it.

There’s also an opening flashback to 1942, a drunken man in a bar with stories of cannibalism and murder, and a beautiful – but foreboding – blood red aurora borealis that might be cutting out the electric supply to Fortitude and it’s not exactly welcomed by the huskies… oh and Sheriff Dan isn’t exactly himself. All in all it is set-up to offer us another finely paced season of Arctic nightmares but would I still like to visit Svalbard or somewhere like it? I would.

Both seasons have smart casts, with season one starring the likes of Christopher Eccleston, Richard Dormer, Luke Treadaway, Sienna Guillory, Stanley Tucci, Michael Gambon and Sofie Grabol and season two introduces Dennis Quaid and Parminder Nagra to name just a couple of new faces.

If haven’t seen Fortitude at all yet, I highly recommend watching it on Sky Box Sets or sign up for NOW TV, an app I use on the PS4 because I haven’t got Sky, because there’s a ridiculously impressive range of shows and it’s really not that much per month in these days of Netflix and such.

Also if you catch-up (very) quickly, there’s exciting news because once the first episode of season 2 airs on Thursday at 9PM, you’ll be able to binge watch more because every episode of Sky Atlantic’s Fortitude Series 2 will be available exclusively on Sky Box Sets from Thursday 26^th January 10pm. Here’s your trailer:

Get involved and also, if you fancy it, my entire Season 1 blog can be found here.

Photos from ©Sky Atlantic 2016