Summary
“Northerly Winds” ups the stakes considerably in easily the best episode yet.
This recap of Katla season 1, episode 5, “Northerly Winds”, contains spoilers.
At the midway point of Katla, it feels like we’ve reached a turning point with the discovery of what seems like Asa’s body and the shockwaves that sends through Vik, not to mention the fact that Asa returns home to find Thor frolicking with the younger Gunhild and everything that’s going on with Darri, Rakel, and Mikael. Gisli is waiting to receive photos of the body found under the generator shed, and Darri alerts him to Mikael’s sudden appearance, so for once it really feels like we’re moving forwards.
Grima is adamant that the body she found was Asa’s, but Kjartan is once again a bit unsupportive (this is, admittedly, a far-fetched claim — maybe I just don’t like him very much.) And when Gisli and Einar arrive at the hotel, Rakel spirits Mikael away. Katla episode 5 still isn’t willing to provide too many resolutions at this point, then, but with an incoming ash storm functioning as a ticking clock device, the stakes are heightening. It’s about time.
Gisli is weirdly suspicious of what Grima and Asa were doing at that camp, and what compelled Grima to look under the shed. He agrees that the body looks like Asa, but seems weirdly unconcerned by the camp alarm blaring, claiming everyone has evacuated to the hotel and that the storm just causes it to play up. Grima, though, is having none of that, and heads up there to investigate just as the storm hits in earnest. In the meantime, Gisli directs some questions at Asa, who claims not to recognize the body in the photo, and he really stirs the pot between the sisters.
Rakel and Mikael are caught in the storm, too. When Mikael starts saying creepy things about hoping Darri dies so it can just be the two of them, she pulls over, claiming not to be able to drive in the storm. She’s obviously seeing that lack of conscience in the boy that Darri was describing. Speaking of Darri, when he returns to the hotel, Bergrun tells him to stay away from the child and relates another horror story of Katla’s previous eruption, and a farm maid who couldn’t accept that the infant child she had abandoned was a changeling.
“Change” is the word of the day in Katla season 1, episode 5. Asa seems fascinated with the idea. She goes drinking with Einar but can’t get in the mood and eventually returns to the clinic in tears, looking for a place to stay. Mikael has evidently changed, too. He’s no longer even attempting to lie about starting the school fire, hoping that the children would burn inside; about throwing himself in front of the car that killed him; of being ready to kill anyone who locks him up again. All the while he’s fingering a box cutter in his pocket. Rakel is so horrified to hear this that when he gets out of the car to pee she drives away and leaves him behind.
When Grima finally makes it back up to the camp, she finds yet another naked woman covered in clay and ash. But this one says her name is Grima.
All of a sudden, Katla is getting a lot more interesting.
