‘Tortured Poet’ meets ‘Dead Poet’ in Taylor Swift’s ‘Fortnight’ video

‘Tortured Poet’ meets ‘Dead Poet’ in Taylor Swift’s ‘Fortnight’ video

Taylor Swift and Post Malone are trying to get through the black-and-white era that seems painful.

The music video for “Fortnight,” the lead single from Taylor Swift’s 11th studio album “Tortured Poets Department,” debuted Friday night. The duet features the two artists in various states of melancholic reflection and despair, set in a dystopian and mostly monochromatic world.

The video begins with Swift chained to a metal bed frame without a mattress in a white observation room. After reluctantly swallowing a “forget about him” capsule given to her by an orderly, Swift wipes her face with a towel, revealing a tattoo of Malone’s face on her face in the mirror.

“And for two weeks there we were forever running to you/ Sometimes asking about the weather/ Now you’re in my yard, turning into a good neighbor/ Your wife is watering the flowers. I wanna kill her,” Swift sings darkly.

The two then sit at a desk in an office – apparently a titled “department” – surrounded by masked people dressed in black, typing while singing. The video soon cuts to Swift and Malone standing tattoo-less face to face on a bumpy road as papers swirl around them.

Swift is then shown strapped to a gurney with a mysterious electrical device attached to her head. Playing off the title of her new album, researchers portrayed by Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles — who appeared together in the 1989 film “Dead Poets Society” — scrutinize Swift.

“I’m still laughing about getting to work with the greatest men on earth, @ethanhawke and @mrjoshcharles (tortured poet, meet your colleague from down the hall, dead poet),” Swift wrote Friday on social media about their appearance.

Eventually, Swift broke free. Paper burns, rain falls and the weird-yet-beautiful video ends with Swift and Malone reaching for each other’s hands while kneeling on top of a phone booth.