Swamp Thing season 1, episode 7 review: Brilliant Disguise

Don’t let the amusing title fool you, Swamp Thing keeps moving its riveting story forward with aplomb and the necessary inspiration from the comic.

When we last left our heroes and sundry swamp creatures, Alec was being hunted by agents of Avery Sunderland and Jason Woodrue who want him as a specimen. He fended them off, but his secrecy became compromised. Matt Cable, implicated in the attempt on Holland that night in the first episode, followed the scent and tracked Abby and Alec to the swamp, where he found out the thing sighted there is Alec. Meanwhile, Woodrue’s experiments literally ignite the power dormant within Daniel Cassidy — a power tied to a bargain with the Phantom Stranger.

In this week’s episode, we lose track of Blue Devil, but see the realization of the Green’s spell that makes Alec look like Andy Bean again. He and Abby, at great risk, head back to the swamp and explore the deeper darkness lurking within. Back in town, Sunderland arranges a meeting with a potential investor (Aquaman’s Michael Beach in his guest role). He’s then pulled away unexpectedly by Lucilla Cable, who informs him Alec is still among the living.

Backseat driver

The left turn from the Abby-and-Alec dynamic into building up Blue Devil is made up for. Abby’s relationship with Alec enters a new phase more out in the open than before, and in more danger. Trouble brews from within as well when Alec’s destiny comes between them. He loses hope that what brought them together will keep them together and thinks it’d be better they went their separate ways.

As gripping as their love story is, they take a backseat, this time to the Sunderland drama and everything it infects back in Marais. Avery complicates the lives of his wife Maria and both Lucilla and Matt Cable. That tension comes to a deadly and calculated head where more is afoot than it seems.

The Rot

James Wan, Gary Dauberman, Len Wiseman, and Mark Verheiden never shy away from the source material, incorporating all they can, and episode 7 is treated no differently. My earlier reference to darkness is an allusion to the Rot, a twisted, degenerate force of nature in the DC universe with a sole purpose to spread decay.

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The Rot was invented during The New 52 as a force opposite to the clean and verdant Green, though it existed implicitly before then. Its avatar was Anton Arcane, who has been the main villain in two Swamp Thing movies (played by Louis Jourdan) and the USA Network TV show (played by Mark Lindsay Chapman). In the latter, Arcane’s experiments led to plant life and pollutants that permeated the swamp and mimicked the behavior of the Rot in a strictly biological, not supernatural, sense.

Alec explains to Abby what plagues the marshland is bigger than a virus and the vegetation fighting back. Creeping evil, a rot, brought on by pollution, logging, and genetic tampering — activities of Sunderland Corp. — is consuming the area and must be stopped. We see it envelop like a shadow over the trees, right on the edge of what is florid. And it might be too late to stop; its own champion might be chosen.

Lamentations

This is only an opinion but, subjective as it actually is, a substantial consensus backs it up: Swamp Thing shows no cause for cancellation whatsoever. Warner Bros. acted impulsively pulling the plug, and their reason has to be either a result of corporate politics or some executive’s personal gripe with the show, its tone, or content. We can only guess because the studio isn’t talking.

Had it come out a few short years earlier, it would’ve landed on a network such as AMC, FX, or even TNT — possibly as a lead-in or replacement for The Walking Dead or The Strain. Or Swamp Thing would wind up on Netflix or Amazon. Either way, the show would have been discovered, built an audience, and had a fighting chance.

Warner would have a hit on their hands, perhaps even the next celebrated ongoing program based on a comic if they stood by the series. Instead, we loyal viewers are left confused and wondering what could’ve been. Saying so is a broken record at this point, but its a total shame.