​"He Speaks" – Swamp Thing S01E03 Review

And he won't shut up.

No, I kid. It's just seemed like the natural thing to say after stating the title. In fact, Swamp Thing (ST) says relatively little this week. Whether it's ST "actor" Derek Mears talking, or Alec actor Andy Bean, I'm not sure.

Reading a review or two, I'm still surprised reviewers are saying that Swamp Thing is such an amazing show. It's not bad, and it's fairly true to the source material. Well, at least some of the source material. It's skipped over the Alan Moore period and gone to The Rot, or The Grey. Which is a relatively recent element of the Swamp Thing mythos. In the newer post 52 era, it's The Black. More than that as far as which continuity it's involved in, look it up. It's far more complicated than I could possibly explain in a relatively small review, and Google searching is good for you. Really!

As far as the Rot itself, it's the antithesis of "the Green", the elemental plant force that created Swamp Thing and his successors. While The Green is sustained by and the embodiment of (plant) life, The Rot is sustained by the death of plant and animal life (the latter being The Red). So in the comics, The Rot generates zombies and animated skeletons and kind of fights The Green/Red, but at the same time is the other side of the same coin.

We get at least one zombie-type creature in "He Speaks": Munson (Micah Fitzgerald), our homicidal buddy from last week that Swamp Thing had vines draw and quarter the guy. He's back this week, first in a Swamp Thing/Alec dream where a barefooted Alec meets Munson in a swamp. And then The Rot apparently pulls together Munson's limbs and turns him into a bug-spewing zombie. Munson kills a hunter and then goes after Abby. Swamp Thing seemingly drives The Rot from Munson's body and it turns into a pile of goo and roaches. Nummy.

This is after Harlan (Leonardo Nam) is stricken down with the same plant disease. Abby is powerless to stop the disease, and her supervisor, Eli Troost, (Al Vicente) shows up to kick her off of the CDC team and take charge. Swamp Thing utters a few words about how the disease is fighting back, so Abby gives the patients immuno-suppressants instead of Eli's antibiotics and they get better. Presumably, they're still plant possessed, but it's not clear what that means.

On other fronts, Maria gets a visit from the zombie/ghost of her dead daughter, Shawna (Given Sharp). Shawna is talking shit about Avery, saying that he doesn't love Maria. It's not clear if Shawna is connected to The Rot. She's a zombie like Munson, but she doesn't have roaches and flies hovering around her.

Liz is busy being Marais' answer to Lois Lane, questioning a local banker type (Matt Burke) about his connection to Avery. Gordon refuses to talk to her, but later goes to confront Avery at the Sutherland manor and tells him that he's done doing something very bankery bad to finance Avery's personal loans. Avery isn't happy with the pissant coming to see him, and later pays Gordon a visit and beats him to death with a golf club.

Matt invites Abby to dance with him at the town bar, Delroy's. Swamp Thing watches pensively from the shadows outside. He's very pensive.

Lucilia visits Avery to ask him about Alec's death, and we find out that Avery has been having an affair with him when Maria has cut him off. When Lucilia realizes Maria is upstairs, she angrily storms off.

Danny (an uncredited Ian Ziering, although he was credited last episode) gets a visit from Madame Xanadu, and he talks about how he's been in Marais eight years waiting to fulfill his "mission". Xanadu reads the Tarot cards for him, and reveals that the card about his future--the Wheel of Fortune--has come up as it always done but this time it's reversed. She figures it has to do with Abby coming into Danny's life.

We find out Avery has been using Maria's family money to finance his ventures. With a little push from Shawna, Maria tells Avery that he's not getting any more money.

Jason (Kevin Durand) meets Abby while dissecting Eddie's corpse in the hospital morgue. He makes a few snide remarks and says the plants are winning. Later at home, we discover his wife, Caroline (Selena Anduze) has some version of early-onset Alzheimer's.

We're three episodes in and the plot is vaguely coming together. There are still a few questions: what is dead Shawna's connection to anything? Is she part of The Rot? Is Marais just the equivalent of Sunnydale in the Buffyverse, and ghosts and other supernatural stuff show up there like Xanadu and her prophetic abilities?

We do find out that Jason is presumably working on a cure for whatever Caroline has, and it probably has to do with plants. Avery is having financial troubles and getting sexually cut off by Maria and Lucilia, which probably helps put him in a murderous mood. After beating Gordon to death, Avery pats his cheek in a mirror. Whether he's just checking for blood spots or it's a hint that he has some kind of flesh disguise, remains to be seen.

Abby appears to have figured out that Swamp Thing is Alec. He says "Maybe" when she asks ST if he's Alec. I get that he's different than he was, but would what appears to be 48 hours since his transformation cause uncertainty in his identity?

There's the enigmatic "mission" that Danny is on. How this relates to his character in the comics, where he's a big demonic-trident-wielding "blue devil" who is supernaturally bonded to his FX suit, I don't know. Time will tell, I guess. It apparently doesn't have anything to do with Avery and his Sutherland issues, since that's been around for the eight years that Danny has been in Marais. It has something to do with Abby, but she hasn't really set anything in motion. It's not clear how long Maria has been receiving visits from dead daughter, Shawna.

Back to how amazing Swamp Thing is. I guess I don't find it so. It's competent, and decently-acted. But it just kind of plods along. It's only ten episodes, but with three episodes aired it feels like I've already sat through ten episodes. Maybe I have attention deficit disorder, but I've sat through longer seasons of network and streaming TV. Maybe it's just that there's nothing that new with Swamp Thing. I've seen movies with Swamp Thing, I've seen TV shows with Swamp Thing. I've read the comic books that it was all based on.

Doom Patrol and even Titans were new, but Swamp Thing is pretty standard "mutated scientist becomes monstrous creature" with "evil corporation" thrown in and a "gutsy 2019 heroine " in the mix. Will Patton makes a decent villain, but Swamp Thing seems to lack a certain... oomph. In the comics, the various sagas of the Swamp Thing have gone big. Worldwide apocalypse cults, major attacks by The Rot, Heaven and Hell, cats and dogs living together. Doom Patrol had no trouble going big. Literally, in the case of the finale episode where Ezekiel and Admiral Whiskers turned giant-sized. Titans had a nationwide secret group, a dimension-threatening demon and his daughter, and an alien Raven-hunter from a distant planet.

The movies and the TV show had the same problem. Swamp Thing basically existed as the sometimes hunted/sometimes hunting creature of a small patch of Louisiana swamp. The Swamp Thing of the comics deals with worldwide threats and problems. The 90s TV show occasionally broke that mode, but not very often. For a superhero channel like DC Universe, Swamp Thing isn't very superhero-y. And it isn't very supernatural. And no offense to Will Patton, but he's neither as smarmy as Louis Jordan or as campy as Mark Lindsay Chapman.

Swamp Thing, by comparison, has the relatively small-town antics of the Sutherland Corporation. And one scientist transformed into a muck-encrusted mockery of a man. It seems like relatively small potatoes. Maybe something bigger is coming, but it's not here yet.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?