"The Anatomy Lesson" – Swamp Thing S01E09 Review

If folks haven't gathered from my last eight reviews, I'm not satisfied with Swamp Thing. But just to be clear:

I'm not satisfied with Swamp Thing

Maybe it's that Doom Patrol was such a pitch-perfect capture of the Morrison era. Titans was trying to emulate the Perez/Wolfman era. Sort of. There's a lot of "eras" of Titans, and the show didn't do half bad at it even if Beast Boy got short shrift.

But Swamp Thing... I don't know. The creative team seems to be doing Alan Moore, and Rick Veitch, and the earlier movie and TV versions of Swamp Thing. And the result is a disjointed mess. The fact it was cancelled in its first season, and the episode order cut from 13 to 10, doesn't help. But it's still hard to imagine the show going beyond its first season. The creative team seems to want to do everything... and ended up doing nothing substantive.

"The Anatomy Lesson" is a good example. "The Anatomy Lesson" is a seminal Swamp Thing story. Not just because of the revelation as to ST's true nature, but the horror and shading and shadows were part of the story. The TV episode doesn't capture any of that.

Part of the problem is the cinematography is okay. Nothing great, but nothing bad, either. It's not as good as the story deserves.

Another is there are subplots that detract from the main story. For a show titled Swamp Thing, we get a good chunk of the episode that is the origin of Blue Devil. I like Ian Ziering, I like Blue Devil, and the creative team has done a decent job of turning him into a more demonic supernatural presence. But the show is named Swamp Thing, damn it. If DC Universe wants to do a Blue Devil show, great, I'll watch it. Just don't mix your Blue Devil in with my Swamp Thing.

Ditto for the Phantom Stranger. Or Phantom Night Fisherman (PNF). Or Phantom Studio Guy. Granted, almost no one could do the comic book character justice. But the creative team isn't even trying. For one thing, Macon Blair is horribly miscast. If John Candy were alive, he might be a less effective PNF, but it's hard to imagine. For another thing, I don't know what PNF is even doing. He helps out ST by telling him about his plant abilities. Sort of. So, he's there to help ST, right? Nope, he's there to put Daniel in place so he can protect Abby and become Blue Devil. Does PNF have a deeper knowledge of what's going on, and it just slipped his mind not to mention to ST he's a plant that thinks he's Alec Holland? Or is PNF just kinda clueless? The comic book Phantom Stranger is a wanderer, a mage of sorts, and a guy who comes and goes where he pleases. PNF is just... a guy in a suit who shows up occasionally to say something cryptic. He can show Daniel a vision of a future that might not come to pass, which makes PNF a power on the level of Dickens' Christmas Yet To Come. But that's about it.

Out of three appearances, PNF has spent time with Daniel in two of them. Which means he's involved more with the Daniel side of things than the Swamp Thing side of things. On a show called Swamp Thing.

The weird thing is PNF is loosely doing the stuff John Constantine did in the original Swamp Thing comics of the era. (Fun fact: Alan Moore created John Constantine, and Constantine's first appearance was in Swamp Thing). But even if Constantine can't appear due to legal reasons or Matt Ryan is tied up on DC's Legends of Tomorrow... why not have Willoughby Kipling from Doom Patrol show up? Kipling was originally supposed to be Constantine but Constantine was tied up at Vertigo when Grant Morrison wanted to use him for his Doom Patrol. Was Mark Sheppard too busy?

Finally, as I've noted, the creative team almost had to go with recreating the big revelation of "The Anatomy Lesson" from the comics. But... on the show, so what? It works in the comics both as writer Alan Moore trying to do a dramatic shakeup, and because there were years of Swamp Thing-as-Alec Holland. Here we've had ST-as-Alec for nine episodes. It's not that big a revelation or game changer. We've had eight episodes of Abby saying she'll "cure" ST, turning him back into Alec. That's not going to happen. Heck, it can't happen. Where do they go from here? Fortunately, the creative team doesn't have to go anywhere because the show has been cancelled.

As for the episode itself, the main thing is that Jason dissects the frozen ST. And Kevin Durand is still the best thing about the episode and the show. I read another review that noted he's not a villain and I'd have to agree. He's not looking for personal power, he's not interested in controlling people, he's not interested in money, he doesn't want to rule the world. Yes, he's so busy looking for a cure for his wife, Caroline's, Alzheimer's that he leaves her and she died of an accidental OD. But then again, it's not like Abby paid any attention to the clear signs Caroline needed some help. It's "I'm off to the hospital to find Jason so I can locate Alec. Try not to OD on those pills you mentioned. Ta-ta!"

Jason cuts open ST and discovers his plant-organs are non-functional replicas. He apparently knows how mutated swamp creatures' organs work, so he concludes from this that ST is a plant that thinks that it's Alec Holland, rather than a transformed Alec Holland. The abandoned Sutherland factory where Jason is working comes under attack, and he is forced to flee. Abby arrives, frees ST, and he goes out into the swamp, gets Alec's body, and shows it to Abby with a dramatic "Alec Holland is dead!"

Why is the factory under attack? Abby and Liv play Nancy Drew and eventually figure out Jason is there. PNF has told Daniel they'll be there and shown him a vision of the future where the two women are gunned down. Daniel burst into blue flame, goes there (how did he know where it was? Magic, I guess.), and kills four guards. The women only catch a glimpse of "Blue Devil", and don't see Daniel afterward wake up naked among the corpses.

Matt gets drunk and crashes his car.

After a brief chat with Jason, Avery gets back in the saddle and has Maria committed. And I'm tired of this Louisiana Dallas. Will Patton and Virginia Madsen and Henderson Wade are good at this kind of stuff. But it's not lining up with ST and the Green and the Black. Jason is more connected to all that than the Sutherlands and the Cables are, and Jason is the connecting strand between ST and the Sutherlands. The two elements touch occasionally, like last week when ST rescued Avery from a curiously ineffectual Black. At least, I think it was the Black. But then they move away from each other again, until the next time.

Avery is back to his mustache-twirling ways, with no apparent involvement with the Black. Matt gets banged up in a car crash. It looks a lot like the car crash Matt Cable went through in the comics, but that Matt Cable was a completely different character with a completely different backstory. Anton Arcane was a very bad guy, and we haven't heard of Abby's father at all in Swamp Thing.

So we've got ST, and his not being Alec Holland. And the Sutherlands. And the Cables. And Jason Woodrue aka the Floronic Man. And an Arcane. And Liv. And the Green. And the Black. And Corpse Shawna. And Blue Devil. And Phantom Night Fisherman. And Madame Xanadu, wherever she got to.

Lucilia does get a name check, although Jennifer Beals isn't in this week's episode. Neither is Andy Bean as Alec, and there doesn't seem to be any reason to have him on the show anymore except for the very occasional flashback. Alec isn't ST and vice versa, right? They've barely established Abby and Alec have a connection from their brief meeting before Alec died. Why does Abby want to hang around with ST? He doesn't need her for a cure because he can't be cured. She has feelings for Alec, not ST. Once the creative team removes their romantic connection, there's nothing left.

So overall, "The Anatomy Lesson" only works when it focused on Jason and ST. Or Kevin Durand and Derek Mears, if you prefer. Mears continues to do great as the tortured monster. When the show dawdles on the Sutherlands, and the Cables, and Abby who no longer has a reason to stick around, it sinks like a brick. The Daniel/Blue Devil stuff is good, but feels like it belongs in another show. Called... Blue Devil.

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