TV Review: Swamp Thing Season 1 Episode 3

Swamp Thing Season 1 Episode 3 “He Speaks”

Directed By: Deran Sarafian

Starring: Crystal Reed, Andy Bean, Derek Mears, Will Patton, Virginia Madsen, Jennifer Beals, Kevin Durand, Maria Sten, Henderson Wade, Jeryl Prescott, Ian Ziering

Rating: TV-MA

Runtime: 48 minutes

I don’t like spoiling things, so I didn’t mention something about episode 2 of Swamp Thing. In the last few minutes of the show, Swamp Thing straight uses vines and other vegetation and basically explodes a guy. You read that right. He pulls on a guys arms and legs so hard that he explodes. It’s brutal, and I love it. And it’s also pretty relevant to this episode of Swamp Thing as well.

The episode starts with Alec Holland/Swamp Thing, having a vision of a conversation with the guy that he killed. Alec is sorry, but the guy, Munson, wants revenge. We see his corpse re-animate, filling up with bugs from the swamp. Things aren’t going so great for Abby Arcane either. The CDC sends over new doctors that steamroll whatever she’s been doing, including Jason Woodrue. On top of that, Harlan, her assistant and friend, catches the virus. Avery Sutherland is up to some evil, corrupt businessman stuff, and his wife is talking to the ghost of their daughter.

It’s a lot to unpack in a review, but the show handles it all really well. Three episodes deep and there haven’t been any problems with the pacing of the story. Things are also getting more magic-y, which makes sense for the characters involved. They don’t say it in the show, but the episode description on DC Universe mentions “The Rot”. I haven’t read much (pretty much any) Swamp Thing comics, so I did have to google this. The Rot is a force of death, introduced during DC’s New 52 line of comics. So I’m thinking that that may be more of the “villain” in the rest of the season, besides the human characters.

I said as much for episode two, but wow does Derek Mears kill it as Swamp Thing. As the title alludes to, Swamp Thing Speaks in this episode. Mears just gives it an A+ performance whenever he’s on screen. I enjoy the rest of the cast, I don’t think anyone is giving a bad performance, but Mears definitely stands out for me. Besides that though, we learn more about some of the other characters. Avery Sunderland isn’t all that he seems, and each episode we see more of who he is. Madame Xanadu does some more magic stuff, and Ian Ziering as Dan Cassidy pops up again.

Titans is in my top ten favorite TV shows, and Doom Patrol, from what I’ve seen, is definitely up there in quality. But I think Swamp Thing is definitely the best show DC Universe has put out so far. The acting is good and the story is intriguing. The effects are fantastic, especially when you see Swamp Thing walking around and doing things. It’s a shame this show’s been canceled before it could even really start, but that shouldn’t deter anyone from watching it. If anything about this show interests you, you should be watching it.