TV Review: Swamp Thing Season 1 Episode 5

Swamp Thing Season 1 Episode 5 “Drive All Night”

Director:  Greg Beeman

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: 53 minutes

Honestly, at some point while watching the last few episodes of Swamp Thing I find myself repeating the same phrase: “Avery Sunderland, you son of a bitch.” It’s true, he’s one of those villains you just hate as a character but love because of their character. He’s possibly my favorite character on the show.

Episode 5 of Swamp Thing starts with the titular monster seeing ghosts in the swamp. And that’s when a stranger shows up on a boat, and explains that it’s the memories of the trees that he’s seeing. On top of that, there are more dark forces at work in the town. Living with the Sunderlands, Susie Coyle is possessed by Shawna, the Sunderland’s dead daughter. The possessed Susie tries to lure Maria Sunderland into the swamp to drown her, and the only person around to save her is Abby Arcane.

The last episode really did feel like a “monster of the week” type formula. This one feels like it fits into that same genre, but it also deepens the mystery of the swamp a bit more. We find out Daniel Cassidy is literally stuck in the town due to some kind of magic. We learn exactly what happened with Abby and Shawna Sunderland. Even Jason Woodrue gets some more screen time. There’s no real concrete reason as to why all this is happening now, but we’re definitely getting closer. 

The effects, once more, are on point this episode. Shawna Sunderland shows up as a spooky spirit, and she looks terrifying. You can really see where the horror elements from the people behind the camera come through. Swamp Thing himself looks terrific. At this point, he’s talking in full on sentences, without any of his trademark pauses. I wish that that didn’t happen so soon, but with only 10 episodes I guess they had to speed things up. Avery Sunderland is my favorite character on the show, all because of the performance of Will Patton. He’s intimidating as all heck. Ian Ziering is great, Crystal Reed, Jennifer Beals, and everyone is just fantastic. The extras still all sound southern, which is something I didn’t hear in the first episode.

Andy Bean, who was missing entirely in episode 4, shows up in a flashback. I know the title of the show is Swamp Thing, but I really want to see more of him. Episode 4, the previous episode, isn’t really the strongest we’ve seen from this show. This one, Episode 5, I think might be my favorite so far. We’re halfway through at this point though, so that might change. But what won’t is how great of a show this is. You owe it to yourself to watch this show.