DC's Swamp Thing, Episode 9: The Anatomy Lesson
Well, that was definitely fun, and not territory that I thought the TV show was going to touch -- at least not in its first season. As Swamp Thing gets captured by the spooky science people and we get the genuinely gruesome dissection of Swamp Thing's plant-based humanlike organs, we are treated so some genuinely creepy visuals that they really can only get away with because it's all plant organs. Pretty great stuff with Woodrue just clinically cutting into Swamp Thing's "lungs" and "heart" with morbid fascination while we get some amazing voice acting from Swamp Thing's pained screams. All these scenes are set under green light, too, which is amazingly atmospheric.
Most importantly, all this evil scientist torture ends up revealing one of the biggest things about the Swamp Thing -- he's not a human that is transformed into a plant-human hybrid. He's a plant that is trying its best to mimic the memories of a human that died in the swamp. Alec Holland is dead, and it's left gloriously ambiguous if Swamp Thing is just mimicking Alec's memories, or if there's some soul-transference thing going on, or something else. With the whole point of the Swamp Thing comics being the constant interweaving of maybe-science-maybe-magic explanations, it's absolutely well done.
But while that particular scene was well done, a lot of this episode (as do the previous one) really feel like they are rushing through things, and considering the very troubled production of this show... yeah, it's no surprise there. Kevin Durand manages to keep it together, but the previously consistently written Jason Woodrue goes full-tilt into crazy mad scientist mode, jumping off the crazy slope and being extremely cold and detached towards his wife. Caroline Woodrue ends up just sort of hovering from scene to scene, briefly describing a creepy nightmare to Jason, then talking to Abby, before eventually overdosing on medication at the end of the episode for that final tragic, tragic push to push Jason Woodrue over the edge.
Abby spends most of the episode in full investigator mode, going around with Liz trying to figure things out from both Caroline Woodrue and Maria Sunderland, but ultimately ends up just sort of hiding in a closet while the Blue Devil arc wraps up. Being benched on the hospital bed for the past couple of episodes, Daniel Cassidy is visited by the Phantom Stranger once more, showing him a vision of Abby and Liz being killed by the evil commando soldiers, unless he 'chooses', and, of course, that choice involves him transforming into the Blue Devil, where he unleashes the mother of all brutal scenes as he rampages and murder-kills all of the commandos with his newfound hellish transformation.
The problem with this? We really don't get that much context about Dan Cassidy's character beyond some vague 'deal with the devil stranger' bit, and if I wasn't already familiar with the Blue Devil character from the comics, a lot of his character development really ends up feeling bizarre. Dan doesn't really share that many scenes with Abby or Liz, honestly, so him suddenly deciding to stop running away and decide to rescue the other main characters end up feeling pretty shoehorned in. Throw in the decision to almost immediately have Blue Devil bugger off out of Marais also feels like a forced wrap-up. The concept of the Blue Devil itself, while a great visual scene to watch, is also pretty confusing. Is it a Hulk-like transformation? Did Dan Cassidy channel a demon? How conscious is he in either making the decision or when he operates as the Blue Devil? Just how the hell does any of these have anything to do with Marais or the Swamp Thing? Again, as a comic-book fan who's more familiar with Blue Devil as a character, I know what's going on, but I imagine it'd be a whole lot more confusing for anyone watching this for the first time.
Speaking of conclusions, Maria Sunderland also was rushed as Avery shows up, makes up some lie about how she's crazy (bringing up the whole 'take their foster daughter into the swamp' thing as evidence), and she spends her time locked up in an asylum. Another pair of characters that are seemingly dispatched of quickly is the rest of the Sunderland/Cable conspiracy, as Matt randomly gets into a drunken car accident that genuinely made me go "wait, what?" I simultaneously roll my eyes at the pretty obvious dispatching of the more mundane, less-mystically-inclined characters, yet at the same time, I've also been feeling like they've already done a lot of their part and may have overstayed their welcome.
Ultimately, everything is wrapping up to the finale, which I assume is going to be Abby and Swamp Thing facing off against... the rest of the Conclave's nameless agents? Crazy Jason Woodrue, who hasn't been transformed yet? And that's not taking into account the whole angst that Swampy's going to feel from the revelation of his true nature. I'm genuinely curious just how neatly the series is going to be wrapped up. It's genuinely a shame -- throughout these episodes, Swamp Thing has been pretty consistently well-written. And while I did bemoan them focusing on all the wrong characters, it has been a good run. Now we'll see if we get a proper conclusion.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- The huge revelation that Swamp Thing isn't Alec Holland, but "a plant trying its best to be Alec Holland", was part of the huge status-quo-shaking soft reboot when Alan Moore took over the writing tasks of Swamp Thing in the early 80's, revamping the story to go from the classic pulp sci-fi into the more spiritual mixture of sci-fi and magic that Swamp Thing is generally known for these days. The title of that issue is "Anatomy Lesson", which this episode's title homages.
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