To coincide with the airing of Swamp Thing on the CW, we are re-broadcasting our reviews of the series from its original airing on the DC Universe platform. If there are any differences in the episodes aired on the CW (edits for time or content, for example), those changes will not be reflected in our reviews.
Welcome my fine fen-walkers and muck-lurkers to this first recap of the new DC Universe show, Swamp Thing! I am relatively new to the site, although I did work with my girlfriend Kate Kosturski on bingeing the first season of The Expanse last summer, so please be gentle with me. Just kidding, I look forward to interacting with everyone on this show. I should probably note here that I have never read any of the comics, so I am blindly diving into this as a longtime fan of science fiction and horror. My reactions and thoughts are mainly going to focus on those aspects. I am still arguing with myself about whether I should read up more on the character and binge through some of his noteworthy comics or watch it without any preconceived ideas of what to expect.
Enough on that for now though, lets dive into the murky depths of this episode.
1. Opening Titles
As this is the first episode, this is the first time we get to see the opening title sequence and it seems like a good time to talk about them. After a violent and chilling cold open, Swamp Thing leans heavily in pushing its dark atmospheric aesthetics in its opening credits. They are beautiful in that way we have come to expect in this era of Peak TV. We are treated to a series of imagery that evokes the aura of the swamp and items that we learn are connected to the series. Not only do these titles help set the expectations for the episode we are about to watch, but it focuses on ideas and themes that may seem important through the series. Here, go watch it, don’t worry I’ll wait for you, and then we can talk some more.
One motif that caught my attention on rewatching the titles is the imagery of drowning that is repeated through the sequence. We see imagery of bodies underwater and at times our perspective is that of someone underwater. Combined with the dark gloomy nature of the settings, these are images created to set the viewer’s heart pounding, reaching out to the visceral fear we all have of being trapped in the suffocating darkness (yes even all you really brave folks have the tiniest inkling of this fear). The other noteworthy motif is how the viewpoint is set in a position to be half under and half above the water for much of the opening credits, such as in this very striking shot of a boat floating over a giant skull.
This half view can speak to many different themes that we are likely to encounter during this series. For example, the swamp itself is often considered to be a halfway place – existing as both a place of land and water, with many amphibious creepy crawlies. The figure of Swamp Thing is someone caught halfway between the worlds of man and nature. Our main character is trapped halfway between insider and outsider to the community of Marais, Louisiana. I think we are going to see many more explorations of halfway existences before this season is through.
On a final note, I would like to also recognize the funereal opening music composed by Brian Tyler (Avengers Age of Ultron and Sleepy Hollow) which also does a really effective job settling us into the atmosphere of the show we are about to watch.
2. Abby Arcane
We are first introduced to our main character for this episode while she is far away from our setting in Louisiana, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She works for the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service which is a really awesome and scary job where she gets sent to treat epidemic hotspots around the world. While trying to aid an infected patient, her partner is threatened by the patient’s protective brother wielding a machete. Abby comes in, removes her protective hood, and speaks French to calm the frightened boy. This introduction works to show us several aspects of her character: she acts calmly under pressure and is someone that steps in to defuse a dangerous situation; she is compassionate and empathetic, traits which help endear her to viewers as our connection to this world; and she can be reckless, putting herself in extreme danger if she feels that it is warranted (and when it’s not, but I’ll talk on that in the next point). In a striking coincidence (something that is actually pointed out by another character later on), Abby and her partner get called back to the US to treat an unknown infection striking her hometown.
Continued belowUpon returning home, Abby becomes the viewer’s surrogate to examining the mystery of the outbreak and other happenings in Marais. She conveniently grew up in the town, so has a level of local knowledge that simplifies her navigation of the community, but also has been away long enough to still encounter a lot of unknown that is necessary to create the tensions for drama and horror. We find that her leaving of Marais is connected to a specific trauma, though only the briefest skeleton of what happened is given to us. I am predicting we are going to get a flashback episode sometime during this season that will help fill in the gap. Hopefully it will not be something that curbs too much momentum for the show.
Abby is played by Crystal Reed, who we last saw playing the villainous Sofia Falcone on Fox’s Gotham. It’s nice seeing people moving on from that show into new things.
Can we also acknowledge her perfectly comic-booky alliterative name? It would be really hard to avoid a double-take if someone was introduced to me by that name.
3. Epidemiological Safety
I have always been fascinated by disease outbreaks and the doctors who stand on the front lines keeping us safe from deadly threats that we cannot see. I grew up on a steady diet of books like Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain and Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone, so I was a little bothered by some of the liberties taken by Abby, who is an experienced epidemiologist, regarding exposure to whatever pathogen was causing the outbreak. We already acknowledged her reckless behavior when she may have exposed herself to a hemorrhagic virus in the Congo, and she even recognizes it was a dumb thing to do. Later on when she is first in the hospital she very sensibly tells everyone to always wear masks, gloves, and goggles for anyone interacting with patients. Infuriatingly, she then proceeds to disregard all of this for the rest of the episode. She goes out to the house of Patient Zero where she meets a sheriff’s deputy, who turns out to be an old friend, and then enters the house where someone with an unknown pathogen lives and her only concession to safety is putting on gloves. At this point they still have no freakin’ clue what is causing the sickness, how it is transmitted, or even where the patient became sick. She puts both herself and the sheriff’s deputy at danger of infection. This is compounded later on when we see Abby starting an autopsy on an infected corpse they find in the patient’s house. Once again, I want to point out that they know absolutely nothing about this disease yet, but there she is stabbing a scalpel into a body without a mask or goggles! Not only is she risking herself (again!) in this fashion, she also risks the life of her new-found biologist friend, Alec Holland (who also is not properly dressed for lab work).
C’mon lady, you’re dealing with a serious infection here that you know nothing about! Can’t you at least take some precautions?
4. Stylings of Horror
Dread.
It is such a fine word, isn’t it? When you say it, it lands with a definite thud like a large book being dropped on the table. Dread often carries a negative connotation with it, yet it is a feeling that fans of horror chase after and relish. A large part of why we consume fiction is to feel an elevated emotion, and nothing gets our hearts racing than a really good scare after a subtle twisting of tension.
While this first episode does not quite deliver that heart-racing scare (though there are moments it comes close), it does a fine job of building the tension and introducing the viewers to the dreadful atmosphere that lingers around Marais, Louisiana. It does a lot of this by playing with perspective. The camera view is often set so that we see the character’s reaction to something, rather what that something is. This leaves us our imaginations to create what the character is fearing, and our imaginations will always do a much better job than any effect on a television screen. The cinematography keeps the viewer myopic in ways, so that we are constantly on edge about what the character will find around the next corner.
Continued belowEven in the parts where we get to see directly the horrors reaching out from the swamp, the effects are alien and unexpected. In many films and shows where we see vegetation grow rapidly, it’s a smooth growth. But Swamp Thing went a different route. When we see vegetation grow it happens in spurts and pauses, in a jagged fashion. This only adds to the alien and unknown aspects of whatever Abby and crew are dealing with.
The unfortunate nature of horror, though, is that familiarity breeds contempt, or at least apathy. What worked well to create dread in this first episode can only continue to work in the future if used sparingly. We will need the writers and directors to try new tricks to keep us on edge and dealing with the unfamiliar and uncomfortable.
I feel I need to also recognize a way in which the episode plays with our expectations of horror. When Abby and her friend-deputy, Matt, are investigating the patient’s home we get the good old-fashioned THUMP on the floor above with other creepy noises. Now as horror fans, we all know that Abby is going to make the unwise decision to investigate and we start steeling ourselves for the jump scare that we know is going to happen. She will follow the noise, it will lead to a closed door, she’ll open the door, and some monstrous horror leap out at her. Most of this happens, though instead of the monstrous horror we find a figure under a blanket sawing at the wood of the house. Another horror expectation-Abby will pull back the blanket and there will be a horrific monster. Again, we’re set for the jump scare. Except it does not come, because the figure was merely the strange man from the hospital. Good on you Swamp Thing for playing with our feelings like that.
5. The Swamp
This episode works largely as an origin-story for our titular character, Swamp Thing. We get the pretty standard comics origin story of a person exposed to biological agent/radiation/alien force/etc. which transform them into the hero that we all know and love. So at the very end of the episode, we get to briefly see Swamp Thing. This actually threw me for a bit of a loop, because throughout the episode we had seen aspects of the swamp seemingly act with intent. For most of the episode, I thought it was Swamp Thing directing that intent, but obviously it must have been something else. At one point in the episode, Avery Sunderland, the town’s rich man, talks about the spirit of the Swamp and how it has always provided for the people of Marais (thanks to his contributions, of course).
While much of the episode stays pretty grounded and focused on scientific reasoning (beyond the cognitive leap we must take about the extremely bioactive mutagen), the actions we see the Swamp take may connect to a deeper mystery and power. Something that the mutagen dumping managed to awaken and enrage. Roman mythology presents with the concept of the genius loci or the protective spirit of a place. These genii locorum are usually tied to places of great power or with great importance. Being natural spirits, they are neither good nor evil, but work to protect the lands they are bound to. I hope that we get to learn more of whatever exists in the Swamp, as we learn more of Swamp Thing and his motivations.
Stray thoughts
This episode does a lot of really heavy lifting and introduces us to so much of the world in Marais, Louisiana. Too much for me to really cover in this format, and I have already rambled on enough. I hope that in future episodes, the show will return to some of the other things I noticed in this episode, so I can cover them in more detail.
– Maria Sunderland, played by the marvelous Virginia Madsen, is quite a piece of work and I really look forward to seeing her strike up against Abby some more and to learn more of what happened between them.
– Who was the guy in the swamp that shot Alec? Also, I’m trying to figure out whether it was cool or not that he used a crossbow to launch a stick of dynamite.
Continued below– Who is behind the dumping of the growth mutagen in various places around the swamp. It doesn’t seem like it could be Sunderland since Holland didn’t know about it, but who knows?
– A character with a name like Abby Arcane sounds like she should be hanging around with the magic side of the DC universe like Zatanna and John Constantine. I sort of hope there ends up being some mystical connection in the show.
– Obviously the old black lady at the bar is going to be important somehow. Probably linked to something voodoo related, since we see tarot cards among the images shown in the opening credits.
So that’s all I have for this week. Thank you for joining me and I would love to talk more with you all down in the comments. Until next week, try to keep your feet dry when you go wandering in the Swamp!
