I wasn’t expecting this episode to start with a corpse falling from a tree. How did it even get up there in the first place? Still cool, in a darkly comedic way.
This episode is shorter than the previous one, resulting in a more evenly paced story, which is good. Crystal Reed is great as per usual. I’ve noticed that Swamp Thing is talking more than what I had expected. He has a more natural and normal way of speaking. This is in contrast to the comics, where he speaks in broken sentences because of his biology. They way he speaks in this show works and I actually kind of like it. It makes sense for this medium of story telling.
Anyway, the story centers around a “disease”, or more accurately called a Darkness by Swamp Thing, that spreads from person to person through broken skin contact. It eventually gets into Abby, who returns to the swamp because Alec told her that it belongs in the swamp. He takes the Darkness from Abby and returns it to the corpse. Now, this Darkness shows the infected their worst fear. For Abby, it is a faceless man threatening to take her away from her mother, something she had nightmares about as a young child. It seems like this is a soft introduction of Anton Arcane, the most iconic villain of Swamp Thing and the uncle of Abby Arcane. Chances are they will confirm this somehow due to the most likely fact the character probably originally had a bigger role back when the show was planned for multiple reasons. If he does end up showing up in the remains episodes though, I will be pleasantly surprised.
There is also a sub plot where Avery secretly pays the Coyle family for them to “adopt” Susie, patient zero. The show at first shows that he does this to see his wife Maria happy again. But it’s obvious there are plans he has for her. Cassidy gets more mysterious, having a small role in this episode. I am more intrigued by him, mainly because I didn’t know much about him prior to this show. But I’m looking forward to more of him.
Anyway, I think this is for a sure better than the previous episode. I am eagerly looking forward to see him much more of the mystical/supernatural they will be able to put into the remaining episodes. What are your thoughts?