Swamp Thing S1E02: He Said His Name Is Alec

Episode 2 “Worlds Apart” picks up where episode 1 ended. As Sheriff Lucilia Cable arrives with a team of boats searching for Alec Holland, Abby Arcane warns Lucilia of the illegal dumping of toxic chemicals but the Sheriff tells Abby to go on home. The Sheriff’s son, Matt, argues that something was seen moving through the trees to which Lucilia brushes off saying she’ll be on the lookout for any bears that might have come down from Canada.

But something is lumbering through the swamp…something resembling a man but is not a man. Something that once went by the name Alec Holland. And in a Marais hospital, young Susie Coyle feels his pain.

Abby decides the only one who might have answers is Alec Holland’s former employer, Avery Sunderland, the father of Abby’s deceased friend Shawna who Avery’s wife, Maria, blames Abby for the death of her daughter. Abby asks for permission to check out Alec’s lab and is refused due to proprietary information that may be in the lab (that Avery might be able to capitalize on).

Maria, meanwhile, has gone to see Madame Xanadu, a blind spiritualist, because Maria believes she’s hearing Shawna try to communicate with her. As Madame Xanadu tries to reach into Maria’s mind a powerful force throws them apart. Madame Xanadu (Nimue) says “There’s been a shift in the balance of the light and the dark…Something’s out there. I touched it. Something vast, dark, and growing in the awful and the rot of the swamp”.

Abby’s friend, Liz Tremayne, takes her to a guy named Daniel Cassidy (Ian Ziering) who runs a video store and was renting a room above the store to Alec. Danny is an actor who is best known for his portrayal of comic book hero Blue Devil. He tells the two women that police have already been there and have taken Alec’s computer but sometimes Alec did work on Danny’s computer. Abby pulls up some video files on Danny’s computer, a video diary of Alec’s work. As she looks through the videos the pain of Alec’s loss is clearly visible on Abby’s face.

Dr. Jason Woodrue (Kevin Durand) and his wife Caroline arrive at Avery Sunderland’s home. Some much needed exposition follows as we learn that Avery hired Dr. Woodrue to create the accelerant that’s being dumped into the swamp so Avery can harvest the results and monetize them. Woodrue denies that his accelerant has anything to do with the green flu that has sickened people in Marais.

Abby learns that Susie Coyle, the young daughter of Eddie Coyle whom Abby found dead last episode and who went all John Carpenter in the coroner’s lab, has gone missing and Abby, along with Deputy Matt Cable track her into the swamp. Susie has stowed away on Game Warden Robitelle’s boat and when Robi comes across Avery’s goons (one of which is Munson, the man who shot Alec), Munson stabs Robi through the neck with a harpoon hook. The Thing in the swamp that was once Alec Holland feels the swamp alert him to the danger.

Susie tries to make an escape and runs off into the swamp but Munson sees her and gives chase leading him to a confrontation with the man he killed who is no longer a man but a Swamp Thing. As Susie looks on, the Swamp Thing communes with the elements of the swamp and tears Munson limb from limb.

Abby arrives and gets her first look at the creature who was once Alec Holland. Susie tells Abby that the creature is afraid and doesn’t know what is happening to him. Abby: “He spoke to you? What else did he say?” Susie: “He said his name is Alec.”

By now many of you have heard that Swamp Thing was cancelled after the first episode premiered. No one really knows what the reason was or if it had anything to do with the series getting it’s order cut by 3 episodes. This is a real shame because Swamp Thing, in my opinion, has been the best show of the three that have aired so far (Titans and Doom Patrol being the other 2). As of this writing Titans is the only show getting a second season which is expected to hit in early 2020. Star Girl is another show which is still supposed to air but has no date as it was pushed back from it’s original spot which was to follow after Swamp Thing finished. There are many rumors out there that that DCU may be scrapped altogether or perhaps folded into a larger Warner streaming service being planned to compete with Disney+. I think Swamp Thing feels like a much more solid story than either Titans or Doom Patrol…the latter which suffered from disjointed stories an overabundance of profanity. Eventually something will come to light to explain why the show wasn’t given a chance. While streaming services have their own way of measuring the success of a show, one episode seems hardly enough to pass judgement. I believe it was probably cancelled before it even aired.

This episode also featured characters from two other DC comics, Madame Xanadu and Blue Devil. I’m not familiar with the comics but I think it would be great to see Ian Ziering suit up as Blue Devil and go against Swamp Thing. I hate it when they tease a character such as Jessica Jones did with Patsy Walker but never delivered HellCat. We’ll just have to stay tuned and see what DC does. It does not seem likely to me that Swamp Thing could be saved on another platform by Save Our Show letter writing campaigns but perhaps if you really like the show you can let DCU know and ask them to give it another shot. The chances of saving a series are usually pretty low but it doesn’t hurt to try.

This week we are joined by The Collector who reports on the world of Collectibles in Comic-Watch’s The Collector’s Corner. Let see what he has for us!

That is definitely a gorgeous statue and very highly detailed. Perhaps we can get The Collector back with more Swamp Thing collectibles in the future.