Synopses
Ep. 1: A group of fisherman are out fishing with explosives and something big starts spinning the boat around. The trees start rapidly growing-and impale one guy- Credits Roll
Dr. Arcane is working with kids with hemhorragic fever in the Congo when she learns of a new case in Louisiana. She’s with the CDC.
They go to the sick girl’s home, and it’s covered in plants. It’s been taken over by plants. They find the one guy who escaped from the fishing boat, but he’s “become” a plant.
There’s a weird guy named Holland who is investigating the weird occurrences. He works for the town big-shot, Mr. Sunderland, and wants to work with Arcane to solve the mystery. Sunderland then fires Holland.
They go to Holland’s lab where he is trying to identify a whole new strain of mutagen. It makes plants grow at an insane rate.
During the man’s autopsy, he sprouts and goes full “The Thing” on Holland and Arcane, chasing them around the morgue until they set it on fire.
Dr. Arcane was friends with the daughter of the richest man in town, but when the girl committed suicide, the girl’s parents blamed Abby. They have not gotten over it.
Holland & Arcane find the fisherman’s boat, grown into a tree. It turns out the fisherman were dumping accelerant chemicals into the swamp; none of this is accidental.
Holland goes out to find other accelerant-release containers, but someone shoots him and throws dynamite into his boat. He falls into the water and is absorbed by the plants.
Abby sees the explosion and goes out looking for him, but instead finds… Swamp Thing!
Ep. 2: Susie, the sick girl, escapes from the hospital, and S.T. rescues her. Abby sees him very clearly. It is made clear that old man Sunderland is behind dumping the accelerant in the swamp. Susie explains to Abby that S.T. told her his name was “Alec.’
Episode 3: The disease is spreading. The man S.T. killed in the previous episode has re-assembled and is walking around spitting flies at people. We find out that Sunderland and the sheriff are… close. Mrs. Sunderland is hearing voices. The “cockroach man” comes after Abby, but S.T. intervenes violently. Sunderland kills the town banker after the banker threatens to go public about “The Conclave.”
Episode 4: Some guys find a corpse in the swamp, and one of them is “bitten.” He freaks out and maims his own arm. Arcane goes looking for Alec, and he gives her some DNA to examine. The “arm guy” infects Delroy, who then infects the sheriff who then infects Abby. S.T. says “the darkness always finds a new host, but this ‘thing’ belongs in the swamp.” The thing jumps into Abby, and she takes it back to the swamp. She has visions of the thing that scares her the most, which I assume is her father; this is probably some set up for the non-existent season 2’s villain.
Commentary
The biggest flaw I noticed in the series is that this swamp had no alligators, mosquitoes, snakes, or any nasty wildlife other than the villains.
… And there we go. It was budgeted for around 80 million, but the state of North Carolina promised to give the producers 40 million for filming there, and either due to a mistake or someone changing their mind, that never happened. Not only was the show far over budget, but they reduced the first season from 19 episodes down to 10 and butchered episode ten to wrap up as many threads as possible.
Episodes 1-9 were slow and excellent, but episode 10 killed any goodwill I had toward the series. The final after-credit scene is where the series should have been by episode five, and showed some great promise, but knowing the show was cancelled after the first episode just taints the entire experience.