Abbey walking into a no good situation. Photo courtesy of KSiteTV.
Please Keep In Mind That This Article Contains Potential Spoilers For “A Long Walk Home” and Events That Occurred Prior
Avery became a far more interesting character this week. We got to follow him in the trenches of the swamp after just narrowly avoiding death. Needless to say, he wasn’t having an easy time. His hallucinations gave us some fantastic horror beats (shoutout to Lucilia’s plant-mouth-explosion). These hallucinations weren’t just all for scares—no, we got to see more of Avery’s psyche. Not only that, but we got some new information on his past. In particular, learning about how the swamp killed his father when he was younger (and how he has already been exposed to some of the more supernatural elements of everything) was the stand out detail.
Even more interesting than all of that, was seeing Avery with Holland. We finally got to see the two together, and it wasn’t in the context we were expecting. What really made this scene unique was how Avery wasn’t on the attack—or even angling to take down Alec. I mean yes. He was hesitant, scared, and guarded at first. But who wouldn’t be? It was when Avery started to realize that Alec had saved his life that his demeanor changed. An intriguing sense of honor started to show within Avery, something that is certainly a surprise to see out of such a grimy character. I truly do believe that coming out of the lab, Avery had every intention of sticking to his word in trying to cure Holland. Sure, there was still stuff in it for himself, but he made a clear point to Alec about changing him back into the man that he once was. That might have all stuck too. If only it wasn’t for our resident shady doctor.
Don’t think this is going to end well. Photo courtesy of KSiteTV.
Dr. Woodrue has never really been a good guy in the show, but he hasn’t really hit pure villain status yet. This episode however, inched him closer to the side of evil. Influenced by the successful financing meeting with The Conclave, and with newly promised lab equipment and facilities, Woodrue did not have Alec’s best interests at heart. His curiosity, and desire to find the cure for his wife, led him to immediately talking down the rarely seen common decency from Avery. I very much enjoyed seeing Woodrue’s intense facinication take hold the moment he saw Alec in the swamp. He had no interest that this thing was once an ordinary man. He saw this lack of ordinary as nothing but a blessing to save the world with. For me, Woodrue is shaping up to be one of the show’s strongest characters. As for the sequence where Swamp Thing is apprehended—well, it was great. Swamp Thing in action has yet to disappoint.
Having left Alec in the swamp, Abbey was none the wiser to all of these events going down. Instead, Abbey returned to the CDC in Atlanta. While she planned on trying to find some answers for Alec, she didn’t quite come close to achieving that goal. It has been awhile since we’ve seen Harlan, so it was nice to be able to catch up with and include him in the proceedings. I honestly kind of forgot that the two were good friends, so seeing them bond was another refreshing reminder. Also, seeing Abbey’s life outside of Marais is something we don’t get much of—so I appreciate the little that we do get. When it came to Abbey’s hurdles in getting test results, I really loved how quickly The Conclave plot intertwined with Abbey’s path. A deal was struck just last episode, and they are already making their presence known.
“A Long Walk Home” was a solid episode, one that really did great things for both Dr. Woodrue and Avery. Now that Woodrue has Alec for his experimenting pleasure, it’s in Abbey’s court to save The Swamp Thing. Though, one does have to wonder how they plan on keeping him under control for long. I do praise the show for picking up it’s pace overall, however I do still feel that we should know more about this darkness. In fact, at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if the show ends without any new information on the matter—which would be a shame.
You can catch new episodes of Swamp Thing when they air on DC Universe streaming network every Friday.
