Swamp Thing debuts new episodes every Friday on the DC Universe streaming service.
Swamp Thing stars Crystal Reed, Andy Bean, Derek Mears, Jennifer Beals, Henderson Wade, Will Patton, Virginia Madsen, Jeryl Prescott, Henderson Wade and Kevin Durand.
Synopsis
Increasingly alienated from humanity after being hunted by sheriff’s deputies and animal trackers, Swamp Thing struggles to understand his strange condition. Reassuring him that they will find a cure for his condition, Abby and Swamp Thing are discovered by Matt who learns the truth about Alec Holland. Meanwhile, Avery pressures Woodrue to deliver results, which escalates his experiments with Swamp Thing’s genetic materials and leads him to a test on Daniel Cassidy; while Lucilia Cable gets some perspective on her son’s recent actions.
Review
With only four episodes remaining episode 6 of Swamp Thing feels a little like treading water. The difference between Swamp Thing treading water and other shows is that is does it by blindsiding audiences with a whole lot of other awesome storylines.
“The Price You Pay” is more of love letter episode to Ian Ziering’s Blue Devil as the episode flashes back to just how he ended up trapped in Marais. This episode is/was clearly setting him up for a much bigger role which may not have time to happen due to the limited time the show has remaining.
Though he goes unnamed we’re seemingly introduced to Neron in this episode, a character that fans of Legends of Tomorrow has become very accustomed to this season. His appearance and the conversations between Abby and Alec regarding The Green really tie this episode in to the much wider dark side of the DCU which was very cool to watch.
But does this episode add anything major to the series overall plot line?
Outside of Alec being hunted by Avery Sunderland’s goons and Matt discovering the creatures true identity, he is once again a little left out on the periphery.
By this point in the season I had hoped that Swamp Thing himself would be a little bit more involved in the action. Whilst the actions of Avery, Abby and Jason Woodrue all circle around the titular creature he still has very limited screen time in this episode.
Crystal Reed once again carries the episode although she does have to share it with Ziering. The two do an equally good job of carrying their own scenes but Ziering edges out Reed this week as MVP purely because he has a little more scenery to chomp on than she does.
The series has really dialled back on the gore in its last couple of episodes which I’m finding quite sad. That being said it’s still doing a great job of all the other aspects of the show. This episode features some particularly emotional scenes.
The exchange between Matt and Lucilia is of note. It goes a long way to showing just how much Avery Sunderland has control over all the major players in Marais. If I didn’t already dislike the character I certainly did after this episode!
Verdict
Things got a little muddy in the swamp this week as the series tries to balance multiple plot threads. Luckily for us it does it so well nobody will notice that Swamp Thing himself is barely in the episode.
9/10
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