Swamp Thing S01 E09: The Anatomy Lesson (review)

Previously on Swamp Thing, the bad guys came out on top. The Conclave, Jason Woodrue, and Avery Sunderland abducted Holland from the swamp and moved him to a mobile lab in Marai.

Abby was left out in the cold with no idea about her status with the CDC or the whereabouts of her friend Dr. Edwards, and it looked like all hope was lost.

Now, all hope is definitely lost because everything we’ve known up to this point is a lie!

Spoilers ahead

It’s important to remember that Jason Woodrue has a wife named Caroline and she is suffering from an advanced stage of Alzheimer’s. In this episode we see Caroline get progressively worse even while taking her medicine. Because she’s getting worse, Jason is motivated to experiment on Holland to develop a miracle cure for her.

As a result of Woodrue’s desperation, Holland is abducted from the swamp, placed on a table with power damping technology, and in a medically induced coma for exploratory surgery.

“You’re not a man at all. You’re a plant that thinks its a man.” – Jason Woodrue

At some point during this surgery, he wakes up. Despite expressing that he can feel everything Woodrue proceeds taking out organs, yanking them at points to observe them.

Woodrue concludes that Holland is not the man on the table. The man on the table is a memory shell made up of the plants from the swamp. He suspects that during the explosion at Skeeter Cove, Alec Holland died. However, due to the mutagens in the water affecting the plants, his DNA mixed with the mutagens and the plants formed this body and tried to replicate the human condition, specifically Holland’s memories.

WHAT!

So Woodrue’s theory is that the Swamp Thing is not Holland after all!

“I don’t care. I’m not giving up on Alec.” – Abby Arcane

While all of this is happening, Abby asks Liz to help her find where they are keeping Holland. At the same time, Daniel Cassidy wakes up at the hospital and finds the swamp stranger (the one from the movie set) at his bedside.

The swamp stranger shows him a vision of a possible future of Liz and Abby getting shot up via the Conclave while looking for Holland.

What is the swamp stranger exactly? He just comes out of nowhere when he feels like it.

Anyway, Cassidy fights the urge to be Blue Devil and save Liz and Abby but eventually, he succumbs to either temptation or guilt and goes to help.

In real-time, Abby and Liz find out about Caroline’s condition and conveniently about the mobile lab. So they go to the lab and almost get shot up, but this time the lights go out, the Blue Devil tears all of the Conclave soldiers to shreds, and then runs away after he’s spotted by Liz and Abby.

He must have passed out because he wakes up later in the episode in human form and sees all of the carnage he has caused.

Abby and Liz make it to Holland in the lab and watch him regenerate after being cut to bits. Then he stands up and says that he has to go back to Skeeter Cove to see if Woodrue is right. Abby follows him and Liz goes to investigate the group we know as the Conclave.

Meanwhile, Avery has Maria locked up in a psych ward because she tried to have him killed. Matt Cable gets drunk in a bar and then crashes into a pole while driving.

Don’t drink and drive folks.

“This ‘thing’ is what I am, Alec Holland is …” – The Swamp Thing

Abby and Holland make it to Skeeter Cove and Holland dives into the water. He slowly rises with a rotting skeleton in his arms. The actual corpse of Alec Holland. He died in episode one and was replicated due to the mutagen in the swamp.

How bazaar!

I think this is the biggest surprise of the season. Especially when you think back to Holland and Abby having the moment in the swamp where the Swamp Thing looked like Holland due to the pheromones he released.

How will they wrap up this season?

Will Avery get away with everything or is he in trouble now that Swamp Thing has escaped? Or will he have to answer to the Conclave?

What will Abby do now that the truth about Alec’s death is out?

Can Daniel Cassidy leave Marai now since he saved Abby and Liz?

Is Maria stuck in the hospital forever?

Is Matt Cable dead from the car accident?

Will Jason give up now that Caroline’s condition is worse?

And most importantly, what will the Swamp Thing do now since he’s not a real person?

I can’t wait until the season finale!

Previous episode – Swamp Thing S01 E08: The Long Walk Home (review)