Swamp Thing – Pilot

By starrymag | October 13, 2020

By: Atiya Irvin-Mitchell

 

 

It’s nighttime and we see three men on a swamp in a boat. They seem to be looking for a drop zone. One man admits he hates being this far in at night. The computer starts beeping and the second man says he’s got it, the drop zone is just beyond the trees. They stop and drop crates into the water. That should be the end of it but the boat won’t start. Also ,something is moving in the water. Whatever it is yanks the boat around and pulls one of the men, Eddie (John Bishop), under. The roots are growing rapidly and headed towards the boat until they skewer one of the men and tosses the other into the water.

 

Elsewhere, an elementary school class is in session, but a little girl named Susie (Elle Graham) is struggling to pay attention. She seems to be having trouble breathing and gets a nosebleed. Susie tries to get her teacher’s attention to no avail. She stands up and collapses.

 

Somewhere in the Congo we meet Abby Arcane (Crystal Reed), sort of. Two people in hazmat suits approach a very scared little boy wielding a knife in front of a little girl. To calm him down Abby takes her mask off and explains to him in French that they’re doctors with the CDC and just want to help his sister. Abby promises he can stay with his sister and he agrees to cooperate.

 

Later Abby and Harlan (Leonardo Nam), her partner of sorts, talk about Abby having just risked hemorrhagic fever, but how ultimately she saved the kids. Unrelated, he got a phone call from Atlanta. There’s a situation in the states. When he gives her the file she’s surprised.

 

They go to Marais, Louisiana where Abby is from but hasn’t visited in a long time. There is a mysterious disease which has infected four people – Susie who collapsed in class and a few folks who’ve come in contact with her. Nothing the doctors have tried works and it’s spreading.

 

Abby goes to visit Susie, who has possibly coughed up a leaf. She’s sidetracked by a man who doesn’t appear to be a doctor looking over her file. Apparently, he’s done this kind of thing before as the hospital security promptly escorts him out. He tells Abby she’ll need to speak with him eventually.

 

We learn about Susie. Her mother is dead and her father is nowhere to be found. His name is Eddie, so this might be one of the men from the boat. Abby goes to Eddie and Susie’s house and runs into a police officer named Matt (Henderson Wade). They’re old friends and they poke around inside and finds Alec Holland (Andy Bean) doing an investigation of his own. He’s a biologist that Avery Sutherland hired and he’s trying to collect samples. They look into the next room and see branches everywhere.

 

Abby is not interested in talking to Alec, but he tells her the answers are in the swamp. He’s got a dog named Garu and explains that the swamp has a new mutation. When he introduces the swamp water to a small moss sample it grows beyond its container. In the meantime, Eddie Coyle’s body is ready for an autopsy. She tells Alec to meet her at the hospital.

 

Prior to the autopsy we go to church and meet Avery (Will Patton). He’s trying to calm the locals down. Apparently, the swamp is a lifeline for the town as without it a lot of fishermen are out of work. Some residents believe that corporations polluting the swamp are to blame. Avery promises to cover any medical costs if it comes to that. He also owns a lab and his father died in the swamp when he was a child. He explains that he thinks the future (medications and fertilizers) are in the swamp. Avery points out that he could’ve left the town a long time ago, but he chooses to stay because it’s home.  After the meeting Avery and Alec have a confrontation. Avery fired Alec because he says the town doesn’t need a panic.

 

Abby and Alec start the autopsy and talk more about Susie. She’s not responding to the meds. There are roots springing from the body. Not only that, but the corpse is now sitting upright. In her hospital room Susie has jolted awake and is having trouble breathing. These two things could be related. In the morgue the roots are spreading throughout the room and grabbing everything they can get their hands on. At one point that includes Abby but Alec saves her. After the close call Susie makes an appearance in the hallway, screams for her father and then faints.

 

Abby runs out of the room and grabs the now unconscious little girl. Still in the room Alec uses rubbing alcohol to start a fire, torching the body. Upstairs Abby is trying to save the now Code Blue Susie. Downstairs Alec uses the fire extinguisher on the body, which appears dead again. The good news is Abby manages to successfully administer CPR to Susie, but that still leaves a lot of questions.

 

When the doctors check in with each other, while the fire department comb over the morgue, they wonder what to do next. Abby says they can’t just sit there as she wants to go check something out. It involves bourbon. They take a boat to a bar where everyone in Marais hangs out. Her friend Liz (Maria Sten), who is a reporter, might be able to give them some answers about what’s been happening. When they find Liz she’s happy to see Abby, but when she makes it clear that she’s in town for work reasons Liz notes that she should’ve known it’d take a medical meltdown to bring her home.

 

Abby asks Liz if she’s seen anything strange at the docks lately. Liz explains whatever is happening must be bad because of how tight lipped everyone’s being. Normally the town thrives on gossip. However, there were some murmurs of someone hiring boats to go out onto the swamp at night. No one knows who, but Eddie Coyle’s boat was never found and neither was the man he crewed with. The talk is interrupted by Maria Sutherland (Virginia Madsen) who wants to speak with Abby alone. Abby has a flashback of Maria pointing accusingly at her, so presumably their last encounter wasn’t pleasant.

 

Maria gets straight to the point. There are five thousand people employed at the CDC, so wonders why did they have to send Abby. Abby says she’s good at her job and she wanted to help. They talk about Abby’s time in college. Well, Maria does most of the talking. She says while Abby was partying at school Maria crawled into a bottle over the loss of her daughter. It got so bad that Avery nearly divorced her, but then with his help she realized it wasn’t her fault – it was Abby’s. She demands that Abby promise to save Susie, but the minute she’s better she wants her gone. Abby agrees and Maria leaves.

 

They go to the swamp and find the previously M.I.A boat, which has been skewered by branches. They also find a laptop. Alec scales the branches (which feels like a bad life choice) and realizes the boat was meant to release a mystery substance into the water. At Alec’s apartment they test the substance and talk. It turns out Alec is disgraced for manipulating the data of an experiment to support his conclusion. Maria, Abby says, blames her for her daughter Shawna’s death. Why? Shawna and Abby were best friends. The Sunderlands practically raised her, but two days before she killed Shawna. The results are in and it’s a biological accelerant. But why is someone dumping it in the swamp?

 

Abby plans to check in at the hospital and Alec goes back to the swamp. He wants to make sure there are no more vials of the accelerant in the swamp. Abby talks with Harlan and asks that he get her access to the hospital’s lab to go over some new findings. He’ll get right on it, but in the meantime things get dark at the swamp. A hooded figure approaches Alec at the swamp. He asks what they need and gets shot three times in response. Then, the figure fires a flaming bow onto the boat. Alec jumps into the water just before the explosion, but due to the bleeding that might not improve his chances of survival.

 

Abby sees the explosion from the house. Miraculously, Alec survived it. He tries to swim back to the dock. Unfortunately, he gets pulled under and invaded by the very much alive roots. Abby comes to try and search for him, but he’s nowhere in sight. The roots start reaching onto the boat Abby’s on and flip it over pushing her into the swamp. That’s not the end of her troubles. She’s approached by a creature (Derek Mears) covered in moss and sees a body. Suddenly, the roots stop, but the creature doesn’t. She reaches land and runs.