Category: Directed by Carol Banker

Swamp Thing (2019) s01e04 – Darkness on the Edge of Town

I’ve been trying really hard with Maria Sten, who plays Crystal Reed’s bestie. Sten’s just in the show to ask Reed what she’s going to do next or what she’s just done. Last episode, it seemed like Sten was going to have a reporter subplot, but it was just to set up Will Patton for later. In this episode, they don’t even pretend Sten will get anything to do for herself. She’s around for her dad, Al Mitchell, to get infected with a supernatural swamp bug, but just so she can call Reed into the subplot. It’s a bad part.

And Sten’s not good in it.

Maybe she’ll turn it around. But it’s four episodes in, and she’s worse with better dialogue. This episode’s got the least bad lines so far; writing credit to Erin Maher and Kay Reindl. It’s still lots of bad lines, but much fewer than before. And there’s character subtext for the first time ever: Patton wants to adopt little orphan Elle Graham, but is it because he misses having a daughter or because Graham proves a good control for intemperate wife Virginia Madsen? It’s a wild plot for Patton this episode. He starts burying a dead body and ends buying his wife a granddaughter.

But, in the context of dark soap opera, it’s a plus for the series. And Madsen’s fine. Jennifer Beals is still solid, Kevin Durand’s still out there in the right way, and other cast members are evening out. Jeryl Prescott and Ian Ziering only seem to exist during their scenes in episodes, but this time around, the show knows how to package the subplot.

Then there’s Swamp Thing Derek Mears and newly reunited pal Reed. The show provides no context for Mears’s journey of discovery with his new existence—the plants are talking to him, and he knows how to grow trees—but from a horror angle. The show never tries to give Mears’s perspective, including when he’s never on time to meet Reed in the swamp. She goes out three times, and despite saying he can feel her presence immediately, he always takes forever to get there. So what’s he off doing?

Swamp Thing started as sci-fi horror mixed with regular horror, but the show has a real hard time with it. Maybe because they aren’t doing the sci-fi. There are a couple times there’s atrocious dialogue, but the show can get away with it because there’s nothing else they can do at that moment. They’ve boxed themselves into this supernatural threat-of-the-week format, and the only way out is through.

There are some secret origin hints about Reed; she has a nightmare about her greatest fear, and it’s not killing Madsen’s daughter; it’s something else, meaning the Madsen and Patton dead daughter storyline gets pushed some more instead of just dealt with. Hidden secret soap operas are so lazy.

Anyway.

It’s the best Reed’s been, and Mears’s still all right.

Doom Patrol (2019) s01e12 – Cyborg Patrol

The episode opens with Cyborg (Joivan Wade) imprisoned by the U.S. government—led by Jon Briddell, who is still nowhere near good enough for his part and they also don’t explain how they went from him being missing two episodes ago to the main villain in this one—only Wade has turned off “Grid,” his cybernetics’ operating system so he’s powerless. Sort of? Eventually Wade gets to do the “try and escape from my obviously escape-proof cell, which has a lot of vents” thing but it’s after he does a whole whiney thing about not being a superhero anymore.

It’s awful in a few ways.

But once Wade meets next-door neighbor, a very amusing Devan Long, who apparently hasn’t shaved or cut his hair in sixty years, the episode gets on a little surer footing; Long sits around and watches soap operas; he tells Wade to chill.

Meanwhile, back at Doom Manor (yep), Diane Guerrero is mad because no one’s paying attention to her wanting to call her first team meeting. Eventually everyone gets there and they decide not to tell Wade’s dad, Phil Morris, about the kidnapping. They’re going to handle it on their own. It’s an interesting scene because Guerrero and April Bowlby have a lot more information about Wade’s current problems than Matt Bomer or Robotman (Brendan Fraser and Riley Shanahan). It seems like it might go somewhere.

It doesn’t because Morris shows up immediately, demanding to see Wade, and they immediately change their minds and tell him. Only then Morris decides he’s going to lead the mission himself and it takes some convincing to get the team to go along with him.

The episode’s that adventure, which has its ups and downs, what must be comic book guest cameo and what one only hopes can be (hashtag beware the butts), and a fairly effective—albeit obvious and predictable—conclusion. There’s some good acting from the regular cast in their action episode, plus great acting from Morris, who really isn’t going to get the credit for the dramatic he deserves; Alicia Ying’s a wonderful guest star.

Mac Wells is so bad you wish Guerrero would kill him to get their scene over with. And when it does finally turn into Guerrero’s scene… they kind of punt as far as having her execute it. “Doom Patrol”’s way too comfortable asking for a pass on Guerrero’s performance.

Good script—Robert Berens and Shoshana Sachi—good performances, not super-impressed sets.

The secret underground lab looks less impressive than the one in Return of Swamp Thing, complete with some Brazil homage. Still doesn’t look particularly good.

And Briddell’s a real drag.

But otherwise….