If You See Swamp Thing, Say Swamp Thing
A moldy tupperware container who walks like a man!
Season One / Episode Seven : Touch of Death
Season One / Episode Seven : Touch of Death
Arcane and his bully boys are doing some night-hunting,
bagging a 220-pound hick in the prime of his life. Too bad it’s off-season, them
boys are gonna have to pay a hefty fine!
Turns out that the now-deceased swamp ‘bo is Mister MacCyrus
(Mark McCracken), and he’s been killed for an experiment. Arcane injects the
corpse with a version of the bio-restorative formula, expecting that it will
revive the still-warm victim. I don’t know what Arcane expects the injection to
do, really, since the guy’s heart has stopped and his blood isn’t moving
anymore. I mean, I’m no doctor, but neither is anyone who writes for this show.
In the not-too-distant future ... |
Disappointed at the lack of results, Arcane and his
jumpsuited sidekicks – they genuinely look like they’re wearing KTMA-era
Mystery Science Theater jumpsuits – beat cheeks back to the comfort of the
Sunderland Corp. Not long after they leave, though – ta-daa, undead swamp
cracker Captain Jack Harknesses himself from under a pile of wet leaves. He’s
alive! Alive! And he kills whatever he touches! Shit! Bummer!
Promptly thereafter, he busts in on Will and Doc working on
a boat, which sounds like a euphemism – and might be! Receiving a glancing
touch from the hill-zombie has gifted Will with his own death-touch, starting
with the family fish and unfortunately ending before a big group hug by all of
the cast that isn’t Mark Lindsay Chapman or Dick Durock.
We get it, you vape. |
While Will panics in the woods, Abigail has hired MacCyrus
to do a little work around the house – you know, chopping wood, killing plants,
killing pests, killing housepets. Handy stuff. Just as she’s about to get all fruity and
mystical and hippie nonsense and all that, Swamp Thing sweeps by and abducts
McCyrus, ideally to protect Abigail from the dude’s deadly touch. Swamp Thing
got speed!
But what he also has now is ONE HUMAN HAND! Yep, something
about McCyrus’ post-mortem intravenous absorption of the bio-restorative
formula not only kills people, but cures Swamp Thing! Or his hand, at least. It’s
a start.
"I am tired of these jokes about my human hand. The first such incident occurred in 1956 when..." |
Arcane muses over his comatose wife Tatiana, figuring out
that the bio-restorative formula only actually works on a subject after death.
It’s a neat trick, but you can only do it once.
Will comes home if only to be locked in a room together with
Abigail. It’s a young man’s fantasy but my fucking nightmare. Imagine if she
(gasp) starts talking about her dreams again! Anyway, she’s keeping Will under
wraps in the hopes that his death touch will eventually wear off. I can’t think
of how you’d check for such a thing, but Will’s a young man with natural urges
and I imagine all we have to do is wait and see if his dick dies. “My stack of
Playboys has perished!” You know, that sort of thing.
"I can get you a nice couple chops, real lean, or a chuck roast. Rest goes to the dogs." |
Arcane captures McCyrus, human-hand Swamp Thing gets in a
crazy slapfight with Arcane, and McCyrus jumps in a big vat of acid. Well,
problems all solved, really. Now if only Will can get his act together and do
some lethal touching, we can winnow this show down to its star power.
Well, Swamp Thing’s hands come back and Will loses his death
touch. We all lose our touch a little bit as we get older, Will, it’s no big
deal. This is also the first time, I think, that we see Will and Abigail kiss,
so this is a real landmark episode. Yup, circle the date on your calendars and
stay tuned for next year’s parade. Meanwhile, the end.
He looks genuinely baffled. |
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