IF YOU SEE SWAMP THING, SAY SWAMP THING: THE CURSE

With superhero television programs blowing up in the last few years, recaps of superhero television shows have become all the internet rage. Other sites, however, are hobbled by the need to cover shows which have been "recently broadcast" or which are "any good at all." But who covers the uncoverable? That's why Gone&Forgotten chooses to cover the 1991-1993 USA Network live-action Swamp Thing television series in a feature I used to like to call a dumb pun kind of title, but I've run out of those, so I just call it ...

We are reunited with Ian James (David Akroyd), a crooked nature documentarian who attempts to reveal Swamp Thing's existence to the world and does so by introducing a non-native nuisance species of poison frogs into Houma's swamp. This time, he's here to team up with Anton Arcane (Mark Lindsay Chapman) in order to retrieve a mummy (?) which has fallen out of an airplane and into the swamps surrounding Houma more than forty years ago. Guys, it's a mummy in a swamp for four decades, it's either a bog man now or mud.

Swamp Thing finds the mummy first, hearing the plane's ghost pass overhead while Swamp Thing hangs out in that Mayan/Malaysian temple that they got in the Louisiana swamp for some reason. It was important in previous episodes, I guess they just want to reassure us that they're still there.

This is like that meme where people stand next to paintings whose subjects they resemble.

The mummy is still pretty alert for having been in the muck for more than four decades, particularly as his lid was open the whole time. His packing material was still dry, for crying out loud. There were balls of excelsior everywhere.

The mummy is also red, nude and mad. Over his built-in PA system, in his rich British accent, the Egyptian mummy relates his threats should his treasure be swiped and his stuff rifled through -- curse! A curse! A curse for a thousand years! This he bellows with red light pulsing under breastbone, like a rave was going on in there. Some of his bandages were also positioned in such a way that it made it look like he had a handlebar mustache.

"I say, old chap, be a sport and direct one to the cricket grounds, there's a good fellow, you're cursed."

Graham (Kevin Quigley) joins the dual Arcane/James expedition force but doesn't really have his heart in it. Having learned to place at least a little trust in Swamp Thing since he'd watched Arcane remorselessly kill his girlfriend, Graham actually seeks out Swampy's advice (an unsurprising "don't do this") before getting told to shut up by everyone else pretty much.

While James wants the cred of finding this lost treasure about which none of the viewers of this show had ever previously heard, Arcane has bigger plans: GLAM ROCK PLANS! Once he steals the coal-black heart of the Priest of Set whose body inhabits the sarcophagus, he's granted the powers of a Priest of Set, and they are badass. He glows! He talks with reverb! He shoots fireballs out of his hands but is literally no better at it than everyone else on the show who's ever shot fireballs out of their hands. I KNOW they got them from the Universal Studios Stunt Show set, but it feels like they bought them at a novelty shop.

Why does this look like a shot from "Old Dogs?"

Arcane is briefly distracted by James' camera, capturing the event and apparently also stealing some of the Preist's soul. So the animists we're right and our whole culture is effectively soulless. Explains much.

While Arcane is in a half-Setted position, he gets viciously Rand Paul'ed by Swamp Thing. Imagine getting tackled BY the lawn trimming. This allows Swamp Thing to liberate Arcane from the last of the Priest's power. As for James, he gets escapes, but then gets done in by a VHS tape magically bursting into flames while he's trapped inside a phonebooth. This guy ALWAYS gets it via magic VHS tapes...

"This tape will self-destruct in oh wait well I guess it's started..."