When more townsfolk begin to be infected by a hallucinogenic neurotoxin, Abby returns to the swamp to ask for the Swamp Thing’s assistance.

Like an intricately created jigsaw puzzle, more and more pieces fall in to place as the dark secrets of Marais are revealed. Everyone has a secret (or two), all interlinked with one another, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that no relationships are accidental. The episode shifts into gear when diner worker Todd has a dead body dropped onto him when foliage is cut down in the swamp. He becomes infected and starts stabbing at his own arm, believing that a snake has wrapped itself around his limb.

After the gory action in the diner’s kitchens, fellow worker Pops is scratched and starts imagining things too, but this comes to a head when Sheriff Lucilia Cable (The Bride’s Jennifer Beals) imagines her son has been stabbed and starts waving her gun around. She’s disarmed by Dan Cassidy (how long before he becomes the Blue Devil?) who in an exposition dump we discover has been hanging around Marais for eight years, ready to fulfil his hero’s destiny.

Abby also becomes infected and goes back to the swamp with the disease with the hope that Swamp Thing Alec can provide a cure, and true to form our cabbage-headed hero assimilates the illness before pumping the pathogen back out again. And this is all going on while the Sunderlands take in young Susie Coyle and evil scientist Jason Woodrue offers to help Abby with finding a cure to the virus.

Verdict: While not significantly pushing the narrative along, Swamp Thing’s fourth episode takes the opportunity to take stock of what we’ve learned to date and starts drawing in some of the outlying characters into the critical path. Quality fantasy TV that to date has avoided becoming a ‘monster of the week’ show, and is all the better for it. 8/10

Nick Joy