Alec reveals to Abby that the disease isn't an attack, but rather the swamp "fighting back" to protect itself. This insight leads Abby to realize that antibiotics are useless; she successfully treats her friend Harlan by using immunosuppressants instead.
Brought in by the Sunderlands to "fix" the swamp, Woodrue begins his obsessive medical research, seemingly motivated by a desire to cure his wife’s early-onset Alzheimer’s.
He struggles with his monstrous form but shows deep tenderness toward Abby, even replicating a gesture of tucking her hair behind her ear that he used to do when he was human.
