Primal (Season 2) Review!

Alright! Today I'm reviewing the second season of Primal, Genndy Tartakovsky's series about Spear and Fang, a caveman and his dinosaur companion who bonded after their families were eaten by the same evil T-Rex. Picking up directly where the first season left off, with Mira being kidnapped and taken across the ocean, the second season of Primal is a seabound adventure where the odds are impossible as our fearsome duo tracks her down. 

Like the first season, Primal is handled with the utmost artistic direction. The thick animation, unusual character designs, and weight of the fight scenes are all beautifully done. It matches, if not surpasses, the incredibly high bar set by the first season. One might fear that, as this second season expands the world and introduces more inhabitants who speak, the nonverbal beauty of the first season would be lost. However, this is not the case; Spear is still very much a fan of nonverbal communication, and Tartakovsky still excels at ronins who speak louder through actions. 

Also like the first season, the premiere episode is by far and away the best. "Sea of Despair," a Life of Pi-esque adventure across the ocean, was utterly beautiful and standalone. You could show it to anyone and they would be amazed - the music is at full force, the violence and stakes are all very creatively done when the characters are on a raft in the middle of the ocean, and the mythical element is ever alive as they fight a Megaladon to the death... underwater. While I haven't rewatched most of this season, Sea of Despair is an episode I keep coming back to. 

Part of that reason is one absolutely fantastic scene wherein Spear and Fang, tired from their journey, fall asleep on their primitive wooden raft. Now, while most creators would have cut to the morning, Tartakovsky and co. make the most out of this opportunity and create one of the most stunning and terrifying scenes in recent memory. As they begin to fall asleep, various luminescent animals lull underneath them (Again, Life of Pi), but then the music kicks into gear and we see a new player enter the episode: the moon.

Lit in a yellow glow, the moon rises above the sleeping Spear and Fang with intensity, power, fear, and reverence you don't typically associate with our peaceful luminescent night light. The music, visuals of the moon rising on the peaceful water, the warm glow; it's beautiful. I pray for the day some kind user decides to upload the scene to YouTube, as that is the day I set it to "loop" and never off again. It's one of the most stunning, wholly nonverbal scenes we're likely to see this decade. 

The rest of the series is more of the same - Spear and Fang go around fighting and brutally killing people they meet, make new friends, and make a few new enemies. Once again, the violence is too much - one episode in particular sees the duo rampage through a Norwegian town, brutally slaughtering everyone there for like twenty minutes. There are no shades of grey in this world, only hard black and whites that get chomped, disemboweled, or squished in violent ways. But they get Mina back! 

Primal's second season also has a very odd, wholly standalone anthology episode about Charles Darwin encountering an escaped cannibal while proposing the theory of evolution to fellow scientists. It's wholly unconnected and full of English dialogue, something the rest of the series wholly avoided. Thematic imagery and what have you aside, the superb violence of the action becomes even harder to watch when it's directed at non-magical, totally normal and innocent scientists. 

The rest of the series ebbs and sways, introducing a very striking Colossaeus in the mix, has Spear say his first prayer, and eventually gets to the point where Spear is fighting a demon in an underwhelming finale - after seeing so many fantastically creative setpieces, some of which were extended for entire episodes, seeing Spear and Fang's journey end with a three-minute tumble down a hill with the devil himself was completely underwhelming and not at all the epic end that Spear deserved. 

The subsequent sex scene was also odd, even if it was tastefully done (Spear, severely burned and dying, consummates his relationship with Mira before succumbing to his wounds and dying. Dude looked like Anakin post-Obi-Wan on Mustafar. It was not a fun sex scene). It was a necessary evil as I loved the note the series ended on, with the adventure continuing through Spear's daughter Mira, who, like her father, is best friends with Fang and goes on wacky and probably very bloody adventures. It's a fitting but somewhat disappointing end to the show, but the premier's striking visuals makeup whatever slack the rest of the season gives. 

Overall, I give Primal's second season an 8/10. "My favorite Life of Pi spoof, ever." 

And just for a moment, all was right in the world.