Season Review: Primal Season One Part One

Overview:

Welcome to the end of pre-civilization. Primal is a moody, action-packed spectacle of a series that features a union by the most unlikely of allies. After devastation tears apart the families of a resilient caveman, Spear, and an aggressive dinosaur, Fang, they find themselves working together against this dangerous world. Spear and Fang are a team for the ages and their various adventures bring them closer as a team and test their limits as warriors. Spear and Fang face harsh enemies and bleak environments as they continue forward and hope to find some kind of solitude at the end of all of this carnage. However, extreme brute strength and camaraderie may be useless against the wheel of time and the changes that evolution brings.

Our Take:

Genndy Tartakovsky’s more mainstream works, like the Hotel Transylvania film series, have arguably seen the largest success. However, in a perfect world Primal would be his creation that receives the most acclaim. This is by far Tartakovsky’s most accomplished and mature piece of work. It’s encouraging to see that Adult Swim has maintained a healthy relationship with the creator. If he turns out something like this every other year they’ll have a serious bevy of sophisticated adult-oriented animation. Primal is a one-of-a-kind gem and a serious contender for the best-animated program of 2019.

Part of what makes Primal so successful is that it’s delivered in such a neat package. The limited series opts for quality over quantity and focuses its story on five powerful episodes. Each of these installments pushes a different kind of story that explores Spear and Fang’s dynamic. Every episode sees them a little farther along in their journey, but there’s no set goal or destination that’s made clear. Spear and Fang’s goal is simply to keep on going on; to survive. That may seem like a loose framework, but each entry of Primal plays with that tension in a new way. Primal is a show that is full of many spectacles, but it strangely normalizes them through Spear and Fang’s actions. They’re almost never surprised by what they come up against. Every obstacle is the same to them. They’re not threatening, they’re just standing in the way of Fang and Spear’s solitude.

Primal also offers an extremely unique brand of storytelling due to how it transpires without any dialogue. This is purely visual storytelling and in that regard, the series is incredibly more ambitious than most other animated shows. There’s a whole rich universe here that the audience only gets a taste of due to how Primal doesn’t spoon-feed out answers. The lack of dialogue may initially deter some viewers, but it’s shocking how quickly you don’t even notice this. Primal forces audiences to experience emotion and action in a different kind of way and it helps other elements like the series’ score and animation become more significant.

Primal’s flowing animation is definitely one of its assets, but not just in terms of the environments and characters that it creates. Primal contains some ingenious fight choreography that the animation helps bring to life. The structure of the series allows these fight scenes to really breathe and take their time. You would think that a show that features some much action would eventually become repetitive, but Primal challenges itself. Every fight feels distinct and conveys a new aspect of Spear or Fang. Highlights from this first season include Spear and Fang’s bloody massacre of the bat demons as well as Fang’s showdown with a colossal spider in “Terror Under the Blood Moon.”

All of Primal’s battles are satisfying, but there are just as many emotional moments from this season that resonate even stronger. The entirety of “A Cold Death” plays like a grueling punching to the gut. It’s an extremely powerful installment of television that with any justice will not only be Primal’s Emmy submission but the winner in the category. Even the series’ pilot features a heartbreaking scene where Spear contemplates suicide after he loses his family. And that’s episode one.

Certain episodes of Primal highlight “guest characters,” but this series is really a double-header with Fang and Spear. It takes some time, but it’s just so powerful to see this genuine friendship grow between these two. They’re such a fun, effective duo that these guys definitely deserve a video game or graphic novel if more seasons don’t materialize. There’s just such an amazing, believable understanding between them, even if they don’t communicate with words.

Primal is a tour-de-force of animation from the second it starts, but there are still minor areas that could technically be improved upon in a hypothetical second season. The series’ stories are all relatively thin and the absence of conversation obviously results in a lack of entertaining dialogue. Plus, the season itself is short and fairly limited in its overall scope. However, Primal is also a rare example where its deterrents are also largely its assets.

Restraint greatly works in Primal’s favor, but it’s absolutely a series where you’re just left wanting more in every regard. That would obviously be nice, but something as unique as Primal may make an even stronger impact if it’s just contained to this one season. Don’t get me wrong, I’d absolutely love more of this show, but it’s hard to argue with something when it delivers such an impressive, complete presentation.

The series’ final episode, “Rage of the Ape-Men,” largely operates like any other installment of the series, but that’s because it is. Primal’s complete first season will have ten episodes, but the final five don’t yet have an air date. It’s definitely exciting that there is more on the way, but as a result, Primal’s “final” episode lacks a specific gravity. Yes, it paints a grim picture for Fang’s future, but at this point nothing is certain. It’s unclear what the end holds for Spear and Fang after those final five installments. Even if no more Primal happens, you can watch all of the episodes back-to-backs and view it as one massive movie.

Additionally, there’s such a level of ambition and creativity involved in this show. However, due to Primal’s five-night limited series programming style approach, it, unfortunately, may quickly come and pass over most viewers. The best way to remedy this would be to have the show return for a second season that airs as a complete package, but it’s unclear if that’s even what Primal wants. Much like Spear, Fang, and other somber individuals that occupy Primal, it may simply be enough for this series to make its mark and then recede into the background to be studied in the future.