Primal Season 3, Episode 3 Review feedzy_import_tag

Full spoilers follow for Primal Season 3, Episode 3, “Feast of Flesh,” which is available on Adult Swim now and debuts on HBO Max on January 26.

The thing about Primal Season 3 so far is that it’s doing a slow burn, really taking its time getting zombie Spear to where he’s almost certainly going – to find his family, or at the very least to find out what happened to his family. So if you’re down with a contemplative eight or nine minutes featuring a thinking zombie playing with a flying cricket-esque bug, then you’re in luck. But if that’s not your cup of tea, well… don’t worry, because the slow burns have also been sure to include plenty of goopy, head-smashing violence as well, and you get that in the last 10 minutes of “Feast of Flesh.”

But come on, the extended opening sequence this week which finds Spear happening upon a beautiful turquoise and violet cricket is something to behold. For the most part, Primal has left behind the dinosaurs so far this season, but creator Genndy Tartakovsky and his team have given us plenty of more “modern,” I suppose, animal life, like the lions, antelope type critters and birds from last week. And here the gentle animation of this little insect just munching out on a leaf while Spear watches it in amazement is, well, amazing.

Of course, Spear keeps getting those flashes to his past, which have become clear at this point to be of Fang, his old dino friend. But what is it in this cricket that has him so fascinated? Is it the bug’s color scheme, which partially matches Fang’s? Is it the memory of a wild beast fending for itself in the forest? Or does he feel an aching, a longing for the friendship he once had with such a creature?

The score by Tyler Bates and Joanne Higginbottom this week highlights the more whimsical nature of Spear’s frolicking with the cricket, whether he’s chasing it through the brush, finding that it’s landed on his arm and is staring directly at him, or realizing that it’s crawling onto his head (brain). By the time he saves the bug from being eaten by a reptile, we’re fully invested in this thing – and its connection to Spear. It’s a cute little guy, as is the entire segment, and it all serves to create a bond between the two… or at least we the viewer form a bond between Spear and the cricket in our minds. And certainly Spear feels it as well… Does the cricket, though? It’s hard to say.

As mentioned, the second half of “Feat of Flesh” does become more of an action-palooza, as Spear finds himself captured by – let’s face it – some hateful little flesh-eating monsters. They’re small, but there’s a ton of them, and by the time Spear awakens after being knocked unconscious (which apparently is a thing that can happen to a zombie of his variety), he’s been strung up upside down and had all the flesh eaten off of his right hand and half his arm. He’s also surrounded by the dangling skeletons of these creatures’ past victims.

Not surprisingly, his savior arrives in the form of his cricket friend. It’s funny how the insect first shows up unseen, doing its chirping thing; anyone who’s had a cricket get into their house knows how the flesh-eaters must feel in that moment. But soon enough the cricket takes to annoying the little mutants as it buzzes around them, giving Spear the chance to escape from his trap.

At this point, Primal could have gone one of two ways. Spear and the cricket defeat the mutants together and escape the cave, or the cricket gets smooshed and Spear takes his revenge. I gasped when the latter happened, even if I should’ve known it was inevitable. The look on Spear’s face when he sees his dead friend, and the animation of the thing in its death throes as its little legs twitch for their final time, is heartbreaking. Dammit, Primal made me fall in love with a bug.