Full spoilers follow for Primal Season 3, Episode 10, “An Echo of Eternity,” which is available on Adult Swim now and debuts on HBO Max on March 16.
There you have it. Spear and his family finally got their happy ending. But man, was it touch and go there for a bit!
“An Echo of Eternity” does what was unthinkable at the start of the season, not just returning Spear fully to life, but also reuniting him with Fang and Mira and all the kids too. Indeed, the episode title is a play on the Season 2 finale title, “Echoes of Eternity,” only that was the story that seemed to kill off Spear once and for all.
You can argue, and fans no doubt will for a long time to come, about whether or not it was the right move for Genndy Tartakovsky to undo the beautiful but tragic ending of Season 2. But as far as I’m concerned, Tartakovsky – and Spear – earned the right after everything the character has gone through over the course of these past 10 episodes. And if this is truly the end for Spear and the rest, then I can live with that.
But let’s back up a bit. Tartakovsky and his team really ratchet up the tension throughout the episode, first as Spear searches for his family, who he knows are in danger. Finding puddles of blood and, even more terrifying, the tiny, bloody footprints of a baby, he seems to be able to piece together – look how far he’s come from the mindless corpse from the beginning of this season! – the fight that has taken place here, right down to what led to the severed panther-creature arm, and then its disemboweled corpse. But when he does find his family, it’s not a great situation.
Fang is pretty torn up, with Mira tending to her wounds. The slight quiver of Spear’s lips gives away not just his concern for his old pal, but also his emotion in seeing everyone else is OK. He even speaks: “Mira”! It’s not the first time he’s said her name, but it is certainly something that he saves for important moments. Unfortunately, the volcanic creeps (who ironically enough have assisted in Spear’s resurrection) almost immediately show up with blow darts that knock the whole gang out, and take them to fight in their cursed arena.
After feeling the joy of Spear being reunited with his family, to see those pasty-faced volcanic bastards pouring their nasty elixir into the fam’s mouths… well, I couldn’t wait to see them all be smited. And while my initial assumption was that Spear and Fang and the rest would take them out, it turns out nature would handle that instead. With the volcano erupting around them, the vicious fight that ensues between the enhanced (is that the right word?) Fang, Mira, Blue and Red Jr. is tough to watch. They really go at each other, and ironically enough it’s Spear – who has gone from brainless to being the only one with a brain now – who has to save them all.
Bear with me for a sec as I speculate. Is Tartakovsky using this sequence to comment on what many families have gone through in recent years, split apart and learning to hate one other because of some outside, malevolent force which has only their own best interests at heart? Yeah, that’s a read, and maybe it’s a stretch, but as I saw Mira and Fang go at one another – two of the coolest ladies on TV at the moment who have grown to be sisters over the course of the show – I couldn’t help but think about how many of us have turned, or are being compelled to turn, on one another.
But Spear is able to rise above it all, and man is it a great moment when, having freed Fang from her hate-filled trance, he jumps atop her once again and the two strike that amazing pose of victory. It turned out we did get our face-off between the pair this season; I just didn’t anticipate that it would be a once-again-human Spear versus a Hulked-out Fang.
Which takes us to the episode’s end, where things certainly might get some viewers a bit misty-eyed as Spear takes in his renewed life – his baby, his friend (or more?) Mira, and his best and greatest ally, Fang, and her pups. That Spear has come back to his artwork time again to tell the story of his evolving family – both those he has lost, and those he has found – has to be some kind of meta-commentary coming from Tartakovsky, and I love it.
By the final scene, which is an exact duplicate of Season 2’s last scene where, some years in the future, the matured Blue and Red Jr., plus Fang, Mira, and Spear and Mira’s daughter all enter from offscreen, the choice Tartakovsky has made is clear. Yeah, Spear got that happy ending. Unlike the Season 2 version, this shot goes on for a few seconds longer as we see that Spear had been there all along with his family. It just took some doing getting there.
Questions and Notes From Anachronistic History
- Spear’s fully back to himself, including his hand being healed, in that time jump sequence.
- I could’ve done with seeing a few more (all?) the volcano people falling into lava for what they did to Fang and the rest.
- Man, just when it seemed like Spear’s pterosaur could’ve been a permanent addition, the thing disappeared. I guess Fang wouldn’t have been a fan of it anyway.
- Spear was right – his daughter loved her dolly!
- How much did it hurt to see Blue and Red Jr. fighting with each other?
- Will there be a Primal Season 4? We don’t know yet. But I’ve really enjoyed talking about the show with you for the past 10 weeks, and I hope we get the chance to do it again if and when Tartakovsky has another idea for where to take the Primal family next.
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