Full spoilers follow for Primal Season 3, Episode 2, “Kingdom of Sorrow,” which is available on Adult Swim now and debuts on HBO Max on January 19.
Spear’s got his spear back! Well, he did for a minute there, anyway. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The second episode in the adventures of zombie Spear starts off with a scene of tranquility, of nature in all its beauty, as a herd of antelope type creatures graze in a meadow. A young’un nurses at his mom’s teat while she licks the babe’s coat, cleaning and no doubt also comforting it. Birds hang on the back of some of the beasts, chilling and pecking away at some bits and pieces, while a rodent of some kind feasts on the plentiful dung in the area. All is peaceful, all is in balance, all is well. This is the world of Primal. Until…
The birds suddenly scatter. The rodent freaks out and makes a run for it. And the antelope things hightail it out of there. They all sense danger, something unnatural. They sense Spear!
He doesn’t mean the critters any harm, of course. He doesn’t mean… anything, really. He’s just on a single-minded (if that’s the right term) mission to find his family. To find Fang. I mean, that’s clearly what’s going on here, right? The flashes he’s having of his past life are calling to him, directing him to rediscover that life, whether he realizes it or not. But getting from here to there isn’t proving to be very easy.
As always, creator Genndy Tartakovsky and his team tell this word-less tale in a beautiful manner. Those first couple of minutes of the animals just living their lives is almost poetic, as is the passage of time and space that we see as the background dissolves around Spear multiple times as he slowly advances on his quest, eventually finding himself in a desert. But that doesn’t mean that the show is holding back on the action. No way; this is Primal after all.
And so we get two major action scenes this week, the first of which has Spear battling what we can only call a giant sandworm a la Dune. This thing is a muther, and it actually seems to put a spring in Spear’s step as he proves that he’s able to run, even resorting to a gallop on all fours. The battle, which leaves our favorite zombie caveman the worse for wear – which is saying something considering the state he was in when he started – also sparks some brainpower perhaps, because the next time he encounters the sandworm, Spear is smart enough to seek safety in a tree until the threat passes.
Perhaps the most interesting moment in “Kingdom of Sorrow” though is when Spear, who is basically tripping balls after all he’s been through physically, meets himself. Well, not literally, but we do get a visit from the living version of Spear via a vision zombie Spear experiences. We once again see him piecing together his past life, as best he can in his diminished state, as he touches living Spear’s, well, spear. The image that follows, of both versions of Spear being engulfed in flames, is his way of remembering how he actually died back in Season 2. Gosh darn it, this zombie can think!
That comes in handy in the second major action scene, which involves a run-in with a pride of lions where things get bloody fast. It actually starts off in a kind of sad way, as Spear clearly thinks the glowing eyes in the shadows could be Fang. But no, they belong to a lion, who is soon joined by his friends to make short work of Spear. It’s all bloody and exciting and as expertly designed as everything else is on this show, culminating in that spark of intelligence reminding Spear to use his namesake – a blade he finds on a human skeleton – to dispatch the king of the lions with.
That so many lions are killed, including the group that drown when they all fall into the water, is tragic in its way. Sure, they were attacking our hero. But they were also just living their lives, like all the other creatures out there, protecting their home. Just like the tranquility that opened this episode, the carnage and bloodshed that ends it is also the world of Primal.
Questions and Notes From Anachronistic History
- I like how the antelope creature licks away the fly that approaches its eye, whereas last episode Spear didn’t have the instinct to do even that. He’s getting those instincts back though, isn’t he?
- Spear walking into the water, on the riverbed, and then back up onto the shore is very Land of the Dead.
- The character animation on zombie Spear continues to be terrific, like when he blinks – the eyes don’t quite sync with one another. And then there’s those guttural sounds he makes sometimes!
- This guy can just climb a mountain and take a falling rock to the face like it’s nothing!
- And how about that music by Tyler Bates and Joanne Higginbottom?
- The question of course is, how long until Fang actually does show up? And will Spear’s daughter be there too?
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