by Conan Simmons – October 12, 2020 – 7:31 am
The latest installment of ‘Primal’ may have caused some confusion about episode order. Many outlets reference this as episode 6, but they are wrong. This confusion stems from Adult Swim having aired it earlier this year on April Fool’s Day. Being the first episode shown since the first five installments naturally made everyone assume this was the sixth. It is not. It is the seventh, following the sixth episode titled ‘Scent of Prey’ which is a direct continuation of episode five, ‘Rage of the Ape-Men’, where Fang must recover after being beaten to near death.
This seventh episode finds our heroes Spear and Fang stumbling onto a plague infected sauropod. They must run for their lives to stay just out of reach from the decaying mad monster.
This series never fails at mixing thrilling action-adventure with bittersweet storytelling. Making all the characters easy to empathize with even when they do the most brutal things. It is after all a story of survival in primordial times and every show so far lives up to the name ‘Primal’.
The deliberate choice to go without dialogue does a great deal in making this a unique viewing experience. There are no cutesy talking animals here. This episode especially places squarely in the center the direction and animation to anchor the story.
The only fault was the transition of the sauropod to fully plague infected monster was too quick. The use of a jump cut made me almost think there was a different infected sauropod than the one bitten.
The bold use of colors continues to be a highlight of the series. The animation in this episode is some of the best since episode three, ‘A Cold Death’. It’s also the goriest of an already very bloody series. The real highlight is the effects animation on the lava ash.
If you are just getting into this series you will definitely want to start from the first episode as the most delightful part of ‘Primal’ is the evolving friendship between Spear and Fang.
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