Genndy Tartakovsky’s ‘Primal – Episode 2: River of Snakes’

by Conan Simmons – December 8, 2020 – 8:49 pm

Due to the popularity of our reviews of ‘Primal’ as the last five episodes aired in 2020 On Genre is looking back to bring you reviews of the first five episodes that aired in 2019.

There may be spoilers ahead.

The start of the series’ second episode begins with Spear and Fang hunting together. Their friendship is clearly off to a rocky start as Fang uses her dominating size and speed to undermine Spear during an intense and humorous wild boar hunt. Their contest of dominance continues as they stalk prey through the tall grass and Fang, ever the animal, stays as close as possible to Spear whenever he does manage to grab something to eat.

As Spear is haunted by the horned tyrannosaurus rex attack from the premier episode his patience is quickly tested by Fang. Their sharing of a cave keeps Spear annoyed as Fang has a habit of snoring. There is also a brief moment of toilet humor that manages to be funny by virtue of timing. Normally I don’t care for toilet humor, but here it works in a similar way to a scene from 1993’s ‘Jurassic Park’.

Eventually, the contest of dominance between Spear and Fang causes Spear to snap and a fight breaks out between the two. This fight, however, is interrupted by a swarm of snakes that emerge from a nearby river. The river breaks over the banks causing a massive flood engulfing our heroes and the swarm of hungry snakes.

Spear and Fang must learn to work together in order to survive as they battle underwater against the snakes and the flood sweeping them towards an inevitable waterfall.

‘River of Snakes’ is a solid episode that is important to the series not for any technical achievement but for the major character development of Fang, as she develops a fear of snakes from this event that plays into later episodes. It is also the pivot point between Spear and Fang going forward as they develop a better understanding of each other.