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*This review is spoiler free but will mention minor spoilers from previous seasons
In 2022, Genndy Tartakovsky dropped the second season of his critically acclaimed first season of Primal which was released in 2019 as a five episode week long event before continuing on a year later in 2020 as a week to week show. Primal season two was everything Genndy had built as an auteur. Strong pacing, fantastic art direction, and a wonderful story that managed to tell everything it needed to without saying a word to the audience. The pulp fiction story direction of Primal is one of his strongest, creating this immersive yet brutal world that makes every encounter tense and life ending. After the ending of season two, in which Spear is killed there was no need to continue making more of it as the story came to its natural conclusion. Despite that Adult Swim and Genndy decided there was more to be told as in 2023 a year after season two concluded the series would be renewed. While it would take some time for it to come out Genndy had kept himself busy. Making the beautifully animated if underwhelming 2023 series Unicorn Warriors Eternal, a series which was originally slated for Cartoon Network then being shifted to Adult Swim after management shake ups at Warner Brothers in 2022. Then last year he released the underwhelming and slightly disappointing film Fixed. A movie originally slated to be released theatrically by Warner Brothers to then be dropped by it and later picked up by Netflix. But after much waiting Primal has finally returned and this time Spear is back, but as a zombie. As strange as that may sound on paper it wasn’t always like that. As the original pitch for season three was to make more episodes similar to season two, episode five’s “The Primal Theory”. An episodic approach where there was no underlying narrative and would bounce around from story to story. While it sounded cool, unfortunately Genndy believed the ideas that they tried didn’t work and in the end decided to scrap and retool Primal season three into continuing Spear’s journey. While a tad disappointing to me as someone who loved “The Primal Theory”, a fantastic episode that had no bearing on the overall story of where season two was going, it was a refreshing break from all the madness that the back half of season two would be filled with. Despite that, Genndy Tartakovsky and his team have managed to pull off another amazing feat. Primal season three is just as brutal and wonderfully told that it continues to up the ante in ways I never thought possible.
Happening sometime after the events of season two’s ending, a group of cultist cannibalists are seen burning and killing the nearby village where Spear was buried. This lead the Shaman of the village to use magic to revive Spear into a Zombie while the Shaman is eventually subdued by the cultists, Spear has some form of cognizant and is setting out to face the world to piece together what happened to him and where Fang and Mira are. In some respects, I find it hard to top what Primal season two brought to the table in terms of its grand scale one that feels as epic as the tales that inspired this show. In a way that is true, Primal season three doesn’t have that same level of grandiose storytelling that made season two what it is but in a lot of ways dialing back that scale and making it more of a personal journey of Spear and his rebirth into the world feels more personal than in previous seasons. Spear’s family in season one was killed and while that weighed down on the character as that left him as the only one of his kind left it made his interactions with Mira feel more connected when she does show up. Yet, with that being said season three has a way of making you care deeply for Spear showing that the team still had a lot left to tell with this character.
Zombie Spear is fun to watch and see him interact with the world around him. Just simple interactions like sitting down is a total chore for him and even conjuring up anything other than grunts and yells makes for great comedic moments in the season. For instance in episode three, Feast of Flesh Spear spends a majority of the episode following a lotus. Mostly because the pattern resembles Fang. The simple interactions of him mindlessly following this bug was rather entertaining to watch and it does set up for a satisfying conclusion in the back half of the episode where in true Primal fashion it gets brutal. This show is still more or less the same as its ever been yet somehow every episode kept me at the edge of my seat from “Vengeance of Death” to “An Echo of Eternity”. Without going too much into what happens later, Fang and Mira play a pivotal role in this season and it surprised me how they’re integrated into Zombie Spear’s story but also how wonderfully it all comes together in the end to create another satisfying conclusion that manages to outdue the previous season.
Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal season three continues Genndy and his team’s amazing accomplishments in the field of animation. It’s one of the few adult animated series that uses its themes and brutal visuals to tell an engaging narrative that can pull on your heart strings and be highly entertaining all without any lines of dialogue. The strong art direction from Scott Wills who’s been working with Genndy since Samurai Jack, I find this to be his best work. All the colors and art just pop making it feel like a graphic novel from Frank Miller in motion. The strong storyboarding from Darrick Bachman and Genndy, alongside Genndy’s immaculate directorial skills continues to make this one of the most cinematic and movie-like, animated tv series ever produced.
If you couldn’t tell from all this gushing, I adore Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal season three. It remains one of the best original series to come from Adult Swim and continues to be the finest examples of animation as an art form. Genndy has mastered this medium and it feels like he’s not done trying to out do himself and whatever he works on next I’ll be there to watch it.
Final Score: 9/10
