Primal Season 3, Episode 7 Review – ‘Heart of the Undead’

Sponsored

Full spoilers follow for Primal Season 3, Episode 7, “Heart of the Undead,” which is available on Adult Swim and HBO now.

What a cool opening couple of minutes we got this week, first with the slow-motion blood rolling off the running Fang, and then the POV shots as the dinosaur hurtles towards Mira’s village with her injured mistress on her back, finally culminating in Mira being carried into a hut where she falls unconscious as the camera fades to black along with her.

Of course, not only is Fang and everyone else worried about Mira here, but they’re also concerned about the health of her unborn child after the attack she suffered last week while battling those hog creatures. While watching “Heart of the Undead,” this actually made me ponder something for a moment – and forgive how morbid this is… what if the child of Spear and Mira who we saw in the final moments of Season 2 isn’t the baby Mira is currently carrying? After all, Genndy Tartakovsky has already undone the death of Spear which occurred in that episode, so what’s to keep him and his team from diverting from what we think we know about the rest of what’s to come as well?

But no, that’s not what’s going on here, and soon enough the medicine woman, after examining Mira, smiles at Fang and the little villager kid: The baby will be OK, and so will Mira. (I mean, come on. Sure, Primal is the type of show where in its pilot episode it killed both of our main characters’ children, but having Mira lose the unborn baby would be a step too far… uh, right?)

Anyway, after that tense opening, what this episode is really about is Spear’s realization that he has become a monster… or at least a monster in the eyes of most everyone around him, even his former best friend, Fang. This leads him on a Frankenstein-ian journey – villagers with torches chasing him out of town, spontaneous moments of literal self-reflection in a mirror of water, and eventually, apparent if transient death. The thing about the Frankenstein monster, as we all know – and now about Spear as well, it seems – is that these guys just don’t die that easily.

The thing about the Frankenstein monster – and now about Spear as well, it seems – is that these guys just don’t die that easily.

Except, Mira and Fang don’t know that, and by episode’s end they think Spear is truly gone again, down that waterfall. They have no reason to think that the connecting river and waterways have taken his unconscious body into some kind of volcanic hellscape, where skulls adorn spears and a weird-AF-looking man-creature awaits him. Why would they ever think that!

Questions and Notes From Anachronistic History

• Funny how the villager who’s most afraid – sweat rolling down his face, eyes watering – is the one to make the first move and impale Spear. Ain’t it always the case?
• The village child pantomiming to Mira everything that happened while she was asleep is just great.
• Notice how Mira is not happy with Fang after the T. rex rejected Spear again and led to his being driven out of the village. Maybe Mira will also be the key to Fang finally accepting Spear again?
• That’s a messed up snippet of a flashback that we got to the zombified sauropod dying in lava from Season 1’s “Plague of Madness.” There but for the grace of God, Spear…
• Blue and Red Jr. don’t get a ton to do this week, other than be cute and hilarious and ever-loyal to Spear. Their mom could learn a thing or two from them.