Full spoilers follow for Primal Season 3, Episode 8, “The River of Life,” which is available on Adult Swim now and debuts on HBO Max on March 2.
Zombie Spear’s seen this before, back when he was still alive. Specifically in the Season 1 episode “Rage of the Ape-Men,” where he was forced to fight an array of, well, raging ape-men, while also imbibing a mysterious liquid which turned him into something more akin to an Incredible Spear-Hulk. And while the players are different this time around, the rules are the same: Kill or be killed.
When “The River of Life” began and all those creepy, pale-faced figures emerged above the fighting pit, I figured we were in for another slaughter situation (“Rage of the Ape-Men” is one of the most violent episodes of Primal ever, which is saying something). But when Spear defeats his first opponent and then is basically crowned as the reigning champ (and maybe new leader?) of this band of creatures, I realized that it makes sense that this would become a strange new place of comfort – or at the very least respite – for him. After all, the villagers in Mira’s home have rejected him, despite how he saved a bunch of them, so to bring back the Frankenstein monster comparison once more, Spear is landing at a place where he could begin to “love dead… hate living.”
And yet… just as the Karloff Monster in Bride of Frankenstein chose in the end to let Dr. Frankenstein and his wife live – to embrace some aspect of living even if he couldn’t participate in it himself – Spear here can’t really get down with just giving into death. And weirdly enough, it’s all the killing at the “River of Life” of the title that gets him back into the mindset of attempting to connect with Mira again, as he flies over to her village for a quick check-in (even if he leaves before she sees him).
Speaking of which, how sad is it when Mira and Fang and Fang’s pups head back home after determining that Spear has been lost to them? And I certainly didn’t see it coming that her baby with Spear would be born in this episode! Things are moving right along, that’s for sure. But I really enjoy how Mira and Fang have become so close since Spear’s (original) passing, and the moment when Mira introduces the T. rex to her baby while touching the dinosaur’s face is just lovely.
By the time the Celtic-warrior-by-way-of-Heavy-Metal shows up on his pterosaur while a guitar shreds on the soundtrack, you just have to laugh.“
The action and fight scenes in this episode are pretty fun. Spear sure has the advantage over his various opponents in the fighting pit, what with already being dead and all, but the array of oddballs and gruesomes who he must face off with are a hoot. Unlike “Rage of the Ape-Men,” which featured a bloody, tense, and worrying combat (Fang’s life hung in the balance for one thing), “River of Life” has fun with its gladiatorial hijinks. By the time the Celtic-warrior-by-way-of-Heavy-Metal shows up on his pterosaur while a guitar shreds on the soundtrack, you just have to laugh out loud.
Of course, Mira being Mira, she realizes something is amiss after Spear’s clandestine visit, and so she breaks out the village maps to go find him. But Fang, on the other hand, also got a sniff of her old friend… and she seems to still be quite anti-zombie Spear, even after everything that’s happened. Two episodes left to the season, so let’s see where this goes!
Family.
Questions and Notes From Anachronistic History
- What’s with the psychic bond between Mira and Spear?
- The various skulls mounted around the fighting arena are a callback to a similar set-up in “Rage of the Ape-Men.”
- What is the liquid that causes the Spear to hulk out? Unclear, but it certainly seems to have a similar – if not quite as strong – effect that the substance did in the Season 1 episode. There it was a carefully guarded and seemingly finite amount that the Ape-Men possessed, perhaps acquired from this volcano realm and spirited back to their home turf.
- Fang outside Mira’s hut pacing like an expectant aunt!
- I love when Fang, Blue and Red Jr. all sniff in the direction of the new baby in unison.
- Spear finally understands that Mira is having a baby, and by episode’s end, that it is his baby too! Can zombies be happy? It sure seems like it at that moment.
- Is it too much to hope that the River of Life can bring Spear back from the dead?
