Full spoilers follow for Primal Season 3, Episode 5, “The Dead Cast No Shadow,” which is available on Adult Swim and HBO Max now.
We’re at the halfway point of this season, and all of our main cast members are now reunited: Mira, Fang, Fang’s little ones, and of course, Spear. Or rather zombie Spear.
But look, zombie Spear is Spear deep down, even if it’s not obvious at first. And this episode is about Mira figuring that out, after their surprising reunion at the end of last week, even if it’s proving more difficult for Fang to come to terms with this new incarnation of her best friend.
Mira always sort of represented the best of the best of us, even by anachronistic pre-history standards, and so while it’s clear that she knows this is a (somewhat) revived Spear, she also seems willing to accept him for what he is now, even if he can’t quite form words or, well, sit down without some difficulty. (Also, his arm literally is falling off by episode’s end.) But, where it counts, he’s still the Spear she used to know, namely when putting himself on the line to save those he loves. That’s what got him in this whole being an undead zombie situation in the first place, after all.
And so in “The Dead Cast No Shadow,” when the threat of the week arrives – detestable baboon-type things – he wastes no time doing whatever he needs to in order to protect his people. This is clear in the neat moment when he has to go back and try two or three times to run up a tree in order to throw himself across to another tree branch. He gets it eventually, but he wasn’t giving up until he did (which certainly can’t be helping with the whole body falling apart situation).
As for Fang, look – who can blame the old girl for being confused and upset by this reunion? When Spear basically retells his story, in pantomime, of what’s happened since his resurrection, right down to the grasshopper funeral he performed two weeks ago, it’s sad to see how close and yet how far he is from being normal again. But it’s also a howling, disturbing freak show, so it’s no wonder that Fang would back off – and want to keep her babies away from Spear as well. Fang is an animal, don’t forget, and zombie Spear surely doesn’t have the same scent that living Spear did. He looks different too, and he’s threatening in his manner at times. Fang’s guard is up.
The close-ups of Mira and Spear as they try to reconnect are so expressive that it’s that much sadder when Spear can’t comprehend that Mira is carrying his child. When he scrawls all over her dirt drawing of a pregnant woman, it’s disappointing for Mira and the viewer, but also… what is Spear drawing exactly? It seems like it’s more than just scribbles.
By episode’s end, this family is fully reunited, if dysfunctional, with Fang still suspicious of the new Spear. But her pups love him, plopping down in his lap to cuddle – what other sign of approval do you need? – and Mira has accepted his new state, for now anyway. And yet, it still feels like things are going to come to a head between the former partners Fang and Spear…
Questions and Notes From Anachronistic History
- Pour one out for the last two members of Mira’s rescue party from her village who were big into magic and rituals, but not great at staying alive. They were primed to become the sort of Abbott and Costello of this season, but alas, they didn’t make it.
- Blueface and Redhead, aka Blue and Red Jr. – that’s what I’m calling Fang’s pups for now on, or at least until we get an official name for them – are hungry all the time, and it’s hilarious.
- Spear out-hunting Fang is reminiscent of that Season 1 episode when Fang kept out-hunting Spear shortly after they met.
- Does it seem like the animals we’re encountering in Season 3 are a bit closer to modern creatures than in previous seasons?
