For Your Consideration: Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal (Episodes 1-5)

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(Note: this review is almost entirely spoiler-free in regards to plot developments.)

I'll admit that Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal, the latest addition to Adult Swim's line-up, almost flew under my radar entirely. I was well aware of the show leading up to its release and liked what I saw from the trailer, but it never really jumped out to me as a must-watch. At best, I assumed, it was just another experimental show for Adult Swim's roster, and my lack of a history watching Tartakovsky's other works (Dexter's Lab, Samurai Jack) meant I didn't really have any frame of reference for what sort of show Primal would even be. It was by a stroke of good luck, then, that I decided to check out the first episode to fill a little bit of spare time, because within 22 minutes, I was utterly blown away.

It's rare to see a television show of any variety, cartoon or not, that gives off an aura of knowing exactly what it wants to be doing by its first episode, but within minutes, it's clear that Primal has fully recognized its ambitions. With such a straightforward premise, too—the miniseries is centered around the unlikely camaraderie between a dinosaur, Fang, on the edge of extinction and a caveman, Spear, at the dawn of evolution—it's astonishing how unique Primal is able to feel, for which Tartakovsky deserves all the credit in the world.

For however much the show emphasizes a sense of simplicity, it's packed with unfathomable nuance. Most deceptively, it suggests a barebones approach to its storytelling by lacking any spoken dialogue, substituted instead for grunts and roars. Even so, the narrative is just as compelling, if not more compelling outright, because we're no longer stuck reading between the lines of dialogue or having a character's feelings explained to us. No, Primal reaches directly into the emotional core of its characters through its quieter moments, a combination of Tartakovsky's simple but expressive animation and Aaron LaPlante's performance as Spear (credit to the show's sound department, as well, for creating the voice Fang and all the other creatures who populate the show's universe), both going hand-in-hand to reveal everything about a character's inner state with something as minute as a twitch or a blink. We get more didactic flashes of their inner turmoil, especially in the form of Spear's despair over his slaughtered family, but the subtle interactions between Spear and Fang, two characters who need each other to survive, are among the most evocative.

It's hard to explain just how masterful Primal is without revealing anything too drastic; this is the sort of show that you should go into knowing nothing at all. But one of the series' greatest strengths is its fearlessness, something that we see as early as that first episode which features, among other things, dinosaurs being brutally ripped apart and explicit infanticide. There's a sense of stakes and complete unpredictability that keeps you perpetually on the edge, never ready for what could come next, and the series wields that power like nobody's business.

That boldness takes plenty of forms, but it's always there. The third episode, for instance, doesn't even introduce Spear and Fang until four minutes in, and instead of working solely to advance the development of those characters, it places a lot of importance on creating a sense of empathy and poignancy in the mammoth that they slaughter. The final episode of this current block (the series' second half is yet to be released) is the most ruthless of all, beginning with a moment of complete, gorgeous tranquility and ending with a gory ballet the likes of which puts Primal's other violent moments to shame. (Primal, I should mention, isn't for the easily-squeamish, but its gore is always done with purpose and a smart, visual eye, and I can think of few cartoons that pull if off better.)

There's no telling where Primal could go next; as a miniseries, there's a fully-realized, no-fluff narrative that it's committed to unfolding, and if it sticks the landing as I expect, it might just be one of the finest, most underrated cartoons in recent history. As it stands right now, though, we're half-way through the journey and I'm yet to feel anything but fierce excitement.

SEASON GRADE (SO FAR): A.

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