Hacking and slashing it’s way through a swath of gore and anger comes Season Two of Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack, Star Wars: Clone Wars)’s ode to Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Primal on blu-ray from Warner Bros. and [adult swim]. Could this be Tartakovsky’s finest production?

For those who may not have seen the first season, Spear is a caveman whose family was killed by large tyrannosaurs and who befriends a female tyrannosaur named Fang whose offspring are also slaughtered. They become friends and journey with one another on various adventures contending with the likes of murderous ape-men, various prehistoric creatures and even an evil witch and her followers. In the final episode, they rescue a woman named Mira who starts traveling with them, only to be kidnapped and ferreted away on a boat. Season 2 picks up right where Season 1 ended with Spear screaming Mira’s name on the beach as her captors sail away with her. Spear immediately begins constructing a raft to pursue Mira’s captors with Fang in tow, thus setting off a new series of adventures involving battles on the open sea with creatures such as the legendary megalodon before crossing paths with a viking tribe whose leader sets out in search of vengeance against Spear for causing the death of his son. This sets in motion a barrage of violence, madness and sacrifice that plague Spear and Fang beyond the edge of what they have always known.

I came late to the Primal party but I have to say, this nearly wordless animated series captures the poetry of violence on an epic level while also making room for the quiet character moments so important to helping the viewer to care about such brutal characters. Especially impressive is how Fang is portrayed as a fully fleshed out personality using body language while still retaining the relatively static expression one would expect of a large reptile. It even has small moments of comedy such as Spear’s ruse in getting Fang onto the raft in the first episode. But at its core, this is a show of brutal grace that truly captures the essence of time and place with a savagery rarely seen on film or television in such a pure form. I feel that Tartakovsky (who not only created the show but handles all the oh-so-critical storyboards as well) has captured the essence of author Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, better than anyone else I’ve come across with his combination of gruesome violence, high fantasy and even dark horror elements all fused together into a vicious and kinetic frenzy. I would be very surprised if it were a coincidence that Howard’s first published story was titled “Spear and Fang” (although the plot of that story doesn’t bear much resemblance to this series despite it also being about a caveman named Spear). I also wanted to mentioned that I’m quite excited about the anthology potential of this series. With Season 2, Spear and Fang’s story has concluded but Tartakovsky has gone on record saying that his vision for the future of Primal is as an anthology series. The potential of this idea is shown in Episode 5, the lone episode with extended dialogue beyond screams and mutterings in a foreign tongue, which features Charles Darwin and a group of peers sitting ’round a crackling fireplace discussing Darwin’s theory of evolution and whether man would revert to a primal state if confronted with extreme enough duress. Their talk is interrupted by an attack by a crazed mental patient illustrating Darwin’s theory in practice. It’s a great self-contained episode that captures the spirit of the series really well despite not being explicitly related to Spear and Fang’s storyline. In general, I am very impressed with this series and anxiously look forward to the third season.

The technical specs are very nice here with a very clean 1080p transfer and a very robust DTS-D Master Audio 5.1 track that really helps those epic action scenes spring to life. The extras are limited to a single featurette “Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal: Inside the Evolution” that while not extensive is still a nice feature with interviews from Tartakovsky and others behind the creation of the series.

If you are an admirer of best-in-class animation and don’t mind a lot of the good ol’ red stuff or are looking for a very cool, very violent series to sink your teeth into, I truly believe this is the finest project Tartakovsky has ever produced. It is gorgeous, epic and satisfying in equal matter.