Awesome / Primal (2019)

Adapt and Evolve.

The setting of Primal (2019) is not only a Death World but also a World of Badass, where everyone and everything has to fight to survive. Thus, spectacular fight scenes and moments of badassery are all around.

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Season 1

Spear and Fang

• Spear stabs a horned Tyrannosaurus with one of its own teeth and sheer Unstoppable Rage, and the other T. rex dies when it fights Fang and gets its snout ripped off. And then Spear and Fang team up to kill the alpha by climbing up its back and skewering it through the brain with a spear.

River of Snakes

• Spear Vs. Fang. Arguably one of the best fights in the first half of the series, highlighting the skills and abilities of our protagonists but unlike others this is not them upagainst a zerg rush or an overwhelming enemy. This is the two of them one on one.
• Spear and Fang surviving an Inevitable Waterfall by holding on to the two ends of a giant snake's corpse. While the idea doesn't work as intended due to Fang being much heavier than Spear, it's still ingenious and at least helps slowing down their fall.

A Cold Death

• The mammoths overwhelm Fang and Spear with their superior size, strength and numbers
  • The fact that the duo choose to fight back and hold out for some time is also pretty badass. Fang even seemingly downs one mammoth by leaping onto its back and biting its neck.
• Spear convincing the mammoths back down - by giving them the tusk of their dead herd-member. Even in this Death World, it's sometimes compassion, not violence, that helps you win the battle.

Terror Under the Blood Moon

• The opening chase scene, with Spear and fang pursued by dozens of bloodthirsty raptors, killing them easily as they attack one by one. This is clearly a situation they cannot hold their ground on, but they're still "winning" the fight even as they retreat.
  • The raptors also get a moment. When Fang roars at the horde of comparatively puny raptors chasing them, they all roar right back, making it very clear that they are not afraid of her or her passenger.
• Spear rescuing the albino caveman with the broken leg.
  • Spear even manages to pick up the kill that the caveman had been attempting to bring home, ensuring that they wouldn't go hungry. Given that the carcass seems to be nearly the size of the caveman himself, this means Spear was effectively doubling the weight he had to carry, and still made it.
• Spear, disarmed, facing down the first of the giant bats- then smirking as Fang appears behind the bat.
• After failing to climb up to the bats' lair, Fang outsmarts the bats by Playing Possum, who carry her up to the lair believing she's dead.
• Spear killing the Giant Spider with a Triceratops horn.
• In return for Spear saving his wounded brother and their food, one of the cavemen runs out into the open with the bats still out, holding Spear's spear out to return it to him.
• Spear and Fang luring the bats into the high grass where the raptors kill them.

Rage of the Ape-Men

• Upon seeing the ape-man champion seemingly killing Fang, Spear escapes from the ropes he was tied up with and drinks the entire rage potion (one drop of which was enough to turn the ape champion into a King Kong Copy), turning him into a hulking monster. Then he goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, giving the ape champion a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown with the latter's own torn-off arms, then slaughters the ape-men left and right, tearing them in half and crushing their skulls. The scene is absurdly gory, but also very satisfying after what the ape-men did to Fang.
  • The shot of the Ape Man champion's Triceratops mask sailing off his head and landing horn in in the dirt, then his body crashes to the ground as the "camera" is looking through an eyehole is beautiful.

Scent of Prey

• The sheer lengths that Spear will go to to keep Fang safe after finding out she's still alive is awe-inspiring, especially when it's shown just how smart he actually is, making a sled from materials the Apes had lying around to using several campfires as a makeshift wall to keep scavengers away when they sleep, not to mention him carrying the sled's handles for so long his entire palm is covered in blisters.
  • Of note is Spear's display of intelligence with the sled. At first, it's a sled with handles, and even just lifting it for a second wears him out. He later changes it so that the sled is tied to his body with vines, allowing him to pull it for longer and with less effort than before. It's a subtle display of Spear's intelligence.
• When defending Fang, Spear uses the leftover bodies of some surprisingly durable spiky shelled bugs as improvised knuckle dusters using their rigor mortis locked legs as handles and he quite handily kills a number of the Jackal-like creatures before their sheer numbers start to bog him down. Spear has basically invented brass knuckles!
• The fact that his battle with the dog beasts comes so soon after his decimation of the ape-men, and he still manages to be nearly untouchable. Add to it that he had very little rest in the interim, and he'd been hauling Fang around all by himself.
• Fang has a serious badass second wind, exploding from the blocked cave mouth, saving Spear and decimating the pack. Topped perfectly with both Spear and Fang ending on a badass victory roar.

Plague of Madness

• Once the Plague Monster goes stark raving mad with murderous rage, most of the Sauropods start to book it, but one instead moves to fight the infected horror. It ends poorly, but the sheer guts it took to even attempt that has to be commended.
• In the episode's climax, Spear and Fang successfully run away from the Argentinosaurus rampaging through the volcano and dodge the crumbling rocks and splattering lava. Though they have no chance fighting the monster, the fact that they manage to come out alive shows how badass they are.
• Despite how terrifying the results are, there is still something undeniably awesome about a zombie dinosaur.
• Credit where it’s due; the Plague Monster just would not fucking die. It fell off a cliff, tore itself apart to free itself from a ravine, took a lava stream to the neck, and fell into lava three times in a row before finally going down. Horrifying? Yes. Impressive? Also yes.
• Even before succumbing to the effects of the titular plague, the Argentinosaurs deserves some props too. After its ankle was bitten by the diseased hadrosaur, the behemoth's reaction looked more frankly annoyed than anything else, raises its leg and launches the abomination into a tree so hard it became seemingly paralyzed from the impact as it lies on the ground, coughing and gargling to its literal last breath and dies.
  • If this plague implicitly affects one creature at a time, then the sauropod is sort of an Accidental Hero by preventing the disease from spreading and affecting other animals as well... Sadly this becomes more of a Shoot the Shaggy Dog moment as the creature itself is already doomed to becoming the next plague victim.

Coven of the Damned

• Lula (the witch who helps Spear and Fang) transforms into a giant crow to fight the leader of the coven (who had turned herself into a giant wolf) and buy enough time for Spear and Fang to escape. While she ultimately dies, Lula does manage to hold her own for a while, getting in some slashes and pecks to the giant wolf's face and drawing blood.
  • And immediately prior to this, Lula telekinetically uses Spear's own spear to fight and quickly kill the leader's huge Pteranodon (which looks even bigger next to her, since she herself is tiny).

The Night Feeder

• Though it ultimately proves useless, the way the Ceratopsian herd assembles in a circle to stand their ground against this unseen predator, which they've already seen tear apart several of their herd members, is pretty badass.
• The terrifying chase sequence on the fog from the predator's POV ends when a frenzied Spear strikes his weapon on the ground, creating a spark and making the until-now unstoppable creature run away. Spear and Fang share a look, and the POV shift to the Night Feeder again...but now it has become the prey. The tides turn as Spear and Fang set the darkness of the nigh ablaze, trapping the beast in a burning ring, and making the seemingly invincible predator, which had previously torn its way through anything that got in its way, recoil in fear right before Spear kills it by lobbing his flaming weapon right into its chest.
  • For the majority of the episode, much like the last two, it appears as though the night feeder is another incomprehensible horror beyond Spear and Fang's capabilities to fight that they can only escape by running from. Except this time, they actually manage to defeat it themselves.
• While this is also what makes it horrifying, one could argue that the Night Feeder itself qualifies, considering its ability to swiftly and brutally kill large and dangerous animals like Smilodon or ceratopsians with apparent ease.
• The way that Fang protects Spear from the creature, even resorting to growling in his face to assure him she does not want him ANYWHERE near that thing! Even though Spear pouts about not being able to fight and help the creatures being hunted, Fang is adamant, even sitting directly in front of Spear at night to assure him he is NOT going anywhere. Could double as a Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming Just as Spear went out of his way to protect Fang while she was healing in episode 6, Fang protects Spear by any means necessary here.

Slave of the Scorpion

• Mira shows Fang and Spear her intelligence and resourcefulness not just by showing advanced cooking, but by making a bow and arrows and killing an Oviraptorid they were hunting right as it was escaping.
• A low-key moment in a quiet scene where Mira tells Spear her backstory. As she uses drawings in the sand to tell her story, she at one point draws a horned figure who is implied to be behind the invasion of her home. The way Spear glares at the figure, this feels like he's subtly vowing to make this horned figure pay for all the misery he's brought to Mira and her people.
  • Unto itself, the way the show frames the horned figure as the Big Bad of the series and the driving force of the entire story, with nothing more than doodles in the sand.
• Last time Spear and Fang encountered Ape-Men, they were caught off guard, captured and forced to fight an impossible fight against magically enhanced warrior apes. This time, not only are they ready, but they are enraged at the apes for kidnapping their new friend. It is serious Catharsis Factor to see just how one sided a fair fight is. Fang especially seems to be into it, killing most of the group herself (including a quite literal curb stomp) and pausing to snarl in a way she's never done before, before splitting one unfortunate attacker in half. Clearly she had a grudge, having been brutalized by the last ape she fought.
  • Spear shows how fast he learns by using Mira's bow, and even takes advantage of his near super strength by skipping the arrows and going straight to launching his spear, impaling three Ape-Men one after the other with such force they shoot out of the caves entrance.

Season 2

Season 2 promo

• The poster◊ for Season 2 has Spear and Fang facing down a human army and tanking a barrage of arrows. And Spear has acquired a new weapon: swords.

Sea of Despair

• Spear driving away a ludicrously humongous Megalodon away by throwing a piece of the destroyed raft straight into its eye. Said piece of raft was found by Spear inside the Megalodon's mouth. If we needed further proof that Spear is practically a prehistoric Superman, here it is.

Shadow of Fate

• Red defeats Spear in one-on-one combat. Let’s put this into perspective: Spear has killed beasts much larger than himself multiple times in the series, even without Fang’s assistance. Hell, he even drove off a freaking Megalodon in the previous episode. Up to this point he hasn’t ever really been shown to be soundly defeated in potentially fatal combat, especially against non-supernatural creatures (even against the mammoth herd he was still fit and willing enough to continue fighting. In fact the only time he's in an extended fight he's clearly on the losing side of was his fight with Fang). Until now. Red has succeeded where giant horned tyrannosaurs, giant bats, a pliosaur, and a Megalodon have failed.

Dawn of Man

• Confronted with two Vikings riding giant bears, armed with swords and shields...Spear and Fang mop the floor with them. Both take out their opponents with minimal effort, with Fang's reaction to a swipe from a bear being an almost bemused "is that it?" expression. The surviving raider quickly realises that he is vastly out gunned and flees, only to turn around to see them chasing him down.
• Fang and one of the bears get into a roaring contest. It's enough to make the cave tremble and fell plenty of debris.
• After defeating the two bear-mounted Viking raiders, Spear notices the slain enemy's sword on the ground. Seeing how the enemy's weapon easily destroyed his namesake, Spear takes the sword, gives it a few swings, and smirks with great satisfaction before donning the Viking battle harness and shield. He essentially upgraded his class from "Caveman" to "Barbarian!"
• Mira's blatant refusal to abandon the other slaves isn't met with a struggle on Spear's part but his leading them to safety.

The Red Mist

• The Viking's mounted bears, who were slowly closing in on Spear, suddenly stop in their tracks and start sniffing out for something that's coming close. Spear is as confused as the bear's riders at first, but when the forest trees start to rustle he smirks at the vikings. Followed up by the ground trembling, a tree trunk sliding down, a large flock of birds flying out of the forest, and Spear letting out a roar. Then Fang pops out roaring on top of a house, ready for blood.
• Whatever's to be said about the increasingly concerning tone, the fight between the protagonists and the vikings is insane. Spear and Fang prove that they are in a class of their own, slaughtering dozens of enemies in a huge fight lasting half the episode. And that's before they fall into a berserker rage.
• While it doesn't end well for her (not that we're rooting for her victory to begin with), Rikka (the chieftain's wife) engaging and nearly killing Fang in a one-on-one fight still stands as quite possibly the most impressive feat of strength and courage we've seen from any human character (other than Spear) in the series so far. She stabs Fang in the snout even though she's chewing her by the waist.
• When fleeing from the village, Mira's able to use a stolen spear to kill a bear mount and then steal a Viking's axe to decapitate him with it.
• The Viking chief has an epic parting shot, armoring himself and his eldest son up as they pursue the escaped protagonists.

The Primal Theory

• The timid and put-upon Charles going Guns Akimbo against the Madman. Were it not for the Madman's otherworldly agility, he would've brought the Madman down with his guns.
• Lord Darlington. He's the only member of the Historical Society to ever actually injure the Madman. He's a skilled enough boxer to land several punches on the Madman (even over thirty years after his boxing days), lands a few arrows on him, and eventually kills the Madman with a sharpened stick.
• While he's also terrifying, one absolutely must give the Madman his due. Taking on a society of "civilized" and better-armed men, he proves genuinely horrific and even Ambiguously Human in his pursuit of them, invoking Offscreen Teleportation, tanking bullets, ripping arrows from his damaged skin, breaking stone by throwing Charles, snapping necks with a single blow, and even proving surprisingly clever with tricks like using a body as a human shield and hiding on the ceiling to evade the gentlemens' sight, ultimately slaying all but two of them. It says something that he proves Charles' "Primal Theory" just as much as Darlington himself!
• Though Charles was bullied for his theory throughout the episode, he gets his theory validated when the "primitive" Madman is only stopped by Lord Darlington embracing his own primal instinct— and in a lucky break? Charles is the only other survivor, to boot! Not bad at all for a man disrespected by his peers.
  And there you have it!

Vidarr

• Mira shows she can more than hold her own on captaining a boat. Even when a fierce battle rages around her, she has enough foresight to try to steer the ship around rocks, then gets it to shore after a hole is punched in it.
• Two vikings, one just as physically powerful as Spear don't stand a chance against Fang. You can have powerful weapons but that doesn't help against a freaking t-rex!
• The giant birds. In this universe, birds didn't just sit on their hands (or rather, wings) as pterosaurs and bats evolved into giant, ferocious forms. They evolved some of their own. The birds also give us the first giant theropod scuffle that's not between just tyrannosaurs, even if it was brief.

The Colossaeus Part 1

• Kamau (the enslaved giant) is shown to possess Super-Strength that might just give our heroic duo a run for their money. He not only blocks the foot of a war elephant from stomping him with his hands, but then pushes the elephant onto its side with seemingly minimal effort.
• Spear and Fang demonstrate they are in a league of their own once again by, after being coerced into helping invade the Babylonian styled city, they make more progress in a minute then the rest of the army put together. Driven home especially hard by their breaching the wall not while working together but separately within seconds of each other. The invading army were struggling to scale the wall and break through the main gate. Spear and Fang do it almost effortlessly.
  • The last elephants Spear and Fang encountered were the mammoths in episode 3. Due to their numbers, the mammoths overpowered the two. The war elephants that pick on Spear and Fang are not so lucky. This time, the duo make quick work of the elephants.
• Minor, but Spear now has a spear with a head made of metal. His signature weapon is stronger than ever.

The Colossaeus Part 2

• Fang's eggs finally hatch and the babies cry out to their mother. And what does Fang do when she hears their distressed calls, as the Egyptian Queen cruelly manhandles them? She breaks out of a metal cage with brute force alone and proceeds to lay waste to the Egyptian forces. Hell hath no fury like a Mama Bear T. rex.
• A villainous version, but the Queen proves to be an extremely tough and agile combatant who gives Spear a hard time. She may not have the imposing muscles like Spear or Kamau, but she compensates it with great dexterity and precise kicks (aided by her pointy Combat Stilettos), demonstrating that even in the civilized world Rank Scales with Asskicking.

The Colossaeus Part 3

• Fang is freed by Kamau, who throws an axe at the Queen, forcing her to release the hatchlings. As they run over to her and she nuzzles them, an arrow is shot into her jaw. Without flinching or moving from above the babies, she begins annihilating the Egyptian soldiers. If she wasn't trying to guard her children, this fight would have been over A LOT sooner.
• Upon seeing Kamau drive off their captors, his tribe decide to rise up themselves. The result? The Egyptians are completely decimated, and there isn't a single casualty among the tribe.
• Fang's babies chowing down on an Egyptian soldier is a mix of this, Black Comedy and (sorta) Heartwarming.
• After Kamau’s daughter is safely out of harm’s way and the rest of the tribe is engaged in thrashing the Egyptian soldiers, Kamau comes for the Queen personally, and no sells all of her attempts to fight him off. After two episodes of her holding his daughter’s life over him as leverage, it’s extremely satisfying seeing Kamau get his vengeance.

Echoes of Eternity

• We're shown in a flashback that Spear was already a badass from a very young age. In his early adolescence, he managed to take on and kill three Smilodons single-handedly in vengeance for the death of his father.
• Spear, being engulfed in flames, leaps towards the demonic Chieftain, pushing them both off the cliffs. What makes this significant that Spear was completely on fire from head to toe, yet he powered on through and scared the Chieftain, if for a moment. That's right, Spear put the fear in a demon.
  • Worth noting, but it's made clear that if not for his current state making him unkillable, Spear's final No-Holds-Barred Beatdown straight down the cliffside would have killed the Chieftain, even with all his new abilities. As the Chieftain struggles to return to his feet afterwards, the Scorpion instead forcibly drags him back to his realm, implied to be a combination of Spear's fatal wounds fulfilling his wish for vengeance and displeasure at the Chieftain's poor showing, even with all his advantages. The Chieftain sacrificed his guaranteed eternal rest in Valhalla for vengeance against Spear, but his manner of passing instead allows Spear to ensure he leaves a lasting legacy and denies the Chieftain the satisfaction of personally ending Spear's life. He killed Spear, but he never defeated him, and he's now doomed to an eternity of servitude with that knowledge.
• Fang's children are now fully-grown badasses like their mother, yet are comfortable around people. Mira's village, after suffering at the hands of conquerors, now have three full-grown T. rexes on their side (one of which has proven time and again an army wouldn't be enough to stop her). Let's see if anyone still dares to mess with them.

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