Genndy Tartakovsky, the mastermind behind beloved animated hits like Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack, and Star Wars: Clone Wars (the first version!), is finally bringing back Primal, his amazing pre-prehistoric wonder about the Neanderthal Spear (Aaron LaPlante) and his faithful T-rex, Fang (Joel Valentine). While the Season 2 finale of the show back in 2022 saw the death of Spear (if a happy ending for Fang… eventually!), the show is now finally back for a third season. And incredibly, Spear is back as well.

But yes, he’s still dead.

Tartakovsky was on hand at CCXP in São Paulo, Brazil, this past weekend to talk about what’s next for Spear and the Primal universe. And along the way, he also filled in the crowd on the aborted ideas he had for the anthology series Season 3 was originally meant to morph into.

Primal Season 3 ImagesPrimal Season 3: The Anthology Series That Could’ve Been

“For the third season, I thought, alright, well, we’ve got 20 episodes. We probably should be done,” Tartakovsky told the CCXP crowd. “I hope everyone’s seen it! We killed off Spear, and I wanted to make Primal an anthology show. Still, it says Primal, but then it would be ‘Creation’ or something, a different heading. So I started to draw, and the first idea was of this orange alien girl and a blue man. They were born, kind of like Adam and Eve, and they struggle and they fight different creatures. It kind of felt just not right.”

Earlier in his presentation, Tartakovsky had explained that he believes in the “organic nature” of filmmaking, so when something feels right he just goes with it. “I’ve always kind of trusted my gut,” he said.

“And so it wasn’t working,” he continued in reference to the orange girl and blue man. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, maybe more alien, kind of insectoid things.’ And that wasn’t working. Then I had this idea about a cute creature who has to survive. I was like, ‘That’s kind of neat.’ But then it felt very cute, and I don’t know what makes this adult. So I had all these questions. And is it too far away from Primal, right? So you could see me developing it and I was kind of interested in it, and then it just didn’t feel right. I didn’t feel right about it.”

I was kind of interested in it, and then it just didn’t feel right.

The bottom line? The creator of Spear missed… Spear.

“And then I felt sad that Spear was gone,” chuckled the animator. “And I was like, what did I do? I spent 20 episodes trying to get an audience and trying to have everybody love Spear and Fang. And then I ended it.”

Until he didn’t.

The Return of (Zombie) Spear

Tartakovsky pointed out that while we the audience may binge a show in a day, or even just watch it over the course of a few months, for him and his production team it’s two years that’s spent on each season. Ultimately it’s a different experience for the creators, who spend so much time with these characters, and for the fans, for whom a season can come and go as quickly as a T-rex can snap an ape-man in half.

“So I realized, oh no, maybe I made a mistake. And I was like, what am I going to do?” said Tartakovsky. “And then it hit me. We’re going to make Spear a zombie!”

nullSpear lives. Ish.

The world of Primal has always been steeped in the supernatural — this show was never a history lesson. And indeed, the Season 1 episode “Plague of Madness” involved a zombie plague of sorts. So it wasn’t a leap to bring back Spear, even if in doing so he might seem a bit worse for wear.

“Yeah, this feels right,” laughed Tartakovsky. “Then as we started to develop the story, I was really excited about it because of the amount of emotion that we get to bring in. I get to come up with a new fighting style — caveman/zombie fighting style, whatever that is, whatever that’s going to be. And his journey started to come alive. And then I started drawing him in. Drawing a battered zombie Spear was super fun and we started to play with how much emotions he was going to have. Again, figuring out how he’s going to walk and stand and then, wait a second, right? He’s going to be naked. So now we have a naked zombie caveman! And that was it. Yes, we have to do it.”

Primal Season 3 Exclusive Clip

The fans at CCXP were also treated to an exclusive clip from the new season that showed off zombie Spear in all his lumbering, fight-ready, naked, and kind of gross glory. And while Tartakovsky isn’t ready to reveal yet how Spear gets zombified, what is clear is that just because the Neanderthal is undead now, that doesn’t mean that he’s not our hero anymore.

In the clip, we see Spear walking and walking… and walking. He has the determination that only a zombie could have, simply pushing forward through various landscapes without a thought to food or water or rest. Although it’s clear that there is some thought going on within his (slightly scalped) head, because eventually he stops in his tracks and growls/yells at some perceived threat. All of a sudden what can only be described as a giant sandworm ala Dune bursts out of the ground. Things very quickly turn into a classic Primal chase scene, which includes Spear running, eventually on all fours and in a distinctly non-zombie manner. We also see quick flashes of visions the caveman is having, seemingly of him running with… a dinosaur!

null

Back in reality, he falls into a chasm filled with prickly vines, but is impervious to injury now (or rather, just doesn’t care if his flesh is damaged). He escapes, only to come face to face with the worm again. The humongous thing appears from underground right beneath Spear and seems to have finally caught its prey. With Spear in the creature’s mouth, he manages to hold its jaws open and jump down to the ground. But then, the worm suddenly falls hard onto Spear, like a hammer hitting a nail… And cut to the Primal title card!

Tartakovsky also talked a bit about what drives him to make his art: “We’re always pushing color, we’re always pushing mood. No blue skies, green grass, nothing normal. Everything’s got to have a point of view and a mood to it. Half of the things that I do, or even more than half, is to see the artists that I surround myself with do it. Oh, I came up with this jungle background. How is Christian going to draw it? How’s Scott going to paint it? What kind of story is it going to be? So I’m a little kid enjoying myself and surrounding myself with these amazing talented people.”

Primal Season 3’s Release Date

Primal’s third season premieres on Sunday, January 11, at 11:30pm ET/PT on Adult Swim, and the next day on HBO Max.

Talk to Scott Collura on Twitter at @ScottCollura, or listen to his Star Trek podcast, Transporter Room 3. Or do both!