"Primal" "Primal"

It’s been a good week for Primal, Adult Swim’s dialogue-free action saga. A few days after the series picked up three Juried Emmys, news has broken that it has been renewed for a second season.

The first five episodes of the first season premiered in October 2019. A second batch of five episodes follows next month, premiering on October 4 at 11:30 p.m. (ET/PT) on Adult Swim. There is no announced release date for the second season, which will also consist of ten episodes.

Primal was created by Genndy Tartakovksy, the man behind Dexter’s Laboratory and Samurai Jack, and the director of the Hotel Transylvania feature trilogy. The series tells the story of a caveman and a dinosaur who, united by a shared trauma, team up to fend for themselves in a lawless primeval world. It is a tour de force of action timing and staging.

The show picked up three of the five Juried Emmys in the “individual achievement in animation” categories this year. Tartakovsky won for his storyboarding, while the other two awards went to art director Scott Wills and character designer Stephen DeStefano.

The first five episodes of Primal are available on HBO Max and AdultSwim.com. After their release last year, we spoke to Tartakovsky about the show’s development, his influences, and the importance of slowing animation down.

Alex Dudok de Wit

Alex Dudok de Wit is Deputy Editor of Cartoon Brew.