LogFAQs > #968535401

Pirateking2000 posted...

Plague of Madness (Primal episode)

(4/8/10 = 22)

https://www.adultswim.com/videos/primal/plague-of-madness

Genndy Tarkavosky's adult animated series, spanning across multiple genres, arguably reached its apex with "Plague of Madness", a segment that focuses on series leads Spear and Fang running for their lives from an infected zombie-like Argentinosaurus, hunting them down through the cliffsides of prehistory. The segment can be understood clearly as an allegory; released April 1, 2020, right in the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic, almost as a cruel April Fool's joke, to depict the struggle of illness within individuals, personal responsibility in social distancing, and the end of large swaths of life in the blink of an eye. This sort of horror in not so typically found in an animated piece like this, however "Plague of Madness" thrives in the tradition of horror as social allegory, and is certainly one of the greatest pieces of animated television ever produced.

The episode starts off innocently enough, a tranquil scene of Argentinosauruses thriving in nature, enjoying each other's company, eating well of fruit & brush, before an eerily decayed Parasaurolophus emerges from the deeper forest, writhing and spitting out slime and flesh bubbling like a boiling pot. I love the score throughout this scene; it's peaceful but at the same time you can sense something anxious about it, like the line between sanity and insanity is about to be crossed, a paranoid shudder filling the cracks of the music. Still, one Argentinosaurus remains uncaring of this sight, perhaps unaware of the creature's insane sickness, or more likely, apathetic towards an animal much smaller than himself. Then, just Argentinosaurus goes back to his meal, the infected creature bites the huge dinosaur on the leg, who kicks the smaller dino away. The animation on the Parasaurolophus becomes more and more gruesome to look at with every passing frame; it coughs up blood and dies in a fit of thrashing pain and thankful oblivion.

However, this bite was no harmless bite. The Argentinosaurus transforms into the same sickly color of the Parasaurolophus, with startling speed; the smart transition is so jarring and reflects the uncertainty of time - whether the transformation was mere seconds or days, to the victim, it mattes not. With bones now protruding from the back of the neck and a futile attempt at relief by gulping down large gallons of water, the poor, flesh-rendered dinosaur vomits its contents of blood straight into the glistening pool. Its herd looks on in sheer, movement-freezing horror; the infected Argentinosaurus rampages, slaughtering its former friends and family one by one. It's a bloodbath typically reserved for John Wick films or the senseless body counts of B-shlock like Demons or Dead Alive. Here - it's different. There's a sense of desperation, of sheer hopelessness, each death more disgustingly brutal than the next, as the infected animal completes its transformation into something more akin to an eldritch ghoul, tearing its prey to shreds in a downward spiral of unstoppable violence, brutally and mercilessly attacking until only IT remained with even eggs of the next generation not being spared. Spear and Fang emerge on the scene - their gaze, wide-eyed. Two characters, haunted by the violence and tragedy of their past, now face down an enraged creature of unimaginable power. The two bear witness to the eternal struggle of survival and nature against a force none can understand; bearing down on them, a hellish predator, a beast no longer with soul, the only thing the Argentinosaurus can do is wipe out everything around it.

I'd rather not spoil how the rest of the episode ends. The episode is in essence a commentary on the destruction of civilization, how one's own apathy and uncaringness can be just as dangerous as an infected animal. The animation is fantastic, with plenty of gore and blood, and the mid-part is a thrill ride, a visceral sequence that gets increasingly more hectic with each passing moment. The episode offers no explanation, no answer, and it doesn't need one. It really poses the question to the audience - do you wish to live in a world where people act like this towards each other? Do you want to be like the Argentinosaurus, when something so seemingly benign can be driven to murderous insanity, driven to kill to escape the misery inside its own body? Thats the kind of mood and setting that makes this an engrossing horror experience I think everyone should watch.