During their travels, Spear and Fang come across the dismembered and uneaten remains of a Smilodon. Fang seems instinctively wary of the body and initially tries to bolt, but both of them travel on through an uneventful day. That night, as Fang and Spear sit by their fire, an unseen predator slaughters an entire Anchiceratops herd nearby but once again leaves the bodies uneaten.
The next morning, Spear sees the carnage in the distance and decides to leave. As night falls once more, a powerful windstorm blows out their campfire. The unseen creature attacks Spear and Fang, and though they run and fight as best they can, the beast has them both completely outmatched. Just as it approaches Spear, his wild spear swings strike a nearby rock and send up a flare of light, forcing the creature to retreat, much to their shock. Spear and Fang set up a cordon of burning trees to force the creature back, then trap it in a ring of fire before Spear finally kills it with a burning spear.
This episode features the following tropes:
- Absurdly Sharp Claws: The Night Feeder’s primary weapons. They’re sharp enough to bisect a Anchiceratops skull and rip completely through a giant sequoia tree trunk with little effort.
- Animal Stampede: An approach of the Night Feeder causes a herd of Anchiceratops to scatter.
- Asshole Victim: The titular Night Feeder is definitely this. It spends the entire episode hunting and brutalizing the native wildlife for the hell of it before it's finally put down by Spear and Fang. As the dinosaur roasts in fire, the angry, quiet looks on our heroes' faces scream, "Good riddance".
- Creepy Crows: A flock of carrion birds and crows are seen feasting on the aftermath of the Night Feeder’s rampage.
- Darkness Equals Death: The Night Feeder leaves Spear and Fang alone the first night, presumably afraid to come near their campfire. It’s heavily hinted to be Weakened by the Light.
- The Dreaded: The dinosaurs seem to be instinctively terrified of the Night Feeder. Even Fang turns and initially bolts for the trees upon first smelling it, passing up a perfectly good kill. Spear quickly develops a terror of it too, and freaks out at small noises for the rest of the episode.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Stalked by the Night Feeder, Spear accidentally strikes some sparks off a rock while wildly swinging his spear around, and instantly sends the Night Feeder into retreat. Spear visibly realizes he's discovered the monster's weakness, and loses all fear of it now that he knows how to defeat it.
- Everyone Has Standards: Spear, a hunter-gatherer with emphasis on the hunter, can't stand the sound of the Anchiceratops herd getting slaughtered and would have rushed out to fight the monster if not for Fang blocking his path.
- Fauxshadowing: Several times, the Night Feeder's true appearance is hinted at differently: the title alone can make the audience think it could be some sort of vampire, until the brutality of the kill with blood left behind everywhere suggests otherwise, upon which it's geared more towards being a nigh-incomprehensible monster. Then later there seems to be some foreshadowing that the beast is a giant praying mantis, as Spear observes a regular-size mantis shredding a fly. Then when Fang jumps onto the creature in the fog, she comes out with some black tar-like substance all over her snout, implying it's some kind of Blob Monster. At the very end of the episode, when they have it trapped and set on fire, the Night Feeder is revealed to be a dinosaur.
- Flies Equals Evil: The morning after the Night Feeder’s rampages, the torn remains are covered in swarms of flies.
- Foreshadowing:
- That being said about the Night Feeder's appearance in Fauxshadowing, there are auditory clues that it's a dinosaur; it has a distinctive one-two one-two walking pattern and it growls and rasps, both things Fang as a T-Rex does.
- The Night Feeder's apprehension to fire and light is subtly hinted at earlier in the episode when it doesn't attack Spear and Fang the first two nights when they're sitting around a campfire despite them being close enough to hear the massacre, they never encounter the creature during the day, and finally, it doesn't go after them on the third night till after their fire goes out.
- Gorn: And lots of it, as the Night Feeder rends several animals limb from limb.
- Hell Is That Noise: As Spear and Fang sit around the campfire, they hear a herd of Anchiceratops being slaughtered by the Night Feeder. Spear initially tries to run out and see what’s happening, but Fang pushes him back towards the firelight.
- The Hunter Becomes the Hunted: The Night Feeder pursues Fang and Spear throughout the night till it's driven off by Spear's fire. After they learn the monster's weakness, they go on the offensive the following night, using sparks to drive the creature into a trap that they surround with fire to stop it from running away before finally killing it with a flaming spear.
- Impending Doom P.O.V.: All over the place, generally from the Night Feeder’s perspective.
- Kill It with Fire: The Night Feeder’s death – Spear traps it in a ring of fire before impaling it on a burning spear.
- Made of Incendium: Turns out the Night Feeder covers itself in a highly flammable oil/tar substance to give it greater stealth at night, at the cost of making it very easy to burn it alive.
- Make Me Wanna Shout: The Night Feeder has a horrific scream that forces Spear to his knees at one point.
- Monster Delay: The Night Feeder itself isn’t seen by the audience until the very end, and even then, we don’t get much more than a glimpse of an oddly upright theropod with oversized claws, burning in the fire.
- Mook Horror Show: We frequently see from the Night Feeder's perspective when it's on the hunt, but when Spear and Fang turn the tables we only see them in quick flashes from the creature's viewpoint as it starts running in terror before we get a longer view of the two of them spreading a flame around the monster to cut off its escape.
- Murderer P.O.V.: A lot of the kills seen throughout the episode are seen from the creatures perspective à la Jaws.
- Non-Indicative Name: The titular creature, despite its name, never actually feeds on anything it kills, making its rampages that much more unsettling.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Neither the audience nor the characters get a good look at the Night Feeder, which only serves to make it more frightening.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Fang seems to have some knowledge or understanding of the Feeder, which means the usually brave dinosaur takes one whiff of the first kill and wants to make a run for it. When Spear can't listen to the Anchiceratops being slaughtered anymore and makes a move to run towards the kill zone, she out and out blocks him, making it clear in no uncertain terms that he is going nowhere near whatever is killing them.
- Our Werebeasts Are Different: It’s hinted (though never confirmed) that the Night Feeder is the transformed version of a small, bug-eating theropod Fang and Spear see at a river – possibly eating the flies drawn in by its rampages at night. This would explain why the so-called Night Feeder never actually eats anything (aside from killing for the sheer fun of it) and where it actually goes during the day.
- Shown Their Work: The Smilodon is correctly depicted with a short, bobcat-like tail and a muscular, hyena-like body.
- Tranquil Fury: After spending the episode in fear and running from the Night Feeder, the moment Spear and Fang discover its weakness to fire and light, the duo goes on the offensive and hunts the beast down. The two trap the dinosaur in a fire ring before Spear throws a burning spear at the beast's chest. As it burns, the duo watch it roast in quiet contempt.
- The Worf Effect: The episode opens with a Smilodon, one of prehistory's most dreaded predators, on the prowl. It's almost instantly slaughtered by the Night Feeder.
