Warning: this article contains spoilers
Love, Death & Robots is an anthology series on Netflix with a unique blend of sci-fi, horror, and comedy. Some episodes are animated, while others lean into a realistic or CGI art style. The best part of Love, Death & Robots is not knowing what to expect next with each episode, and they never disappoint.
Love, Death & Robots: Volume 3 slaps from the first episode. It’s a series of animated shorts aimed at adults, so there’s an ungodly amount of blood, gore, and adult themes. I ranked all nine episodes in this article, from my least favourite to my favourite.
“Mason’s Rats”
This episode follows a Scottish farmer who purchases a small military-grade army of robots to fight off an army of rats that have infested his barn. The fact that this episode ends with the rats and the farmer calling a truce and sharing a drink made by the rats did not sit well with the Nigerian in me. Sentient or not, rats are disgusting. It’s an excellent episode. I just don’t support rats as living things.
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“Kill Team, Kill”
This episode would have been my least favourite if “Mason’s Rats” had featured any other animal but rats. Kill Team Kill tells the story of a military squad who goes up against a genetically modified grizzly bear. The guys in the unit spend all their time making penis jokes, swearing at each other, and being in a non-stop blood bath. It’s short but super chaotic. The good thing is that they die quickly enough for you to move on. If you like a weird mix of action and comedy, this is for you.,
“Swarm”
Swarm tells the story of two opportunistic scientists trying to learn the secrets of an alien hive to improve humanity. The whole episode features humans doing what they do best: exploiting and attempting to colonise and builds up to an underwhelming sex scene. On a deeper level, there’s the fundamental question of whether the aliens or the humans are being exploited. That question is never answered, though, and the story ends unresolved—shoutout to it for at least being the only episode to touch on the theme of love.
“Night of the Mini Dead”
In this episode, two foolish humans decide to have sex in a cemetery, triggering a series of unfortunate events that wipes out humanity via a zombie apocalypse. The gag of the episode is the stop motion animation method and the camera angle that makes the humans look like ants with squeaky voices. Anyway, I blame konji for all of this.
“Three Robots: Exit Strategies”
Our favourite robot trio from volume one returns in this episode and continues their journey through the ruins of a post-apocalyptic Earth. They went to the last bunker for rich people, specifically an oil rig for millionaires and tech-bros. They found out that it was where the first robot uprising began because those guys had no survival skills and relied heavily on machines—the shade. The three of them criticised humans back and forth and made several points, but the real gag was the end, where the iconic line “Who were you expecting, Elon Musk?” was said after they showed us who finally made it to Mars.
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“In Vaulted Halls Entombed”
Similar to Kill Team Kill (a military squad goes on a mission to take out some terrorists in Afghanistan and ends up trying to take out a monster. A lot of the plot would not exist if they’d seen the tomb, said “fuck no”, and gone home, but what’s the fun in that? The animation style is so realistic that when the sole survivor cut off her ears and gouged her eyes at the end, I nearly fainted. This episode is just the right amount of action and horror, so if you like movies like Aliens vs Predator, you’ll enjoy this one.
“Bad Travelling”
In Bad Travelling, a sentient crab boards a ship containing a group of shark hunters and begins killing some of the crew. It forces the captain to take it to an island so it can kill more innocent people. The captain is torn between saving the rest of his crew and saving the people’s lives on the island. This episode will have you at the edge of your seat, and you’ll have to remember to breathe. It’s that good.
“The Very Pulse of the Machine”
This episode is the ultimate trip and will make you question everything about existence. When it ends, you’ll wonder if you were high the entire time. An astronaut is stranded on one of Jupiter’s moons and has to drag the corpse of her comrade to safety. Along the way, She taps into the planet’s consciousness after taking drugs that make her hallucinate, and it claims to be a sort of machine. She starts to hear her dead companions talking to her, and we’re unsure if she’s hallucinating or if the moon is a machine talking to her. She sha made near-death feel beautiful right up to the ending. The colour choice and music were vital in making this entire episode beautiful.
“Jibaro”
This twisted episode left chills down my spine. Not a word was uttered between the two characters, but somehow that made it heavier. “Jibaro” follows a deaf knight whose entire battalion is killed by a siren-like creature covered in gold and jewels. She becomes obsessed with this man maybe because her cries have no effect on him, and at her most vulnerable, this man rips up all the gold and jewels from her body in the most horrific manner. Lowkey, it makes you feel like you’re having an anxiety attack, and the music sure doesn’t help, but that tension and the almost life-like animation stylish make it brilliant. It’s both disturbing and mesmerising with fantastic storytelling.
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