Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Love, Death & Robots: Season 3’ on Netflix, The Return of David Fincher’s Adults Only Animation Anthology

Love, Death & Robots (Netflix) returns for a third season of animation across the spectrum, lots of swearing, gore, and sex, and under-20-minute platforms for directors to really go off. Co-creator David Fincher even steps in to helm an episode. In the first installment, the three robots of Love, Death’s first season return to a ruined Earth for more sarcastic exploration into humanity’s demise.

LOVE, DEATH & ROBOTS: SEASON 3: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Earth from above. Wisps of cloud gather along ridges, and lichen climbs unbidden. A shadow falls across the land…

The Gist: The third season of Love, Death & Robots begins with a nod to its first, as K-VRC (Josh Brener), XBOT 4000 (Gary Anthony Wiliams), and 11-45-G (Katie Lowes) – also known as Elena – return to the ruined post-apocalypse planet we call home. As they did on their first visit to Earth in the season one episode “Three Robots,” the explorers from a nascent machine culture attempt to connect their limited knowledge of humanity with what’s been left behind. (Like that first episode, “Exit Strategies” was written by Hugo Award-winning science fiction writer John Scalzi.) The robots’ first stop? A survivalist compound. Or, what’s left of it. “These humans thought that with freedom from government-sponsored medical attention and enough bullets and venison jerky, they could found a utopian society,” 11-45-G says. Skeletons still clad in prepper gear and trucker hats are splayed here and there before ruined communications equipment and gun emplacements. There’s a minefield outside, and a pit full of punji stakes. We also learn that humans hunted to extinction every animal larger than a cat.

The familiar format of Love, Death has returned, too, from its titles rendered in emoji to an array of different directors and animation studios handling the nine new episodes. And while each story is a standalone, there are thematic links in the chain. For “Exit Strategies,” Wreck-It Ralph animator Patrick Osborne is at the helm; future episodes will feature the return director Jennifer Yuh Nelson, as well as a turn from David Fincher, who remains as a Love, Death producer alongside Tim Miller. And if you’re a person who “mints it on the blockchain,” stay tuned until the end for an NFT-friendly QR code.

Remember the sentient, talking cats from “Three Robots”? They figure into “Exit Strategies,” too. At the end, humans were genetically engineering felines, even as society had irrevocably stratified. Leaving the survivalist compound behind, K-VRC, XBOT 4000, and 11-45-G land their ship on an oil rig that tech millionaires converted into a “seasteading” platform. They thought of every luxury, but their robot support staff turned on them, and started the uprising that established the explorers’ machine society. The trio also visits the bunkerized mountain fortress of the world’s superpowers, where they find another failed food system and examples of “extreme democracy” (the Secretary of Agriculture paired well with a ‘79 merlot…), as well as their final stop, an elite spaceship base fortified against desperate hordes of 99.9 percenters by gargantuan flamethrowers. “Hold the fuck up,” XBOT 4000 says. “Are you saying they went to Mars?”

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? If NSFW animation is your game, Netflix also features America: The Motion Picture, a potty mouthed, ahistorical riff on the nation’s founding that features the voice talents of Channing Tatum, Jason Mantzoukis, and Olivia Munn, amongst many others. Munn’s voice acting also appears in Hit-Monkey (Hulu), the Marvel-affiliated adult animated series about a Japanese macaque with the skills of an assassin. And, of course, this whole series is the result of David Fincher’s reboot of the 1981 sci-fi rock ‘n’ roll animated cult classic Heavy Metal failing to take flight.

Our Take: As mentioned above, Love, Death & Robots is said to be the manifestation of how creators Tim Miller and David Fincher hoped to reboot the 1981 fantasy animation classic Heavy Metal, which explains both its rich, varied visual palette and solidly-imagined anthology format. Even if the narrative here isn’t full of connective tissue, Love, Death has always thrived on its universal vibe, a vibe that aligns it with something like Black Mirror. In season three’s lead episode, Blow Studio creates sharply rendered, nearly photorealistic backgrounds that burst with natural wonder and cerulean ocean waters, the bounty that thrives as humanity’s detritus rusts and rots in the foreground. The survivalist compound includes a Winnebago repurposed as an elevated gun platform, the seasteaders built a bastion that resembles Miami art deco floating on the sea, and the one percenters’ budgeted enough time between constructing their rocketships and defenses to print up hysterical flyers. (“So long dead planet…hello red planet!”) There’s also an easter egg included in launch footage the robots watch, the imprinted date and time code of their departure from our blue origin. Love, Death & Robots is full of rich imagination, smart details, and a refreshing lack of restraint, in both its visuals and language.

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode. No skin, only skeletons.

Parting Shot: From the earthly spaceports of the ultra-rich, we cut to Mars, where biodomes are nestled amidst drifts of red planet rock. There’s an astronaut here, gazing upon what’s been built, a refreshing daiquiri alongside. “I wonder who made it out?” the robots had asked back on Earth, and the answer is not one of our society’s usual suspect UHNWI’s.

Sleeper Star: He’s only a sleeper star in that he’s not physically on screen. But as XBOT 4000, Gary Anthony Wiliams of Whose Line Is It Anyway? and a wealth of voice roles keeps the robot crew together with humor and a flair for social comment.

Most Pilot-y Line: “Yes, an in-depth survey of post-apocalyptic humanity.” When 11-45-G says it in her computer-rendered monotone, it almost sounds like an interesting documentary. Then you remember that humanity is us.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Love, Death & Robots keeps the run time tight and visual pizzazz expansive as it explores its titular topics in relation to society and ourselves. And oh yeah, swear words.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges