Love, Death & Robots is an animated anthology TV series that has been a breakthrough in making animated TV shows since 2019.
With David Fincher as the show’s executive producer, the series was not shy from depicting violence and carnage, along with Fincher-like plot twists in many episodes.
The first season of this show in 2019 proved that this is not any mere kid’s animated show, while also winning Primetime Emmy awards in multiple categories for its animation style.
Although the second season in 2021 could not live up to the expectations created by the previous season, the latest release of the third season managed to reclaim some of its past glory.
The series is an anthology of multiple non-connected episodes where most of them are created by different directors - diversifying and bringing different flavours to every episode.
Many of the episodes are also produced in various animation studios worldwide, such as in Spain, France, Japan, Hungary, Denmark, etc. making this creation a collective international effort.
Some of the episodes are in 2D, while some are in 3D. Still, most of the 3D animations are detailed and hyper-realistic and almost make the animation look like a real-life action, which is definitely praiseworthy.
Season one of Love, Death & Robots was well criticised for depicting violence in an adult animation setting, and season three seems to propagate the positive criticism, almost overusing it.
Episodes like ‘Kill Team Kill,’ ‘Mason’s Rats,’ and ‘In Vaulted Halls Entombed’ have an excessive depiction of gore and violence, but using this strategy makes these episodes deviate from any meaningful story.
On other hand, the episode ‘Bad Travelling’ directed by David Fincher, has a dark and eerie setting with ample amounts of violence but depicts a deep and dark meaning behind achieving a greater good.
Season three also introduced an episode with a psychedelic plot setting like ‘Fish Night.’ ‘The Very Pulse of the Machine’ depicts an astronaut stranded on a moon of the planet Jupiter, where she tries to survive and hallucinates merging herself with the universe, paying homage to Stanely Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The colour palate choice of this 17-minute episode was artistically psychedelic and mesmerising to watch.
The most precious episode of season three is ‘Jibaro,’ directed by Alberto Mielgo. This director was also highly praised for directing the episode ‘The Witness’ in season one, which had an ambiguous ending.
‘Jibaro’ depicts the point of view of a deaf conquistador knight with clever use of sound effects. Moreover, the fine detail and highly colourised animation make the episode hyper-realistic and hauntingly beautiful.
However, Mielgo’s masterful storytelling of the relationship between the deaf knight and a mysterious woman-like creature with no voices in this episode gives ‘Jibaro’ a deep meaning which can be interpreted in many ways related to problems in real life. It will be a shame if the final episode of this season does not get any deserved recognition.
Season three is a mixture of plot twists, plentiful brutality, and portrayals of the dire consequences of human greed for power and dominance.
The latest season attempted to be successful by overusing the violence depicting approach from the most acclaimed inaugural season, albeit making some of the episodes a bit tedious to watch.
Nevertheless, it is up to people’s verdict whether this season lived up to its expectations.
