In 2019 Netflix released Love, Death & Robots, an anthology series that had the mission of showcasing animation coming from many studios from around the world. The show is produced by Tim Miller, chief of Blue Studio, and who famously directed the first Deadpool movie, and also David Fincher, thriller master, and one of the best directors working in this day and age. The first volume was released with 18 episodes full of a variety of stories and styles, and it was quite a success.
Years later, in 2021 a second season of only 8 episodes was released. The production of many of the shorts suffered from the COVID-19 Pandemic, and it became evident that a longer season had to be shortened in order to get to the release date. Now the rest of the episodes that should have been part of Vol. 2 are now being released under the Vol. 3 banner.
This new batch of episodes must be the best in terms of quality consistency. Each episode continues to fantastically adapt a number of short stories from across the science fiction, and fantasy literary space. If you are somewhat confused with some endings to these fantastic shorts, we’ll try to explain each one of them. Beware, the next paragraphs are filled with spoilers.
What Happens In Three Robots: Exit Strategies?
The first episode of Vol. 3 sees us coming back to our favorite robots from the apocalypse. The episode’s title is “Exit Strategies” because our dear robots examine each way in which humans try to avoid the fate of death coming from the Robot uprising. We see how some people tried to live on ocean platforms, others tried to live in bunkers under the Earth and those that really could afford it ended up leaving to space, in search of a new planet.
The episode is filled with satire and social commentary. This commentary is targeted to the rich and powerful. The 0.01% of the population that can afford to actually make a change in the world, but instead of doing it only use their power to fulfill only their own self-serving ambitions. At the end of the episode when it is revealed that some people went to Mars, the episode breaks the fourth wall, and we see a cat, on Mars, leaving life. The cat then says the line, “Who were you expecting? Elon Musk?” a clear punch to the richest man in the world, who actually wants to go to Mars.
What Happens At The End Of Bad Travelling?
The short film is the first voyage the talented David Fincher takes into the realm of animation. Blur Studios delivers a short full of mood and amazing production values. The episode focuses on Captain Torrin, who tries to save his tribulation from a thanapod, a huge crustacean that wants to be transported to the nearest inhabited Island to feed on the populace. Torrin makes a deal with the creature, to spare his life and he will transport it to the Island.
However, Torrin’s plan from the beginning is to deceive the creature and take it to a nearby island with no inhabitants. A vote is taken, so the whole crew can decide if they try to deceive the creature and save lives or do the creature’s will and save their own necks, probably. Towards the end of the episode, it is revealed that the full crew except for Torrin voted to do the creature’s will. Torrin is sickened by the cowardice of his crew and lies to them, forcing them to follow the plan to deceive the creature.
Towards the end, Torrin can be held off mutiny any longer, and the crew tries to kill him in his sleep. They failed and in a surprise attack, Torrin kills each one of them, except another coward who didn’t want to participate. Torrin feeds the coward to the thanapod and then blows up the ship using the oil in the ship’s barrels. Torrin jumps to a lifeboat and sees how his ship and the creature die in flames, with the silhouette of the island in the back, its inhabitants unaware that they have just been saved from a massacre.
What Happens At The End Of The Very Pulse Of The Machine?
The Very Pulse Of The Machine is the most meditative heavy episode in Volume 3, and it focuses on Martha and Burton, both of them Astronauts that have suffered a terrible crash on the surface of Io, one of Jupiter’s moons. During the crash, Burton dies immediately, and Martha makes her mission to take her corpse to their base through the desert. Martha not only has slow reserves of oxygen, but she is also injured after the crash. Nevertheless, she pushes forward.
As Martha struggles to keep going, she uses morphine to numb her pain, however, her suit warns her that she might suffer from hallucinations. Martha prefers that she must die, best do it while high. Martha begins to hear voices coming from Burton’s corpse and Io itself. She starts conversing with Io, who reveals itself to be a machine, and it wants Martha to be part of it. Martha rejects the idea at the beginning, but as it becomes clear she will never reach the base, she reassessed the offer.
At the end, Martha jumps into a lake of energy, and she is apparently absorbed by Io, where her body will be destroyed, but her consciousness will remain. The end of the episodes takes an ambiguous route, as we don’t know if Martha was actually hearing the voice of Io, or she was only suffering hallucinations from the drugs she took.
What Happens At The End Of Night Of The Mini Dead?
Night of the Mini Dead is the shortest episode of Volume 3, and it focuses on a zombie Apocalypse that starts when a horny couple defiles a local cemetery. This defilement brings some sort of curse and the zombies start rising from their graves, and basically conquer the whole world in a matter of days, destroying the living human civilization in the process.
The episode ends with the world being overrun by a huge number of zombies, and the world governments deciding to use nuclear weapons as the last resort to exterminate the zombie thread. Sadly, all the nuclear missiles are launched at the same time and when they impact they destroy the entire planet Earth. As the camera zooms from Earth, the sound of fart is heard after Earth is destroyed. A clear signal that we are nothing in face with the expansive nature of the universe we live in.
What Happens At The End Of Kill Team Kill?
Kill Team Kill is the only 2D animated short in Vol. 3 and focuses on a military squad sent to investigate some truly strange disappearances. The squad is looking for a fellow squad who were on a mission in the jungle. Sgt. Nielsen, the leader of the team, pushes his team forward only to find that the team they were looking for have all died a horrible death. Whatever killed them was not human.
The team quickly finds out that their target has been massacred by a huge, technologically modified grizzly bear. The bear kills some members of the team, and it feels like it is, for all intents and purposes, invincible. The bear leaves without for some reason, and the team is spared. The team then meets agent Morris, who was the one who scared the bear away. He explains the bear is a CIA project to build a killing machine.
The team goes back to Morris’ base to find everybody dead inside. They armed themselves and made one last stand. After an intense battle, the bear seems defeated. Only Sgt. Nielsen and Macy stand alive, but the bear makes a final move, activating its self-destruct mechanism, killing everyone with a huge nuclear explosion.
What Happens At The End Of Swarm?
Swarm is one of the most fascinating shorts in Vol. 3. The short focuses on Simon, a scientist that has to travel to a star system inhabited by an alien species known as the Swarm, considered just organized animals by other races. Simon enters the Swarm, and he is received by Galina, another scientist that spent years studying the Swarm, and living in it.
Galina teaches Simon everything she knows about the Swarm, and the two grow closer and closer to each other, finally becoming a couple. Simon then reveals that his true purpose is to try to use the Swarm to create a slave race that will serve the human race for both altruistic and militarist enterprises. Galina is not convinced at first, but she decides to help. They start running experiments inside the Swarm.
Later, the Swarm attacks Simon, and it is revealed to him that Galina has been killed and assimilated into the Swarm gene pool. The Swarm directly speaks with Simon, warning him that many have tried what he is planning to do, and they have failed, as the Swarm slaves those raises and makes them part of itself. Simon dares the Swarm to do it, as humans are different. The Swarm doesn’t think so. It is implied that the Swarm will use Simon and Galina’s genetic information to make better versions of humans that will destroy humanity itself if they dare to attack the Swarm.
What Happens At The End Of Mason’s Rats?
Mason’s Rats is another short from Vol. 3 that falls more into the comedic side of things. It introduces us to Mason, a Scottish farmer that is suffering from a big plague of rats. These are not normal rats though, they have learned to use weapons and are ready to fight back. Mason calls for the best exterminator service provider. He gets sold a couple of big tech extermination devices, but they don’t work.
Mason then receives a new exterminator device that functions and behaves more like The Terminator. The Machine massacres the rats with no remorse, and even Mason is taken back with the violence the Machine delivers on the rats. Watching the little animals suffer, Mason destroys the Machine, putting an end to the killing.
The rats then make peace with Mason, who discovers that the rats have been distilling their own liquor, and it is quite good. The old enemies, now allies, take a drink as the sunset puts over the horizon.
What Happens At The End Of In Vaulted Halls Entombed?
In Vaulted Halls, Entombed boasts the most realistic CGI in this volume, making the character feel almost like live action. The short centers around a group of special forces who are following a group of insurgents during the Afghanistan War. The team follows the insurgents, who are trying to hide inside a cave in the desert. Another team enters first and when they hear they might have trouble, our team follows.
Inside the cave, the team discovers skeletons belonging to the first team. They have been killed by something. They discover small animals, like insects, that attack them. The team defends themselves and pushes forward inside the cave. They exit into a huge cave that seems to not be naturally made, but carved by someone. The scale is gargantuan, and in the middle there’s a huge building with an ominous rising light. The survivors push towards and exit.
As they come closer to the building, the team leader goes inside, even after his aid begs to go for the exit. Inside the building they find Cthulhu itself in all of his glory. The eldritch horror is trapped by chains and seals. Cthulhu speaks inside the soldiers minds and commands to be released. The female soldier kills her superior before he can do it. At the end we see that the female soldier has taken her own eyes out to spare herself the horror, but she only mumbles in alien language, revealing that while alive, her mind is already broken. The classic destiny of all Lovecraft protagonists.
What Happens At The End Of Jibaro?
Jibaro serves as the closing episode of the Vol. 3, and it is indeed the most experimental one of the shorts. The story takes us back to the era of the conquistadors, as they rave through the jungle in search of gold and riches. A group of soldiers, in full armor, come face to face with a magical creature, a sort of siren from the jungle. She is beautiful, and unique as her entire body is covered in gold.
The siren uses her magical voice to make the soldier come to her, and they all end up falling to their death in a lake. All except for a soldier who is deaf, so the siren’s voice doesn’t affect him. The soldier escapes, and the siren follows him and lays with him as he sleeps. She is curious about this one man that doesn’t fall to her charms. The soldier awakes, and they enter a pursuit, and he catches her, they kiss. But what could have been romantic ends up in tragedy as the soldier chooses to take the gold away from her skin, and leaves with it.
The soldier has proven he is not different from the rest and his hearing comes back. The siren, looking for vengeance, uses her voice and makes him drown in the lake, just like all other men did before him.
