In a series that’s frequently at its best when tackling big ideas and themes, “The Drowned Giant” offers a benchmark that future Love, Death & Robots episodes should try to hit.Īs a bonus, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shot in “The Drowned Giant” reveals that the green Ipswich Collectibles storefront from “Pop Squad” also exists here, apparently revealing that at least two of the stories exist in the same universe (though untold years apart). “The Drowned Giant” may not literally depict a death, but it’s about death, offering a strange (and strangely moving) meditation on humans’ unswerving ability to turn their minds away from a fate they’d rather not contemplate. As told through the eyes of a scientist sent to investigate, the giant’s decomposing body goes from a scientific discovery to a tourist trap to another useful resource to be exploited by the local population, before his bones are repurposed and the giant himself is forgotten entirely. Ballard, “The Drowned Giant” follows the aftermath of an inexplicable incident in which the corpse of a giant man washes up on a beach. It feels like a cheat, but in the end, I’ll forgive the lack of love, death, or robots for an episode as good “The Drowned Giant.” Drawing inspiration from a short story by the late, great English author J.G. It’s a pretty simple gag, but if you’ve ever sat on the phone enduring an annoyingly chipper robot voice while begging for an actual, human representative, you’ll find plenty of catharsis here. When a vacuum robot goes haywire and attacks its elderly owner (and her cute little dog), a desperate phone call to a customer-service hotline results in yet another automated robot whom she can’t defeat.
Drawing from a story by John Scalzi - whose work also inspired several of Volume One’s quirkier episodes, including “Three Robots” and “When the Yogurt Took Over” - “Automated Customer Service” introduces audiences to a futuristic retirement home where the elderly chill by the swimming pool while robots give them cocktails and massages. The best of Love, Death & Robots Volume Two’s episodes about people fighting malfunctioning robots (sorry, “Life Hutch”), “Automated Customer Service” is also the season’s silliest entry, and winds up all the better for it.
And as with my review of season one, I’ve also noted whether each segment actually features love, death, and/or robots - so you can focus on the episodes that actually deliver on your favorite part of the show’s three-pronged title. I’ve ranked all eight segments below, starting with the worst and ending with best. But the good news is that the hit rate is also higher: While some of these episodes are clearly stronger than others, everything in season two is at least worth checking out. The downside is that season two is significantly shorter: This time, there are only eight episodes instead of 18. As a result, Love, Death & Robots feels a little more mature this time around, a clear attempt to build on the strengths of season one while adjusting for its misfires. The new Volume Two still has plenty of both, but you get the sense that the creative team behind the series knows what worked, and didn’t, the last time around. The first season was ultimately a mixed bag, with spurts of big ideas and gorgeous animation dragged down by undercooked execution and some needlessly juvenile depictions of sex and violence. The animated anthology series debuted back in March of 2019 with a whopping 18 episodes - some as short as six minutes, some as long as 17 - in which a diverse group of storytellers delivered stand-alone sci-fi stories in a variety of styles and tones. Love, Death & Robots has always been one of Netflix’s more interesting experiments. Photo-Illustration: Vulture Photos by Netflix
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