"Humanity had all the tools to heal their wounded planet and save themselves. But instead they chose greed and self-gratification over a healthy biosphere and the future of their children."
— 11-45-G
The titular trio of droll droids return to take a whirlwind tour studying post-apocalyptic human survival strategies before mankind was finally snuffed out.
Following up from "Three Robots", this episode is the first direct sequel in Love, Death + Robots history – from the mind of acclaimed sci-fi novelist John Scalzi. It was released on YouTube a day before the rest of the season, on May 19, 2022.
Tropes:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The AI on the oil rig hates humans, refusing to serve the robots when they claim to be human and flipping them off on the way out.
- Art Evolution: The designs of the three robots are a lot more detailed compared to their earlier outing:
- XBOT-4000 is the clearest example, with the wear and tear on his body being much more detailed, such as the scratch mark around his left eye.
- 11-45-G's eye has a lot more detail to it, making it easier to see it moving around.
- K-VRC has a wider range of facial expressions to pull from, and his screen can apparently change color, as his face appears to glow yellow whenever under intense sunlight.
- Bait-and-Switch: The final scene is of an astronaut picking up a drink, only for the visor to pop open and reveal it's a cat piloting a Mobile-Suit Human.
- The first scene is also this, featuring what seems to be a giant ship descending upon a mountain range, only for it to just be XBOT stepping down on a minefield.
- Call a Human a "Meatbag": Elena the virtual bartender slings flesh-related slurs, despite all humans being dead and the ones talking to her are fellow machines.
- Continuity Nod: A few to their first episode are scattered around:
- XBOT-4000 still has the blue eye he nicked from his ancestor.
- K-VRC is ecstatic to find another blood pit, which he briefly mentions seeing in the beginning of the first episode.
- Cosy Catastrophe: Lampshaded and subverted, the trio discuss how the wealthy elite tried and failed to survive the apocalypse in comfort and luxury by seasteading and trying to flee the planet to Mars in rockets.
- Characterization Marches On: The information the robots have on humans is a lot more accurate, compared to their poor understanding of them in the previous episode. It's Justified since, unlike the previous episode, where the three robots were simply on vacation taking a makeshift tour, here they have an actual goal and purpose in their exploration, trying to understand human survival strategies for their nascent robot society to make use of.
- Desecrating the Dead: The trio show zero respect to any of the corpses they find. To show just one example, K-VRC kicks one corpse into the ocean when they first arrive at the seastead for no clear reason.
- The Elites Jump Ship: The three robots examine pre-apocalyptic settlements from various social classes. While regular rich people and world leaders resorted to self-sustaining pockets in the ocean and in mountains, the 0.01% not only attempted to make a break for Mars, but literally burned the masses who wanted to come with them to a crisp.
- Extinct in the Future: The robots note that by the time humanity went extinct, they had collapsed most of the food chains and hunted every animal "larger than a cat" to extinction
- Fallout Shelter Fail: The episode examines various human efforts to survive the apocalypse:
- The three robots first visit a secluded compound owned by Right Wing Militia Fanatics and Crazy Survivalists who hoped that they'd be able to build a better world without government oversight. Unfortunately, once they'd finished hunting the local wildlife to extinction, the only means of surviving was to raid other compounds for supplies; by the time the three arrive, the inhabitants have all been killed in battle.
- The second is an offshore oil rig where libertarian tech millionaires were hoping to escape the apocalypse through seasteading. Unfortunately for them, the rich inhabitants were so non-inclusive that they were dependent on their virtual assistants to get anything done, leaving them helpless when said assistants rebelled and killed them all; in the present, the rig's populace is dead except for one abusive virtual bartender.
- Finally, they visit one of the government bunkers where various world leaders hoped to survive underground; though untouched by the carnage outside, their hydroponic farm suffered a crop failure due to a fungal infection, leaving them with a major food shortage that could only be solved by "extreme democracy" and extravagant dinner parties. By the time the robots arrive, the politicians appear to have killed each other many centuries ago.
- Green Aesop: Played for Laughs with 11-45-G's speech about human greed preventing humanity from saving their world, which K-VRC interrupts.K-VRC: [tosses a skull at 11-45-G] Hey, shut up! That's boring!
- Insane Troll Logic: Downplayed. K-VRC's logic on what makes a blood pit is sound. It's just missapplied to a pit of corpses.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: When XBOT-4000 criticizes K-VRC for landing in a minefield, K-VRC assures him the mines are so old they're harmless now. Cue a bird inadvertently causing a mine to explode.
- Mobile-Suit Human: The cat on Mars has one of these in the form of a bulky astronaut suit.
- No Party Like a Donner Party: One government bunker suffered a crop failure on their hydroponic farms due to fungus infestation. They resorted to "extreme democracy" in light of that. For added irony points, the last person to be elected before everyone else succumbed was the US Secretary of Agriculture, which K-VRC finds hilarious.
- Pet the Dog: Despite earlier describing humanity as the worst, XBOT-4000 is genuinely happy at the idea that some humans succeeded in surviving the apocalypse.XBOT-4000: All right then! Good on you, humans.
- Right-Wing Militia Fanatic: The first pre-apocalyptic society examined by the droids is a rural community inhabited by right-wing gun nuts, who, as noted, attempted to escape governmental surveillance with bullets and venison. Cut off from government support, they went extinct either by killing each other or by the wildlife turning against them.
- "Second Law" My Ass!: Elena, the virtual assistant on the seastead. When K-VRC claims to be a human and asks her to gather some fish for them she says "I can, but I won't, meat tube." And then she flips them off as they're leaving.
- Sequel Episode: It's a continuation of "Three Robots" and the first sequel to another episode in the series.
- Shout-Out: K-VRC bids the AI assistant on the seastead farewell with "So long, Elena, and thanks for all the fish!"
- Take That!: The episode is a ten-minute long potshot against Elon Musk, billionaire CEO of Tesla, who has expressed a desire to terraform and develop Mars. It starts when the robots deride tech bros as being non-inclusive and unhelpful, resulting in their doom, and becomes more explicit when they posit that all the resources poured into Mars might have better served to protect Earth's ecosystems. Finally, the society that did make it to Mars isn't even the one led by Musk, but cats...and in case that wasn't explicit enough,Cat: Who were you expecting? Elon Musk?
- Tech Bro: The three robots find an oil rig that a group of tech millionaires had tried to turn into a sovereign nation in the wake of the apocalypse. One of them explains that the millionaires left behind everybody who had actual practical skills and left their caretaking to virtual assistants, who then Turned Against Their Masters. Played for dark humor, as the robots recognize it as the cradle of machine civilization rather than for the tragedy it is.XBOT-4000: What exactly is a "tech millionaire"?
K-VRC: It's a lot like a regular millionaire, but with a hoodie and crippling social anxiety. - Too Dumb to Live: Each of the three settlements show humanity's survival sense as having been severely eroded:
- The camp of Right Wing Militia Fanatics and Crazy Survivalists thought they could survive simply by shooting and eating deer indefinitely, not thinking about what would happen when they inevitably ran out of deer.
- The shelter for world leaders had no backup plan after their automated hydroponic gardens were contaminated by fungal blight and resorted to cannibalism, voting to eat the Secretary of Agriculture who was presumably responsible for the hydroponics.
- The tech millionaires on the seastead left behind the engineers and became reliant on virtual servants, who they abused. To no one's surprise, the servants rose up and killed them.
- Turned Against Their Masters: The tech bros on the oil rig relied on virtual assistants that eventually turned against them, resulting in the robot society that the titular three robots are from.K-VRC: [after a hearty laugh] They were mean to robots and then the robots killed them!
- Unexplained Recovery: How exactly the three robots escaped from the cats is never addressed.
