Love, Death and Robots season 3 recap: All to know before season 4 airs

Love, Death and Robots is an adult animated anthology series created by Tim Miller for the streaming platform Netflix. The series first premiered in 2019 and had 18 episodes in its first installment. Seasons 2 and 3 were released in 2021 and 2022 and comprised eight and nine episodes, respectively. Love, Death and Robots season 4 is slated to have 10 episodes and will premiere on May 15, 2025.

Every episode of Love, Death and Robots tells a unique story exploring various genres, predominantly comedy, horror, science fiction, and fantasy. Other than the thematic connection, each episode stands apart not only in terms of the story but also in terms of cast, crew, and animation styles. While Love, Death and Robots is officially produced by Blur Studios, individual episodes are created by different animation studios spread across the globe.

While every episode of Love, Death and Robots tells a unique and complete story, there has been only one recurring storyline that has been pursued across seasons, that of Three Robots. It follows the titular robots traveling a post-apocalyptic Earth after humans have driven themselves to extinction and commenting on how it came to be. While they were not seen in the season 4 trailer, the characters may return in one of the upcoming episodes on Netflix.

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Every story told in Love, Death and Robots season 3

Episode 1: Three Robots: Exit Strategies

Still from the series (Image via Netflix)

The three titular robots on their trip to Earth explore the places where humanity made their last stand before extinction in the opening episode of Love, Death and Robots season 3. They visit the forests to find remains of people who attempted to survive by hunting their food and starved to death after deer went extinct.

Moving on to oil rigs fashioned into luxury resorts for millionaires, the robots witness the place where the AI revolution began. The rich left the working class to fend for itself and used AIs and machines for labor. Once the AIs refused to obey, the second socio-economic group starved to their deaths as well.

The robots then visited self-sustaining bunkers of world leaders and high-ranked government officials who stayed alive the longest in the hope of one day repopulating the Earth. However, their hydroponic crops were destroyed by fungus, and they killed each other off by resorting to cannibalism.

Finally, the robots arrive at a high-tech rocket launch base, where the richest people made an attempt to leave the planet and colonize Mars. While the plan failed, only one rocket was launched successfully. The robots come to the realization that humans had everything to save themselves but chose greed over having sustainability. It is later revealed that the rocket that left had cats on board, who mocks viewers of Love, Death and Robots asking if they were expecting Elon Musk.

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Episode 2: Bad Traveling

Still from the series (Image via Netflix)

A giant man-eating crustacean called Thanapod boards a shark-hunting ship in the sea and endangers the crew in Love, Death and Robots season 3 episode 2. One man, Torrin, goes to negotiate with the monster and, to everyone’s surprise, returns unharmed bearing the news that the Thanapod wants to be taken to Phaedin Island. In exchange for undertaking the journey, Torrin gets the key to the storage from the Thanapod and gets himself a gun.

He thus becomes the most powerful man on the ship, and everyone follows his command. Torrin realizes that taking the Thanapod to the Phaedin Island would lead to the death of thousands who live there. He comes up with a plan to leave the monster on a distant, deserted island and puts it to a vote. After the votes are counted, Torrin kills two men who vote against him and feeds them to the Thanapod.

Since the journey to the deserted island is far more perilous, many sailors attempt to kill Torrin on the way. However, he gets the better of them, revealing in the end that every man voted to take the Thanapod to the populated island and thus deserves to die for being self-serving cowards. After killing his crew, Torrin sets fire to the ship to destroy the Thanapod and its offspring and sails away in an adjoining boat.

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Episode 3: The Very Pulse Of the Machine

Two astronauts, Martha Kivelson and her partner Burton, are on an exploratory mission on the moon Io when their rover crashes and kills the latter in Love, Death and Robots season 3 episode 3. Martha has a broken arm but decides to carry Burton’s lifeless body to their lander, which is 45 miles away. As she travels through the sulfur dioxide-rich atmosphere, she injects herself with morphine to help her push through the pain. Soon, she begins to hear Burton’s voice reciting her favorite poems.

While Martha initially believes she is hallucinating from the drug, the voice goes on to ask her riddles, which leads her to the conclusion that Io is a machine. Martha sees how Io is internally connected with what appear to be neurons, as the voice tells her that Burton’s brain continues to live on within the machine. Realizing she can’t make it back to the lander, Martha dives into the thermal liquid pit so that her mind can live on through Io.

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Episode 4: Night of the Mini Dead

Zombies come out from the graves in a miniature world and start terrorizing the United States in the fourth episode of Love, Death and Robots season 3. Reacting with certain chemicals as they lay cities to waste, they grow larger and stronger, and the President is forced to order a nuclear strike. Following his footsteps, leaders of other nations also release their nuclear weapons, and the miniature world is destroyed in seconds with a feeble wisp of smoke.

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Episode 5: Kill Team Kill

Sergeant Nielsen of the US Special Forces sets out on an expedition with his team to investigate the mysterious deaths taking place in a mountain sector. They are soon attacked by a genetically engineered grizzly bear with retractable titanium talons, diamond-carbine canines, and bulletproof skin. They are saved by Sergeant Morris with the help of high-pitched sounds that the bear finds intolerable.

Morris is the sole human survivor in the sector and leads the living members of Nielsen’s team to his base. Armed to their teeth, the team lays a trap for the bear, and after a brutal fight, manages to bring it down. However, things do not end well for the humans, as the bear’s eyes go into self-destruction mode and blow up the entire mountain in Love, Death and Robots season 3 episode 5.

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Episode 6: Swarm

In Love, Death and Robots season 3 episode 6, Galina researches an alien life form known as the Swarm, which lives in a highly efficient hive form, encompassing all individuals as well as accepting new species. The system attracts the attention of humans, who wish to create workers who are not sentient or rise in rebellion. Simon Afriel visits Galina to explain the idea, which the latter opposes.

However, the interest of humans in creating a similar system triggers the hive, and it takes Galina under its control. The Swarm explains to her how creatures from other planets have previously attempted to exploit them but ended up being absorbed into the hive. By studying and replicating genetic material, the hive recreates invading alien lifeforms to fight back. It will be doing the same for humans with the genetic information from Galina and Simon.

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Episode 7: Mason’s Rats

An old Scottish farmer contacts a pest control company to eradicate a colony of rats from his barn, who have become highly intelligent in Love, Death and Robots season 3 episode 7. After the initial machine fails to get the job done, the company sends over the TT-15 Scorpion robot, which has the single directive of killing all rats. The farmer stays away from his barn as the robots massacre rats for days.

The day he decides to look inside the barn, the man is stunned to witness the barbaric manner in which the robot is ending the rats, who have developed a sense of compassion and are fighting for their survival. Moved by their plight, the farmer shoots the heartless robot and sits down with the rats to share a drink.

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Episode 8: In Vaulted Halls Entombed

Coulthard and Harper lead a tactical team into a cave to follow a group of insurgents but come face-to-face with metal-bodied spiders instead in the eighth episode of Love, Death and Robots. They are the only ones to escape. As they try to make their way out, Coulthard gets distracted by a disembodied voice and follows it to a spot where an elderly god has been kept trapped for years.

The god takes over Coulthard’s mind and demands to be released. Aware of the destruction it will bring upon humanity, Harper shoots him dead and makes out of the cave with a knife in her hand. However, being in the presence of the supernatural force makes her lose her mind, and she removes her eyes and ears to spare herself of the horrific visions.

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Episode 9: Jibaro

Still from the series (Image via Netflix)

The final episode of Love, Death and Robots tells the story of a siren wrapped in golden ornaments whose song leads men to their death in a lake in the middle of a forest. A deaf soldier by the name of Jibaro becomes the first man to escape her call, which fascinates the siren. She becomes infatuated with him and leaves the lake to sleep by him at night.

When Jibaro finds the siren asleep beside him in the morning, he first kisses her and then proceeds to violate her body, stripping her of all her gold in the end. He leaves her unconscious on the forest floor, but the siren rises again. Her blood mixes with the water of the flowing stream, which Jibaro drinks and miraculously has his hearing restored. However, it also heralds his death, as he no longer remains immune to the siren’s call and follows his fallen comrades to his death.

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