The formidable human species is under palpable threat from different corners. Devastated, it turns to survival strategies that are deemed to be as fatal as the battles it fights. Battles that inevitably lead to a deadly denouement.
Almost all episodes of the latest outing of the hauntingly beautiful anthology, Love, Death, and Robots, follow a similar, or a sibling storyline, garnished with a mix of eerie and uncanny. The gore in the fantastical human vs. others battle is inevitably high-octane, grandiose too at times, evoking a horrific, sometimes trepid, sensation. Death, much like the title of the series, is central to these battles, occurring not just as a matter of being and perishing, but as an answer to who-can-prevail-over-whom. Machines. Or the creatures. Or the humans.
‘Mason’s Rats,’ the title of an episode premised in a human vs. rats situation, is an oddity then – antithetical to the conclusions and the contents of its sister episodes.
A battle is fought in this episode as well, wherein the rats lay siege on the barn of a mason, feasting on his produce. The rats are no weak race here, armoured as they are with a bow and arrows each. In the duel between rats and the Mason, however, which the show labels as the Raptocalpyse, no one loses more than they win. The Mason has to let go of his produce, the rats their families, only to broke peace with each other towards the end. The episode becomes an outlier at this juncture, in that no one prevails over anyone.
The culmination of the ten-minute long narrative is rather rejoicing, with the Mason clinking glasses of juice with the Rat family, phoning the company he’d ordered to do rat-control to cancel. From a smug enemy to a humble and friendlier party, the plot bears the fruit of Mason’s change of heart, cueing at the possibility of peace over tiff. This self-realisation on the part of the protagonist, a result partly of the courage of the race of rats, and partly of his withering armament, is a sobering, and perhaps inescapable reminder of the interrelations in the ecosystem, that need to be maintained for everyone’s well-being.
The rats in the scene, notably, turn into an evolved menace for the protagonist, acquiring bows and arrows in their stride. They use it, however, only in their defence, protecting themselves from who-they-consider-to-be-predators. In reasoning the occurrence of this unusual conflict, the technician to whom the Mason flees underlines the evolutionary fault, “of humanity warping the environment, forcing the animal kingdom to adapt.”
The story then also begs a questioning of the coexistence of humans and the species considered wildly — the latter left to shrink and fend for itself, as the former continues to capture and raze nature. What if, for instance, lizards evolved to combat the humans whose walls they skid over? Or the wasps developed stings to protect themselves from getting muzzled? As a corollary: what if they are forced to evolve in this vein, lest they perish? Akin to the Mason, will the human accept these drastic courses, brought about by their own actions? The Mason only sets an example to follow. Or a reminder, maybe, to avert the very same.
Love, Death, and Robots hinges at least three of its stories in the latest season on the perils of technology; rapid, maniac technological advancement rather. From the three robots who take a jibe at the exit strategies of the humans in the hour of tragedy, to the beast built by troops that turns against them, the series offers a mocking critique of all technical – robotic – progress. The Mason, too, in his fight against rats, turns to automated tools first. Traptech, a company evidently built to trap using technology, willingly partners with the Mason in this eradication drive, only to kill his pet before any of the rats. The two machines the weapon factory deploys eventually succumb too — first after a defeat at the hands of rats, second after almost failing — unable to fulfil the promise of their technical prowess. The caveat is subtly underscored in the futile bloodbath, in that not every time can the modern machine hold solutions to humanity’s problems, and in some cases, may only end up exacerbating them.
Towards the end of the show, after the Mason protects rats from the unconstrained thunder of a machine, a rat looks at him intently, their eyes brimming with gratitude. A tender moment of exchange, of a human learning to accept, and a rat turning to reciprocate with their offering of a juice. The scene is loosely reminiscent of another, widely popular, human-rodent relationship, from the famed Stuart Little. In there, as with 'Mason’s Rats' in the end, the two groups cherish each other’s company, not merely out of necessity, but out of warmth and a transcending kinship. 'Mason’s Rats' thereby become, rats beloved, protected by the Mason. A beacon of co-existence.
Love, Death & Robots is streaming on Netflix
Raunaq Saraswat is a freelance writer and a final year undergraduate at IIT Delhi. He writes mostly about culture, books, and cinema.
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