Love, Death & Robots: Season 1 recap and review

Netflix

Love, Death & Robots certainly lives up to its name, with innovative stories abounding with all three.

Everything from monsters to robot tourists to lost civilizations is encountered as these series of shorts plays with theme and animation style, exploring how humanity fits into the world of the future or even playing with alternate pasts.

If you love sci-fi, there’s something for everyone in this ambitious anthology.

Sonnie’s Edge

In the gritty underbelly of a shining future city, a ragtag group of three arrive at an old church within an 18-wheeler truck marked with the graffitied logo “Predators.”

They unload the truck with what appears to be some kind of huge bio-stasis chamber as they busily consult among themselves about vital readings and software functions.

They run into some burly security as a rich looking man with a young and beautiful girl on his arm approaches them. Dicko apparently runs these little entertainments.

It is revealed that inside the bio-chamber is a huge, otherworldly creature, genetically designed to fight other creatures in an underground kaiju ring.

This one is unique for having the only female pilot in the business, and Sonnie has never lost a fight. And she’s not going to start now, despite the generous monetary incentive provided by Dicko to throw the fight.

It’s not about pride, money, or status – a year ago Sonnie was gang-raped and mutilated, so when she fights it’s like revenge by proxy.

These beastie fights are a flashy and popular production, with tiers of people cheering on the carnage. Each beastie has a pilot connected to it through a mental link through which they can control the creature.

Sonnie’s beastie Kharnivore is lithe and elegant compared to the hulk-like brutality of her competition, but she is dangerous and ruthless. After some close calls and calculated sacrifices, she wins the fight – which displeases Dicko immensely.

When the trio get home, Sonnie finds that Dicko’s eye candy Jennifer is waiting to see her. Sonnie finds her attractive and its easy for her to believe that this beautiful woman is simply stuck in an abusive and manipulative situation with Dicko.

But it turns out that she’s seducing Sonnie so she can kill her for Dicko. Sonnie lets her guard down, and as she kisses her, Jennifer runs some Wolverine claws up through Sonnie’s jaw and through her head as Dicko comes out from hiding. But she doesn’t die. Sonnie’s controlling her body like a beastie, her consciousness is actually inside Kharnivore.

Her edge is that she is literally fighting for her life every time she steps into the ring. She disposes of Dicko and Jennifer, asking them if they’re afraid now.

With a fun kaiju fight, a kickass female lead, and a darkly satisfying ending, Sonnie’s Edge comes together nicely as an entertainment, but trivializes the rape angle by using it as a convenient plot device on which to hang the story.