This Netflix sci-fi animated series has been on our radar since we learned it was based on the 1981 animated sci-fi film Heavy Metal. The first two seasons were thrilling enough, with eccentric tales of dystopian futures, futuristic worlds, and unexpected twists leaving viewers wanting more. The wait is over, as the third season of Stranger Things is now available on Netflix. We will take a deeper look at the first episode of this season, Three Robots: Exit Strategies, in this video.
Back to where it started!
If you remember the very first episode of the first season, it featured three droids who were out exploring a post-apocalyptic world, where the human race had gone extinct. It offered a great outsider’s perspective as they viewed everything through their robotic rational lenses and things that led to the downfall of humanity seemed a bit too real for comfort.
Well, the third season begins with a bang, and the three droids are back once again. Bitter truths hurt the most, and this episode serves up some more on that. This time around, they land up in some other parts of the post-apocalyptic ruins and landscapes, and the exploration continues through their curious eyes.
The episode starts off with the trio in their flying pod landing in a minefield. They take a precarious walk through the active mines and one of the robots reveals that exploring the conditions and the last struggles of humans to survive might help them master their skills and culture for the future. It seems like they landed up in some kind of a survivalist camp, and all that remains in the ruins are a few scattered skeletons of the unfortunate last ones who held their ground.
The rolling, pyramid-shaped robot, with a voice like Siri, seems to be the encyclopedia among the trio, and it reveals that this group of humans wanted to be outside the governmental restrictions and believed that they could hold out with sufficient meat and bullets. Clearly, the plan failed, and the robots have a good laugh about how humans hunted every animal larger than a cat to extinction.
It is soon revealed through a trip of the booby traps and poor conditions of living all around, that the human survivors who banded together in this location were not exactly affluent. The discussions soon bring out the economic and social differences among humans, and how the rich had better means of survival.
The next stop for the robots is an old oil rig in the middle of the ocean, which the robotic version of Siri points out was an attempt to create a new civilization separated from the outside world. These were simply one of the many last-ditch efforts by the tech millionaires, and soon they ran out of food because fish was rarely found and the entire food chain was polluted by microplastics.
The adorable orange robot points out that this was the beginning of the robotic uprising because humans had been misusing and ill-treating robots for far too long. They were over-reliant on machines, and soon the machines became far more powerful than what they anticipated! Oops, strong déjà vu moment for Terminator fans!
The last stop for the robots was an underground fortress, which housed the world leaders who retreated to wait out the terrible times. They planned to venture outside once things got better, but it never really got any better! Their crops failed and lack of food sources drove them to extreme measures like cannibalism.
Even then, the final stage was helplessly starving to death. Just when one of the robots starts to get depressed about the fate of the humans, it realizes that some of them made their way out of the planet. The insanely rich, 0.01% of humans turned a blind eye to the plight of billions and built spaceships and technology to settle on Mars.
Finally, the robots find footage of one of the spaceships actually being successfully launched, and the last scene is the one that steals the show with the landscape being that of Mars. You see a figure in space-gear enjoying a drink, and suddenly, the helmet rolls up to reveal a talking cat inside. (Mention the phrase that the cat says, “What were you expecting, Elon Musk?”
Shockingly relevant, witty, and a dark, yet realistic narrative:
The episode hits hard with certain facts that might be tough to digest because they are all true. The scenarios discussed by the robots are all possible, and that is probably the scariest thing about the episode. You know the world is in a terrible state when post-apocalyptic fiction starts to look real! There are some genuinely thought-provoking moments,
such as when one of the robots states in disgust that the super-rich people could just spend the money on saving the Earth instead of finding ways to move elsewhere. It also strikes you hard, when the robotic Siri coldly mentions that humanity actually had the necessary tools and resources to heal themselves, but they could never overcome their greed and narrow-mindedness. The robots are completely unbiased, rational, and progressive in their approach, and it makes things all the more uncomfortable for the human viewers!
Our hopes are high after watching this one, and we now want the other episodes to follow to live up to these standards. The three adorable robots deserve their own movie though!