Love, Death & Robots Vol. 4 : Blood, bots and bizarre delights

Six years in, 'Love, Death & Robots' is still Netflix's wildest fever dream and Volume 4 proves the show has no intention of mellowing out. If anything, it's louder, weirder, and more joyful in its chaos than ever before.

This season starts with a bang or more accurately, a slapstick, string-puppet explosion of Red Hot Chili Peppers absurdity. 'Can't Stop,' directed by David Fincher himself, throws the band into marionette form for a chaotic music video that somehow sets the tone for everything that follows. Why would Fincher do this? No idea. But are we glad he did? Absolutely.

Released on 15 May, Volume 4 is a ten-course tasting menu of sci-fi silliness and existential dread, served with a heavy pour of stylish animation. 

From moody deep-space romances to baby-stomping gang warfare, every episode is its own little world — and not all of them make sense, but that's half the fun.

Let's talk about 'The Screaming of the Tyrannosaur', a mouthful of a title and a marvel of CGI. MrBeast — yes, that MrBeast — shows up as a space-station gladiator match announcer, introducing warriors who charge into battle on Triceratops like it's just another Tuesday. 

It's bombastic, violent, and surprisingly poignant — like Gladiator meets Jurassic Park meets a YouTube livestream gone rogue.

Then there's '400 Boys', which feels like someone gave Mad Max a glow-up and dropped it in a world ruled by psychic teen gangs and literal giant babies. 

Directed by Robert Valley (of the iconic S1 Zima Blue), this one has all angles, neon shadows, and rollerblades slicing through chaos. Yes, they fight the babies. Yes, it works.

If you prefer your sci-fi a little darker, try 'How Zeke Got Religion'. Think— WWII bomber crew, a cursed French church, and some very motivated Nazi occultists trying to raise a fallen angel. 

It's eerie, explosive, and just grounded enough to feel like it could be hiding in the back pages of a Hellboy comic.

On the gentler end of the scale (relatively speaking), there's 'Spider Rose'. A soft sequel to Volume 3's 'Swarm', this one follows a cyborg and her alien companion navigating grief, vengeance, and a sudden bout of motherhood — all in about eight minutes. There's aerial combat, gooey emotion, and enough visual detail to keep you staring at the screen long after the credits roll.

One of the season's standouts — and possibly the most bizarre — is 'For He Can Creep'. It's about a cat who goes paw-to-claw with Satan to save a mentally unstable poet. The animation looks like a Victorian etching possessed by Studio Ghibli, and it's every bit as delightful as that sounds.

Of course, not every episode will hit home for everyone. A couple lean into goofy genre comedy, like John Scalzi's 'Smart Appliances, Stupid Owners' and 'The Other Large Thing'— shorts that serve up some much-needed levity amid the death rays and demons. Whether or not they'll land depends on your tolerance for talking toasters and smart-fridge sass.

But that's the magic of Love, Death & Robots. It doesn't try to please everyone, it just wants to show you something you've never seen before. Even when it's messy or absurd, there's always a new art style, a strange story twist, or a quiet little emotional gut-punch waiting around the corner.

Volume 4 doesn't just continue the show's tradition of throwing paint at the sci-fi canvas, it flings buckets of it, some of it glowing, some of it gory, and some shaped like triceratops with a grudge.

So no, not every story will stick. But that's fine. Because like the Chili Peppers sing in that weird little opening number: "Can't stop." And we kind of hope Love, Death & Robots never does.

All four volumes are streaming on Netflix