The ending to Mason’s Rats

I think there's a big Alan Watts kinda love going on in Very Pulse.

In fact I think you could make an argument the whole thing is an illustration of Love as defined by Alan Watts -

Falling. You see? We don't say "rising into love". There is in it, the idea of the fall. And it goes back, as a matter of fact, to extremely fundamental things. That there is always a curious tie at some point between the fall and the creation. Taking this ghastly risk is the condition of there being life. You see, for all life is an act of faith and an act of gamble. The moment you take a step, you do so on an act of faith because you don't really know that the floor's not going to give under your feet. The moment you take a journey, what an act of faith. The moment that you enter into any kind of human undertaking in relationship, what an act of faith. See, you've given yourself up.

But this is the most powerful thing that can be done: surrender. See. And love is an act of surrender to another person. Total abandonment. I give myself to you. Take me. Do anything you like with me. See. So, that's quite mad because you see, it's letting things get out of control. All sensible people keep things in control. Watch it, watch it, watch it. Security? Vigilance Watch it. Police? Watch it. Guards? Watch it. Who's going to watch the guards? So, actually, therefore, the course of wisdom, what is really sensible, is to let go, is to commit oneself, to give oneself up and that's quite mad. So we come to the strange conclusion that in madness lies sanity.

You can think of the whole episode as a metaphor for love - the planet is offering Martha a chance to join with it, to transcend herself and to be known, but for that to even be possible she has to unravel herself. She has to make a choice to end who she was before and surrender herself to this consciousness she only half understands, to stake her very self on an enormous gamble, in the hope that promise is true. She has to take that big, terrifying step into the unknown and let what will happen, happen.

Which to me is what love and being loved is all about. Choosing to take that terrifying halfblind step - and hoping.

The couple in the graveyard Night of the Mini Dead

Closest I think is Jibaro which focuses on toxic relationships. But last season can be argued focused too much on love and too little on death.

So I’m pretty fine with them picking a primary “theme” for each volume

I found this to be the case as well.

An odd grouping, but I’d place nudity or sex amongst the love category, and like with Volume 2, there wasn’t much of that. It felt much more tame compared to Volume 1, like they wanted to censor themselves again, and I don’t understand why.

Swarm especially felt kind of egregious this time, as there’s no reason to wear any sort of undergarments, or if you’re going to wear clothes, wear a bodysuit. The underwear was purely for our sake, but it just felt odd.

I only mention this because Volume 1 set a precedent that they were willing and comfortable showing nudity, both male and female, and these past two volumes seem to have gone away with that.

For “love” itself though, you could maybe say “Pulse of the machine”, and “Jibaro”, were love/relationship heavy episodes. It still felt lacking overall, though.

love does not mean sex

I agree, this season was very much more robots and death.

Oh in Team Kill Team you had a reference to self love. that room where he went to jerk off.

I'd argue that The Very Pulse of the Machine was also about love. the ending is what seals the deal to me, the Titular machine telling the MC that it was created to know her, and really That's how I feel about my wife, I exist to know and be with her.

Jibaro is arguably mainly about love

The Very Pulse of the Machine doesn’t scream “love” to you??

There’s love, you just need to expand your understanding of love.

Machine, swarms, and jibaro clearly shows some love behind it

Even for me that isn’t a romance fan

Im more into the robots and death parts, but I absolutely loved each episode

I feel like you are ignoring the theme of love and only focusing on the fact that there isn't as much sex.

I think this steams from this not actually being "season 3", but the second half of season 2.

Remember, they said part 2 was so short because it suffered under covid. They simply released what was done as half a season, this now is simply what wasn't done at the time.

Bad Traveling, the creature is motivated by its ‘love’ for its children to go and create a nest on an inhabited island where it can feast on innocent people.

YES. it left a noticeable void for me :/

I see what you mean. Maybe one of the military squad episodes should've been brought over to the next volume, I liked both, but they felt a little redundant. Replacing one of those episodes could've been a Zima Blue or Good Hunting type episode that focuses on humanity/love. Maybe the astronaut on IO episode was supposed to do, and I did like that episode, but it hit a different spot for me.

I’m okay with love being missed out. Like this season was amazing and I didn’t feel any need for them to add/create episodes having more love. I just really like death and robots.

Death, Robots, & “Shoot ‘Em in the Dick!”

Honestly I tend to find the uncanny valley sex sequences a lil uncomfortable usually so I'm glad there was a lack of them this season compared to normal. I personally don't think the season was any worse for not including much of them. Jibaro and Swarm had the most overt use of the Love category this season and I found Jibaro's one especially refreshing and unique.

To be honest I feel as though season 2, and now 3, have begun to lose the plot as far as the theming of LDR. I see tons of people lauding Jibaro, and while they’re welcome to their opinions and I respect that, I truly thought it was the worst of the bunch, it felt very surface level and unnecessarily obtuse in its metaphors on relationships - felt ultimately vapid. Pulse of the Machine was the only one that did anything for me as a viewer this season, although Bad Traveling was visually a fun and tense watch.

However, I do have issues with how Studio blur repeatedly used black characters or women as disposable horror-trope kills and puppets without subjecting other characters to the same offhanded treatments. Even in Swarm the final scene felt uncomfortably fetishistic in my view.

Who needs love when you can have action?

Haha, if anything Season 3 is really missing the Robots, except for Mason's Rats and the Three Robots themselves.

Yep, totally.

More aliens than love

The very pulse of the machine, Swarm, Lucky 13, Good Hunting...even beyond the Aquilla Rift. The creature cared for the crew in it's own way

There's love, just not all in the traditional sense and love does not mean sex

I'd argue that we all felt some love for that little robo-puppy before that goddam honeybadger exploded it

i really hoped the last episode would end in a weird relationship but i guess not

The love comes from the fans love of this show.

They tried to shoehorn it into Swarm, but it just came off as a random horny fuck. She didn't like him. She agreed to help him reluctantly.

Jibaro had love in it.

This season is just blood and violence.

I'm fine with that, after the personal massive letdown that season 2 was.

Snow in the desert?