Love, Death and Robots (Season 2): Visually impressive, but a bit disappointing story-wise

This is another series that took me by surprise since I didn't know that a new season of the anthology and animation series par excellence would be released this year. The first season was something quite surprising, each chapter had a different animation style and a short story, but quite good, not all the chapters of the first season were excellent or entertaining, but most of them, however, in this 2nd season, although the technical level is impressive, at the story level I was a little disappointed. There were very few chapters that I really liked, but, as I have already mentioned, at a technical level each chapter is a marvel. Next I will make a list of the chapters that I liked the most and the ones I liked the least and I will also talk a little about them:

Pop Squad:

By far this chapter, which is the 3rd of the second season and in which I put in second position are my two favorites of this season. Pop Squad presents a future in which humanity has reached the point of having the ability to live for many years, however, the price for this long life is that it is totally illegal to have babies or small children, so the protagonist of this story is an agent of a special police that is responsible for eliminating these children and babies and arrest those who have them. The way in which humans come to have long lives is not fully explained, but you can see a character go through a treatment which consists of injecting him with a rather strange colored liquid. I think there is some relation between being forbidden to have babies and "immortality", but this is something quite ambiguous in the series. This story is very good, it shows us a duality between those who live in the heights, with luxuries and money, while those who live below, are in a city, which much of nature has occupied large sectors, but also decadence and filth. This is a story, which like the one I put in the second place of my favorite chapters, leave me wanting to know more of this universe. By far, for me, the best chapter of this season. Also, with a technical and visual level quite impressive.

Snow in the desert:

My second favorite episode of this season and the 4th episode of this 2nd season of Love, Death and Robots. With a hyper-realistic 3D style, visually stunning and with a simple but gripping story. This story tells us the life of Snow, an alvine man who finds himself on a desert planet, where the heat is deadly. Snow besides being an alvino (although in this world it is not something rare, since there are many alien races), is different from the others since he has a certain level of "immortality", since he can regenerate as if he were Wolverine, so he is sought by a group of criminals, to extract the "components" of his body to find out how to achieve immortality as well. It could be said that of all the chapters, it is the one that most adheres to the name of the series: Love, Death and Robots. Visually stunning and with a story that leaves you wanting to know more.

Tall Grass:

The 5th episode of this season is my 3rd favorite. With a simple story but at its end point it causes despair for what the protagonist has to live through. The story begins with the protagonist of the story traveling by train, at some point along the way the train stops and he gets off to take advantage of smoking a little. The train conductor warns him not to go too far away as they would soon be leaving again, but logically, the protagonist was not going to heed the conductor's warning. The protagonist, in the tall grass begins to see some strange lights that are moving all over the place, captivated by the lights and curiosity he goes into the grass to find out where they come from, to his surprise, from the ground begin to emerge some rather strange creatures that glow, and begin to attack him. A simple story, but one that causes despair in wanting the protagonist to survive the attack. I would have liked them to tell a little more about where these creatures come from, as the story doesn't make it entirely clear. On a technical level it is impressive, as it reminded me of papercraft but with animation, but at the same time it also seemed to me that it was a moving canvas, it is quite rare the animation technique they used in this chapter, but it is quite impressive and visually beautiful.

All through the house:

This is a rather short horror Christmas story that reminded me of the classic Treehouse Of Horror episodes of the Simpsons. The story tells the tale of two brothers at Christmas, who hear a noise in the living room and go downstairs to see what it is, hoping it is Santa Claus who has come to leave them their Christmas presents. But when they go downstairs they find a creature quite scary, grotesque and intimidating, which would be the "Santa Claus" of this universe, since after an inspection of the children, he determines that they have been "good" and gives them their Christmas gift. At the end, the children, a bit traumatized by what they have just seen, wonder what would have happened to them if they had been "bad". With the use of stop-motion, this episode is beautiful, visually stunning and with a story that also leaves you wanting to know more.

The drowned giant:

The 8th and final episode of this season is my 5th favorite episode. A rather thoughtful chapter that starts with the discovery of a giant that has been found dead on the shore of the beach, so it quickly becomes the tourist attraction in that town. The story is quite thoughtful and the most "beautiful" of all, it leaves a great message about memories, life perspective and many more things. It was a pretty good final chapter.

These last 3 chapters are the ones I liked the least, but not because of their technical level as they are still impressive, but in terms of story they left me a little disappointed:

Ice:

The 2nd episode of this season tells us the story a young man who lives on a planet which, all its inhabitants have improvements in their bodies, throughout the chapter does not specify what kind of improvements they have, but what it shows is that these improvements, make them stronger, faster, agile. In the entire planet the protagonist is the only one who does not have, so it is discriminated against even by their own parents, so the protagonist must show them that despite not having improvements in their bodies, he is able to be as good or better than them. Visually impressive, with a slightly more traditional animation style, where the color black predominates.

Life hutch:

Starring Michael. B Jordan, tells the story of a spaceship crewman who after a Star Wars battle, his ship is damaged and falls on a rocky planet, which must be supplied with oxygen because it is running out. When he finds the place where he can recover oxygen, he is attacked by a malfunctioning robot-dog. The whole story focuses on the survival of this character and that's it. Technically it's crazy, sometimes you don't know if it's Michael. B Jordan in the flesh or a digitization of him, as there are few elements to differentiate them, it's really impressive, but story-wise pretty simple.

Automated Customer Service:

The first episode of this season is the most "comic" of all, its story focuses on an old woman who lives in a town where other old people live (like a retirement place), but everything is automated, the old people are assisted by robots and artificial intelligences that help them in everything: driving, playing tennis, throwing out the garbage, walking the dog, absolutely everything the robots do. But the story focuses especially on a woman who lives with her dog, and suddenly her automatic assistant has a malfunction that will make him lethally dangerous. A funny story, but simple, it's not my favorite of this season (that's why I put it in the last post), but I don't consider it bad, I just expected more. Visually it is strange, but in a good way, since the characters have very strange designs, which are part of the "funny" way of telling this story.