Main cast: Joe Dempsie (Laird) and Steven Pacey (The Railman)
Director: Simon Otto

Watching The Tall Grass, I realize that this second season of Love, Death & Robots has been a rather hollow, toothless follow-up to an uneven but energetic and exciting first season.

The first season didn’t hold back anything. Sure, it wasn’t always inventive, but it felt fresh and boasted a varied array of stories that embraced the camp and the gallow humor of pulp sci-fi as well as the more pretentious navel gazing of modern sci-fi.

On the other hand, the second season feels safe and tame so far, as if the people behind the show now just want to be as polite as possible.

Take this one. An idiot, named Laird, is on a train when the train stops in a prairie full of tall grass for a short while.

The railman tells him to stay put, as once the train has built up steam again, he’ll only give a call to get onboard twice and then the train will be off.

Naturally, the idiot wanders off into the grass, discovers that there are monsters in there, and almost dies before he is rescued by the railman. The end.

Uh, what’s the point of the whole thing?

The monsters look generic and forgettable, there isn’t any good gore or scares to be had, and the idiot doesn’t learn anything despite being an imbecile. There’s nothing memorable or entertaining here—at best, it’s a polite release of intestinal gas in the room; everyone hears it, but pretends not to because it’s not a big deal in the first place.

So, really, what’s the point? Why do these people think this episode needs to be made, unless it’s just to give the people behind it an excuse to get a paycheck and another item on their IMDB page?