Love, Death & Robots Episode 14: Zima Blue Ending Explained

Jacob Robinson What's on Netflix Avatar
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For anyone confused about the ending to the fourteenth episode of Love, Death and Robots allow us to help! We’ve been covering the remaining episodes too of Love, Death, and Robots, but here is the ending explained to Zima Blue.

A famous and renowned artist requests the presence of a journalist for the first time in 100 years. This is his story, the story of Zima Blue.

Ending Explained

As Zima Blue delves into his history he weaves a tale about a young woman who had a love for practical robotics. Favoring the robot she designed to clean her pool, the young woman would upgrade the machine gradually so it could perform its task better. The upgrades gave the robot a full-color vision system alongside and the robot equivalent of a brain so it could process and model its surroundings. By giving the robot a brain it became a very basic A.I but this allowed the robot to make its own decisions thus deciding on new methods and techniques to clean the pool.

With each passing upgrade of new software and tech made the little pool cleaning robot more aware of itself. Sadly with the passing of the young woman the robot was left to be shifted from owner to owner. With each new owner came new modifications and with each upgrade, the little robot became more “me,” as Zima reveals the little robot in his story was him all along.

Homecoming

Zima’s final art would be his return to where he ‘born,’ rebuilding the pool he once cleaned. The artist reveals the origin of his name to be the color of the tiles he was once cleaned, the manufacturer had called them ‘Zima Blue.’ the first thing his robotic eyes ever laid upon. That night Zima Blue would reveal his final art piece. Jumping into the pool, Zima would deconstruct and uninstall all of the upgrades that came before. As his human-robotic shell is peeled away all is left is a little robot programmed to clean the pool once more.

Once thought to be human, Zima was always a machine – Copyright. Netflix

Zima Blue had spent his entire life trying to find meaning, in particular through art. His return to the pool and deconstructing the robotic body was Zima’s way of finding peace and returning to a time that was more simple in his life. A symbolic approach to rebirth, in the end, the most beautiful piece of ‘art’ Zima had ever laid his eyes upon was, in fact, the very first time he was able to comprehend vision. In his return to the pool as cleaning bot, it allowed Zima to live his remaining days peacefully doing what he loved most, cleaning the pool of his beloved creator.


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Written by

Jacob joined What's on Netflix in 2018 as a fulltime writer having worked in numerous other industries until that point. Jacob covers all things Netflix whether that's TV or movies but specializes in covering new anime and K-dramas. Resides in Norwich in the United Kingdom.

 Poster Rating: TV-MA
Language: English
Genre: Animation, Short, Action
Cast: Scott Whyte, Nolan North, Steven Pacey
Season Additions:
  • - Volume 3 was added to Netflix on May 20th, 2022