Netflix's 3 Body Problem Features The Most Grotesque TV Violence Since Game Of Thrones
This post contains spoilers for season 1 of Netflix's "3 Body Problem."
"3 Body Problem" is no "Game of Thrones." The new Netflix series may share two of its co-creators with the HBO fantasy epic (it's the first series from David Benioff and D.B. Weiss since that show signed off in 2019), but where that show's bread and butter was sword-slashing fantasy, this one offers a hefty dose of cerebral science fiction.
It's a story about scientists trying to save the world (and trying to decide whether or not it's even worth saving at all) by solving a strange series of intergalactic problems, and though it's densely plotted, it's also safe to say it's a bit of a slow burn. By the end of season 1, the aliens who have revealed themselves as the main existential threat to humankind are, after all, still 400 years away from touching down on Earth. "3 Body Problem" takes the time to carefully outline its problems, but it's never boring, thanks in large part to the strange, inventive, body horror-tinged science at its center.
The new adaptation of Liu Cixin's wildly popular book series, which is also co-created by Alexander Woo, adheres to some of the novel's more spectacular ideas while adding a few of its own. One of the most creatively disturbing elements of the story comes when scientists including Jin (Jess Hong) step into a technologically advanced video game world that poses complex questions about the future. They're tasked with helping global leaders understand a series of Chaotic Eras that put their people in danger, except people don't simply freeze or burn when their earth's weather changes — they dehydrate their bodies and roll up into skin sacks.
Remember to stay hydrated!
The scenes of dehydration and rehydration in "3 Body Problem" are disturbing, detailed, and darkly funny. They're initially introduced with little explanation, as a young girl calmly lays out in what seems to be the baking sun and slowly decompresses into a blob of tissue like an air mattress with a leak. That girl's squelchy flesh bundle is carried around until she can be rehydrated, at which point she's flopped into a pool where she emerges as if from a short nap. Seriously, the pee-recycling suits from "Dune" have nothing on this weird science.
Eventually, the game players learn that this is how the aliens known as the San-Ti survive their planet's frequent ice ages, heating periods, and gravity changes, but it's just one of several gross scientific tidbits on display in the show. Season 1's climax revolves largely around the cryogenic freezing (and eventual planned thawing) of a live human head sent into space at faster-than-light speed, and while the show doesn't actually show the decapitation, we do see plenty of violence earlier on during the show's tone-setting opening sequence.
That time around, upsetting things weren't happening in the name of science, but in opposition to it, as a scholarly man is beaten to death in the midst of China's Cultural Revolution. We see blow after blow landed against the blood-covered man, who refuses to fight back. It's this traumatizing incident that leads his daughter, who witnessed the execution, to welcome conquering aliens to Earth with welcome arms. This show may have little in common with "Game of Thrones," but the relentlessness of violent scenes certainly feels like the Benioff and Weiss we know.
Abandon ship
Each of these plot points is horrifying in their own way, from the history-grounded violence of a denunciation rally in Mao's China to the super-speculative fiction of flying space heads and dried-out skin suits. The show's most objectively messed-up sequence, though, comes in episode 5, and serves as a gruesome centerpiece to the entire first season. It's a scene that's best experienced firsthand if you can stomach it, but if I had to put it into words, I'd describe it as an entire freighter ship full of children and adults being shredded into bits by a device that's basically a giant, invisible cheese grater (or similar kitchen utensil).
In a twisted, nerdy take on Chekov's gun, "3 Body Problem" introduces us early on to Auggie's (Eiza González) experimental nanofiber, which is so thin it's invisible to the human eye and so strong it can cut diamonds. For viewers who are new to this story, the nanofiber seems like a stray detail that's included simply to explain why Auggie is among the scientists being haunted by alien-implanted countdown clocks. Unfortunately, though, it's very relevant and ends up being employed by a shadowy group working to retrieve a cult's database.
The disgusting, 8-minute-long ship-slicing scene unfolds at an excruciating pace, relishing the terror of the last moments of sheltered kids, an elderly man, and unsuspecting crew members. Like a terrible inversion of the rehydration scenes, we see human bodies pulled apart in a way that simply can't be put back together again.
In this world, progress has casualties
Is "3 Body Problem" better for its gross, sometimes violent take on scientific progress? It's certainly more interesting for it, but the show is so busy pushing its characters towards their next plot point that it rarely stops to examine the horror of its world. Early on, investigators including Shi (Benedict Wong) are disgusted by a series of grisly suicides impacting scientists worldwide, but after the San-Ti make their presence known, we're shown a series of hangings in a single shot that doesn't linger long. It's proof that if it wasn't already, death has become commonplace here.
Perhaps it's this cynicism and muted reaction (from some characters, but importantly not all) to violence that makes "3 Body Problem" conceptually interesting. It's a series that posits that if aliens came to Earth tomorrow and offered to take over running the joint, plenty of people would be convinced they'd do a better job than we would. After all, the San-Ti aren't the ones inventing ways to kill hundreds of people with giant invisible potato peelers.