The Mitchells Behind the Mechanics

Behind the apocalyptic yet wholesome story of The Mitts vs. the Machines is a story about communication. The story follows a dysfunctional family as they get pulled into chaos, once narrowly escaping with The Rick Mitchell Special. But at its core, the conflict stems from Katie and Rick. Rick is more old fashioned, while Katie is more modern.

This dynamic from The Mitchells vs. the Clankers is a recurring theme in our world today. It’s creating rifts in our society (see also A Bit Odd Innit S4). If you picture this, it splits the ground in two, creating no space for a middleground— you’re either aligned with one side or another, or both hate you.

That’s the current extent of our compassion for each other. Or at least what it looks like I guess cuz we can’t be generalizing rightttt.

But most of the general population aren’t wrong. They were just hurriedly yanked to one side when the cracks began to become visible. (See also those movie scenes where someone’s about to get hit by a car.) At the beginning, it was easy to jump ship to the other side of the rift. And many did. But as we let the rift grow, slowly, it became harder and harder to jump. Efforts to close the gap created by the rift required more and more radical ideas. Our perception of normal and insane became skewed.

And that’s where we are today. But The Machines vs. The Mitchells has a happy ending. Even from the start of the film, we clearly see the strained relationship between the Mitchells. Under the surface, small cracks began forming. Each little action has an astronomical impact, maybe not at the time it was created but eventually, when everything compounds. But the moment when the final bonk hit the head of the screw (or nail on the head) is when we notice just how colossal our seemingly small actions are.

So however scary the massive fractures are, we can only do our best to learn. Humans are nearsighted, and we can’t change that. But, with the urgency that a rift creates, we can fix the holes we create and learn from it, bracing for the next time it happens. While we can’t end this cycle, we can certainly minimize the impacts the next one has on us.

You can’t stop the inevitable, but you can brace yourselves (checkout the AIT’s guide to emergency preparedness).

At least, that’s what The Machines vs. The Mitchels tells us.