Slade has stated that if there is a theme, it is "how important it is to hold onto our humanity". Commenting on the teddy bears, Emily VanDerWerff said in Vox that the message may be that humans are "ruthless in some contexts and quite stupid and soft in others". According to Scott Beggs of Nerdist, the episode implies "toys and art are just as vital to survival as the other stuff at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy". Digital Spys Steve O'Brien thought the moral is that "there's still room for a tender gesture" in the post-apocalyptic world. Bishop believed the story is about the "loss of human innocence" as a sacrifice for progress. Monty opined that the episode is about the triumph of "cold, calculated machine effectiveness" over human nature.
