That was way too much world-building for a 30 minute long pilot. And I have to admit that that kind of took away from the otherwise hilarious tone Murderbot has set. I’m only saying that with so much conviction because it took me two watches to fully appreciate the outlandish humor that Chris and Paul Weitz’s sci-fi-comedy is chock full of. So I suggest you do the same. Even if you have totally enjoyed seeing Alexander Skarsgard’s adorable cyborg with a mild proclivity for murder. You know, like something that came out of Phil and Luke Dunphy’s mind. Because I’d hate for you to miss out on any of that cheeky relatability.
Spoiler Alert
Who is Murderbot?
We don’t know when we are exactly, but AppleTV’s adaptation of Martha Wells’ “Murderbot Diaries” has found a wormhole into the future. In this future, a very planet-earth-y capitalistic company, the Corporation, has concerned the entire intra-planetary expedition market. One of the ways they have established absolute control over the expeditions is by making their cyborg Security Units a must-buy if a team wants insurance on the equipment that they’ll get from, you guessed it, the same company. So the SecUnits are all but compulsory on these various human expeditions across planets. Seeing as the Corporation Rim is in the business of squeezing as much money as they can out of people, it would be foolish to expect quality products from them. Don’t get me wrong. They’ve done a great job on the half-sentient killing machines they put together to protect the people who’ve paid for them. But they didn’t do the best when it came to making sure that these SecUnits could never hack into their Governor Module and go rogue. The Governor Module was put in place to keep the SecUnits tame. But one of these SecUnits got a bit too smart for them. You can’t really blame the self-named Murderbot for hating people when you see what they’ve put it through. For the people it was hired to protect, the celebration of the end of the expedition includes torturing the SecUnit for fun. If that’s the kind of people you’re used to being around, of course you’d want to get away from it all. But for Murderbot, freedom has come with the pitfalls of existential confusion. It’s spent its entire life serving the company and the people who do a lot of wormhole travelling. So now that it’s able to make its own choice, Murderbot doesn’t know what to do. In a lot of ways, it isn’t too unlike you and me. We’re born, we play our parts, and we devour content to try and forget about the gaping holes in our hearts. Murderbot is pretty much the same way. It hasn’t quite found its purpose yet. But it’s learned to “dull the pain” by hacking into the company’s entertainment feed and binging shows like its life depends on it. And in a way, that’s not too far from the truth. Murderbot needs calm nerves to make sure that it doesn’t take one wrong step. If the Corporation got a whiff of a rogue cyborg, they’d melt down its organic parts with acid and sell the rest of it for scrap. Paints quite a picture, no? And they do all of that knowing that the SecUnits feel pain. They’re really lucky that a band of rogues haven’t wiped the floor with them yet.
Who will Murderbot work with?
The added dose of frustration that secret freedom comes with makes you feel even worse for poor Murderbot. So far, it’s been following commands because of the Governor Module. Now that it’s gone rogue, it’s forced to do what it’s told even though he has the option to disobey. To not follow orders would be to feel the excruciating pain of an acid bath, courtesy of the evil Corporation. So for Murderbot’s sake, and for the sake of the people who’d be going to an unknown planet with a rogue cyborg, you hope that it isn’t paired with the wrong group. Luckily, the group that the ruthless Corporation sales team forces to rent a SecUnit is made up of nice people. They’re a group of environmental scientists looking to get the Corporation’s help with their expedition. They’re not doing so voluntarily. It’s just that the Corporation has a monopoly on everything that goes on in the galaxy. So not only is their team leader, Mensah, forced to shell out for some very expensive equipment, but they’re also compelled to go against their politics and pick what is basically a sentient slave to take with them. Mensah’s discomfort with the idea of treating someone with feelings that way is the first sign that they’re better people than the usual sort crowding the trade. There’s something you gotta keep in mind here to understand another thing I’ll talk about later. Some amount of time has passed since Murderbot achieved freedom from the Governor Module. By the time Mensah picks it over the newer, much costlier model, Murderbot has already been refurbished. Something must’ve happened in between. Something bad enough to make the penny pinching Corporation to put one of their SecUnits out of work. That’s why, when Mensah asks about Murderbot, the saleswoman is a bit taken aback by the fact that it’s not been removed from the list. But like I’ve said a million times already, all the Corporation really cares about is making money. The Corporation’s sales people must have enough experience with travelers to know which ones have the money to spend. They realized that Mensah, Gurathin, Ratthi, Arada, Pin Lee, and Bharadwaj wouldn’t be able to foot the bill no matter how hard they tried to force an expensive SecUnit on them. So when the group wanted to take Murderbot, they went for it because they’d at least make some money that way. As someone who hates people, it’s obviously an intolerable chore for Murderbot to help out a new group. The grumpy bot already doesn’t have a very good opinion about these people who’ve come from a freehold, Preservation Alliance. In “Murderbot’s” universe, the freeholds are planets the Company doesn’t have much control over. So they get to have their own personalities. And that just doesn’t sit right with Murderbot. It could pass out from cringing at their sappy human emotions and disgusting sanitary practices. In its ideal world, Murderbot wouldn’t have to tolerate people who feel the need to decorate their Company sanctioned modular home or dance to awful music when they’re happy. There’s this delightful little piece of “Murderbot” that’s practically endearing with its effort to make the titular cyborg relatable. The group of scientists’ taste in music is actually pretty crazy. And I think you’ll find another layer to this joke if you look back at the scene where the group hummed in perfect harmony to communicate in their own, unique language.
Did Corporation Rim tamper with the map?
Murderbot can only cope with that amount of unseriousness by spending the entirety of his free time watching his favourite show, The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary moon. The SecUnit doesn’t say much about the show. But there’s this thing about its perspective that reveals that it’s quite fascinated by the main character. However much it may groan about having to help the people it’s ordered to protect, Murderbot can’t play hooky. So you can imagine how annoyed it is when it has to pause Sanctuary Moon and jump in to save Bharadwaj and Arada from an unexpected threat. The threat’s that glorious, giant centipede that you’ve seen in the trailer. Boy do I love not having been made to wait longer for that! When that very toothy animal grabs Bharadwaj in its mouth, Murderbot does a great job at protecting his people. But Arada sat there and saw too much to be okay, I’m afraid. Plus there’s that discomfort of having to look at Murderbot’s eerily human flesh bleeding out. Ideally, Murderbot would’ve waited for Arada to get a grip on herself. But Murderbot does something that is strange and completely out of mind with the actions it’s allowed to take. It peeks its sweet and very freaked out face out of his helmet to comfort Arada with its favorite catchphrase said by its favourite TV character. It may not have had the time to ponder over this action yet. But I think it did this very “stupid” and sweet thing because it’s actually started to care about this group of goofs. Bharadwaj was hurt pretty bad. And if Arada took any longer to come to her senses, Bharadwaj would’ve been in a worse state, and that centipede could come back. But it’s not just Arada and her group who are having a hard time deciphering this unexpected kindness from a bot who’s programmed to protect and kill. Murderbot is having a pretty unique experience with this group too. It is rather shocked by the kind of empathy that is normal within this group of people. For the first time in its life and career as a sentient cyborg, Murderbot has met human beings who value lives over equipment. So the first impression isn’t necessarily bad on either side. But there’s something that the group needed to address before anything else. The Company’s taken good money from them. And in exchange, they’ve given them maps that aren’t accurate about the dangerous critters around. Even though it’s imagined a whole scenario of killing them, Murderbot has nothing to gain from messing with the maps. It’s also come out and said that it doesn’t necessarily want to kill these people. So why aren’t the maps syncing? If I were to take a guess, I’d go with the theory that it isn’t a simple case of substandard technology. Corporation Rim is too sophisticated for that. It’s possible that they’re hiding the hazard alerts intentionally. If they don’t create the circumstances for their SecUnits to be the hero, people would think that they don’t need SecUnits. This might be their way to manufacture jobs for the sentient constructs they own and abuse.
Did Murderbot Kill The People In Its Memory?
They don’t need to spell it out for us to see the very obvious jealousy Gurathin feels towards the cyborg in the group. Gurathin’s an augmented human. And that means he can access digital systems with his mind. But Murderbot’s way faster at that. Gurathin’s not handling his jealousy too well. It’s showing up in the form of his immediate distrust in Murderbot. He’s the only one who calls Murderbot a killing machine. I bet Murderbot loved hearing that too when it snooped on them. While the majority of the group are glad that Murderbot acted the way he did with Arada, which included its extremely awkward attempts at killing the silence, Gurathin is suspicious because that was out of character for the cyborg. And Murderbot actually understands why they would distrust it. No matter what emotion was driving his statement, Gurathin wasn’t wrong when he said that “it” didn’t like them. Murderbot didn’t like them one bit. As a seemingly asexual cyborg with a Ken-doll like organic outfit, Murderbot is bound to find sex gross. But Murderbot also finds it entertaining enough to mention it to us when it senses an imminent love triangle between Arada, her wife Pin-Lee, and Ratthi. Is that part of the cyborg’s yet-to-be-acknowledged love for human drama? You really feel for Murderbot when Mensah asks it to come out to the common area for a round of applause. The worst “command” you could give to an awkward, secretly-rogue cyborg is a call for a speech. It makes sense that, after somehow getting done with that, and that too with the discomfort of the most socially anxious person alive, Murderbot wishes it chose acid bath instead. It does get that painful, doesn’t it?
You’d think that Mensah would stop at that. But she’s a genuinely caring person. So much so that her guilt over Bharadwaj’s less-than-ideal condition gives her a panic attack, however “extra” Murderbot may find it. It has no patience for any human emotion really. All it understands are the physical and the digital ways a person can be helped. So it finds Gurathin weird when he checks on Bharadwaj around the clock. It doesn’t understand that emotional comfort plays a part in healing. But there are already signs that Murderbot is learning things from people. It learned that “ugh,” didn’t it? But Murderbot hasn’t learned to lie well enough to do it comfortably when Mensah comes to it to check on how it’s doing. It’s funny that for someone who claims to hate humans, Murderbot has the most imperfectly human answer to Mensah’s question. The more you insist that you’re fine, the less fine you probably are. Murderbot’s understandably wary of these people. Its experience with them has been tremendously bad. And now that people are being nice to it for a change, Murderbot’s worried that they’re trying to get it in trouble. And that too is a very human sentiment. Even this otherwise wonderful group of people are shaken up by a cyborg’s emotional gesture. But Murderbot’s fear of an acid bath isn’t the only thing making it anxious. Murderbot doesn’t trust itself. And the reason lies in the 7 seconds of memory that haunts the cyborg in the ending of the first episode. The cyborg killing all those people in his memory can be any SecUnit. Even though Murderbot doesn’t remember having killed all those people, that’s likely the case. That would explain why the Corporation got Murderbot refurbished. They couldn’t have known that it had gone rogue. They would’ve already had it dissolved if they had any clue about that. But if they commanded the titular cyborg to murder a bunch of people, it makes sense that they had its memories wiped. But some scraps still remain in its disturbed mind. A mind it soothes with the same words of comfort it spoke to Arada. Maybe it’s starting to understand the concept of emotional comfort after all?
