TV Review: "Murderbot: Episodes 7-8"
The Apple TV series continues to demonstrate why it's one of the most entertaining and thought-provoking sci-fi shows on the air right now.
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Warning: Spoilers for the series follow.
I’ve now finally caught up on Murderbot and, as always, I’m astounded by just how much this show manages to pack into its relatively short episodes. Each episode manages to be touching, funny, haunting, and thought-provoking. That’s quite a lot to ask of any sci-fi series, but I give Paul and Chris Weitz a lot of credit for being able to keep so many emotional balls in the area while also creating a show that is genuinely fun to watch. Each week we come to know more about these characters, both machine and human alike, and this is precisely what makes it so much fun to acth.
The seventh episode, for example, begins with a flashback, one in which humans of the team are playing a game, one in which they admit some truths about themselves. In addition to Bharadwaj admitting that she once had feelings for Pin-Lee, we also learn that Gurathin used to be a spy for the Corporation Rim–and addicted to drugs–before he was saved by Mensah, who gave him a path to salvation and a new life. Up to this point we’ve been led to see Gurathin as a bit of an ass, but now we see that there’s more to him than meets the eye, particularly when it comes to his history with Mensah. Both Dumezweni and Dastmalchian give very layered and textured emotional performances in this key scene, allowing us to see just how complicated people can be. Everyone, even men like Gurathin contain multitudes.
While the humans might be able to give one another grace, the same isn’t always true of Murderbot, particularly in the aftermath of his killing of Leebeebee, an action that makes them all wonder whether they might be next. Despite the fact that Murderbot saved all of them, they still can't quite accept this fact about him, just as Murderbot also struggles to figure out why they aren’t simply grateful that he kept them all from getting killed. It’s no wonder that, by the end of the eighth episode, he’s had just about enough of them.
That’s the thing about this group of human weirdos, though. We can’t help but love them, even if they’re also some of the most annoying people that you can imagine. All of them–even Mensah, who is arguably the smartest of them all–just can’t wrap their heads around the idea that sometimes it is necessary to kill in order to avoid being killed oneself. Murderbot, on the other hand, continues to be driven by logic and rationality, even as these two episodes start to show the extent to which his agency continues to increase along with his desire to write his own story. To him, humans will always be a mystery, no matter how much time he spends with them and no matter how much he learns about their behavior from his favorite serials.
That, though, is the thing about humans (as opposed to machines and murderous robots). They don’t operate according to real logic, much as they might aspire to at times. Instead, they are driven by emotion and by their–sometimes foolish and misguided–adherence to principles that have no place in the uncertain and very dangerous world in which they find themselves. This all comes to a head when Murderbot plugs into Gurathin (mostly in an effort to stifle his pain receptors while Bharadwaj performs surgery on his damaged leg but also so he can rummage in his memories), only for the human to then turn the tables and infiltrate Murderbot’s own memories. The result is, predictably, even more chaos, since Gurathin’s glimpse into the robot’s mind seems to confirm his fears: this SecUit is going to eventually turn on them and kill them all.
The rest of the group, of course, proves all too willing to buy into this, though Mensah does at least deserve some credit for recognizing that Murderbot has his own agency and can decide whether he wants to stay with them or not. She continues to be my favorite character, in no small part because she’s the only one of the human characters who really seems to have her head on straight. The others, while enjoyable to spend time with, really aren’t always the brightest bulbs.
These two episodes, obviously, grapple with some heavy thematic material. However, there are also some lighter moments and, as always, these tend to revolve around Pin-Lee, Ratthi, and Arada, whose little threesome continues to be a source of humor. In a nice little twist, it’s revealed that Ratthi has actually started to fall in love with Pin-Lee rather than Arada, which comes as a genuine surprise to everyone involved, particularly since it was the fact that Ratthi and Arada had the hots for one another that led to this little arrangement in the first place. Humans, it seems, really are the messiest.
And what of Murderbot himself? Suffice it to say that Skarsgård, too, continues to hit it out of the park with his performance. He’s just the right mix of befuddled, slightly angry, and stoic, and he adds just the right dash of sardonic wit to his characterization. One can truly believe that he is a robot that has thrown off the chains of human-imposed limitations and is now ready to exercise its agency in whatever way he sees fit.
I continue to love what Murderbot is doing when it comes to questioning the nature of human behavior. Because so much of our access to these characters is mediated through Murderbot’s point of view, we come to see ourselves in a new, fascinating, and sometimes disconcerting light. This, to me, is one of the marks of a truly great science fiction show. This philosophical richness, as well as the enigmas that the series has yet to fully reveal, will keep me tuning in until the end of the season and beyond.