<i>Murderbot</i> Heads to DeltFall in &#8220;Risk Assessment&#8221;

The third episode of Murderbot, “Risk Assessment,” brings us to DeltFall. Murderbot and the PresAux humans are in over their heads, but they don’t realize that until much too late. Will our scrappy heroes make it out alive? 

Spoilers ahoy.

Mensah, Arada, Pin-Lee, and Ratthi decide to check on DeltFall after their hails fail. Murderbot is, of course, against this plan, but it needs them to think its governor module is functional so it keeps its opinions to itself. Gurathin wants Mensah to stay behind or at the very least not bring the SecUnit, but she overrules him on both counts. 

On the hopper, PresAux doesn’t know what to make of Murderbot, who just wants to watch its shows, dammit. Ratthi insists on treating SecUnit like a human, much to SecUnit’s dismay, while Pin-Lee is suspicious and Arada is too trusting. Mensah, our voice of reason, is trying to balance all three approaches. When the satellite cuts out and Murderbot accidentally admits to spying on their personal logs at the Company’s behest, Mensah still tries to connect to it on a personal level. Murderbot isn’t into it. But again, not because it’s callous or cold but because it’s not used to humans being like this and doesn’t know how to manage what it needs versus what they want from it versus what the governor module would make it do. We also get some juicy Preservation Alliance backstory, particularly that Mensah is trying to keep them economically independent and is blocking a resolution to join the Corporate Rim.

We also get our second show-within-a-show, Strife in the Galaxy. Two constructs (Alicia Rosario and Leah Kilpatrick) in heavy makeup are in an empty black room talking revolution against their overlords after an incident left one of them cut in half. It’s not Murderbot’s favorite show, that’s clearly The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, but sometimes you just wanna watch some brain candy and not think about how you’re probably about to walk into an abattoir. 

I love how the scenes from the shows reflect in some way what’s happening or about to happen in the real world. Like the fictional constructs, real SecUnits feel pain (even though their pain sensors can be managed both by them and their employers) and are not invincible, but they can also recover from injuries that would instantly kill humans. It’s also interesting to see how the in-show shows portray constructs versus what we see with actual SecUnits and Murderbot especially. Human actors portray them as humans who barely move and are mostly monotone. Whereas with our SecUnit we get a lot of small reactions that, despite its attempt at hiding them, are pretty easy to read. Skarsgård performs Murderbot differently than the other actors perform their constructs. There’s that pesky social commentary again of how the majority likes to stereotype minorities while pretending any rep is good rep. 

I was thinking a lot about this in regards to the complications with stereotypes about asexual/aromantic, neurodivergent, and nonbinary people being robotic and unfeeling while at the same time many of us with those identities feel seen by Murderbot. I mentioned this in my review of the first two episodes, but to me it comes down to how the show (and Martha Wells in the books) pushes back against those stereotypes. The in-show shows play up those harmful stereotypes, and we see the consequences of that bad rep in how the humans interact with Murderbot. No one has asked what it wants, mostly because they don’t think it wants anything. Mensah and Bharadwaj treat it like a coworker they’re still trying to decide if they like, Ratthi like his best friend, Pin-Lee like a college roommate they’re annoyed with, Arada like a superhero, and Gurathin like he’s jealous over his ex’s new paramour. They only have stereotypes and assumptions to go on. Murderbot doesn’t go out of its way to undermine those low expectations, but viewers get to see its real self through the voice over and the moments where its mask slips. 

Yet Murderbot also loves watching the shows even knowing how unrealistic they are. In a way the situation kind of reminds me of how I consume so much Romance media despite me being convinced allos are having some sort of mass delusion and that no one actually wants or enjoys sex and lust is fake. It’s like fantasy fiction for me, yet I can’t get enough. I don’t imagine any of that romance happening to me anymore than Murderbot puts itself in the position of the navigator construct having a fling with John Cho. But it sure is fun to watch.

Back at the habitat, Bharadwaj is still working through the trauma of nearly being eaten by an alien animal. Gurathin is trying and failing to be sympathetic to her needs. He also has a secret crush on Mensah, which we learn in a disconcerting yet pathetic way. Men, don’t sniff the pillows of your secret obsession. It’s weird. 

Once they get to DeltFall, things go sideways. Needing to do its job instead of being chatted at by a bunch of meatbags, Murderbot fakes static interference—“just like Flight Officer Kogi does in Sanctuary Moon episode 807 when he’s disobeying orders”—to get them off its comms. DeltFall is nothing but corpses, including two SecUnits shot to smithereens. It orders Mensah, Arada (and the now useless handmade gift she’s been lugging around), and Pin-Lee back to the hopper as its risk assessment skyrockets to 87%. After surviving an attack from the remaining DeltFall SecUnit and discovering it had been hacked with a combat override module, Murderbot realizes the entertainment streams are good at coming up with overly complicated plots but the real world is much simpler. The episode ends on a cliffhanger when a strange new SecUnit in dark blue armor pops out from the background like a monster from a horror movie.

David Dastmalchian is doing herculean work with the character of Gurathin. He projects an air of discomfort and awkwardness. He lurks in the background, clearly wanting to participate but often having to be prompted to behave in a way that is culturally appropriate to Preservation Alliance. He plays Gura like a sort of shadow Murderbot. He’s augmented, so he can do a fraction of what SecUnit can. His personality and behaviors are just a bit to the left of the other humans. He and Murderbot are often in conflict, less because they hate each other than because they worry that the other is a threat to what tiny corner of safety they have. 

We don’t know what Gurathin’s Corporation Rim life was like, but the fact that it’s an “old habit. Being quiet,” tells me that it wasn’t a very good one. What he has now with Mensah and Preservation Alliance is probably the first not-awful thing that’s ever been his. Of course he’s going to fight like hell to protect it from what he sees as a Corporation threat. Murderbot also fears the Company. Gurathin could just as easily get it killed as it could kill Gurathin. These are the first not-awful humans Murderbot has ever worked with, so it’s not like it’s coming into this situation with a lot of trust. It doesn’t want to be turned into scrap metal, which means keeping Gurathin at arm’s reach, and the easiest way to do that is to dismiss him as a two-bit bad guy. 

I also think Murderbot’s TV habits are coming into play here. On its shows, there’s always a villain. In Sanctuary Moon, it’s Bookkeeper Wittenmark who hatched some convoluted espionage-and-explosives scheme. In Strife in the Galaxy, it’s the “half man, half lizard” Stellar Inquisitor. Murderbot needs an antagonist too, so it makes Gurathin into one. And Gurathin probably has had enough experiences with SecUnits to automatically be suspicious of this one. All the things he suspects of Murderbot, Murderbot suspects of him, in slightly different ways. Their mutual obliviousness is a delight.

Another interesting exercise in compare and contrast is the DeltFall corpse factory versus Murderbot’s imaginary murder scene in the hopper in the previous episode. Murderbot has surely seen plenty of death in its time, even though the most recent massacre has been partially wiped from its brain. The way it fake-kills PresAux is as relatively bloodless as the deaths on the entertainment streams. Gore and torture don’t factor into the equation. It’s not the killing that excites Murderbot but the result of that killing: freedom. But in DeltFall, death is not sentimental or tidy. It’s brutal and bloody, with clear evidence that some people died scared and suffering. If SecUnit still had its governor module or if the PresAux crew were Corporate Rim assholes rather than space hippies, I doubt it would’ve kept them away from the slaughterhouse. Murderbot doesn’t realize it yet, but it wants to protect these pheromone-laden humans. 

Toa Fraser did a fantastic job directing this episode. I think I actually prefer him to Chris Weitz from the first two episodes. Fraser directed a bunch of episodes from speculative shows I’ve enjoyed over the years. Loved the sweeping shots, especially when the hopper is approaching DeltFall. And the way he and Director of Photography Daniel Grant frame Murderbot in these wide shots where it’s standing in the center of the screen looking both intimidating and isolated is excellent.

A lot to like about this show so far. Really enjoying the play between scary and playful, funny and “oh shit!” I think if you’re still not sold on the show, this episode probably won’t convince you. But if that cliffhanger is any indication, the next episode is gonna be a banger.

Final Thoughts

• Episode 3 covers the last half of chapter 3 and the first half of chapter 4 in All Systems Red.

• The screeners I had didn’t initially have opening or closing credit sequences, so it wasn’t until I watched the screener for this episode the second time that I finally got to see them. I’m digging them! They have the same pseudo-claymation feel as the Severance opening. 

• I know Apple TV+ doesn’t do merch, but if they sold Murderbot action figures in the style of the opening credits, I’d totally buy them. 

• The way Mensah asks/requests/insists Murderbot put its helmet down, she does it in such a mom tone. I can totally picture her needling her teenage children with that same tone when she wants them to do their chores. 

• Ratthi’s little “hello you!” is the perfect distillation of his entire personality. Is “adorkable” still a thing? Because that’s exactly what he is.

• I cackled at the way Murderbot plopped into the hopper chair. The sitting thing is quickly becoming my favorite running gag.

• Mensah whispering so as to not wake her team and Murderbot speaking in its loud voice is a nice bit of character development for both of them.

• Surprising even myself, I’m kinda headcanoning Gugu and Ratthi, what with their grump x cinnamon roll thing going on.

• Captain Makeba I believe is first mentioned in Network Effect, the 5th book in the Murderbot Diaries, so I won’t spoil her story here. But it was a nice reference for fans of the books.

• On SecUnit’s visuals, we see another language before the text translates to English. I can’t wait for fans to cobble together an alphabet. What are we naming this language for the fanon?

Quotes

Until next week.