On this week’s episode, our intrepid galactic explorers face a murderous enemy, Murderbot’s love of Sanctuary Moon becomes a liability, and Mensah makes a grave miscalculation.
Spoilers ahoy!
Half of PresAux is headed toward the rendezvous point where GrayCris lies in wait, and things are a bit tense in the hopper. Of course it’s Gurathin who assumes they’re all going to die. When Mensah asks Murderbot’s opinion on their success rate, it hems and haws. I don’t blame it. The last few times Murderbot gave them its honest opinion about their imminent death, the humans acted like it was being unfathomably callous. (When Gugu does it, however, it’s just a frustrating quirk of personality.)
As is her habit, Mensah keeps her feelings to herself. Come to think of it, the only times we’ve seen her really open up and be Ayda the woman rather than Dr. Mensah the planetary leader is when she snapped at Ratthi in the last episodes and the two times she was chatting about her family to Murderbot or doing breathing exercises to a space soap. Murderbot pulls a similar stunt of keeping things close to its chest. After having its most personal thoughts and feelings—what Captain Hossein, long may he reign, called “commands from inside”—exposed for everyone to see and scorn, Murderbot is back to its old SecUnit ways. It deliberately lies to PresAux about what SecUnits are capable of and its risk assessment. Its affectation is flat and face expressionless. Both Mensah and Murderbot are playing their parts, her of the strong leader and it of the robot with guns in its arms. Mensah can’t do what needs to be done as Ayda the mother and friend. I don’t think Murderbot has retreated into the SecUnit role because it needs to do the job at hand; I think it’s protecting itself from further harm. After the way the people that claimed Murderbot was part of their team reacted to learning its most private secrets, it’s no wonder it has pulled in on itself. It had to hurt to be rejected by so-called friends. (More like fairweather friends.)
Ratthi, Bharadwaj, and Arada are back at base camp. Once the hopper lands, Murderbot heads off to meet GrayCris while Mensah stays behind to coordinate. Pin-Lee and Gurathin wander through the woods looking for a good place to launch a transponder to hack into GrayCris’ HubSystem and launch their emergency beacon (inspired by episode 599 of Sanctuary Moon). Except, this is a fake plan; Murderbot pitched PresAux on it to get them to do what it needed for its real plan. What it really decided to do was tell GrayCris it has no governor module. That’s surprising! Even more shocking is that it pulls out the head of the evil SecUnit Hostile One decapitated in episode 7 and claims it killed the only human who figured out it was rogue: Gurathin. Murderbot claims it’s betraying PresAux in exchange for being marked as destroyed inventory and getting a ride off planet on their ship. Bold move, Seccy.
Redhead GrayCris says “It’s just one bot. We can dispatch it later.” In the comments for last week’s episode, I touched on this a bit, but I’m enjoying the way the writers are playing with the terms “bot” and “construct.” SecUnit has been clear that it’s a construct, not a bot. But the humans, both Preservation Alliance and Corporate Rim alike, are less clear. Sanctuary Moon calls its construct a Navigation Bot (in the books, navigation bots are a thing, if I recall correctly, but they’re just a bot. Bots can think, but they’re much simpler than a construct) but it’s really more of a construct like Murderbot. Murderbot’s very name is a play on this blurriness. Humans treat SecUnits like talking equipment rather than sentient beings. The combat module override serves to basically render constructs into bots. Murderbot can’t get any of the other evil SecUnits to respond to its pings. They are the real murder bots in this situation. Murderbot plays into GrayCris’ misunderstandings about constructs and bots, as well their assumptions about rogues, to convince them to go along with its plan.
Except! There’s a third plan! On a separate channel, Murderbot instructs Bharadwaj to let GrayCris into their system. It’s the only way to get GrayCris to let down their guard enough for it to get into their channel for the beacon launch. It’s a nice touch to see Ratthi, Bharadwaj, and Arada push the button together. There’s no time to talk about it or do their whole consensus humming thing. They have to not only trust Murderbot but also trust themselves. Here’s when things get convoluted, to say the least. The more Murderbot talks, the deeper a hole it digs itself into. It makes up “a highly advanced augmented human” named Shagamin, of all things (after Flight Corporal Shagamin from season 7 of Sanctuary Moon). Meanwhile PresAux figures out Murderbot is trying to lure GrayCris to the emergency beacon so when it launches they’re burned alive. Mensah doesn’t want any more deaths, but Murderbot insists there’s no other way.
Time for yet another plan. When the transponder drone is eaten by an alien bird creature, Gurathin and Pin-Lee sneak into GrayCris’ base to trigger it from inside their own system. Too bad Murderbot doesn’t know this since the communication channel was severed when the drone was lost. I was cringing through that whole stalling scene. I’m glad we couldn’t see Murderbot’s face during that or I might not have survived. And that little run jump duck for cover? So embarrassing. Maybe not a good idea to shout “Boldness is all.”
Mensah is also cut off from access and formulates her own plan. She takes the hopper to meet GrayCris. That means if Gura and Pin-Lee are successful, now Murderbot and Mensah die. But when Pin-Lee and Gurathin get comms back up, Mensah changes her plan yet again to try and get away before things go boom. Murderbot offers to torture her but its love of “premium, quality entertainment” (or “crappy show,” either or) makes it careless. Beard GrayCris figures out they’re being scammed due to all the Sanctuary Moon references.
Murderbot says two things tonight that really stuck with me. First, it tells PresAux “you get what you pay for,” but honestly if they had shelled out for that “more sophisticated model” they’d all be dead. It would’ve killed them all at DeltFall and that would’ve been that. The only reason any of them are alive now is because they cheaped out on a piece of equipment that as luck would have it had already hacked its governor module. Second, when Murderbot holds Beard GrayCris hostage, it tells the evil SecUnits, “We can talk about this. You don’t have to follow orders. I can teach you how to hack your governor modules.” Even when things are bleakest, Murderbot offers a hand to its compatriots, using the language of Preservation Alliance, no less. It can’t work, not with that override still going, but I love that it tried.
Predictably, everyone’s new plans go awry. GrayCris kills two of their own instead of doing any damage to PresAux. Pin-Lee brains one of the GrayCris guys, but Gurathin is able to trigger the emergency beacon launch sequence. Murderbot can’t convince the evil SecUnits to join it, but it does manage to explode yet another head by dumping its entire entertainment stream downloads folder all at once into one of the SecUnits. Mensah tries to find another way to solve this conflict and ends up shooting the GrayCris leader. Murderbot drags Mensah over the edge of the cliff, twisting and turning to land in just the right way so that Mensah has the greatest chance of survival. Murderbot’s helmet is smashed to bits, the corporate logo gone completely. It really is rogue now. Everything it has done in this episode has been of its own accord, based on its own knowledge and desires. It chose to do all of the things it’s doing. It keeps choosing to sacrifice its own life for PresAux. The last thing it says as it suffers a catastrophic systems failure is “My clients… my clients… are the best clients.”
Is Murderbot dead? We have a whole ‘nother episode left, so I’m guessing not. But come back next week to find out!
Final Thoughts
- Episode 9 covers most of chapter 7 in All Systems Red, including some scenes invented or heavily modified for the show.
- Are the other SecUnits aware of what’s happening to them? I kind of hope not.
- The landscape got me curious, so I looked it up. Apparently the show was filmed in and around Toronto and the Ontario region.
- There are apparently 2,797 episodes of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon and I am losing my goddamn mind.
- Hey, Hollywood, it would be super cool if I never had to see the “facial scars mean evil” trope again, please and thank you.
- Important to note that it’s Gurathin who first notices Murderbot is dying and rushes to it.
Quotes
“I want you all to know that I… I copy.” Awwwww!
“It was ironic to spend my last moments hugging a human, when all I’d really wanted to do was to be left alone to watch my shows. Well… whatever.”
Next week, our finale.
I did not make it through the stalling scene and had to skip it. I have cringe limits. And the fight scene was underwhelming as usual. Well, the SecUnit part of it. Though I was glad to see that MB got to do some hacking.
I did like the humans being terrible during the fight. I know they’re supposed to be especially bad because they’re evil corporates but I don’t think I’ve seen a shoot out where people were so cognitively overwhelmed. I got the sense that no one meant to shoot their teammate but they had guns and so used them in their problem solving. I know MB didn’t have time to be sarcastic about it but it should rewatch the tapes just to indulge itself.
So they are being deliberate about humans (and augmented humans?) not being clear on the difference between bots and constructs. Excellent. It makes sense that the Company and other providers would want things to be fuzzy. Even in the Corporation Rim people would be upset about installing body control machines into living people. I hope we get another season with ART and how MB can outperform it on some tasks because of MB’s living tissue.
Hands up, everyone who thought (or said) “Where’s the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!” at that moment?
Because my husband and I had that reaction.
I think that means we’re old😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
“Boldness is all! Thud. ”
Man, SecUnit trying to stall GrayCris was right at the edge of the amount of cringe I can stand.
When Pin-Lee whacked the GrayCris guy over the head with the pipe wrench, well, she didn’t mean to kill him, but… That was a solid hit.
All the humans, so far at least, being terrible shots is IMHO very realistic. It takes lots of training and practice to become a competent shot under real world conditions. Trying to keep a red dot on a moving target that may be shooting back, with other movement around it, while moving yourself so you don’t get hit, is tough. Oh, and those handguns seem to have some serious recoil, too, so you have to get back on target after each shot. And that’s just the physical aspect! A lot of military training is trying to get the trainee to see the others as “targets” and not as “people”.
It’s not just that they’re bad shots, it’s that they shoot each other. Both shots seem to be solid hits to center mass. They’re better at hitting what they shoot at than they are at choosing what to shoot at. It’s a terrible combination.
Pssst, just a reminder, Pin-Lee uses “they/them” pronouns.
Such a good observation on how the fighting feels refreshingly organic rather than slick. I think it also relates to how the show isn’t afraid to focus on peoples’ trauma responses when they witness violence.
Ack. I knew that. And of course I’m outside the edit window…
“Boldness is all!” *thud*
Lots of twists in this one, even for book readers! I have to say I enjoyed the earlier episodes that seemed to focus on character-building a little more than these more plotty ones, but this was still really fun. SecUnit doing its darndest with its “much improved” small talk skills was hilarious.
I really enjoyed seeing which characters were calling it SecUnit or MurderBot and when. Mensah generally says SecUnit, but Pin-Lee says both when they’re trying to get a straight answer. I also thought them all pressing the button was a good way to communicate the characters’ feelings in the moment when there isn’t a lot of time for explanation.
Mensah continues to be the best, determined to try and help no matter what. I’m really interested to see how they do the last episode, but I’ll be really bummed because it will be so long until (hopefully) the next season.
Despite my disappointments with some aspects of this series, I will be sad to see it go this week. Based on the repeated use of cliff-hangers to end each (way too short!) episode, I am expecting the series will end on a major one of some sort. Does anyone know where it stands in viewership? Is it likely to be renewed?
If we do get a major cliffhanger (though I’m not sure they’ll commit to one without a second season cued up), I’d bet it’ll be ART.
If each season adapts one of the novellas, then it would presumably have pretty much the same ending as All Systems Red, which was open-ended for SecUnit but resolved the main story, and thus couldn’t be considered a cliffhanger. If the show were to end with something that foreshadows ART’s arrival in season 2, I would call that a teaser, not a cliffhanger.
No renewal yet. Last time I checked RT had it at 97% ratings and it’s consistently been the 3rd most viewed show on Apple TV+ (which isn’t saying much compared to other streamers, as it tends to have much lower viewership/subscribers). If it is renewed, I’d be shocked if we got more than 2 seasons total.