Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 59

 Family trees are complicated.

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Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 58

 Sudden Wanda Maximoff! 

Last time on X-Men: The Animated Series, the hunt for Proteus concluded. The X-Men chased the body snatcher across Edinburgh as the boy tried to find his father Joseph MacTaggert. They eventually just try to warn Joe, who is largely uninterested as despite being a ‘family values’ politician, he could not give two shits about his Mutant son and assumed his guards could protect him. Proteus proved him wrong by interrupting a rally, but Joe ran off. Logan’s terrified of Proteus and has trouble approaching the reality warper. They all face off again at Scottish Parliament where Charles has the bright idea to just let Kevin talk to his father. After seeing the man terrified by Kevin’s presence, Charles reached out one last time and helped Kevin channel his power enough to revert to his human form. Seeing the real Kevin, Joe apologizes to his boy and seems to be trying to reconcile their relationship. The episode ends with Logan being upset that Proteus freaked him out so badly, a plot point that will never be brought up again. How odd. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

The story begins with Pietro Maximoff, aka Quicksilver, making a report to Forge about a security sweep. Quicksilver is one of the X-Factor members, a government sponsored Mutant team if you forgot who he was. His report was interrupted by an emergency call from his sister Wanda. He chastises her for using an X-Factor override, as he warned her to only use it in an emergency. Wanda tells him it is an emergency, as their father has taken ill and he is asking to see the twins. Pietro agrees to meet her in one of X-Factor’s hummingbird jets and go see him. I assume this is mostly for Wanda’s benefit as Pietro runs faster than that thing flies. They arrive in Romania and see their father in the hospital. The dying Romani informs them that they were in fact adopted. Folks don’t do this; the drama of the moment doesn’t outweigh your kids right to know about the circumstances of their lives. Besides, they might not give a shit, like my Grandpa J did.  Anyway, Django Maximoff tells them that he’d sworn never to reveal their history to them but was released from that vow. He explains how a midwife named Bova, who we see is clearly a cow person in the flashback, brought the twins to him and their mother shortly after their birth. Wanda asks who her bio-parents are, but Django doesn’t know. He tells them to find Bova in Wundargore. Pietro is skeptical but Wanda says they have to check it out, if only for their father.

 

Back at the X-Mansion, Charles is up late reading when Magneto sneaks into his study. Charles senses his presence and asks how he got in, Magneto basically saying “master of magnetism” with a shrug. Charles asks what Magneto did to Logan, who was on security tonight. He turns on the camera to the surveillance room and finds Logan magnetically trapped to a chair. Charles asks why Magneto felt the need to break in like this. Magneto says he’s headed to the Balkans, as his long missing wife Magda may have been found there. Magneto is fully able to admit he knows that it’s a trap, but because it’s his Magda he begs Charles to use Cerebro to scan the area and tell him if there’s any unusual Mutant activity. Charles agrees to help him. Magneto leaves but makes Charles promise him that no matter what happens he won’t interfere. Logan bursts in a second later and demands to know where Magneto is. The man loves to try to fight the one dude who can stop him with virtually no effort. Charles asks Logan to follow Magneto and watch out for trouble.

 

We cut to Wundargore, where Pietro is princess-carrying Wanda up the mountain. They find a research facility at the top of the mount, a being in purple armor floats down and demands to know who trespasses on his facility. They introduce themselves as the Maximoffs. He was shocked to see them. He introduces himself as the High Evolutionary. Yes, he looks wildly different in the comics from the MCU. They want to see Bova, and while the High Evolutionary is willing to help the Maximoffs, he says they need to prove themselves first. He takes them into his citadel and uses a DNA scanner to prove themselves. He had their DNA on file. They do the scan and it’s a match. He promises to notify Bova at once.

 

They find Bova, the cow lady, in her room. They ask about their history. Bova tells them that she only knew their mother, having met her half frozen outside of Wundargore several months pregnant. She claims their mother was running from a Mutant that slaughtered her village and wanted to find her. She birthed her twins before running into the wilderness, sure the Mutant was still tracking her. Bova says she died in the bitter winter. Pietro demands to know the name of the Mutant, and Bova gives it, Magneto. Both Bova and the High Evolutionary try to dissuade them from more bloodshed, but Pietro wants to fight. The High Evolutionary says that he’ll find Magneto just outside the facility. Every year he goes there to a loved one’s grave marker. Okay, I’m not good at subtlety, but… their mom died just outside the facility, the grave marker for Magneto’s loved one is outside the facility, surely one of them is smart enough to get the pieces into place here? But no. The High Evolutionary offers to help them, summoning his animal-human soldiers to help him. As they leave, the High Evolutionary begins working on something on his computer, saying the world will soon see the peace and joy he can give it.

 

We find Magneto wandering through a graveyard. Logan follows at a discrete distance, telling Beast over the radio that maybe Magneto was telling the truth about why he came. Magneto looks at the note that says to meet at Magda’s grave at ten that night. A woman calls out to Magnus; she’s totally hooded but claims to be Magda. Magneto begs her forgiveness, saying that he was so full of hate those (twentyish) years ago, and had no room in his heart for love. She claims to still be frightened of him and asks him to stay back. Magneto can’t though and finds out that this is a goat lady in disguise, who calls him a fool. Pietro and Wanda reveal themselves and demand to fight. They tell him they’re here to avenge their mother. Logan tells Beast what’s happening. Magneto blasts them back with his powers and demands to know why they’re here. The animal men attack and disable Magneto, but Pietro says that he is theirs. They are immediately captured by the animal men, because obvious double cross. Logan warns Beast what’s happening before rushing in to help. He knocks an animal-man into a grave marker, infuriating Magneto who breaks free and helps disable some of the animal-men. Before they can talk, they’re gassed and captured.

 

Back at the mansion, Charles asks Beast why Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch would attack Magneto. Beast wonders if maybe all of X-Factor is involved, as the twins should have known they couldn’t match Magneto. I feel that’s debatable with Wanda but whatever. Charles tells him to scramble the Blackbird.

 

We return to Wundargore, the heroes trapped in goo. Logan asks Magento what is going on. Magneto says that according to Baltic legend, there’s a mystical valley called Wundargore. If it’s true, he knows who is behind this. Shock of shocks, he and the High Evolutionary met before. The High Evolutionary says that Magneto once searched for his valley but never found it. Magneto demands to know if he was involved in Magda’s death. The High Evolutionary promises to explain everything in due course. He explains that while he has power over life and accelerated evolution, he’s had to work for decades to make this small community of animal-human hybrids. Because of how slow this project has been, he’s found a way to… accelerate things. He has Wanda and Pietro awoke, revealing he wants to use Wanda’s power over probability to increase his chances of finding good genetic matches and Pietro’s to accelerate the development of his experiments. But Magneto is necessary as his immense power for his plan. He took DNA samples from Magneto and injected them into the twins to enhance their own powers, as the blood of the father strengthens his children. Yep, their mom is Magda and Magneto is their dad. No one likes hearing this even though Pietro is literally Magneto but with shorter hair. The High Evolutionary isn’t interested in talking, though. He takes Wolverine and puts him into one of his DNA pods and uses it to transform Wolverine into a literal Wolverine-man. The High Evolutionary says that his work will soon bring enlightenment to the world. They’re interrupted by Beast and Charles’ arrival. Beast is fascinated by these animal-human hybrids, but they need to avoid getting shot at.

 

Magneto tells the twins about their mother, saying she was a gentle and loving woman that feared his plans for the future and the conflict they’d create. She ran away without telling him she was pregnant. Pietro just fixates on the “so it’s true you killed her’ part of Magneto’s statement. Pietro sarcastically asks if Magneto’s pain makes everything all right. Magneto says nothing will be alright. He says that now that he knows everything, he won’t hold back anymore. He uses his full power to shatter their bonds, and the trio go out to join the battle. Magneto and Wanda’s powers make short work of most of the beast-men, but Wolverine proves harder to stop. The High Evolutionary attempts to flee, Magneto and Pietro attempt to chase after them. Pietro gets blasted on the run up, but Magneto stops to catch him, shouting “son!” as he does. They fell back. The High Evolutionary’s fortress takes off, flying into the sky. Magneto swears there’s nowhere on Earth the High Evolutionary can escape him. As soon as the fortress has moved away, the climate around them shifts, the plants dying and rotting around them. And Wolverine reverts to normal.

 

Magneto apologizes to the twins, saying that losing their mother was the greatest loss of his life. And he swore he would have come for them had he known about them. They’re not interested in talking, though and prepare to go. Magneto tells them that he’ll be waiting if they ever decide they want to talk. After they leave, Magneto is in agony, admitting that this feels like he’s lost Magda twice now. Beast tries to give him comfort by saying time heals all wounds, but Magneto doesn’t believe it. He says that none of them can understand this pain and flies off. I beg to differ; Logan’s lost like three times the amount of loved ones as you Maggy. Anyway, he leaves, and Charles bids his Frienemis goodbye.

 

This episode probably could have been a two-parter, if they decided to play up the mystery of the twins bio-parents and Magneto’s missing wife. But then maybe the story would have felt too long… This seems to be a weird spot where this episode could have used another 10ish minutes but not the full 20 of a second episode, ya know? I think it’s funny that everyone treats the reveal of the twins parentage as a shock when, again, Magneto and Pietro are literally the same man at different points of their life. This is more forgivable in the comics where the twin’s current canon bio-dad is the Whizzer, who is also a white-haired gentleman. The fact he’s also a speedster helps too. I say current because I’m one of those people that is sure that someday they’ll be retconned back to being Magneto’s kids. They were changed from that mostly to separate them from the X-Men canon so the MCU could use them without referencing Mutants when 20^th Century Fox was a thing. Their anger at Magneto for contributing to their mother’s death is totally understandable given the situation. I do like the fact that the show included Magneto leaving the door open for them to talk to them if they ever want to talk to him. Children do not owe an absentee parent a talk, but I prefer it if the door is open even if no one takes it. Especially when it seems that Magneto genuinely loved his late wife and would have been there for the twins if he could have. Maybe he’d have ended up going the X-Men: Evolution route and abandon them to pursuit his Mutant agenda, but maybe not. I kind of would have liked more on the High Evolutionary, but there’s really only so much you can do with an insane biologist and side characters. Next time, we learn more about another family tree, Raven Darkholm’s aka Mystique. 

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Viewer Log: X-Men: TAS ep 57

Proteus hunts his father while the X-Men hunt him. 

Last time on X-Men: The Animated Series, we met Proteus. Son of Moira MacTaggert and her ex-husband Joe, Kevin aka Proteus was born with immense power. He can manipulate reality in a fixed area around himself, functionally warping space and time around him, though things reset when he moves too far away. His powers are unstable, though, causing him to exist in a monstrous energy form. He is obsessed with seeing his father, believing Moira is keeping them apart so she can run these experiments on him. He escapes containment and Moira reluctantly calls Charles for help. We learn that Joe was the man that Moira left Charles for, though the two divorced very shortly after the birth of their son. She keeps her connection to Kevin a secret at first, telling Charles he’s just a patient. They track Proteus across the Scottish countryside as he makes his way to the capital, knowing his father is a politician in Edinburgh. He runs from most of their fights, though this is clearly more from impatience than fear of fighting them. They finally face off just outside the city where he singlehandedly defeats the X-Men and Moira finally admits that he’s her son. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

We pick up the story again right after Kevin MacTaggert kicked the X-Men’s asses. Wolverine seems really shaken up from being swallowed by the ground itself and having his claws turned into snakes but is trying to play it tough because that’s what Logan does. Moira is terrified her son is going to do something that he can’t undo, but Charles assures her that they’ll stop him before that happens. Beast suggests tracking down Joseph MacTaggert, as he’s Kevin’s target. Charles is obviously disgusted by this, as Joe was not only the man that Moira left him for, but now he knows Joe left her AND their son. He suggests that they could even offer him some protection if needs be. Moira says that he won’t accept their help, but Charles thinks that Joe is the least of their worries.

 

Proteus arrives in Edinburgh and sees photos of Joe MacTaggert running for Secretary of State. He’s infuriated to see Joe with a wife and other children. He finds and possesses a man named Thomas that just struck out with a woman he’d been pursuing, Maeve. The street over the X-Men arrive, Beast saying that Joe’s campaign headquarters is just a block over. Wolverine senses Proteus, not with his nose but his whole body shuttering at his presence. As the street is deserted, Kevin is easy to spot even in a new skin suit. They chase him to a nearby castle and confront him. Kevin drops Thomas and tells them to leave him alone. Moira begs him to come home, saying Joe can’t help him. Like a lot of children who’ve grown up with an absentee parent, he refuses to accept Joe doesn’t care about him and clings to this idea that Moira kept them apart. The X-Men try to talk him down, but Proteus causes an Earthquake and tries to bury everyone. The X-Men stop him from hurting some civilians, demolishing the castle around him. Though it once again completely resets the moment he leaves. Moira is heartbroken her son is causing so much damage and that he won’t listen. And she’s terrified what he’ll do when he realizes Joe is a deadbeat dad, he divorced Moira after learning their son was a Mutant. She’s worried there will be nothing they could do to stop him other than kill him. Charles promises they’ll find another way.

 

The next day, Proteus grabs a constable figuring he’ll know where Joe is. The X-Men arrived at Joe’s office, who promptly show’s Mr. Family Man is a hypocrite as he say Kevin isn’t his problem. He asks if they want him to put Kevin on TV. Charles, clearly barely holding in rage, says that he just needs to talk to the boy. Joe says he can’t as the election is tomorrow and he doesn’t want folks remembering he’s divorced, let alone learn that he is the father of a Mutant. Moira begs him to talk to Kevin as he needs his father. Joe says to just tell him Charles is Kevin’s father, as that’s the way she always wanted it. DICK! Charles calls him an idiot and says that Kevin is coming for him whether he likes it or not. Joe tells them to get out as he has his own protection… in the form of two goons. Two goons… instead of Four X-Men… Okay, whatever.

 

Kevin arrives that the MacTaggert Estate and lets himself in, using his powers to melt the gate and then the door to the house. He finds a lavishly set up mansion, with many photos of Joe’s second wife and two children. Kevin hears laughing and hides, seeing his half siblings running around the house playing a game of tag. He manipulates the ground, turning it into a sort of puddy and using that to lift himself to the second floor. He enters his father’s office and sees the campaign poster saying Joe will be at Union Hall that night. He leaves, his stepmother just barely catching a cop seeming to melt her walls and floor as he leaves.

 

Later that night, Joe meets with his head of security, telling him to make sure Kevin is kept out of sight until after the election if they catch him. The guy asks if Kevin is dangerous, and Joe admits he’s got no idea as he hasn’t seen Kevin since he could crawl. Rogue, watching from a vent and wonders if they couldn’t just like Proteus have this one. The guard is confident they can contain Proteus, because he has no idea what he’s up against, but Joe warns him to not get careless. The guard goes to check on the team. Rogue exits the vent and radios the team, saying that they need to do a guard change as she needs a shower after being around Joe this long.

 

We shift to the rally at Union Hall. Joe is shaking hands and being a smarmy politician, fully expecting to win the vote. Rogue is extremely disgusted to be here, shock of shocks, she’s not big on folks that abandon their kids. Beast quotes some lines from James Harvey Robinson about how Politics is inherently a nasty endeavor. Charles tells them to report the least sign of any disturbance over the radio. Logan is guarding the basement, and is extremely jumpy. A rat scurrying around makes him almost lunge at it. Charles asks if he’s okay and Logan deflects by saying he should be worried about what he’ll do if he catches Kevin. Joe goes to make his big speech, confident in his coming victory and saying that he’s working for Scotland and their children. Outside, Proteus hops into one of the security guards. Rogue muses that he likes kids when they’re not his and how she’s seen that before. We flashback to when she was a teenage and her father disowned her for being a Mutant, despite her begging her daddy to not leave her. Beast radios Charles and wonders if Proteus might not be avoiding the rally for how crowded it is. Charles starts to sense Proteus and tries to warn everyone. Joe brags about how important his children are, perfectly setting up Proteus to arrive and reveal himself. Rogue and Beast try to stop him, telling Proteus that Joe might not recognize him in this form. He screams at them to leave him alone as a panic breaks out. Charles tells Logan to meet up with them, but Logan remembers how Proteus warped him and flees in a panic.

 

Proteus mucks around with reality, disabling Beast and Rogue as his father runs away like a coward. Charles tries to talk Proteus down, begging him to just talk and Charles will listen. Proteus wants to know where his father is, and when Charles tells him the truth that Proteus frightened him away, Proteus freaks out again and rips reality asunder. Charles and Beast are nearly dropped into a flaming pit but are saved by Rogue and Logan, who unlike Joe faced his fears. Charles reached out to Kevin telepathically and calms him for a moment. He offers to help Kevin, but Kevin is fixated on his father, believing somehow that Joe wants him. He melts the hall and escapes out the door, everything resetting once he’s gone. Beast is fascinated by this power, realizing that Kevin is only limited by his imagination, and Rogue adding that his temper is a factor too. Charles admits that Kevin is too powerful for them to stop, all they can do is keep trying to reason with. Moira tells him that they’ve tried, she’s the only one who can stop him. The group leave the hall, trying to figure out what to do. Wolverine suggests they may need to take Proteus down, causing Rogue to yell at him for thinking of hurting a child and demanding to know where HE was during the fighting. Logan tries to threaten her… but like Rogue’s one of a handful of people that he can’t do that to. Beast says that Logan couldn’t help how he reacted to Proteus. Logan demands to know what he means by that, and Beast simply states that no emotion is more difficult to control than paralyzing fear. Logan accuses Beast of calling him a coward, but Charles buts in, saying that they don’t have time for this. He’s worried that Moira will try to do something drastic to stop Kevin.

 

Later we see that Joe has spun the meeting with Proteus as some kind of attack on his person by his opponent, Bill Wallace. Not sure how you cold make that pitch without evidence, but what are ya gonna do. We see a storm cloud come in that Proteus is riding in. Joe begins a speech to the Scottish Parliament, once again claiming that he’s the big family man that loves his children above all else. Rogue says he’s as greasy as hog fat. Charles is clearly frustrated by all this, as the only solution to their problem is Joe, but the man chose his career over Kevin years ago. Proteus arrives, telling Joe that everyone keeps telling him Joe doesn’t want to see him. He refuses to believe that’s true and comes down to see him. Logan immediately flees, his fear of Proteus that strong. Proteus confront his father, Joe saying that he’s not real, he’s here to ruin Joe’s life. The X-Men try to get in the way, but Charles tells them to stop and let them talk. Proteus is able to reduce his energy form down enough that Joe can see his human form inside it. He begs his father to just talk to him, but Joe refuses, calling for someone to protect him and runs away. Charles tries to help Kevin process this but he’s in a fury and starts destroying the building in earnest. Logan is able to suck it up and try to talk to Kevin via his usual bravado and threats but Kevin sweeps him away in a gust on wind. Of all the missions to not bring Storm. Moira and Sean Cassidy arrive with the machine she’d used to repress Proteus’s powers. She says that it weakened him at low power but might be able to stop him on a higher setting. Charles begs for one last chance. He reaches out to Kevin telepathically and offers his body to Kevin, saying that if they merge, he can show Kevin that he truly understands his pain and can help him through it. Kevin accepts and the two unite. In the mindscape, Charles tells Kevin that he’ll be able to control his powers one day, but he’ll need to learn to control his anger and to trust both those that love him, both his father and mother. Kevin leaves Charles’ body and fully reverts to human form. He and Moira hug. Joe, now fully seeing Kevin, speaks with him and hugs his son, saying that he has no right to the name ‘father’ to Kevin but he wants to earn it. They head out with Joe carrying Kevin, which clearly hurts Charles a little.

 

Later we see Sean helping Kevin train with his powers, using them to shape and manipulate blocks of energy. They compliment his progress, though he’s clearly struggling slightly to keep his focus. Moira is just happy that he’s working through his anger. Outside, Logan tells Rogue he’s impressed by Charles, as the professor never loses his cool despite the fear. Rogue tells him that everyone gets shaken up sometimes, but Logan angrily says that he doesn’t before the credits roll.

 

As far as two-parter stories go, this one isn’t my favorite. It feels like it was a lot of repeating things. Kevin arrives somewhere, the X-Men catch him, “Arrgh, leave me alone!” Kevin bends reality and does weird stuff, Kevin flees, the X-Men recover, rinse and repeat. They honestly could have covered the whole story in one episode if they wanted to in my opinion. They’d just have to drop a few encounters, and the subplot about Logan being afraid. Don’t get me wrong, after what he experienced, fear is a natural response, but it feels tacked on here to just increase the run time. Especially when Logan just kind of gets over it when the plot needs him to not be scared anymore. And I think the story kind of wimps out at the end by Joe actually talking to and accepting Kevin. Like… seeing the real him undoubtedly helped… but the man cut his son out of his life as an infant, was a massive hypocrite about family values, and even tries to deflect his son’s rampage onto his political opponent. He shouldn’t get to apologize to Kevin, Kevin should have told him to screw off. But that’s just me. The power on display was impressive, I liked the message that says Charles can fix even the most angry and broken people with a dialogue and effort, and Proteus is just such a fun concept for a villain of the week. So ya, not my favorite episode but there aren’t really bad X-Men: The Animated Series episodes. Next time, we catch up with Magneto. See you then.

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Bluesky: ‪@basicssuperhero.bsky.social‬

Viewer Log: Murderbot ep 8

 Prepping for emergency surgery!

Last time on Murderbot, everyone was processing. PreservationAux and Murderbot fled their habitat to evade whatever third party is trying to kill the groups on the planet. The humans are all uncomfortable around Murderbot after it… ya know… murdered a lady in front of them. Murderbot is deeply hurt that no one had even thanked it for saving them and does a perimeter checks (aka be away from the people). When it gets back, Mensah tries to get everyone to see work together and tries to initiate a sharing ritual their group does. Before anything could happen, though, a centipede monster attacked them. The group fell back to the hopper and prepared to fight. A second monster arrived and for a second everyone though they were fighting… until Arata realized that, despite their very different morphology this was an example of sexual dimorphism. Ya, the monsters weren’t fighting they were… monster mashing. The two eventually leave and the group find a pair of egg sacs stuck to their hopper. Distracted by all the biology around it, another SecUnit attacked and nearly killed Murderbot. Murderbot with attempted help from Preservation Alliance almost die, but the SecUnit punched one of the egg sacs. This draws the centipede monster who brutally killed it before grabbing their egg sac and fleeing. Gurathin then collapsed. He’d been ill since Leebeebee shot him last episode and he needs a medbay badly. Murderbot is against going back to the habitat for safety reasons but is told the humans are going back so it can either stay alone or go with the group. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

Ep 8: Foreign Object

 

We begin with a Sanctuary Moon episode. The first officer has just announced that the memory wipe on the navigator unit was 100% successful. They had to wipe its mind after it decapitated its lover, the captain. The headless John Cho was a bit much for me, personally. The helmsman asks if this is a good idea, and the first officer asks the Nav Unit to decapitate him to prove its not dangerous. It says that it cannot comply with an order that would endanger the crew. The helmsman is still not certain, but the first officer insists that everything is fine. He orders the Nav bot to fly them through the wormhole, and tells it to smile. The alarms start blaring and it’s revealed that the Nav bot is piloting them through the event horizon of the wormhole, which will basically trap them. Ya, the memory wipe didn’t work and now it’s on a kill spree. The Nav bot murders the security officer and then kills the first officer, crushing his head between its hands. Murderbot is shocked by this turn of events and really wants to see what happens next but instead has to deal with the shit its humans are putting it through. They’re on a cliff overlooking their habitat. They don’t see any vehicles or signs of life by the habitat, which doesn’t mean much. Ratthi suggests that he get to go in first, maybe with a bigger gun, and scope things out all stealthy. He tries to get a fist bump from Murderbot but its not interested. Murderbot reveals it left some transponders before they left and they’ve been recording everything that happened at the habitat. Ratthi and Mensah both praise “Seccy.” Terrible nickname.

 

At the hopper, Gurathin is getting worse. He’s got a high fever and is barely conscience. They watch the playback and find out that three SecUnits were in their habitat. They get a look at the logo on the SecUnits and learn the third party killing folks on the planet is called GrayCris, a mining conglomerate from the Corporation Rim. The leader of the GrayCris team find Murderbot’s camera and addresses the team. She compliments them on realizing that they were coming. They say that they disabled the beacons and have the only means of getting off the planet. She insists this is a misunderstanding and as a sign of good faith promises to leave their habitat alone. She gives them a rendezvous point and a time and says she’s willing to deal. The team are all willing to go down to the habitat immediately, but Murderbot is very certain they’ll all die if they go down there. It tells them to not move until it secures the area. Especially Ratthi.

 

Murderbot approaches the habitat, it’s combat module saying everything is clear. It enters and looks around. Its scanner doesn’t pick up anything right away and searches the ground floor. It finishes it’s sweep and finds nothing so calls everyone in. They do a medscan of Gurathin and realize he’s got a form of gangrene from the gun shot wound. Bharadwaj is running the examination, Murderbot reminding us she’s not a medical doctor, but doesn’t remind her of that. They prepare to get started but Gurathin flat out refuses the painkillers. Remember, he was an addict for years and he’s terrified that even some meds for surgery will get him hooked again. He asks Murderbot to restrain him, which Murderbot agrees to do… but then they both realize that they can use Gurathin’s tech implants to potentially remove his ability to feel pain. Murderbot just needs to plug into him. Mensah asks the important question, if this was a real thing or if Murderbot got it from Sanctuary Moon. Murderbot insists that it didn’t get it from there… not revealing he got it from Medcenter Argala, episode 502, another show, but it insists the cases are based on real life. They plug Murderbot into Gurathin’s brain.

 

Murderbot is weirded out initially by this, as it is looking at itself through Gurathin’s eyes. It shuts off Gurathin’s sense of sight, as it is sure that it’s better that Gurathin doesn’t see the surgery part of this. Bharadwaj get to work slicing the necrotic flesh from Gurathin’s leg. Murderbot decides to use this time linked to Gurathin’s brain to do some snooping of its own, rationalizing that turnabout is fair play. It gets lost searching through Gurathin’s brain. It gets stuck on a memory, or maybe a feeling, of Gurathin processing how he feels towards the group. He says that he loves the other members of the team like his own children, but he loves Mensah as an equal. He mutters over and over again asking why she can’t love him back. Murderbot ends up saying this out loud, which shocks everyone. Gurathin wonders if he’d said something, but Murderbot tells him nope. Bharadwaj gets the bit out and prepares to seal his knee. Bharadwaj says they can unlink, but Gurathin asks for another moment. It’s then that it realizes that Gurathin used the connection to and got past his defenses. Gurathin announces to the group that their SecUnit calls itself Murderbot and reveals it does so because it murdered 57 people on a mining expedition. Murderbot says that isn’t true. It says that’s not true, that that’s not the reason it calls itself Murderbot. It insists that it has only ever killed to protect clients. It says that that might be an implanted memory or it had had it’s combat module hacked. But Gurathin says the obvious idea that maybe it is just defective. And it has to admit that’s true. Murderbot leaves.

 

The group try to figure out what to do. Half are cool with Murderbot leaving and half want to go after it. Mensah closes the door and says they need to figure out what GrayCris is. Ratthi asks if they’re just going to leave it out there and a frustrated Mensah yells that “It is not your pet!” at him. They fall back and start discussing GrayCris. They reason that they’re not part of the Company, but that the Company probably took a bribe to not tell anyone a third survey team was on the planet. They’re pretty sure GrayCris wants the alien remnant that they saw earlier, realizing that GrayCris would totally be willing to break interstellar law to move it. They think that DeltFall found out about GrayCris’ on the planet and were killed for it. And rationalize that they’re only still alive because they know where the remnant is and GrayCris wants to get it out of them. Murderbot, marching away, knows that the PreservationAux team is dead without it. It asks itself if that’s really its problem.

 

Back on the ship, while everyone is freaking out slightly, Ratthi comes into Arata and Pin-Lee room. Despite the insanity of the situation, they need to deal with the Throuple situation. Ratthi admits to them that he wants to live life as honestly as possible with what time they have left and says that he can’t date both of them if he’s only falling for one of them. Pin-Lee and Arata are both a little shocked when Ratthi admits it’s Pin-Lee he’s fallen for and not Arata. There’s a bit of a fight over their situation again, which the trio agreeing to talk about it more after the whole ‘we’ll probably die soon’ thing is taken care of.

 

Murderbot tries to sooth itself with Sanctuary Moon episodes but it can’t focus. It thinks that the ‘show’ that is its interaction with its clients is drowning everything else out. It realizes that even if the humans are doomed, it might not be. It returns to the habitat and announces that it has a plan. To which Gurathin shouts F***.

 

That was a great penultimate episode. Gurathin’s injury is a reasonably high stakes situation, high enough that I can believe Murderbot would be willing to risk plugging into Gurathin’s brain. Murderbot got cocky and Gurathin capitalized, which I mean, props to him for doing that. Gurathin has to feel pretty smug that his paranoia ended up being correct. Gurathin having feelings for Mensah is only expressly stated in the show. He might be attracted to his boss in the books, but I’m bad at sensing subtext so I’m not willing to say that with certainty. The reveal of Murderbot’s name and history was suitably dramatic. If I recall correctly, all of this was revealed earlier in the book, but ya gotta spread reveals like that out in a show. Murderbot not being sure if it was involved in a massacre is true to the book as well. Just like in the show, it got a memory wipe before it hacked its Governor Module. The uncertainty of if it killed a whole bunch of people due to a malfunction or being hacked, or from just going berserk haunts Murderbot until it gets a chance to investigate what had happened. GrayCris is indeed after alien tech and is the criminal element in this story. They killed a lot of people to cover up their survey. Granted, killing for alien tech makes sense to a certain degree to me, but damn did these guys go overboard. And I’m hoping we get a good resolution to the love triangle. Theres a lot of tension in that throuple, and while the air has been cleared, it’s clear Arata and Pin-Lee need to process some of their relationship troubles. It was incredibly funny when Arata tried to move into Ratthi’s line of sight while he was confessing his love to Pin-Lee and he just gently pushes her back. Murderbot deciding to look after itself over its humans is an interesting idea. It does want to get off planet and nothing is forcing it to obey the humans, so it totally could if it wanted to. Hm… is Murderbot as heartless as that? Maybe. We’ll have to see later. So, ya, a fun finale. Still figuring out what we’ll do next time as we don’t finish Murderbot until next month. See you later. 

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Bluesky: ‪@basicssuperhero.bsky.social‬

Viewer Log: Murderbot ep 7

 To quote the late great Rodney Dangerfield, "I get no respect. I get no respect at all!"

Last time on Murderbot, Murderbot’s TV habits get it in trouble. It and Dr. Mensah are stranded after their ship crashed for getting hit with an explosion. The computer is burnt out and their 3D printer is damaged. And to make matters worse, the ship’s computer is disabled and Murderbot doesn’t have a copy of the repair manual. He used to but deleted it for more space for Sanctuary Moon episodes. Mensah starts having a panic attack, but Murderbot helps her through it by showing her a scene from Sanctuary Moon. It passes out from an injury it received in the crash and a fluid leak. Mensah gets it back online by giving it a transfusion of fluid from their hopper. This gives Murderbot the idea to use some of its spinal wiring to fix the hopper. This is deeply traumatic for Mensah, as Murderbot’s internal anatomy is essentially human with more wires and metal. They get a wire out and use it to get the Hopper in the air. Back at the habitat, Leebeebee is revealed to be a spy working for the third party attacking everyone on this planet. The humans try to reason with her but she isn’t negotiating. She shot Gurathin through the leg to show she’s serious. Murderbot arrived and almost immediately executes Leebeebee. This freaks out the humans as a person’s violent death is just a lot to process. Murderbot tells them to get their gear together why it repairs its spine in its cubical. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

Ep 7: Complementary Species

 

We begin with the Preservation Alliance team having dinner before their big meeting with the Company at Port FreeCommerce. They have a ritual where it seems like they share an embarrassing or deeply personal story with each other to bond. Baradwaj tells a story about how she misunderstood Pin-Lee trying to support her during a stressful speech and tried hitting on them. It didn’t work out. They make Gurathin go next, much to his embarrassment. He tells the story about how he met Mensah. Officially, he was there as part of an outreach program for non-corporate aligned planets, but he admits he was in fact a spy for the Corporation Rim. They had him addicted to a lot of synthetic drugs he couldn’t get anywhere else and was given orders to steal information that the Corpos could use to divide up opposing non-corporate planets so they wouldn’t be a threat. He admits Mensah was his target. He says that he was sick of the job, the addiction, and was considering ending himself. He has a breakdown and tells Mensah all this, she forgives him, and then he moved to Preservation Alliance the next day. They ask for him to share his ‘bitter’ next, his thoughts on something that could be seen as angry or mean. He claims to not have any and walks off. Mensah follows him and gets him to talk. He says that he thinks the expedition is naïve and dangerous and that the Corpos will try to have Mensah killed. She asks if having a SecUnit will make him feel better, but he says it’ll make him feel worse. She asks why he’s there then and he admits he might be naïve too.

 

We flash to the present where Murderbot tells the humans to finish their packing as they’ll be leaving in ten minutes. Pin-Lee sarcastically asks who died and made the SecUnit their boss, and Ratthi rightly points to the body of Leebeebee and says “Ah…I think she did.” Murderbot at least covered the body. Murderbot tells us that his risk assessment module is crap, it didn’t warn him of the chance that Leebeebee was a hostile and seems to be extremely buggy. We see it on a heads-up display and it’s randomly jumping from 30 to 70 to 40% chance of danger. Gurathin asks what Murderbot is doing and Mensah says it is guarding the perimeter. Gurathin rightly points out that that is what Murderbot says when it doesn’t want to deal with them. Baradwaj is panicking at leaving data behind but Gurathin says that they’ll get more. Gurathin is still hurting from being shot but they don’t have time for him to sit in the medbay for more healing. Murderbot tells everyone they’re leaving now, and when Mensah mutters “we know” it angrily asks them why they aren’t moving faster. Everyone is shocked at the revelation that it could hear them as well as see them via the camera feeds. It comes in and says they’re leaving, now. When no one moves it tries to come further in and everyone flinches. Realizing that maybe killing someone in front of them may have gone too far, Murderbot peels back it’s helmet and tells them to come with it, now, unless they want to get killed. He quickly adds, “by them not me,” for clarity.

 

We cut to the team flying in the hopper. Pin-Lee asks what the plan is, and is a bit freaked out when Mensah says the plan is to try to live for a month as that’s when the Company is going to send the transport. Pin-Lee points out that that is if they stick to the contract, and Gurathin adds his suspicion that Murderbot might be in on it. Murderbot can of course hear all of this and is annoyed by the unwarranted suspicion. Ratthi comes over and tries to be palsy with Murderbot, something that Murderbot is not super good at. He compliments Murderbot’s aim, saying that it was a hell of a shot unless he was aiming at Gurathin and missed. Murderbot tells them that if it wanted to kill Gurathin, he would be dead as would the rest of them. Ratthi reports to the others that it is feeling confident. They ask if it feels remorse for what it did and he says that it didn’t use that word.

 

They land and Murderbot goes to set the perimeter. Gurathin makes a sarcastic comment and Murderbot informs them that his temperature is spiking. It marches off and is clearly mad that no one is grateful for its help. There are some conflicting feelings in the group. Some like Gurathin, Baradwaj and Pin-Lee are for leaving Murderbot behind, Mensah and Ratthi are for keeping it around because they literally can’t survive without it, and Arata is on the fence. They also seem to have this weird belief that Leebeebee wouldn’t have killed them, that she might have been bluffing, but Gurathin does say sarcastically that it was a hell of a bluff to shoot him. Mensah flips it around, what happens if it tries to leave them. She rightly points out that as a slave for its entire existence, she’d be looking for an out. Gurathin suggests if that were the case, he’d be looking to kill all the witnesses. They don’t come to a conclusion… beyond Pin-Lee saying they’re going to sue the shit out of the Corporation Rim if they survive this. Mensah says she really wants to see that happen.

 

Murderbot contemplates leaving but says things are more complicated than that. It says its wrong to think of constructs like it as half-bot half-organic as that split’s things up too neatly. It’s a mix of the two not two equal halves glued together. Murderbot considerers just watching TV until its battery dies and it becomes one with the scenery. It has a vision of itself getting absorbed into a tree, but then says it should have downloaded more shows.

 

Mensah checks on Gurathin, saying that he’s looking ill and he could use a medbay. He says that they can’t risk that, at least not according to their ‘new best friend.’ He then asks if Mensah has feelings for their SecUnit, to which Mensah scoffs and says he’s out of it. Murderbot joins them and she asks how the perimeter is. It says it’s secure. She asks how it is and that pisses off Murderbot. It thinks to us that it had hoped the secret about its governor module being hacked being out would mean it wouldn’t have to answer stupid human questions. It says it’s fine but then everyone else comes out and they have at it. Ratthi flat out asks if it is going to kill them and Pin-Lee asks if it has a plan to protect them at all. It asks if they have a plan beyond a lawsuit and Pin-Lee freaks out at the idea that it can monitor them in the hopper. Murderbot says it wishes it didn’t have to but it has to. They do their sharing ritual. She starts by asking if it would please lower it’s helmet. They circle up, all except Gurathin who goes to take a nap. Murderbot refuses to join their circle but Mensah begs it to just work with them. They’ll feel safer if they can think of it as a person trying to help instead of a machine. It lowers it’s helmet and says something is coming. They don’t take it seriously until it yells at them to get back in the hopper. The doors close right as one of the centipede monsters charges at them. It climbs up top and Murderbot pulls a rifle on it. A second monster arrives, and it attacks the centipede. Well, that’s what it looks like for a second. Arata realizes that despite the differences in looks, they’re actually different genders of the same species… so they’re doing it on the hull. Great. Gurathin asks if there is someway to get them to do it somewhere else and Murderbot suggests electrifying the hull. The scientists say no because they want to study the animal mating habits. Murderbot admits it doesn’t find it any grosser than what humans do. Sometime later the monsters leave but leave behind some egg sacs. Arata says that it must have been attracted to the residual heat from the engines. They discuss the biology of it while Murderbot looks on the perimeter.

 

Its at this moment that Murderbot realizes that top of the line SecUnits can block its combat module. Another SecUnit attacks, Murderbot holds it off as best it can. The humans try to help, but they’re not that helpful against a killing machine. The SecUnit punches the egg sac and the centipede creature returns and kills it. It then grabs the remaining egg sac and departs. Their victory cheers are interrupted by Gurathin passing out. They need to get him to the medbay or he’ll die of fever. Murderbot says that’s a bad idea as hostiles will be all over it by now, but they insist that they’re going. Murderbot is annoyed.  

 

This feels like another episode that was mostly set up. We get hints of what’s going to happen, the creatures rampaging/mating behavior is probably going to be a factor, Gurathin is sick from his injuries and will need to be fixed up, and everyone is still trying to figure out if they can trust Murderbot or not. I feel like at this point if the machine that clearly does not enjoy being around you but has no system that is keeping him from killing you isn’t killing you, you’re probably fine. Like… am I the weirdo here? Because the SecUnit has done a lot to defend these people and they’re treating him like he is shooting innocent people. Baradwaj and Arata I know are dealing with some stuff, but Leebeebee was absolutely going to kill them, or if not, she’d have peppered them with enough holes to make them wish she had. Murderbot’s outrage at them not being grateful to it for saving them is funny to me. The Robot spends so long talking about how much it doesn’t like humans and all their flaws but is showing off our #1 flaw, maybe #2 under Greed, Pride. If they aren’t treating him like a hero what good are they. I appreciate what Mensah is trying to do to get everyone to get along even if I know her battle is as uphill as you get. No one is willing to trust Murderbot at the moment and he just keeps doing stuff that makes them nervous, its an endless cycle. And I like that everyone has clocked that Perimeter checks are Murderbot for “I want to exit this conversation now.” It is very transparent. The Monster sex scene on the ship felt like a bit much, but I guess that’ll probably be important later. Whatever the artifact is doing is messing with them and how could giant arthropods not factor into a Sci-Fi plot finale? But we’ll see more of that next time me thinks. So ya, good episode again, but so far, they’ve had nothing under an 8 out of 10 in my book so that’s no surprise. Have a good night. 

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Bluesky: ‪@basicssuperhero.bsky.social‬

Viewer Log: Murderbot ep 6

 Murderbot's TV addiction might be a problem. 

Last time on Murderbot, the truth comes out. Murderbot attempted to kill itself in order to protect its humans from its hacked combat module, but the humans weren’t going let him go out like that. As they try to get his body onto the hopper, they discover a survivor of the DeltFall expedition, a woman named Leebeebee. They get Murderbot back to their habitat and Dr. Baradwaj performs a complicated surgery on it to remove the filament that the Combat Override Module left in it. Gurathin then plugs into Murderbot to ensure there’s no malicious code left over. Murderbot fully comes to after the repair and surgery but can’t move as Gurathin had the HubSystem disable Murderbot’s body. While looking into his code, Gurathin learned of Murderbot’s status as a rogue unit. He also learned about Murderbot’s TV binging habit which actually helped everyone else stay on Murderbot’s side. Gurathin tries to insist they leave it stuck like this, but then Murderbot reveals that it hacked the HubSystem already and had use of its body by choke slamming him up against a wall. It tries to leave but Mensah stops it and asks for it to keep helping them, in exchange they’ll not tell the Company about its status as a rogue and figure out what to do with it. Murderbot agrees and tells them they need to launch the emergency beacon. They can’t get it going remotely despite Murderbot and Gurathin’s efforts, so Murderbot and Mensah insist on going and launching the beacon remotely. On the flight over, after gushing about her kids for a few hours, Mensah asks why anyone would want to kill them. Murderbot insists the Company wouldn’t, paying out insurance is expensive and would damage their rep, but someone probably was paid off to hide another expedition to the planet that is now offing people. Because people are greedy bastards. They reach the beacon and realize a second too late that it’s been boobytrapped and the beacon explodes and hits their hopper. Enough recap. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

Ep 6: Command Feed

 

We begin with Murderbot summing up the events of Sanctuary Moon episode 356, the SecUnit saying this is the point where the subplot between the navigator bot and Captain Hossein began to heat up. They two are stranded on an alien planet that looks like its covered in coral tubes. The captain tells the navigator that they’ll be stuck there a while as their communicator isn’t working.  Murderbot admits that that episode feels super relevant now as it and Mensah are stranded, their hopper damaged in the explosion from last time. It admits that it doesn’t like watching serial tv to relate to it, it likes them as they distract it from the real world. Its real world currently being trying to get the hopper up and running again. In the episode Hossein starts hitting on the robot, Murderbot commenting that in real life a navigator bot wouldn’t seek out or fall into a romantic relationship. Which, ya know, is fair because it’s a machine without reproductive organs… the logistics make it hard even if it wanted to. Mensah comes over to talk about the crash. Murderbot believe that the ship is structurally sound, they just need to get it started and they should be able to fly it. Mensah is freaking out a bit because of the thought that her people might be attacked while they’re stuck here, a sentiment that Murderbot agrees with but can’t express super well. She points out that it must have a copy of the hopper repair manual in its memory back. Murderbot says that it did have a copy… once. The hopper has the repair manual in its own data banks, so his having it seemed redundant until the hopper’s computer wasn’t accessible. It deleted the manual to make room for Sanctuary Moon season 19. Mensah is flabbergasted that it would do that for a show, and they fight about if its quality TV or not for a second. Mensah announces that she’ll try to fix it without a manual and orders Murderbot to remove the bit of shrapnel stuck in its side that it was ignoring. Murderbot pulls it out, starts bleeding rapidly and gets an alert that it is seriously damaged and needs repairs immediately. It announces, “Oh shit,” for our benefit.

 

Back at the Habitat the humans are trying to get finished packing. Ratthi has finished already and is desperately trying to find something to do to burn off nervous energy. Arata and Pin-Lee turn down his offer for help as they’ve almost got their stuff done already. Gurathin keeps trying to contact the hopper but is getting nothing. Baradwaj has Leebeebee help her move her various mineral samples. Leebeebee notices a scar on the back of Baradwaj’s hand and asks what happened. Baradwaj explains about her near-death experience with the giant centipede. She admits that she still has trouble sleeping after it. Leebeebee asks where it happened, but they’re pulled away by Gurathin’s now very desperate attempts to contact Mensah. He tells them that the hopper’s signal is gone and there’s no atmospheric disturbance from the beacon being launched so he’s very concerned. Leebeebee says that she’ll be fine as she’s got the ‘cute SecUnit’ looking after her. Gurathin angrily says that it’s not cute, and Leebeebee doubles down by saying if you stuck a penis onto it, it’d be cute. Baradwaj tells her that they don’t talk about SecUnits like that in the Preservation Alliance, they’d soon as stick a penis on an unwilling SecUnit as… and fails to come up with an analogy to fit. Leebeebee points out in the Corporation Rim if you buy it, you own it.

 

Back at the hopper they’re trying to make repairs but it’s a slow process. Murderbot starts muttering that ‘they’ are all idiots and that ‘they’ will all die because of ‘them.’ Mensah asks what’s up and Murderbot says that the wiring had burnt out. She asks if it can’t just print out new ones, and it gestures at the bit of shrapnel from the printer that had been in its body not too long ago. It announces that this is all shit, and Mensah rather meanly says that it’s not the printer’s fault they’re in this mess, which Murderbot agrees. Mensah starts to have an anxiety attack again and Murderbot does its best to remedy this, but, ya know, it doesn’t do the emotional stuff super well. It’s performance reliability dropped to 77% as this happened. They sit and Murderbot shows Mensah an episode of Sanctuary Moon to try to calm her down. She’s livid for a moment but Murderbot insists that it picked a soothing episode. It explains the situation to her, one of the characters was raised by an alien species that have 1/10^th the lifespan of humans and are now dying. Mensah says that’s sad but also implausible, to which Murderbot loudly counters with “It’s canon.” The episode deals with a disease that causes everyone to sync up their breathing and Murderbot uses that repetition to get it and her breathing under control. Murderbot gets up to try to get back to repairs, but the hole in its side causes it to start malfunctioning again. At first it stops speaking English, then starts speaking gibberish. Mensah suggests maybe it should sit down again, but Murderbot insists its fine. It begins to tell her that it isn’t human and thus can keep going even after injuries that would incapacitate a human… right before pitching forward and powering down. Oops.

 

Back at the Habitat, Gurathin asks Leebeebee what brought her to work for DeltFall. She says that DeltFall bought her contract from her previous employer SysCommSols and that’s about it. She says that she’s got four years left on the contract, but as this mission pays out at time and a half she could be done in about 2.5 years. Baradwaj says that they don’t have those kinds of contracts in the Preservation Alliance. Leebeebee says that she should visit sometime. Baradwaj encourages that idea, but Leebeebee insists that she’ll do it after her contract is up and after she’s had a kid. She says she’s planning on having one once her contract is up and she gets a license to reproduce. Baradwaj is shocked by this info but Gurathin nods as he’s not originally from the Preservation Alliance and knows all this. Leebeebee says that you need a license to pay for everything that goes into childrearing, and Baradwaj tells her that in the PA things are communal, the community pays for the education, healthcare etc, and I want to join the Preservation Alliance so badly! Leebeebee asks where the money comes from. Gurathin says ‘debt,’ but Baradwaj insists it’s from selling knowledge. Part of the reason they’re out there to gather data to sell to other entities like corporations on the Corporation Rim. Gurathin susinctly puts it “greedy F***s.” Leebeebee agrees, saying that the corporation give them shitty equipment, shitty deals, shitty maps, and when the other two press, she admits that their maps from what she overheard have a lot of holes in them. She says that when they tried to explore those places is when the trouble started. Gurathin asks if she knows where the rogue SecUnit came from but she says she was too busy trying not to get killed. She asks what they saw, but Gurathin shuts her down. Baradwaj starts to talk to him about compassion, but he holds up a hand to her. Leebeebee pulls out a gun and demands they give her access to HubSystem. Resist or not, she’s getting what she wants.

 

Back at the hopper, Murderbot comes back online midsentence as its fluid levels return to normal. Mensah tells it that she took a risk that it would be compatible with the fluid the hopper used so hooked it up to the hopper through a port in its arm. This gives Murderbot an idea to fix the hopper but it’ll need her help. The idea is pretty insane, it wants her to plug its brain into the hopper’s computer. Its neural net should allow it to control the hopper. She asks the obvious, isn’t its brain organic? Murderbot confirms, saying its cloned tissue, but adding that the human brain is some of the best computing material around. He asks if she knew that its used in transport ship’s computers, which shocks her. It gives her a scalpel and tells her to cut. She just needs to cut a thin strip into its spinal cord. She’s super nervous about it, but it insists she can do it. It realizes that this might be hard for Mensah as humans are so weak willed, so pulls a line from Medcenter Argala and says “if you don’t do this thing, little Jemmy is going to die.” She asks who that is and it changes the names to the Preservation Alliance team. She cuts, but it turns out she only cut through the first layer so she needs to go deeper. Damn it.

 

Ratthi finds Pin-Lee giving Arata a shoulder massage. They’ve got an awkward moment as he tries to back out but they tell him to stay to hear what he has to say. Rather than just stand there, Ratthi suggest he could massage Pin-Lee’s shoulders as they keep massaging Arata. Pin-Lee tries to turn him down but likes what he’s doing immediately so lets him keep going. He asks about how they feel about the rogue robots. Arata says she’d go rogue if she were a SecUnit, and Pin-Lee admits it’s freaking them out at little. Arata says that she gets a weird non-threatening vibe from Murderbot, which Pin-Lee is like “what?” Ratthi agrees with her and shifts to the front of the massage train, saying that he feels like he’s weirdly vibing with Murderbot. They’re interrupted by Leebeebee calling them down to the main area. They go down and get pulled into the hostage situation.

 

Mensah finally gets deep enough into Murderbot’s back flesh, something that freaks her out at least a little because she’s a vegetarian. It rightly points out that she doesn’t have to eat it. It tells her to crack open its spine. She initially says f*** no, but it gives her a wrench and tells her to do it. She nervously pulls out a bit of its spinal wiring and it compliments her on the length of wire she got. It implants the wire in the computer, and it gets the hopper into the air again.

 

In the Habitat, Arata asks what is going on. Leebeebee says that Gurathin has been stalling her by showing her useless crap when what she wants is the location of the centipede monster attack. She says that he’ll give her the access she wants or else. He says he can’t and she shoots him in the leg. She tells him to log into the System and give her access or he’ll kill them. Gurathin gives over. The others try to reason with Leebeebee but she’s not interested in deals with the scientists. Arata tells her that when SecUnit gets back it’ll kick her ass, Pin-Lee stomps on his foot to shut him up. Leebeebee says that it and Mensah are dead, and that she blew them up with the beacon. Baradwaj tries to keep reasoning but again, talking to a wall. Murderbot then comes in and tells her to drop the weapon. Leebeebee grabs Gurathin and begins to threaten him, but Murderbot blows off half her head before she even finishes the “take another step and I’ll shoot” cliché. This causes a panic attack in Baradwaj who just keeps repeating “you killed her!” Ratthi throws up, Pin-Lee has a panic laugh and Gurathin looks like he’ll also throw up soon. Murderbot muses that in serials when someone comes in and saves the day there’s cheering but not with these humans. Pin-Lee shouts who Leebeebee was, and Gurathin says without a head they’ll never know. Murderbot goes to repair its spinal column, while the others get to packing up the hopper.

 

Murderbot watches more of the Captain/Navigator romance scene and it’s as terrible as you think it is. Murderbot muses as its back and spine are fixed that the PreservationAux team had felt like they were starting to get to know it, and that might be why its brutal killing of Leebeebee was being taken so hard. Arata hugs a panicking Baradwaj while it thinks this. It admits that killing Leebeebee felt good.

 

Huh, while I expected Leebeebee to be a spy for the ‘third party’ involved on this planet, I didn’t expect for them to axe her so soon. I mean, she was introduced last episode and she’s already super dead? Just seems like a waste of a character that could have sowed a little more chaos. I don’t think anyone was particularly shocked by this random survivor of a massacre that showed up suddenly, has a very generic backstory she tells and is constantly bringing up Murderbot’s lack of sex organs to make people uncomfortable and change the subject was a spy… but if you were, there’s a list of foreshadowing why I wasn’t surprised. Beyond her being a show only character and just making her a survivor would be adding a character to the plot for no reason. But maybe it’s for the best, I don’t think I could have stood to hear another weird comment about adding functional genitalia to Murderbot. It is Ace Royalty and I will not have someone change that, dammit. I’ve liked the continued inclusion of the Sanctuary Moon to the plot as that really is Murderbot’s comfort show, even if it would be discussed by that phrasing. The show writers get points for me for coming up with hokey but believable scenes from the show to use as we get very little about it from Murderbot besides the vaguest of summaries of moments. I think the most detail we got about Sanctuary Moon was from Ratthi’s quiz about the framed woman last time, so basically every moment we see of John Cho and co is show only. Which is indeed delightful, I’m happy to see him in things. The scene on the crashed hopper is show only, like I said last time, but I liked how they incorporated it into the plot, to flesh out this subplot about Mensah having very understandable reactions to all the death and destruction around her and learning just how much of a show junkie Murderbot is. I totally get him watching hours of one specific TV show, I’m on episode 666 of One Piece. It’s over 1000+ episodes long, so I chuckled at Murderbot mentioning 356 as if that’s a super huge number for a TV show. What? I like anime, sometimes their episode counts get long. The closing monologue about how Murderbot thinks that killing Leebeebee in front of the team was having such a negative effect on them because it broke the idea that they were connecting to it is an interesting thought. A constant idea within this series is how often people will treat Murderbot like it is human due to its human face and occasional human mannerisms only for the cyborg to remind us all that it is human-adjacent at best. It’s thought process is extremely literal and based on threat assessment and logic. It detects a target; it eliminates the target. It can be somewhat jarring for some of you folks with more… neurotypical minds. Me personally I’ve never related more to a character than the machine that wants to just enjoy its niche interests, not talk much to people and not make eye contact which says a lot about me, me thinks. But enough psychoanalysis on me, let’s wrap this one up. Good episode. Have a good night.

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Bluesky: ‪@basicssuperhero.bsky.social‬

Viewer Log: Murderbot ep 5

Murderbot's day just keeps getting longer.

Last time on Murderbot, Murderbot had a real bad trip, man. It was badly damaged by the second Rogue SecUnit that attacked it and basically stuck in a loop uploading Sanctuary Moon episodes into it’s brain over and over again. The Rogue unit sticks it with a Combat Override Module that will rewrite its programming to make it target its humans a hostile. Murderbot distracts the other unit by singing the Sanctuary Moon theme song and they fight but it can’t escape. Thankfully Mensah shows up and spears the rogue unit with a drill to disable it and free Murderbot. They try to escape but are slowed down by Murderbot’s injuries. And by the fact Murderbot keeps almost remembering the override device on its neck. The device is designed to erase its memory of it, so Murderbot is aware something is wrong but not what. The damage to its memory and other parts cause it to vividly hallucinate being in an episode of Sanctuary Moon while they run. Ratti takes a gun and tries to help but he’s woefully out of his depth as he doesn’t 1. Know how to hold the gun and 2. Doesn’t know what the setting dial on it is for. Mensah and Murderbot escape the habitat, but the Rogue unit follows. It shoots at the humans but is clearly trying not to hit them, Murderbot realizing the Rogue is just buying time for the Override to finish so Murderbot can kill everyone. The Rogue is ultimately stopped by Pin-Lee and Arata flying the hopper over and crushing it under the ship’s landing gear. Once they stomp it into oblivion, Murderbot fully remembers about the override, apologizes to its humans and attempts to self-terminate to keep it from hurting them. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

Ep 5: Rogue War Tracker Infinite

 

The story picks up with Murderbot coming back online, musing that it is not dead despite its best efforts. Its running at 36% performance reliability and we hear the humans muttering about what they’re doing trying to keep it functional. It quickly reconstructs what happened using the Hoppers cameras to fill in the blanks in it’s memory that began from the moment it shot itself. Mensah immediately says they need to get it back to the habitat and fix it, which confuses the hell out of Murderbot as it tried so hard to kill itself. The humans all grab it’s limbs and try to carry it into the hopper. But Arata starts to panic at having to move what looks a whole hell of a lot like a dead body, but Mensah gets her to focus by diverting her into grabbing the gun and using it to protect them from whatever else is around. They start to move Murderbot when something comes at them from the forest. Arata shoots at it, but it turns out to be a woman in a DeltFall uniform, who begs not to be shot at. Mensah and Arata go to check on her, the DeltFall woman saying that their SecUnit went rogue, killed the other two units they had and then everyone else. The woman seems panicked at the idea of Murderbot and asks if its alive. Murderbot narrates that he’s not unless everyone is stupid enough to take him to his repair cubical and bring him back online. When Mensah says they’re doing just that he calls them all idiots.

 

They get back to their habitat and put Murderbot into the cubical. The cubical quickly repairs it but Murderbot’s system won’t let it reboot due to the tendrils that the COM left inside him. Dr. Bharadwaj thinks she can remove the COM, but even in its half active state Murderbot is doubtful. As this is going on we get a flashback to their ride back to their habitat. The DeltFall woman is named Leebeebee and she’s obviously shaken up by the last few hours. Arata tries to talk to her, but Leebeebee is incredibly short with her and doesn’t elaborate on anything she’s asked. Mensah asks if she knows about the SecUnit that attacked them but Leebeebee has no idea where it came from or why it attacked. She’s incredulous that their SecUnit would kill itself to keep it from attacking them, as her SecUnit just mowed them down. She pantomimes it attacking using its wrist mounted guns, adding machinegun noises, before saying it was just like the second episode of Rogue War: Infinite Tracker. Murderbot calls that trash TV, and from Ratthi’s face he agrees, but she says it’s great. Mensah thinks the DeltFall unit didn’t go rogue, it was hacked and forced to do it, and they want to find out why. Leebeebee then goes on a very awkward rant about whether or not Murderbot is a… anatomically correct and what that might mean. Murderbot admits it was happy it was unconscious for this part.

 

As they prepare to repair Murderbot, it notes that it’s humans were busy being messy like humans are want to do. We see Ratthi pitching to Pin-Lee that if their throuple has a child they should name it SecUnit as a tribute. Pin-Lee is clearly question their decision about having sex with him early and insists that SecUnit will be fine and maybe now is not the time to be talking about their throuple’s family plans. Baradwaj starts the removal procedure, a kind of repair surgery, and Murderbot is impressed that this hippy lady seems to know what she’s doing. Leebeebee asks the obvious question of what are they going to do if they power it up and it just starts attacking again. Ratthi says that they have to risk it, as that SecUnit is their friend. Murderbot thinks that’s debatable. Gurathin asks if this is a good idea too, in which Murderbot says it is, if you want to risk being slaughtered. It pulls up that video of the attack it may have been in before it’s last wipe. Leebeebee asks who they are and why they’re here. Pin-Lee explains they’re the Preservation Alliance and Mensah adds they’ve got some kind of mineral options for the continent they’re on. Leebeebee says that her bosses referred to them as the Amateurs. Baradwaj gets the last of the COM out and they have Gurathin to plug in to help reboot it and look for bad code. Murderbot isn’t happy with Gurathin plugging into it but there’s not much it can do. Gurathin starts looking into Murderbot’s code as they reboot it.

 

Murderbot wakes up to find it’s out of the medbay and that everyone is still alive. Hooray, it totally wasn’t expecting that. Everyone looks nervous though. Murderbot admits that seeing their hopeful faces make it happy that it didn’t murder them all. They wonder why its not moving and Gurathin comes in to say that he told HubSystem to immobilize Murderbot from the neck down. While he was sifting through Murderbot’s code, he learned that it hacked its Governor Module and is thus uncontrollable. Murderbot adds that in the entertainment feeds this is called an Oh Shit moment. Leebeebee freaks out and storms out rather than risk dealing with an even disabled SecUnit. We learn that Gurathin and Baradwaj have a difference of opinion on what to do here. Gurathin points out that it doesn’t have to follow their commands and is thus dangerous, but Baradwaj counters that it’s been protecting them without the Governor Module the whole time so they really should trust it is looking out for the best interest. Gurathin thinks Murderbot is the reason they’ve had so many problems. Basically, everyone is against him on this, reasoning that Murderbot would have killed them rather than try to kill itself. Gurathin thinks the company might be the ones trying to kill them, but Murderbot finally chimes in and says that the company isn’t. Why? Because if it was the company they’d have just poisoned their food and be done with it. The company, it reasons, has a financial interest in keeping them alive. As paying out the insurance if they all die would be prohibitively expensive, they aren’t the ones behind it. Baradwaj tells Gurathin to tell the group what Murderbot has been doing, since it’s ‘free time’ activities are what worried him, and Gurathin admits it’s been watching 1000s of hours of tv. Gurathin still thinks it’s using the show to somehow encode messages to the company, as how could it watch that much TV without them noticing. Ratthi quizzes Murderbot about one of the shows plots, one character killing another, but Murderbot quickly snaps back that the character was being framed. And Ratthi is just super jazzed that it is actually watching the show. The reference was a super obscure plot, apparently.

 

Gurathin insists they keep it immobilized. Murderbot says that won’t work. When Gurathin asks why, Murderbot rushes over to him faster than anyone can react and chokeslams him up against a wall. It says that it hacked HubSystem already so they really can’t stop it. It admits it doesn’t like Gurathin and tries to storm off. Mensah stops it and says that she wants for it to keep working with them at least until they get off planet. At that point they can figure out what they’ll do after that, and swears that she won’t tell the company about the hacked model. Murderbot agrees to that. She asks Murderbot to promise to protect Gurathin as hard as it protects everyone else. Gurathin insists he doesn’t need Murderbot’s protection because of the HubSystem, but Murderbot then informs him that HubSystem hasn’t recorded anything that has happened here. It hacked the system and fed it an hours’ worth of random busy work to fill the space. It says that HubSystem might be compromised from the outside and it suggests that they activate the emergency beacon. Mensah agrees.

 

They begin to powerup the beacon. Murderbot notices that Leebeebee keeps staring at it and tells her to stop. The others ask if she knows if DeltFall activated their beacon. She isn’t sure, as they didn’t tell her much. She’s vague about what her job was, saying that she mostly did cleaning and laundry, saying that she’s on an indentured service tour so she didn’t have many options. Gurathin and Murderbot can’t reach the beacon, which is troubling. Leebeebee asks how long it’ll take for them to get help. They explain that the beacon sends a pulse through the wormhole to the company rescue ship. It’ll take about five days after getting the signal for a ship to reach them. Leebeebee asks what if they’re attacked in that time. The group decides, reluctantly, that Murderbot and Mensah will fly the hopper towards the Wormhole and set off the beacon manually if they have to. The others will gather supplies for about a week and be ready to be picked up when they get back so they can move to another location. Gurathin tries to stop her on more time but they really don’t have a choice. Leebeebee tries to talk to Murderbot and apologize for suggesting they might kill them. It is weirded out by her getting into its comfort zone, but then she awkwardly kisses its cheek ‘for luck’ and we see that drops it’s performance reliability by about 5 percent. Mensah tells Gurathin that if she doesn’t come back, Pin-Lee is ‘first among equals’ aka the one in charge. Gurathin and Mensah almost have a moment but Murderbot storms over and says they should leave. Now. They take off.

 

Leebeebee ask Gurathin if there’s anything she could help with, but he basically tells her to buzz off. Dude is not a people person.

 

We cut to towards the end of the flight to the beacon. Mensah is unintentionally monologuing to Murderbot about her children, Murderbot noting that humans love to talk about their offspring even if you don’t ask. It cuts her off by saying they’re two and a half minutes from the beacon. Mensah asks, if the Company didn’t kill DeltFall, that must mean there’s a third party, right? Murderbot confirms that’s the most likely situation, but insists that the Company wouldn’t intentionally have them killed as that is bad for branding. It does admit that someone from the Company may have hidden the presence of a third party on the planet for money. Because most humans are greedy bastards. Which, ya, fair. Murderbot admits that just chatting with Mensah is weird, as it only has experience giving information or taking orders, not talking. Mensah wonders if maybe DeltFall knew whoever kill them, why else would they let them into the habitat. Murderbot says points out that Mensah would let a stranger in if they arrived asking for help. Then Mensah has the heartbreaking epiphany that the murderers must have pretended to be the Preservation Alliance to get DeltFalls trust, and Murderbot agrees that’s the most likely situation. They arrive at the beacon and Murderbot tries to launch it remotely. It doesn’t work, so they have to reboot it by hand. Mensah takes them in and Murderbot says they’ll have four minutes to launch after getting it repaired. Mensah tries to talk to Murderbot about what happened with Gurathin, but Murderbot’s threat assessment system starts going off. It yells at her to turn the hopper around, now, but she reacts to slow as the beacon explodes. Damn.

 

Looks like we’re getting into some wholly original content now. Interesting. Leebeebee is totally original to the show, the book never introduced more characters beyond the Preservation Alliance members, Murderbot and the Rogue SecUnits. It’s only 160 pages; there’s not much time for additional characters or subplots in a title that slim. This of course makes her suspicious as hell but given that her acting weird also lines up with PTSD from either being attacked and nearly killed or from extended time as a slave, I can’t make heads or tails of her at this exact moment. The kissing Murderbot on the cheek and wondering about if he’s anatomically correct was weird as hell, though. The stuff with the beacon is new too, if I recall correctly. I do remember them not being able to set off their emergency beacon, but things were happening too fast for them to risk sending any out to try to launch it manually. The reveal of Murderbot’s status as a rogue SecUnit was well handled. Baradwaj was in a coma for the entirety of the book, so anything with her is new, and I definitely like the decision of her being pro-Murderbot. Having her reach a different conclusion about the SecUnit based entirely on him binging trash TV made me chuckle. But not as much as how jazzed Ratthi was to hear Murderbot get the reference he was making. From what I remember of the book they did use a show reference as a test to see if Murderbot actually watched it, but it was a ‘it gave the right answer, moving on,” thing and not a “holy shit it DOES watch it” moment that we got here. I think that’s the general vibe of the show, fleshing out moments just a little bit more than in the source material and I enjoy it. With most of its secrets out in the open, I will be curious to see how everyone reacts when Murderbot and Mensah get back from their mission. I assume Gurathin will be even more suspicious, but we’ll just wait and see. See you then. 

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Bluesky: ‪@basicssuperhero.bsky.social‬