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 1/10th
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.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/132319567/
Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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