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.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/132398001/
Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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