Caemeron Crain
The following recap contains spoilers for Murderbot S1E4, “Escape Velocity Protocol” (written by Paul Weitz & Chris Weitz and directed by Toa Fraser)
Murderbot S1E4 begins in a SecUnit factory. It’s a pretty dystopian scene, as the techs work to create parts from flesh and metal, but Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgård) provides levity in the voiceover, praising such factories, particularly in comparison to the messiness of human hospitals.
The dialogue between the workers in the factory provides some information about the world in which our story is set. It would seem that they are indentured servants of some kind, though we don’t get the details. We further learn that each SecUnit has a different face, with the explanation that this makes them easier to track when one goes rogue. It’s not entirely clear if they go rogue frequently, or to what extent the tech who says this is joking, but from what happens later in this episode and what we saw last week, it would seem that the bots at least “go rogue” sometimes… even if that’s not what’s really happening. You would think that if it was all over the news, that would be bad for business.
Regardless, I find myself wondering where the flesh being used to create the SecUnits comes from, and I hope we learn more about all of this as Murderbot proceeds. I’m guessing that these bots need to have a biological component in order to have self-consciousness, etc., but is the Corporation taking parts from the dead, or what?
After the credits, we pick up with our Murderbot friend being dragged down a hallway by the bot we saw at the end of S1E3, which is definitely more advanced than Murderbot, but also seems to not be a SecUnit. I don’t know what this guy is.
Murderbot’s systems are all wonky as it is tossed onto a table, where the attacking bot seeks to implant a control module into Murderbot’s neck. Aware of what’s going on, Murderbot manages to get it together for a bit of a fight, but it loses. The control module is implanted, and Murderbot knows that this means it will lose control of itself in ten minutes.
Mensah (Noma Dumezweni), who of course did not listen to Murderbot’s command to flee because she’s a stupid human, arrives and stabs Murderbot’s attacker from behind with a mining drill. This allows Mensah and Murderbot to run, but the fact that it does not kill the bot is what drives home the point that this is a bot, not a human being in a tech suit or something similar.
Ratthi (Akshay Khanna) very stupidly tries to come to the rescue, even though he doesn’t know how his gun works, and maybe helps to some degree. Murderbot notes, however, that the bot keeps missing on purpose, like it was in some bad TV show, and infers that it’s because it wants Murderbot to be the one who kills the humans after the control module has done its work. Unfortunately, Murderbot can’t quite get it together enough to ask Mensah to remove the module, as the whole situation has it malfunctioning.
Pin-Lee (Sabrina Wu) and Arada (Tattiawna Jones) save the day by crushing the badass bot with the hopper, and Murderbot removes the module from the back of its neck. But it’s too late. The program is already taking hold, and soon Murderbot will have no choice but to kill everyone. It tells the humans this, but they won’t listen, so it grabs Ratthi’s gun and shoots itself.
I presume this won’t be the end of the line for the protagonist of this series. Murderbot hasn’t shown a lot of respect for Gurathin’s (David Dastmalchian) abilities, but I’m guessing he’ll be able to repair the SecUnit so our story can move forward. I do wonder, though, if what’s happened will lead to the Preservation Alliance learning that Murderbot has free will, or if it will continue masking.
Further, I wonder if the bot responsible for all of this carnage at DeltFall is working for the Corporation or against it. The latter possibility actually feels like the more likely one, though we don’t have enough information to even speculate properly. It seems conceivable that the plan might be to take control of SecUnits and make them kill people in order to undermine the Corporation. I suppose we’ll have to wait to find out.
See you next week.
