Caemeron Crain
The following recap contains spoilers for the Season 1 finale of Murderbot, S1E10, “The Perimeter” (written by Chris Weitz & Paul Weitz and directed by Paul Weitz), but no book spoilers.
Murderbot S1E10 begins with Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgård) waking up due to a system reboot. Something has happened, but it can’t put its finger on what. Two technicians begin to run diagnostics, and they mock Murderbot as it asks about its clients. The technicians proceed to wipe Murderbot’s memory and install a new governor module. Things aren’t looking so good for our SecUnit friend.
It’s clear that in the time since last week’s episode, Murderbot and the PresAux folks were rescued from the planet they had been stuck on. The emergency beacon worked. Now, they’re back in the Corporation Rim, and while disrespectful lab techs are working on Murderbot, PresAux is demanding to know where “their” SecUnit is.
The members of the corporate council (who hardly feel like distinct characters) remind Mensah (Noma Dumezweni) and the others that they merely rented this piece of equipment. Even when Mensah suggests that they’ll buy the SecUnit, the initial response she receives is that they’ll sell them a better one. Oh, and did they notice anything wrong with the SecUnit they rented? It would violate their contract if they didn’t report it, and it turns out that one’s governor module wasn’t working…
PresAux’s ace in the hole is that the Corporation helped GrayCris, who slaughtered the DeltFall team and threatened to do the same to PresAux. Pin-Lee (Sabrina Wu) is working on a lawsuit and files an injunction that will ultimately keep Murderbot from being destroyed. But, there is the issue that its memory has been wiped.
Gurathin (David Dastmalchian) tracks down his old drug dealer, Landers (Sergio Di Zio), who now works in data security. After some arm-twisting, Landers takes Gurathin to a console, where he begins to search for Murderbot’s memory on the theory that they wouldn’t just delete it right away. They’d scour it for anything valuable first.
Having no luck with a direct search for recently wiped SecUnits, Gurathin hits on the idea of searching for The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. Bingo! He’s then able to trace the files back to their source and proceeds to download Murderbot’s memory. It’s quite a lot for Gurathin to take on, and it makes him sick, but it means that the Murderbot we know has been saved (in spirit).
As for the flesh, the wiped Murderbot with a new governor module gets deployed by the Corporation against some protesting workers. This seems to trigger the flashback memory we’ve seen before of the time when Murderbot killed 57 miners. The implication is that this was also a case where Murderbot was ordered to attack workers, who might also have been on strike. At least, that’s how I’m reading things. It’s not made explicit.
Regardless, Murderbot begins to fritz out and is successfully beaten down by the protesting workers. This leads to it being set for the acid bath it’s always feared, until it’s saved at the last minute by the injunction Pin-Lee has won in court.
Gurathin gives Murderbot its memory back, and Mensah informs it that they’ve purchased its contract. It’s off the inventory list. No longer in Sec, it’s just a Unit. It won’t need its armor. The plan is for it to join the Preservation Alliance as they return to their planet, where it can pursue whatever it wants out of life. Murderbot seems unsure, but says, “We can talk about this,” repeating what might be PresAux’s favorite line.
In the middle of the night, as the team sleeps, Murderbot heads to exit their quarters, but is headed off by Gurathin. He’s more sympathetic in this scene than we’ve ever seen him. He tells Murderbot he knows the PresAux folks are weird but attests to what good people they are. He wants to help Murderbot acclimate.
Murderbot says it needs to check the perimeter, and Gurathin seems to understand as he lets the Unit leave the PresAux quarters. There’s no perimeter to check. Murderbot is leaving.
It catches a ride on an outgoing transport, and as the season ends, it is implied that the inner monologue we’ve been hearing at some point became a message sent to Mensah:
I don’t know what I want, but I know I don’t want anyone to tell me what I want, or to make decisions for me, even if they are my favorite human.
Murderbot end message.
It’s an intriguing end to Murderbot Season 1, in part because it leaves me with no idea what might happen in Season 2 (the series has been renewed). It would be easier to see how that might go if Murderbot had gone home with the Preservation Alliance. Instead, it sets off on its own to who knows where.
In narrative terms, it makes sense that Murderbot would appreciate its freedom but not be onboard with the idea of joining the Preservation Alliance. Or, maybe it would be, but the way the idea is presented doesn’t feel like a free choice. If Murderbot is truly free, the only way to assert that freedom is to leave, as it does. Mensah is going to allow it to, because she and the others view it as a person, so maybe it will return to the Preservation Alliance at some point.
In the meantime, Murderbot has set out in the world without its armor, so it looks like a human being. And, it’s worth noting that it seems to want to do more than watch TV at this point. It doesn’t know what it wants, which is pretty human, if you think about it.
