Welcome to the eighth episode of Murderbot and Its Egocentric, Ungrateful, Hippie Purchasers! Murderbot has extra of its privateness invaded, Mensah has had it as much as right here, and Gurathin is having the second worst day of his life.

Spoilers ahoy!

Ah, there’s my Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. I missed thee final week. The scene we see is from a a lot later episode than the final clip we acquired; and it’s additionally a brand new one for Seccy. Captain Hossein is now lifeless, decapitated by the hands of his assemble lover, the NavBot. Lieutenant Kulleroo has been promoted to captain after principally doing a manufacturing unit reset on the NavBot. Besides it doesn’t work and it drags all of them into the occasion horizon of a wormhole.

It’s fairly clear that within the Company Rim, sexualizing constructs in a gendered approach based mostly solely on surface-level assumptions of presentation is depressingly (frustratingly, disgustingly) widespread. We noticed it in the way in which Leebeebee went after Murderbot and the way Captain Kulleroo tells NavBot to smile. I talked about this in an earlier overview, however I’m satisfied it’s additionally a key promoting level for AI. We’ve acquired tech bros arguing that AI is virtually sentient, people turning to LLMs for romantic relationships, and even a journalist who made an AI worker appear like a horny girl then instantly sexually harassed it. They get to have all the joys of energy with not one of the penalties for abusing it. 

Each girl or one who usually will get assumed to be girls (hello, it’s me) has had some creepy asshole man inform them to smile. If Kulleroo tried that on a human girl, she’d have some choices for resistance, even when it was simply complaining about it to her associates. NavBot wasn’t imagined to even notice resistance was an idea, a lot much less supply any, not after that reconditioning. Love gave her alternative, in order that they took that alternative away. Management with out resistance. It’s the principle promoting level for SecUnits and different constructs. The Firm will get to copy slavery however with a inhabitants that may’t combat…and sexual violence is a part of that. It’s additionally an undercurrent of why the PresAux people are so distressed by Murderbot being “rogue.” Their response jogs my memory extra of the declare that was widespread within the nineteenth century (and nonetheless percolates round as we speak) that Black People would stand up towards white individuals and inflict upon them what they inflicted upon us. The Company Rim people can’t conceive of a assemble going rogue and simply wanting to hang around with some area operas, whereas the Preservation Alliance people solely need SecUnit to go rogue in methods they approve of. They need a sure sort of resistance carried out in a sure approach; tone policing, anybody? 

Hold on, I’m getting sidetracked. Very similar to Murderbot does when watching Sanctuary Moon as an alternative of scouting out the PresAux habitat to see if the thriller third celebration is mendacity in wait. Utilizing the transponder Murderbot left behind to file the habitat, the staff figures out the group attempting to kill them is from GrayCris, a mining firm. And so they have much more evil SecUnits. Very similar to PresAux, GrayCris can also be led by a middle-aged Black girl, albeit one with a horrible hair care routine. Mensah wouldn’t be caught lifeless in public along with her hair that fried.

For as soon as, Gurathin and Murderbot agree on one thing: neither suppose they need to return to the habitat, regardless of how badly he wants the med bay. Ratthi, Arada, Pin-Lee, and Bharadwaj might imagine they have been badasses in that final “punch-up,” as Ratthi adorably places it, however we and SecUnit know that they solely made it out of there alive by the miraculous intervention of a broody alien animal. It says loads that whereas Gurathin is writhing about in agonizing ache, he and Murderbot each concurrently notice it might probably use its personal physique to assist him override his ache sensors in lieu of giving him capsules. Murderbot doesn’t know something about Gura’s previous within the Company Rim, so it has no context for why he would reject ache meds. But it nonetheless happens to it to assist him. Mensah asks if this plan was impressed by Sanctuary Moon however nope. (It’s really from Medcenter Argala, episode 502). For the primary time, SecUnit will get to see issues from a human perspective. It’s loads gooier than anticipated. 

And right here comes one other one in all my favourite moments from the e book. Within the novella, the reveal about SecUnit’s chosen identify comes similtaneously PresAux learns it’s rogue. Right here, Gurathin wasn’t capable of dig previous its defenses the primary time round. Murderbot decides to make use of this chance to go rooting round in Gurathin’s mind, after which Gurathin returns the favor. Alexander Skarsgård performs this second so nicely. If SecUnit was actually an evil, killer rogue bot like NavBot from Sanctuary Moon, we’d anticipate to see it react with anger, threats, or violence. As an alternative, Murderbot is frightened and nervous. It’s having its most personal ideas and reminiscences aired out in public sans context and by the one one who has gone out of his method to make life inordinately tougher for it. Director Aurora Guerrero shoots this scene with a variety of close-ups and medium pictures of the actors, then when there’s a pause after the reveal, switches to a large shot of the complete forged the place we watch the people in unison shift ever so barely away from Murderbot. Then a sluggish zoom in on it when Gura calls it faulty. It’s refined but so efficient. Even Mensah leans again. It’s a gutting betrayal, to be seen after which rejected by the one people to ever present it kindness, to paraphrase NavBot. Composer Amanda Jones’ rating actually drives residence the disgrace and sorrow Murderbot feels within the second the place it agrees with Gurathin’s accusation that “Possibly you’re simply faulty.”

Not having anything to do, and never getting any protection from its supposed allies, Murderbot places its helmet up and leaves. Bharadwaj and Ratthi mount a protection of Murderbot, and Mensah lastly shuts Ratthi down by reminding him “It’s not your pet!” They will’t drive it to return or assist them, so she redirects them to determining who GrayCris is. I gotta disagree with Mensah right here, not in regards to the pet half however in regards to the root of her anger. Prior to now, she’s all the time been capable of pull Murderbot again in with a bit of persistence and compassion. This time, she looks like a line has been crossed. She’s proper that it isn’t a pet, however it’s a particular person. She’s selecting to let it go, to not combat for it. She provided Gurathin forgiveness for selecting to trigger her hurt regardless of being hooked on Firm substances—we all know it was in the end a alternative, even when a meager one, as a result of he was about to finish his life. Murderbot doesn’t know why it has that reminiscence of 57 miners being slaughtered. Maybe it was compelled to love these DeltFall SecUnits and prefer it was going to do earlier than it shot itself. Maybe it was manipulated like Gura. Maybe it was ordered to by one other human. We don’t know something besides that it didn’t select to homicide these miners or some other people. It was doing the factor that people programmed it to do. And now one other set of people are putting all of the blame on it for actions it couldn’t management. Yeah, I’d storm out, too. 

PresAux deduces that GrayCris is probably going after the alien remnants. The Firm most likely didn’t have a hand within the assaults on DeltFall or PresAux, however somebody employed by the Firm most likely did take a bribe to cowl GrayCris’ tracks. DeltFall was killed merely for understanding GrayCris was on planet. The one motive PresAux continues to be alive and kicking is as a result of GrayCris wants their knowledge on the placement of the alien remnants, knowledge Leebeebee didn’t retrieve. Whereas Murderbot “wanders aimlessly,” it tries to self-soothe with its favourite episodes of Sanctuary Moon, to no avail. The NavBot wormhole episode we noticed within the chilly open offers it an thought. Why not play the a part of “the rogue SecUnit who betrayed its shoppers?” 

Subsequent week is the penultimate episode of the season. Will Murderbot’s plan work?

Last Ideas

• Episode 8 covers components of chapter 6 in All Methods Purple however is usually invented for the present.
• Constructs positive do love decapitating individuals don’t they?
• I don’t know what John Cho did to piss off his NavBot lover, however it’s fairly a left flip from that romantic hearth chat. 
• Talking of sexualizing constructs, it’s not misplaced on me that NavBot is the one crewmember compelled to put on that shiny, revealing, brief skort factor. 
• Hope that subsequent season (if we get a second season) they tweak the textual content of what Murderbot sees on its screens so it’s darker and extra opaque. Be variety to my previous eyes! I needed to get proper up subsequent to the TV display to learn “space clear” written over the blood spatter.
• It’s additionally not misplaced on me that Bharadwaj does the identical actual process on Gurathin as she did on SecUnit.
• A minimum of Mensah gave Ratthi that mild contact as a silent apology. They’ll have to speak about it later. 
• Kinda glad that throuple factor ended. The present by no means did something attention-grabbing with it. 
• I believe that is the primary time the present has instructed us Mensah is a planetary administrator? We knew she had some kind of management function, however that is principally the President of Preservation Alliance. Within the e book, it’s identified that killing somebody of her stature can be simply as financially harmful to the Firm as paying out the bonds on the remainder of the groups.
• Lmao that the CGI of Murderbot scanning the world is identical because the scanning animation in The Sims 4 Profession pack.
• Apple TV+: Murderbot minifig when???

Quotes

Till subsequent week…