Murderbot’s evolution continues…

The second half of Murderbot opens with a good old fashioned cliffhanger, dropping Murderbot and Mensah into a survival situation as the ship they’re on is badly damaged by a booby trapped beacon. Alexander Skarsgård as Murderbot and Noma Dumezweni as Mensah do excellent work as two people with wildly different emotional responses and very similar emotional landscapes responding to the same trauma. It’s a key scene too, Murderbot finally opening up to Mensah and Mensah finally getting a good idea of just what’s going on with Murderbot.

That context becomes the engine that powers the remainder of the season. The show’s character arcs and plot run headlong towards the end of the season and we get a parade of fun resolutions along the way. The brilliant Akshay Khanna continues to play Ratthi as the world’s largest puppy and Tattiawna Jones and Sabrina Wu continue to be the best disaster couple as his notional partners Arada and Pin-Lee. The show is at its best when it explores the untidy nature of its characters and no one in the show is untidier, and human, than these three. That messiness is never played entirely for laughs either and the show bends over backwards to explore the consequences of violence. Murderbot kills someone with offhand efficiency, and it turns the show on its head, Pin-Lee and Gurathin do something similar in a later episode, as does Mensah and it’s clear those choices will haunt all three of them. On the other side of the coin, Ratthi’s fundamental decency and inability to read signals is vital in getting through to Murderbot as the season comes to a close. If you’ve wondered why the PresAux team are like this, you get reasons by the ton in this half of the season.

None more so than Gurathin. David Dastmalchian is not capable of doing bad work and there’s a moment here where Gurathin and Murderbot link that’s the best work he’s done all season. He delivers one line, off screen no less, and it tells you everything about Gurathin, why he’s here and what his damage is. It’s brilliantly done and it’s just one of a series of looks at the character, all of them playing out against the corporate warfare the PresAux team find themselves in the middle of.

That warfare is resolved in a moment that’s the show to its core; offhand but also incredibly untidy and with nothing but consequences. A crowd-pleasing action moment, one Murderbot approaches through the coping mechanism of Sanctuary Moon, leads to multiple deaths, the PresAux team finally being rescued and Murderbot having their memory wiped. There’s no resolution on whether they did murder protestors at a previous job, but that incident is Banquo’s digital ghost, haunting the show and its protagonist.

Everything comes to a head in ‘The Perimeter’, the season finale which sees everyone off world, Murderbot hired for station security and their former colleagues trying to rescue them. It’s a carefully paced episode, throwing big revelations at you almost offhandedly and apparently racing to a resolution you expect. Murderbot is rescued. Murderbot is going to be a PresAux citizen. Murderbot is happy.

But no one has asked them if they’re happy.

The ending of the season, which could so easily have been the ending of the show, is one of the most beautiful pieces of acting I’ve seen. There’s a scene between Murderbot and Gurathin which involves very little other than a repeated exploration of the phrase ‘I need to check the Perimeter’ that will break your heart. Not because Murderbot isn’t okay, but because they’re finally able to express what they want and Gurathin is the only person they can express it to. Alexander Skarsgård has talked a lot about how he ruined a lot of takes because he started crying and you can see it in his eyes even here. It’s a moment where Murderbot, a tool, a weapon, realises they’re a person and steps cautiously out into the infinite universe of personal choice. They trust Gurathin to help. Gurathin sees that and finds something like redemption in his closing scenes here. It’s sincerely beautiful to watch and is topped almost instantly by the final shot of the series. Murderbot, alone on an AI powered cargo transport, sitting down for almost the first time. And smiling.

That’s what the show has ultimately always been about: Murderbot’s journey to themself. It’s been handled with such grace and kindness, and the season finale is so note perfect that I’m honestly stunned by it. If this was the final episode of the show, it would be perfect. As the final episode of the first season, it’s cathartic, moving, hopeful and the definition of a Great Start.

Verdict: A phenomenal achievement, carried out with grace, humour and kindness. I cannot wait for the second season. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart