‘Murderbot’ Episode 6 Review
After the explosion at the end of the last episode, the hopper is damaged and Mensah and Murderbot are stranded and need to find a way to repair the ship, while back at the base, the rest of the team have their own problems to deal with.
Has this show been getting better, or am I just changing my opinion of it, because I enjoyed this episode a lot more than the previous five. Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten used to the slightly awkward and cringey kind of humor, but also because the relationship between the characters has changed. Now that everyone knows he’s broken his programing, the Murderbot doesn’t need to hide his true personality anymore, which make him more interesting as a character.
This allows for a more “natural” (if that’s even the right word) relationship between him and the humans, as he doesn’t need to just blindly follow their orders to protect his secret. It makes him more like Data from ‘Star Trek’, or the T-805 in ‘Terminator 2’, a machine trying to be human, or at least trying to show emotions, though in Murderbot’s case, his actual love for and interest in humans is limited/
Elsewhere in the show, when we’re not with the bloodthirsty robot, things are still as shaky as ever, in the way the other characters act, and the attempts at forcing humor into every scene.
We do get some advancement though, as we get to see the true side of Leebeebee, who turned out to, unsurprisingly, be hiding her true identity. She wasn’t a part of the other survey team and wasn’t attacked by SecUnits, but rather is part of whatever group or organisation is responsible, and has been deceiving the others. What exactly was she doing? We don’t know, and won’t find out from her, as Murderbot blew her head off.
The question is whether any of the team will trust him after this violence. But being honest, it was totally justified, considering she already wounded one of them and would clearly have harmed, even killed more. She’s already participated in the massacre of the other research team, so why should she care? And the fact it was Garuthin the Muderbot saved, though the two don’t like each other, is even more reason to believe their SecUnit is on their side. Sure, it was reckless and brutal, but I won’t say she didn’t deserve it, and their reaction shows again how unprepared they all are for such a mission.
I’ll reserve judgement for the moment, because it’s hard to properly get a feel for the show with such short episode runtimes, but it does seem to be improving, and if it continues this rate, it could really end on a high.
