‘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? 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 relationships between the characters have changed. Now that everyone knows it’s broken its programming, Murderbot doesn’t need to hide its true personality anymore, which makes it more interesting as a character.

This allows for a more “natural” (if that’s even the right word) relationship between it and the humans, as it doesn’t need to just blindly follow their orders to protect its secret. It makes Murderbot more like Data from Star Trek or the T-800 in Terminator 2: a machine trying to be human, or at least trying to show emotions. Though in Murderbot’s case, its 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 in the attempts to force humor into every scene.

We do get some advancement, though, as we see the true side of Leebeebee, who turned out to be—unsurprisingly—hiding her true identity. She wasn’t part of the other survey team and wasn’t attacked by SecUnits; rather, she is part of whatever group or organization is responsible and has been deceiving the others. What exactly was she doing? We don’t know, and we won’t find out from her, as Murderbot blew her head off.

The question is whether any of the team will trust it after this violence. But to be honest, it was totally justified, considering she had already wounded one of them and clearly would have harmed or even killed more. She’d already participated in the massacre of the other research team, so why should she care? And the fact that it was Garuthin whom Murderbot saved—even 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 judgment 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. If it continues at this rate, it could really end on a high.