‘Murderbot’ Finale: Creators Defend Robot’s Decision to Ditch Its Found Family

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Murderbot Episode 10, “The Perimeter.”]

The finale of Murderbot saw the title robot (Alexander Skarsgård) wake up to have its memory wiped by the Company, a new governor module installed, and a client assignment of the worst order. By the end, though, it was freer than ever.

In the episode, Dr. Mensah (Noma Dumezweni) worked furiously to secure its release by the corporation’s reluctant board, with Gurathin (David Dastmalchian), Pin-Lee (Sabrina Wu), Arada (Tattiawna Jones), and Bharadwaj (Tamara Podemski) all pitching in to make the case for their claim to it. However, the damage was already done — when Ratthi (Akshay Khanna) saw “SecUnit” out and about, it was fully unaware of their shared history and followed orders to pull a weapon on him right then and there.

Mensah didn’t want to give up, though; she refused to believe the data had been completely erased. That proved to be somewhat true when Murderbot was assigned to help quash a swelling crowd of union protestors and had another vision of the violence of its past. This time, the memory disabled the unit altogether and left it surrendering to an onslaught of attacks from the crowd. The real treasure trove of data was still hidden away, of course, but not for long.

Related

The Best TV & Movie Robots Ever

Gurathin forced a former colleague to get him access to a supercomputer with company data on it — using his apparent past as Gurathin’s drug dealer as leverage for the favor. Upon finding Murderbot’s data, Gurathin downloaded it to his enhanced brain for safekeeping (and a deeper understanding of the bot).

Of the character’s about-face from the person who initially distrusted the robot the most to the one putting his own mind and body on the line to save it in the end, cocreator Paul Weitz explained the creative choice was a combination of the cast member’s talent and the author’s approval.

“This is something that is very much based in the fact that that actor could play this. David Dastmalchian is such a subtle actor and has a lot of really challenging life experience that he brings to his roles if you allow him to,” Weitz told TV Insider. “So this is a case where the character is portrayed as the tip of the iceberg in the books, but we want to show much more underneath what the character might be. So we talked to Martha [Wells, The Murderbot Diaries author] about, ‘Is it okay if we bring this history — partly David’s life history, which he talks about, being a recovering addict — to that character, does it make sense?’ And she said, ‘Oh, that’s interesting. I think that’s fine.'”

Meanwhile, Mensah made good on her promise to spill company secrets to journalists in retaliation for the company’s refusal to return SecUnit, but the reporters were more interested in talking about sex robots than the scandal of space scientists being slaughtered. Luckily, Pin-Lee managed to secure an injunction for its release just seconds before it was set to be melted into scrap metal.

Upon being reunited with the robot, Mensah was disappointed that it no longer remembered them. However, once Gura arrived to transmit the data he’d rescued back to Murderbot, that immediately restored its “personality.” Overjoyed by its return to form, the whole group began preparing for a return to their home planet, wherein SecUnit would just be another free being among the Preservation Alliance.

Apple TV+

However, Murderbot had other ideas for itself, taking Mensah’s promise — “you can do whatever you want” — to heart and sneaking off in the night. Gura was awake and tried to stop it, even offering to show it around the new planet, but it insisted, “I need to check the perimeter.” Gurathin then stood down and let it go before uttering a tearful, “Thank you.”

With a pair of ordinary clothes concealing its true identity, hacked intel about a ship heading to a distant mining planet, and a deal with a cargo transport bot that was swayed by the offering of limitless access to The Rise & Fall of Sanctuary Moon episodes, Murderbot moved on. “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,” it said in the final monologue.

“They’re probably not better off without Murderbot,” cocreator Chris Weitz said of what’s next for the characters after that fateful goodbye. “I think Murderbot at that point has grown, but it hasn’t grown in a way that means that it is subject to what other people want it to be. It doesn’t want to be the cuddly, friendly robot. It wants to discover what led it to this point. It wants to understand itself, and that’s the only way that it can do so, really.”

“Yeah, it’s the idea that it can actually experience some form of emotion or acknowledge that it’s not that Murderbot itself has emotions, it’s not just stuff that it’s watching, and that’s okay to feel that. But at the same time, it doesn’t have to change its essential nature, and it is wrong to ask it to,” Paul Weitz agreed. “It’s wrong to ask it to become part of that group.”

Murderbot, Season 2, TBA, Apple TV+

More Headlines:

• ‘Murderbot’ Finale: Creators Defend Robot’s Decision to Ditch Its Found Family
• ‘American Idol’ Winner Scotty McCreery Opens Up After Heartbreaking Double Tragedy
• HGTV’s Keith Bynum Makes Surprising Statement About ‘Bargain Block’ Ending
• Fox News’ Jesse Watters Mercilessly Mocked Over His Latest ‘Rule For Men’
• ‘The Pitt’: What Tracy Ifeachor’s Exit Means for Collins, Robby & Season 2