Murderbot Episode 3 Recap: Risk Assessment

The mission becomes more dangerous, and SecUnit gets even more irritated by the humans he is tasked to protect in the third episode of Apple TV+’s ‘Murderbot.’ Following the events of the previous episode, the PreservationAux team decides to visit the DeltaFall team after the latter fails to respond to their messages. This is after they discover that the planet they are on has alien stuff, which is illegal to mine and can jeopardise their mission as its existence might lead the Company to cancel their mission altogether. Still, they need to have more information about their surroundings and believe that DeltFall, which set camp on the other end of the planet for its own research purposes, might have the answers. What they don’t anticipate is that having the answers might not be such a good thing after all. SPOILERS AHEAD.

Mensah Leads Her Team on a New Mission

When Mensah, the team leader, decides that they should fly to DeltFall’s camp to meet them in person, Murderbot isn’t the only one who has reservations about the plan. Gurathin believes that comms failure is not the reason that the DeltFall team is not responding, and he worries that if his friends go there, they might meet the same fate. He and Bharadwaj are told to stay behind, while Mensah, Pin-Lee, Ratthi, and Arada are to make the journey. This time, they are taking SecUnit with them because they don’t want to take any chances with their security. Ironically, had they asked the robot about the plan, he, too, would have discouraged them from going forward with it. However, Mensah believes that if the DeltFall team really is in a life-threatening situation, then it is even more imperative for her and the team to go there and save them.

On the way, Murderbot busies himself with a new TV show called ‘Strife in the Galaxy.’ It is no ‘The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon,’ but it is enough to keep him entertained. The problem is that humans will not leave him alone to binge-watch the show. As they discuss the plan and their safety, they keep including him in the conversation, which meddles with his concentration. He cannot let them know that he is watching TV shows, so he is forced to respond to them. He can’t tell Ratthi that he doesn’t care to be included with the humans as them, and he can’t tell Mensah that he does not like to sit down and have human feelings shared with him.

Still, he cares about their welfare and keeps an eye on the base, where he discovers that Bharadwaj has healed physically, but is not doing so well mentally. He is also disgusted to discover that Gurathin has a thing for Mensah, which is revealed after he sneaks into her room and smells her pillow. As if that weren’t enough, Mensah starts talking to him about her fears about the mission and the Company, and how her family back home didn’t want her to lead the mission because they were worried for her. In the midst of this, Murderbot reveals, by mistake, that the Company keeps an eye on the team’s logs, which makes them even more paranoid. And this is after Ratthi tells Mensah that he believes their SecUnit might have human feelings.

DeltFall Team’s Tragic Circumstances Lead to Shocking Revelations

Murderbot is relieved to finally arrive at DeltFall’s station, but he is also immediately put on alert when he does not receive any pings from their SecUnit. He asks Mensah to err on the side of caution and land outside the perimeter. Considering that things could be dangerous, Ratthi, who has no weapons training because he got lazy and skipped it, is told to stay back while the rest go to the base. The closer they get to the destination, the more Murderbot is convinced that something bad happened. Eventually, he tells Mensah and the others to stay back as he will go forward and check out the place by himself. If it is safe, he will ask them to follow.

As soon as the robot enters DeltFall’s base, he knows that something is terribly wrong. The first thing he notices is a deactivated SecUnit, half of whose head is blown off. Then he sees that all the humans have been killed. It looks like a massacre, but Murderbot cannot help but notice that it all looks a bit too clean. He sees that one of their SecUnits died defending the comms system, while the other two seem to have shot each other at the same time. This convinces him that some outside force took hold of the SecUnit and executed this bloodshed. Before he can make any more deductions, one of the SecUnits wakes up and attacks him. Because Murderbot knows every move its attacker is going to make, he easily subdues it, but that leads to another major concern.

To take control of a SecUnit like this, a person or thing must be in close proximity. This means that the base is compromised and the enemy is close enough. Fortunately, the moment Murderbot saw the human dead bodies, he advised Mensah and the team to fall back to the ship and wait for his instructions. He went as far as to suggest that, should he not reach out to them within the next ten minutes, they should immediately leave the surroundings and fly back to their base. He doesn’t tell them about the massacre, knowing that it would make them panic and that would not end well for anyone. He is proven right when, in the end, a mysterious figure walks out of the shadows and attacks him. Who this thing is and why they killed the DeltFall team remains to be seen. But for now, all Murderbot has to focus on is his survival, and that of the team.