Diksha Sundriyal
Apple TV+’s ‘Murderbot’ follows the story of a robot who hacks into his governor module so that he is fully sentient and in control of himself, as opposed to other security units like him who are always at the beck and call of humans. Over the course of the first season, despite his best efforts, the eponymous protagonist becomes attached to the team of humans he was sent to protect on a desolate planet. By the penultimate episode, he risks his own life to save them, and the consequences of his sacrifice ripple in the finale. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Murderbot Episode 10 Recap: Murderbot Goes Back to Being a SecUnit
What set Murderbot apart from other SecUnits was the fact that he was fully in control of his actions and thoughts. However, when he falls off the cliff with Mensah in the hopes of cushioning the fall and saving her, he sustains grievous injuries that are fatal, even for a robot. When he opens his eyes again, he is on a table in a lab, but it is not Mensah and her team operating on him. In fact, he is back at Corporation Rim’s lab, where two strange men make fun of him while they remove his memories and reset his system, so that he has forgotten everything that has happened so far, which includes the fact that he hacked into his system and became a free entity.
Meanwhile, Mensah and the team confront Corporation Rim about their involvement in GrayCris’ operation and the death of the DeltFall team. They threaten to sue Corporation Rim, but at the same time, they are also willing to make a trade if it means getting Murderbot back. Unfortunately, Corporation Rim sees Murderbot as their property, even though he was faulty, nay, suboptimal. What they fear is that his memories might serve as evidence against them, which would be very bad for business. What they don’t realise is that the PresAux team wants him because he is a member of their team, not some machine they can abandon now that they have no use for it.
While the team is trying to figure out Murderbot’s location, Rathi comes face to face with him. He is excited to see the robot that saved him and his team, but he doesn’t know that this robot has been wiped clean, received a new governor module, and now cries like a baby on a human’s command. He is shocked when Murderbot pulls a gun on him on orders from a strange man. This confirms for the team that his memories have indeed been lost, which disappoints Mensah because she believed that his organic tissue would have somehow retained some memories. While the others don’t believe it, this turns out to be somewhat right when Murderbot is sent with other SecUnits to cull a protesting mob, and he has visions of the massacre at the mining facility many moons ago.
How Does Murderbot Get His Memories Back?
Plagued by visions of the mining site in the middle of a trying to control a mob, Murderbot malfunctions. The mob descends on him and beats him to a pulp, which confirms for the company that he is of no use to them now. If he was considered suboptimal before, he is completely useless now. There is only one thing that happens to such SecUnits. He is taken out to the yard where he is prepared to be melted. Completely unaware of his fate, Murderbot steps onto the platform that is lowered into the furnace. Luckily for him, Pin-Lee arrives just in time and rescues him.
What happened is that Mensah and her team launched a public campaign where they came out with the whole story about how the DeltFall team was killed and how they themselves were killed multiple times. They blame this string of tragedies on the company while also expressing their gratitude towards Murderbot, who they mention has now gone missing because the company is trying to bury evidence. Since the story blows up, the company is forced to bow down. They offer to give Mensah and the team their SecUnit, but in return, the PresAux team has to keep their mouth shut.
Coming through on the deal, they are given the location of Murderbot’s physical state, but that still leaves the question of his memories. Because Gurathin used to work for the company, he knows that they will never completely erase a robot’s memory, not until they have combed through it to make sure that they have zero monetary value in keeping it. This means that Murderbot’s memories are most likely still in the system. Luckily, Gurathin knows how to get them back. For this, he reaches out to his old contact (his former colleague and drug dealer) and guilts him into helping.
The man now works in security, so he is able to help Gurathin break into the system and locate Murderbot’s memories, which he eventually finds in a folder named Sanctuary Moon. He downloads all of it into his own brain, thanks to his status as an augmented human. However, he cannot hold these memories for long. He rushes back to his team, who have Murderbot with them. A link is set up between him and the robot, and as the memories are transferred, everything comes rushing back to Murderbot. When he finally speaks, he asks about the missing Sanctuary Moon episodes, indicating that the transfer has been a success and he is back to being the same Murderbot that they know and love.
What does “I Need to Check the Perimeter” Mean?
When Murderbot gets his memories back, he is confused about the circumstances. Mensah reveals that they have bought him from the company, which means he is not Corporation Rim’s property anymore. His name is not in the inventory and has been permanently removed from their records. Though they have paid for him, they assure him that he is a free being in all senses of the term. Once he is in Preservation Aux, he can do whatever he wants, without worrying about violence and whatnot. The thought of not being someone’s bodyguard feels odd to Murderbot, but he is glad about the fact that he really is free now. Previously, he’d gained freedom in his mind, but now, he is completely free.
According to Mensah’s plan, he will leave with them, but the more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that going to Preservation Aux will just throw him into another cycle of doing what others want him to. He spends the day with the team, who are in celebratory spirits, especially after the many meetings with the company, the DeltFall reps, and even those representing the GrayCris team. It is clear that Mensah and Co. are getting much more than just a suboptimal robot out of this lawsuit. When they all go to sleep, Murderbot, who is now dressed as a normal human, decides to head out.
As he nears the door, Gurathin wakes up. When Murderbot tells him that he is going to check the perimeter, the human thinks the robot is still caught up in his previous patterns. He identifies this as something that happened to him, too, in the beginning, but he assures the robot, whom he doesn’t seem to hate anymore, that things will get better. He even offers to help guide him through the process, but then Murderbot repeats that he needs to check the perimeter. This is when Gurathin realises that this is Murderbot saying goodbye. He understands this, too, and lets the robot leave.
Why doesn’t Murderbot Stay With Mensah and Her Team? Where does He Go?
The thing is that leaving with Mensah and the team would mean that he would always be bound to them. Even in freedom, he would be living the life that they want for him, not the life that he wants for himself. In truth, he doesn’t really know what he wants right now. Freedom is still new to him, and he doesn’t quite know how to go about it. What he does know is that he doesn’t want to live by someone else’s idea of who he should be and how he should be living. Whatever life he lives from now on, he wants it to be his choice. This is why he chooses to leave, even though he is deeply attached to Mensah and the team. Leaving them behind is hard, which is why he can’t bring himself to say goodbye, so he simply says that he needs to check the perimeter, and Gurathin understands this.
Now that he is truly free, Murderbot must decide his next course of action. As he moves amongst humans in normal attire, no one suspects that he is a SecUnit, though he knows that he might not be able to keep it a secret for long. He knows that he needs to leave as soon as possible, so he decides to take the first flight out. Interestingly, the next departure is to a mining facility. He immediately contacts the cargo bots and trades thousands of hours worth of premium quality entertainment in return for a safe passage aboard the ship. As the ship flies off, he looks forward to this new adventure.
Mensah wakes up just in time to realise that Murderbot is not around anymore, and as she watches the ship fly away, she realises that the robot has sailed away. She is sad to see him go, but also happy because she did want him to be free, after all. While the show ends on a happy note for Murderbot, this is just the beginning, as he is bound to land himself in more trouble. The fact that he had a vision about the incident at the mining facility, and that he is now flying to a mining facility, shows that he hasn’t forgotten about the massacre and wishes to know what role, if at all, he played in it. Freedom from guilt and broken memories and the search for truth, especially to clear his name, is to be the next chapter of his story.
Read More: Where is Murderbot Filmed? Shooting Locations of the Apple TV+ Show
