We've officially crossed the halfway point in the first season of Murderbot on Apple TV+, and things are starting to get pretty dicey for Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgård), Doctor Mensah (Noma Dumezweni), and the rest of the PresAux survey team. Last week's episode ended with another cliffhanger, as Murderbot and Mensah's hopper was caught in an explosion from their sabotaged emergency beacon. Their shuttle has crashed, and now they'll have to work together to get back to safety.
Meanwhile, Gurathin (David Dastmalchian), Bharadwaj (Tomara Podemski), Arada (Tattiawna Jones), Pin-Lee (Sabrina Wu), and Ratthi (Akshay Khanna) find out that there's more to the DeltFall refugee Leebeebee (Anna Konkle) than they thought. By the end of the episode, it all comes crashing back together as Murderbot is forced to finally do a bit of murdering.
FULL SPOILERS for Murderbot Episode 6 ahead.
Murderbot Episode 6 review: "Command Feed"
Murderbot's sixth episode is split fairly neatly down the middle, with about half of its runtime focusing on Murderbot and Mensah's struggle to repair their hopper while the rest focuses on the drama at the PresAux habitat. Overall, I think this is one of the stronger episodes of the show we've gotten so far; it has danger, humor, it great performances and character moments. Even Leebeebee, who I didn't much like in Episode 5, gets to shine, as she reveals she's actually a double agent working for some mysterious third party, rather than a refugee from DeltFall. It turns out Murderbot's ominous words to Mensah about human naiveté last episode were spot on.
The highlight of "Command Feed" for me was Murderbot and Mensah, who finally get a good solid chunk of time where they're forced to rely on one another. Their relationship is at the heart of the first Murderbot novella, All Systems Red, and this time for it to cook on the TV show was much needed. Their scenes together are fantastic, helped along by really good writing and great line deliveries from the actors.
The beauty of their time stranded with the hopper is that they each have to contribute to getting out of the situation, and help the other when they struggle. Murderbot indulges in some self-deprecation here, because it deleted the owner's manual for the hopper from its memory to make room for more episodes of Sanctuary Moon. It eventually passes out from a fluid leak caused by the damage it took in the crash. Mensah has a panic attack and struggles with the grisly task of cutting into Murderbot's back to get a piece of spinal fiber that they can use to repair the hopper, an idea Murderbot only thought to suggest because of her previous efforts to refill his fluids using the hopper's own.
The back and forth between the two is fantastic, especially in the moments where their walls come down, like when Murderbot puts on an episode of Sanctuary Moon about synchronized breathing to calm Mensah's panic attack, and when she belatedly realizes it made a joke after she squeamishly performed an impromptu surgery on its back. These scenes in particular feel like Murderbot really hitting its stride.
Meanwhile, Leebeebee is asking a lot of questions and stepping over personal boundaries back at the PresAux habitat. Despite my misgivings about the character last week (which do rear their head again this week, as she makes another penis joke about Murderbot), actor Anna Konkle does a great job. Leebeebee's worldview from the Corporation Rim finally draws out a more thoughtful discussion with Gurathin and Bharadwaj, giving them a chance to push back on some of the things she says while also hinting at the wry and realistic way Gurathin views Preservation Alliance compared to the rest of his friends.
Eventually, Leebeebee reveals that she's a spy and holds the entire habitat at gunpoint. She wasn't a survivor from DeltFall, but has a mysterious employer who is hidden somewhere on the planet. Her attempts to get the PresAux team's data from the scared scientists is both edgy and hilarious, alternating between excellent bits of funny dialogue ("Leebeebee is a beautiful name") and dead-serious danger, such as when she shoots Gurathin in the leg. When Leebeebee threatens to start killing people unless he gives her the data, I believe her.
Not that she gets the chance. Murderbot and Mensah arrive in the nick of time, thanks to their teamwork repairing the hopper. Leebeebee tries to hold Gurathin hostage, but Murderbot promptly blasts off her head, since he's a robotic construct with perfect aim. The team of pacifists are all horrified by this act of murder, despite the fact that it saved their life, which Murderbot reflects is nothing like on the serials. Ungrateful humans.
The episode ends with Mensah encouraging the team to get ready to flee the habitat before Leebeebee's mysterious employer arrives and kills them all. Murderbot repairs itself, watching Sanctuary Moon and thinking about how good it felt to shoot off Leebeebee's head. Perhaps it'll make good on its unnerving name, after all.
Murderbot Bullet Points
- This was also a very solid episode for Sanctuary Moon, which had a pair of scenes revolving around the romance between Captain Hossein (John Cho) and the ship's nav bot, played by DeWanda Wise. These scenes were very funny ("cute laugh"), and also gave some interesting context to Murderbot's own struggle to understand the humans around it. Good stuff.
- The Sanctuary Moon characters are stranded in their scenes, just like Murderbot and Mensah. Murderbot finds the situations a little too similar for comfort. "I don't watch serials to remind me of the way things actually are. I watch them to distract me when things in the real world are stressful as shit." So say we all, Murderbot.
- It was also very enjoyable that the episode starts with Mensah putting down Sanctuary Moon after finding out Murderbot deleted a bunch of important files to make space for it, and then gradually comes around on it later in the episode during her panic attack, even if some of its plotlines seem "implausible." I cackled when Murderbot replied the implausible bits are "canon."
- I can't say it enough: Noma Dumezweni really gives an excellent performance in this episode.
- We get a lot of interesting information about how Preservation Alliance and the Corporation Rim operate through Bharadwaj's debate with Leebeebee, like how they support their society's children.
- We're pretty deep into the show at this point, and Ratthi, Arada, and Pin-Lee still haven't done a ton aside from provide comedic relief. I'm hoping they get a chance to show their competence in the last few episodes.
Verdict
"Command Feed" is a great episode of Murderbot that feels like it has the full package. It made me laugh quite a lot, but also had some rock solid character development that let the cast shine. At the same time, multiple dangerous situations escalated the stakes, highlighting both Murderbot's similarities to the humans as well as its differences. And best of all, this episode is even better on a rewatch.
Episode grade: A-
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