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Murderbot 1x09
This show is such a freakin' delight.
I need gifs of that scene with the severed head.
Murderbot: There was only one who was suspicious of me. His name was Gurathin. So I did this to him.
*pulls out severed head*
Gurathin, listening on comms: What the fuck.
Anyway, that was simply great. Bickering, bravery, resourcefulness, teamwork! And of course, Murderbot and Gurathin being absolute little shits to each other. I am intrigued that the general vibe seems to have morphed from murderous distrust into simply being assholes to each other as gratuitously as possible.
MB: I noticed you have an issue with eye contact. *stares*
Gurathin: *the human embodiment of the 😑 emoji*
IT'S LEARNING TO TRASH TALK. It's somehow deeply charming to me that MB is objectively very bad at trash talk - in the sense that anyone else uses it - except it's very, very good at picking exactly the right thing to annoy Gurathin. And it's not quoting anything - well, except Gurathin himself. MB has figured out how to annoy him and it isn't afraid of being punished if it does (or maybe just figures it has nothing to lose). The annoyance is genuine, but there's also some deeply weird trust there.
It's also really interesting to me that Gurathin can read MB better than anyone else can. He can tell when it's lying. And Mensah trusts him on that.
The Mensah-MB tug of war on how to resolve the situation was full of sharp edges. I loved it. "There must be another way." But sometimes there's not. And she recognizes that.
Pin-Lee called it Murderbot! I also think it's really interesting who the group chose to send along on the mission vs who stayed behind at the PresAux habitat. Murderbot and Gurathin had to be there for their special abilities, Mensah clearly made the executive decision not to send her people into danger without her, but Gurathin's team needed someone else, and Pin-Lee is a logical choice - I think it's clear that someone (Mensah, probably) looked at the available options and was like "Yeah, those ones are staying behind."
For about 0.01 seconds I thought Mensah was sending Murderbot and Gurathin on a mission together, which would've been a prescription for murder, but Gurathin and Pin-Lee make a lot more sense. And they were a lovely team. Gurathin on why PL can't go alone to the habitat: "Do you have a plug in *your* head?" Pin-Lee braining the guy with the wrench! (I really liked the little bit of unexpected realism that Pin-Lee didn't mean to kill him, but hitting someone in the head with a wrench is in fact likely to be lethal whether it's meant to be or not.) And PL trying to reassure Gurathin about Mensah, and Gurathin letting them - lovely callback to their conversation at the start of the episode. I think one thing that gets to me there is that he knows that he could have killed Mensah (himself, directly and personally) and he doesn't know until a bit later if he did or not, but he sent the beacon anyway, because getting the beacon off was more important for the group as a whole. That duty-over-sentiment thing gets me every time.
[Edit: corrected PL's pronouns in the above paragraph.]
The doublecrosses inside of doublecrosses were also really excellent. We know that MB isn't going to betray them, but it was a lovely twisty time of not being sure what they knew vs what it had planned vs what it kept to itself.
MB's devastatingly terrible attempt to stall. I love that the one baddie caught on that he was using Sanctuary Moon dialogue, lol.
Mensah getting the cool flared-coat walk down the ramp of the hopper!
And MB sacrificing itself for her. 😠CLIFFHANGER!
Also, HUGS.
Only one more episode, and I can't wait!
I need gifs of that scene with the severed head.
Murderbot: There was only one who was suspicious of me. His name was Gurathin. So I did this to him.
*pulls out severed head*
Gurathin, listening on comms: What the fuck.
Anyway, that was simply great. Bickering, bravery, resourcefulness, teamwork! And of course, Murderbot and Gurathin being absolute little shits to each other. I am intrigued that the general vibe seems to have morphed from murderous distrust into simply being assholes to each other as gratuitously as possible.
MB: I noticed you have an issue with eye contact. *stares*
Gurathin: *the human embodiment of the 😑 emoji*
IT'S LEARNING TO TRASH TALK. It's somehow deeply charming to me that MB is objectively very bad at trash talk - in the sense that anyone else uses it - except it's very, very good at picking exactly the right thing to annoy Gurathin. And it's not quoting anything - well, except Gurathin himself. MB has figured out how to annoy him and it isn't afraid of being punished if it does (or maybe just figures it has nothing to lose). The annoyance is genuine, but there's also some deeply weird trust there.
It's also really interesting to me that Gurathin can read MB better than anyone else can. He can tell when it's lying. And Mensah trusts him on that.
The Mensah-MB tug of war on how to resolve the situation was full of sharp edges. I loved it. "There must be another way." But sometimes there's not. And she recognizes that.
Pin-Lee called it Murderbot! I also think it's really interesting who the group chose to send along on the mission vs who stayed behind at the PresAux habitat. Murderbot and Gurathin had to be there for their special abilities, Mensah clearly made the executive decision not to send her people into danger without her, but Gurathin's team needed someone else, and Pin-Lee is a logical choice - I think it's clear that someone (Mensah, probably) looked at the available options and was like "Yeah, those ones are staying behind."
For about 0.01 seconds I thought Mensah was sending Murderbot and Gurathin on a mission together, which would've been a prescription for murder, but Gurathin and Pin-Lee make a lot more sense. And they were a lovely team. Gurathin on why PL can't go alone to the habitat: "Do you have a plug in *your* head?" Pin-Lee braining the guy with the wrench! (I really liked the little bit of unexpected realism that Pin-Lee didn't mean to kill him, but hitting someone in the head with a wrench is in fact likely to be lethal whether it's meant to be or not.) And PL trying to reassure Gurathin about Mensah, and Gurathin letting them - lovely callback to their conversation at the start of the episode. I think one thing that gets to me there is that he knows that he could have killed Mensah (himself, directly and personally) and he doesn't know until a bit later if he did or not, but he sent the beacon anyway, because getting the beacon off was more important for the group as a whole. That duty-over-sentiment thing gets me every time.
[Edit: corrected PL's pronouns in the above paragraph.]
The doublecrosses inside of doublecrosses were also really excellent. We know that MB isn't going to betray them, but it was a lovely twisty time of not being sure what they knew vs what it had planned vs what it kept to itself.
MB's devastatingly terrible attempt to stall. I love that the one baddie caught on that he was using Sanctuary Moon dialogue, lol.
Mensah getting the cool flared-coat walk down the ramp of the hopper!
And MB sacrificing itself for her. 😠CLIFFHANGER!
Also, HUGS.
Only one more episode, and I can't wait!