Murderbot 1×03 Review: “Risk Assessment”

Murderbot continues with its third episode, “Risk Assessment”. The mystery unravels, there’s a SecUnit battle, and Murderbot watches a new soap opera.

The episode opens with Murderbot and the PreservationAux team preparing to investigate the DeltFall base. They – correctly – identify that something might be wrong, after the DeltFall team didn’t respond to their communications.

Once again, Gurathin voices his objections and wants to leave the planet. Murderbot also doesn’t want the humans to check on the DeltFall team, but is powerless to stop them without revealing its secret free will. Mensah tells Gurathin that it’s important to stick out their mission because the Company wants the team to fail.

On board the hopper, Murderbot watches ‘Strife in the Galaxy’, a serial about bots in prison. I laughed when Murderbot notes that the show is not as well-made as its favourite program, ‘Sanctuary Moon’.

During the travel journey, Ratthi asks Murderbot disrespectful personal questions and tries to include it in the team. Like the humans’ previous efforts, his actions just cause Murderbot anxiety, especially as Ratthi starts to take note that Murderbot has been acting in ways that go against its programming.

I found it a bit unrealistic that the humans weren’t more suspicious of Murderbot, as the number of its autonomous actions piled up. Among other things, Murderbot refuses to join the team’s circle and speaks without being told to. I thought that Mensah, Pin-Lee, and Arada should have been more curious about its behaviour.

Instead, the others disagree when Ratthi tells them his theory that Murderbot has emotions and sentience. I felt a pang of sadness when, internally, Murderbot also disputes its own personhood.

The show immediately illustrates that this is untrue through Murderbot’s empathetic actions. Murderbot is evidently concerned about Bharadwaj, after she was attacked by a creature in the first episode, as it checks on her back in the team’s habitat. Bharadwaj is still experiencing anxiety about the attack, and Gurathin – who also stayed behind – offers for her to undertake therapy modules.

Afterwards, Gurathin goes to Mensah’s room. Murderbot is initially suspicious of his intentions, and then grossed out when Gurathin smells Mensah’s pillow. I felt just as exasperated watching him do it!

In the previous episode, Gurathin talked about his friendship with Mensah. I’m interested to see if we’ll get more information about their history together in future episodes.

Back on the hopper, Mensah talks privately to Murderbot. She opens up about her struggles and the great responsibility on her shoulders. She talks about how others on the team’s free planet want to join the Corporation Rim, and about how her family was unhappy with her decision to go on the mission. This emotional conversation overwhelms Murderbot, and it comes up with an excuse to walk away.

Eventually, Murderbot and the PreservationAux team arrive at their destination. The book series generally provides very sparse descriptions of what places and people look like, so it was interesting to see the other side of the planet depicted visually in the show. The purple trees are a nice touch, but the most distinctive feature of the new location is definitely the plants that look like eyeballs, for want of a better description.

The PreservationAux team decides to bring weapons with them to investigate the DeltFall base. The humans are largely unfamiliar with violence, with Pin-Lee and Ratthi instead talking about a video game they had both played.

As the characters talk to and about each other, it becomes clear that Pin-Lee uses they/them pronouns. It’s admirable to see the show including representation that wasn’t in the book series, and I would like to offer my sincere apologies for my error in my previous review. I will obviously use their correct pronouns in future reviews.

Ultimately, Murderbot decides to investigate the DeltFall habitat alone. It finds a dead SecUnit, but lies to the PreservationAux team, so that it can keep searching. Murderbot continues to look around the base and comes to the conclusion that one of DeltFall’s SecUnits killed the other two and the team of humans.

Murderbot fights the violent SecUnit. Although the other SecUnit is a more advanced model, it doesn’t have free will and cannot deviate from a standard move set, so Murderbot is able to predict its movements. Murderbot’s knowledge of the other SecUnit is effectively shown to the audience with an on-screen visualisation. I also liked how Murderbot’s knowledge of the situation came from its viewing of ‘Strife in the Galaxy’.

Murderbot defeats the other SecUnit and discovers that it was being controlled by someone else. Before Murderbot can do anything with this information, however, someone shows up in the DeltFall habitat. The episode ends on the dramatic cliffhanger of the stranger preparing to attack Murderbot.

After finding the show’s second episode a bit too slow-paced, I was concerned that the rest of the episodes would feel this way, but I thought the pacing was just right in this episode.

I am continuing to enjoy the Murderbot series and eagerly await the airing of episode four, “Escape Velocity Protocol”, next week.

Author: Iris Autumn

Iris has a degree in Digital Media and a passion for writing. She has published in cultural arts magazine The Artifice. Iris’ interests include intertextuality, media portrayals of fandom and creativity, and stories that are campy.

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