Murderbot 1×08 Review: “Foreign Object”

In Murderbot’s eighth episode, the PreservationAux team finds out more about their enemies – and about Murderbot.

TRIGGER WARNING: This review discusses suicide.

“Foreign Object” opens with Murderbot watching an episode of ‘Sanctuary Moon’. In the soap opera, the Nav Bot was made to kill the human it was in love with, and then had its memories wiped. The memory wipe failed, however, and the Nav Bot – filled with grief and a desire for vengeance – sets the spaceship on a course that will kill everyone on board, including itself.

I’m going into so much detail about ‘Sanctuary Moon’ because I found myself very invested (almost as much as Murderbot) in the plot of the soap opera. Even though Murderbot has included only short snippets of the fictitious serial, it has been able to really develop the world of ‘Sanctuary Moon’.

Returning to the main plot of the episode, I liked how this scene showed Murderbot’s characterisation. The end of the previous episode framed it as a big decision as to whether Murderbot would join the humans when they returned to the habitat, but now, Murderbot is being so nonchalant about its choice that it’s watching ‘Sanctuary Moon’. It seems like it’s an easy decision for Murderbot to go with the PreservationAux team, even though it was against their plan.

When they fled the base in the first place, Murderbot left behind a device that would allow it to view the habitat’s video feed from the time they were away. Murderbot and the PreservationAux team watch the recordings and discover that Leebeebee’s employers did come into the habitat, along with more advanced SecUnits. One of the humans addresses the team directly and wants to meet with them. The villains have a specific time for the meeting, but it’s not revealed to the audience, which I found a bit confusing.

The PreservationAux team is able to identify Leebeebee’s employers as GrayCris, a mining corporation.

GrayCris’s forces left the habitat, so Murderbot and the team are able to return to heal Gurathin. Gurathin refuses to use painkillers while he is being treated, because taking them was the start of his past addiction.

Despite their animosity, Murderbot and Gurathin both come up with the same idea – using Murderbot’s hardwiring to prevent Gurathin from feeling any pain during the procedure.

Humorously, Mensah asks Murderbot if it got its idea from ‘Sanctuary Moon’. Murderbot tells her it didn’t, and then reveals in its inner monologue that it actually got the idea from another serial, ‘Medcenter Argala’.

While Murderbot and Gurathin are connected, Murderbot checks out Gurathin’s memories. It comes to one about his unrequited love for Mensah. Murderbot then repeats such sentiments out loud.

Watching this part of the episode, I was a bit unsure as to whether it was Murderbot speaking or Gurathin unknowingly speaking through it.

Once Gurathin is healed, he then uses the opportunity to look at Murderbot’s memories. Gurathin learns that the SecUnit calls itself “Murderbot” and also sees its unclear memories of when it seemingly killed its past clients. Immediately, Gurathin tells the rest of the team what he has found out and voices his assumption that Murderbot’s name comes from it murdering people.

An upset Murderbot explains that its private personal name was not based on that incident and that it has only ever killed to defend its clients. Murderbot says it doesn’t know what happened in the unclear memory, but it’s more than evident that Murderbot still feels a lot of guilt about the incident. It then leaves the habitat.

After Murderbot is gone, the humans once again question whether they should trust it and even if they should go after it. Mensah asserts that Murderbot should be able to make its own choice to leave and wants to focus on the situation with GrayCris.

The humans figure out that GrayCris is interested in the planet’s alien remnants, which were first introduced in episode two. I think the show could have drawn more attention to the remnants between their introduction and now, because with everything that has happened in the story, I think it would be quite easy for the alien remnants to have slipped viewers’ minds.

Even though it is very likely to be dangerous, Mensah plans to meet with GrayCris.

On a very different note, Ratthi tells Pin-Lee and Arada that he wants to call things off between them. He lets them know that he only harbours romantic feelings for Pin-Lee. Arada and Pin-Lee already wanted to end things with Ratthi, so are glad, but new conflict is sparked between the spouses when Arada offends Pin-Lee by questioning why Ratthi likes Pin-Lee and not her.

Murderbot, meanwhile, is walking around outside the habitat. Still upset, it tries to re-watch its favourite ‘Sanctuary Moon’ episodes, but is unable to stop thinking about the PreservationAux team. Murderbot believes the humans will die and it will be stranded on the planet.

It then comes up with an idea to seemingly betray the team. The episode ends with Murderbot returning to the habitat and unconvincingly announcing to the humans that it has a plan.

I am looking forward to finding out what exactly this plan is, in the next episode. Curiously, the upcoming episode is called “All Systems Red”, which fans of the book series will know is the title of the first book, which this season is based on. For that reason, I expect it will be a very big episode.

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.

Help support independent journalism. Subscribe to our Patreon.

Copyright © The Geekiary