And the “sweet” does seem to feel freeing, for all that you can see the shock on his fellow team members’ faces at the revelations. (There are no snarky asides about The Kids’ Table this week. And this is the most consistently well-acted episode of Murderbot’s first season to date, from the leads on down. Even Ratthi feels cringey by design, not accident.) But Gurathin just can’t take that other step, even when Mensah takes him aside to try to get him to unleash the “bitter.” Instead, he can only lightly touch on it, expressing his frustrations at how the expedition will likely get her killed—but not the web of intense feelings for her that makes that thought so horrifying. “We” might be able to talk about this. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he can do anything but feint at things that are clearly eating him alive.
And, hey, speaking of being devoured alive: Things are not going well on the planet back in the present day. We jump abruptly from emotional turmoil to genuine peril, as the flashback cuts straight into PresAux evacuating the habitat, bristling under Murderbot’s barked-out orders. It’s unsettling material, and deliberately alienating, with “Complementary Species” feeling very deliberate in its choice to feature less Alexander Skarsgård than maybe any other episode of the show, denying both the characters and the audience empathy-generating glimpses of his stoic mug. It’s not just that Murderbot spends much of the episode with its helmet on—the actor’s ever-present narration is also minimal, especially in the early going, giving us less window than usual into its alien mind. The result is a smart re-aligning of our viewpoint with that of the PresAux team, who find themselves seemingly at the mercy of a faceless robot who can hear their every word and who constantly speaks in highly threatening language. We know it’s because MB’s threat assessment module is screaming at it about how dangerous the current situation is about to get. But in importing back some of the horror-movie vibes of the show’s earlier episodes, Murderbot helps to remind the viewer how unsettling its titular construct can be.
It doesn’t help when the safe hiding point their SecUnit chooses for the escape turns out to be way less safe than hoped. There’s some early quiet, as Murderbot goes to “check the perimeter,” which Gurathin has clocked is mostly its way to avoid unpleasant interactions with stupid fucking humans. (In one of the cleverest moments of the episode, Mensah remains the primary person on Team SFH to keep a clear eye on the fact that the group is in massive danger: She later asks MB how the perimeter is, both to connect with it and because it’s genuinely important to know how secure the perimeter is.) More consequentially, the sequence allows us to reconnect with our protagonist, after being encouraged for the first half of the episode to view it as a dangerous rogue robot. Like Gurathin in the cold open, we realize Murderbot is coming scarily close to the end of its capacity to handle things in a world too loud and complicated and demanding to cope with, fantasizing about committing suicide-by-TV-show somewhere out in the forest. (It’s a beautiful, unsettling sequence, MB imagining its own corpse becoming just another relic amidst the green.) It’s almost a relief when another one of the giant bugs from the premiere shows up, if only to remind people that there are actual dangers afoot.
At least, apparently: Turns out, the two giant monsters who end up convening on top of the hopper after everyone races back inside aren’t here to fight, but fuck. The reveal of the ship-shaking sexual display serves two strong purposes. First, it gives Tattiawna Jones a welcome chance to shine for once, as Arada’s empathy for animals pushes the crew to let the creatures finish their business and then go on their way (after leaving a big sac of eggs stuck to the ship’s hull as a parting gift, at least). That “creatures fulfilling their function” perspective dovetails in interesting ways with her earlier position as the one non-Mensah member of the PresAux team who automatically gives Murderbot the benefit of the doubt. It’s genuinely nice to watch this character think, instead of staying mired in high-school romance goofiness. At the same time, the inescapable presence of the (vigorously) biological reinforces that Murderbot is, in a weird way, a show with a serious interest in sex, buried deep beneath its science-fiction armor. Observe, for instance, the way a fever-addled Gurathin can’t keep himself from expressing the antipathy he feels toward MB as a form of romantic jealousy aimed at Mensah (complete with a moment of misgendering that makes it clear Gurathin views the bot as a sexual threat). Like it or not, biology keeps intruding into this narrative. In its best moments, the discomfort it provokes smartly mimics its title character’s own unease.
All this philosophical musing is interrupted, though, when our hero discovers that hypervigilance can only get you so far, as a better-model SecUnit (with the ability to jam Murderbot’s threat-assessment module) drops out of nowhere and starts kicking its ass. Despite the various (ineffective and irritating) ways the PresAux team tries to come to the bot’s defense, only the intervention of the big bug ends up saving the day, chewing off the head of the construct that shot up its babies. It’s a short, thrilling, and occasionally funny fight scene, leading to warm feelings and attempts at hugging amongst our various combatants—until Gurathin suddenly collapses from his rising fever, one last forced cliffhanger to send us out on (with everyone, including Mensah, seeming to get “the script says we have to”-levels mad at Murderbot for noting that the abandoned habitat will be crawling with killers if they go back there to save Gurathin’s life).
Mild quibbles aside, this is largely a swift and often emotionally honest 22 minutes of TV, exploring the limits of seeking communication and consensus with a mind that’s busy just trying to keep itself alive. Expressing the sweet and the bitter is wonderful, after all, when you have time to process it. But you can’t “get past the violence”—as Mensah begs MB to help the PresAux crew do during a mid-episode confrontation where all cards are set on the table—while the violence is still actually happening. A dumber version of this show would have had one perspective inarguably triumph over the other already, likely with the space hippies winning over the hard-hearted bot. This is more tense and far more interesting, though, almost certainly setting up a climax that’ll have more painful material to offer than simple exploding skulls or severed heads.
Stray observations
- • My tolerance for Ratthi goes up the more obvious the show makes it that he’s supposed to suck. His subtle, unthinking bullying of Gurathin in the opening scene feels very telling. (Also, is there any gesture more embarrassment-coded than snapping fingers as a way of showing approval?)
- • There weren’t any Sanctuary Moon clips this episode, so my phone had to remain sadly unchecked.
- • Murderbot cruelly doesn’t get credit for considerately putting a blanket over Leebeebee’s corpse. “What? I covered it!”
- • Gurathin’s backstory is a new invention for the show. (The character in the books is more suspicious than the rest of the team, but nowhere near to this extent.) The revelations here feel additive, giving Dastmalchian more to work with and another glimpse at the cruelty of the Corporation Rim.
- • I’ve given Akshay Khanna a very hard time in these recaps, so I need to acknowledge that his delivery when recounting his tense conversation with MB is very funny. “Don’t know… It didn’t use that word exactly.”
- • By contrast, Pin-Lee’s “Babe, I’m here!” when Arada notes they’d be defenceless without SecUnit is a bit too far into the “sharacter seems genuinely stupid” zone. (See also the barely heard bits, right before the bug attack, where Ratthi yells about the bot’s “mask of insecurity.”)
- • “I should have downloaded more shows.”
- • “There’s no reason to look at me; I’m not a sex-bot.”
- • “I consider myself lucky to have someone here who is used to combat. We’re not.” “Unless you’ve got a mining drill in your hands.”
- • Murderbot on bug sex: “Frankly, I didn’t find it any more revolting than what humans do to each other.”
- • Jones gets a nice delivery when casually dismissing Pin-Lee’s disgust at the eggs. “Babe, just go inside, then.”
- • The sequence of PresAux “helping” is a nice escalation of comedy beats, culminating in Bharadwaj throwing a rock directly into MB’s helmet.
