Recap of Episode 7 of ‘Murderbot’: A Tale of Giant Monster Romance

According to Bono’s song “The Fly” by U2, “It’s no secret that a liar won’t believe in anyone else.” Even though this lyric may not be the most well-known in the band’s repertoire, it resonates with many, including me. The line often makes me think, more frequently than other U2 lyrics, such as “a mole, diggin’ in a hole” from “Elevation.” The message of this lyric can be applied to Gurathin, a character referred to as the “augmented human” who harbors a strong dislike for Murderbot, the main protagonist.

In a flashback featured in the most recent episode, Gurathin discloses during a team-building session that he used to work as a spy for the Corporate Rim. The corporation controlled him by administering addictive substances that only they could provide, ensuring his compliance. However, his encounter with Dr. Mensah, who was his target during a mission, led to a significant turnaround in his life. Inspired by Dr. Mensah’s positive outlook on humanity, Gurathin decided to join the current risky mission.

In the current time frame, Gurathin is not the only one doubting Murderbot. Everyone is taken aback by Murderbot’s swift and deadly actions against the enemy operative Leebeebee. Pin-Lee, a member of the group, now aligns himself with Gurathin and advocates for ditching the robot altogether. Gurathin’s reservations about Murderbot go beyond mere concerns for security. His emotions for Dr. Mensah make him assume that she reciprocates feelings for Murderbot. The truth of Dr. Mensah’s sentiments towards Murderbot remains uncertain, leaving room for future revelations.

Mensah, Arada, and Ratthi, however, are Team Murderbot, appreciative of its help and hoping it’ll stick around rather than ditch them. After all, as Mensah points out, a sentient construct that’s hacked its own software to free itself from years of human abuse would probably want to stay as far away from humans as possible. The fact that it’s stayed by the team’s side, defending them, is the biggest point in its favor. (Bharadwaj seems too shaken by recent events to weigh in much.)

The conversation hasn’t even concluded when it proves its usefulness one more time. One of those giant two-ended centipede creatures surfaces, and he gets the team back in the hopper just in time. But the creature is after more than a meal. It’s come to the warm surface of the hopper to mate with a member of its species from the opposite sex, whatever that means in the case of a giant centipede and some big tentacled monstrosity. Anyway, if you’ve ever wanted to watch kaiju fuck — and I know you sickos are out there — here’s your chance.

Once the hopper stops rockin’, the team steps outside to discover egg sacs hanging from the vehicle’s exterior. While they’re debating what to do about that, Murderbot finds out the hard way that advanced, black-armored SecUnits like the one he battled a few episodes ago can jam its threat assessment module and attack it without warning. Murderbot and the team prove unable to defeat the interloper — but the bad bot made the big mistake of blasting some of the creatures’ eggs during the course of the battle. The centipede returns and bites the bot’s head off before dashing away with the surviving eggs. 

No sooner does this crisis pass than another one ensues: Gurathin collapses, weakened by a fever caused by his infected wound. The team has to get him back to their habitat, but as Murderbot reminds them, they left the habitat because it’s likely swarming with enemies, including who knows how many of those advanced SecUnits. Now Murderbot has a genuine choice: It can go along and try to protect them, even though it knows this is likely futile, or it can stay behind and leave them to their fate. This wouldn’t be much of a show if it winds up going with Option B.

From start to finish, this episode’s entire “creature/other creature/monster sex/gross eggs/evil robot/monster’s revenge” sequence is a perfectly executed daisy chain of escalating sci-fi action and gross-out splatstick humor. Rampaging robots, Lovecraftian beasts, huge gooey 1980s horror movie style slime-dripping monster eggs — this thing has it all. It serves as a bombastic bookend to the subdued first scene, which relies not on special effects or spectacular gore but the performance of David Dastmalchian as Gurathin, whose combination of shame, gratitude, and awkwardness about his checkered past and the way Mensah rescued him from it is riveting to watch. 

This is a really fun show, man!

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.