Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for Murderbot season 1, episode 10 & The Murderbot Diaries: Artificial Condition.The ending of Murderbot season 1 saw Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgård) leave its newfound friends for an uncertain destination, and there are plenty of questions the Apple TV+ show didn’t answer. After a thrilling penultimate episode, the finale of Murderbot season 1 mostly focused on the fallout of GrayCris’ attempts to kill the members of PreservationAux, the bulk of the cast of Murderbot.
PreservationAux members like Mensah (Noma Dumezweni) and Gurathin (David Dastmalchian) spent most of the finale trying to get Murderbot back. After sacrificing itself to save Mensah, Murderbot’s memory was wiped and it was forced to work for the Company again. Luckily, Gurathin managed to get Seccy (as Ratthi calls it) back.
Even though everything turned out mostly good for Murderbot and PreservationAux, there was one massive plot twist right at the end of the finale. Instead of joining PreservationAux and living a free life on their planet, Murderbot left in the middle of the night. It was a shocking decision, but the books Murderbot is based on reveal why it made that choice, and where it’s going next.
Where Is Murderbot Going Next After The Murderbot Season 1 Finale?
Murderbot Wants To Find The Truth Behind The Massacre It Remembers
Image via Apple TV+
The biggest twist of Murderbot season 1’s finale was that Murderbot decided not to leave with PreservationAux. Instead, it took some “perimeter time” and absconded on a random transport ship. The recently announced Murderbot season 2 will follow the second novella in Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries, “Artificial Condition,” so some major spoilers for the books lie ahead.
Murderbot took that transport because it’s planning to investigate the massacre it has memories of. Throughout the season, Murderbot has remembered visions of a massacre, but none of the details. In Murderbot season 2, Murderbot is going to the RaviHyral system, more specifically, a mining platform known as Ganaka Pit, to find the truth of this massacre it remembers.
Why Murderbot Left PreservationAux
Murderbot Wants To Find Out What It Wants, Not Be Told What To Do, Even By Its Friends
Investigating the massacre is a worthwhile cause, but it’s still a bit confusing that Murderbot decided to abandon PreservationAux to do it. They had become very close friends after dealing with GrayCris, after all, and PresAux even offered to give Murderbot its freedom. Unfortunately, that was also the problem with the situation.
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As Murderbot said in its letter to Mensah, it doesn’t know what it wants. All Murderbot knows is that it doesn’t want other people telling it what to do, even if those people are PreservationAux. Murderbot is essentially taking some time to figure itself out (hence the journey to RaviHyral) and figure its priorities out on its own, without PreservationAux telling it what to do.
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Murderbot Books In Release Order |
|
|---|---|
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Title |
Release Date |
|
All Systems Red |
2017 |
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Artificial Condition |
2018 |
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Rogue Protocol |
2018 |
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Exit Strategy |
2018 |
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Compulsory |
2018 |
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Obsolescence |
2019 |
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Network Effect |
2020 |
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Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory |
2021 |
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Fugitive Telemetry |
2021 |
|
System Collapse |
2023 |
Mensah and the rest of PresAux did, after all, essentially decide how the rest of Murderbot’s life was going to play out without really asking what it wanted. In the books, Murderbot also thinks that having a “guardian” on Preservation Alliance, as Mensah suggested, is the same as being a pet robot. Murderbot may not know what it wants, but it knows it doesn’t want to be a pet.
How Gurathin Managed To Restore Murderbot’s Memories & Personality
Gurathin Used His Abilities As An Augmented Human & The Company Didn’t Delete Murderbot So It Could Sift Through The Data For Profitable Information
A large part of the Murderbot season 1 finale focused on PreservationAux trying to find Murderbot and restore its personality. It wasn’t easy, but Gurathin managed to bring the titular SecUnit back. While it all ended up working out, there may be some confusion about how Gurathin managed to download Murderbot’s entire personality and why the Company didn’t delete it.
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Gurathin was able to find and download Murderbot’s personality and memories because he’s an augmented human. Gurathin’s brain is essentially part computer, and while it threatened to overload his system, he was able to download Murderbot’s construct. That, coupled with knowing a former drug dealer who had access to the Company’s files, made it possible for Gurathin to save Murderbot.
Martha Wells, the original writer of The Murderbot Diaries, worked on Murderbot season 1 as a consulting producer.
The Company in Murderbot also didn’t delete Murderbot’s personality even though it did a memory wipe. That’s because the Company data mines every piece of information it gets, including Murderbot’s memory and any recordings it made. Murderbot had a truly massive amount of information, though, and it took the Company longer to sift through it all than it did for Pin-Lee (Sabrina Wu) to get an injunction.
Why Did Murderbot Malfunction When It Was Attacking Protesters?
Murderbot’s Organic Brain Remembers The Massacre It Was Involved In & It Didn’t Want To Murder Innocents Again
After Murderbot’s memory was wiped, the Company began using it to suppress protesters on the Corporation Rim. Normally, a SecUnit like Murderbot would have just killed the protesters with no hesitation, but Murderbot hesitated even after forgetting who it was. Once again, that’s because of Murderbot’s memory of the Ganaka Pit massacre.
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Earlier in the episode, Mensah mentioned that she thought Murderbot’s organic parts would remember PreservationAux, and she actually wasn’t wrong. Murderbot is mostly an android, but it’s also made from cloned, organic human parts. Those organic parts remember memories the same way humans do. So, the Company deleted Murderbot’s digital files of the massacre, but it couldn’t delete the memories from its organic matter.
Murderbot is deeply ashamed of Ganaka Pit, and it doesn’t want to be a heartless killing machine ever again.
Since Murderbot still remembers the massacre at Ganaka Pit, it stopped fighting the protesters. Murderbot is deeply ashamed of Ganaka Pit, and it doesn’t want to be a heartless killing machine ever again. Even after having its memory and personality wiped, Murderbot still remembers that it doesn’t want to kill innocent people.
The Real Meaning Of Murderbot Season 1’s Ending Explained
Murderbot Is A Story About Self-Determination, Friendship, & Learning How To Be Yourself
Though it focuses on a paranoid android, Murderbot season 1 touched on some very human themes and topics. The biggest of those themes is the idea of self-determination, or having the freedom to live your life the way you want to. Murderbot is a slave in everything but name, and its entire character arc centers around it gaining autonomy and control over its life.
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Another big theme of Murderbot season 1 is the power of friendship, corny as it sounds. Murderbot’s life, and the lives of everyone in PreservationAux, would have been over if they hadn’t joined together as friends. Even if Murderbot survived, it would still be watching shows in secret and hating its life. Friendship, and the courage to let others know the real you, changed Murderbot’s life for the better.
More broadly, Murderbot also has a lot of critiques to make. The biggest is clearly against capitalism run amok. Both GrayCris and the Company are clearly the villains of Murderbot, and their motivations are almost entirely greed and the ability to do as they please. It was also the unchecked capitalism of the Corporation Rim that made Murderbot a slave in the first place.
If you take anything away from Murderbot season 1, it should be this: be yourself and let others love you.
Murderbot season 1’s message, above all else, is a plea for its viewers to be themselves. Even Murderbot, the mean, socially anxious and perpetually awkward android, found people who love it. The only way it could do that, however, was by letting PreservationAux see who it was beneath the helmet. If you take anything away from Murderbot season 1, it should be this: be yourself and let others love you.
Murderbot
9/10
- Release Date
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May 15, 2025
- Network
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Apple TV+
- Showrunner
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Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz
- Directors
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Aurora Guerrero, Roseanne Liang
- Writers
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Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz
