Murderbot ‘FreeCommerce’: Watch for Alexander Skarsgård, stay for the surprising heart

Warning: I wrote a theory here, I have no idea if it’ll turn out to be correct or not, but if it’s correct, it could be a spoiler for future episodes. If you’d rather not read it, exit now and enjoy Recap Lab’s coverage of other shows. Cheers! 

Season 1 Episode 1 Recap and Review

When SecUnit, Alexander Skarsgård’s sentient security robot, realised that one of his charges, Dr. Arada (Tattiawna Jones), was suffering from shock brought about by the trauma of an animal attack that almost killed her colleague Professor Bharadwaj (Tamara Podemski), he took off his helmet to reveal his face, an action that a well functioning machine would not have done. ‘Stay calm. It’ll be okay. You have my word.’ His soothing words worked, and she was able to get up and walk with him.

Later, after he had completed repairing himself, that fragment of memory from before he was refurbished came to him again. It was seven seconds of what looked like a grainy video, of a man (a soldier?) shooting. Who knows what I was capable of doing, he thought. Then, he told himself the same words he said to Dr. Arada. ‘Stay calm. It’ll be okay. You have my word.’

It was that small scene, that memory of trauma, that made me think SecUnit was not entirely machine. Part of him must be human. I have not read the books, and I have no insider knowledge, so this is not a spoiler, only supposition on my part, which could turn out to be right, or wrong. 

SecUnit’s autistic coding and the mild exploration of trauma gave this first episode much poignancy. As SecUnit said, he did not like thinking much, he preferred watching his shows. He was not doing it on purpose, he probably didn’t even realise it, but he was using the distraction of TV to tamp down emotions he could not process. 

It was a nice coincidence that after SecUnit had hacked his governor module, which finally gave him autonomy over his actions, he found himself in the service of people who were, for the most part, kind to him. The leader of the expedition, Mensah (Noma Dumezweni), in particular was gentle to him. Mensah did not even want to get a robot, she said she and her team were not comfortable with a sentient construct being required to work for them, and called it enslavement. When the bond company refused to insure them without security, they went for the cheapest model, the SecUnit who had secretly named himself Murderbot. 

SecUnit called them, with mild derision, hippie scientists, but it was with their group that he first encountered someone saying the equipment does not matter, that it was not worth a life. He mused how he had plenty of clients who would gladly sacrifice a life for expensive equipment. In fact, he himself was an expensive piece of equipment. When he thought of what would be the best next move for him, he thought of killing the group, but, outside of his logical calculation that killing them would only leave him stuck in the planet with no new tv shows, he also realised that he did not want to kill them.  

‘FreeCommerce’ was less than 30 minutes long, but it packed a lot into those minutes, not least of which was a succinct introduction of the main characters. Dr. Arada was a biologist who was married to Pin-Lee (Sabrina Wu), a lawyer. Ratthi (Akshay Khanna) was an export on wormhole travel, who also had a thing for Pin-Lee, and did not know that it was Dr. Arada who had a thing for him. Ratthi also made his own jewelry, which I was told was an important bit so there you go, I included it here. Mensah, the leader of the expedition, was an expert in terraforming. Gurathin ( David Dastmalchian) served as SecUnit’s foil, the one member of the team who pushed to shut him down because he recognised that he was behaving outside his assigned parameters. Gurathin was an augmented human; he had implants that allowed him to interface with data systems. Professor Bharadwaj was a geochemist who for some reason hoarded soap. 

What was the expedition truly for? Were the maps tampered with? If some map spots were just not synching properly, what was the cause? Would we see more of what they called ‘hazardous fauna’, like the huge animal with two mouths that attacked Dr. Arada and Professor Bharadwaj? What was that fragment of memory that SecUnit had? So many questions, and I can’t wait to see the next episodes to get some answers!

Oh, and ‘FreeCommerce’ was also very funny. Alexander Skarsgård was brilliant. I probably should have led with that. See you on the next one, looks like Apple TV has another winner here.

Strays

🤖On these recaps, I will alternately call the main character SecUnit (what the scientists call him) or Murderbot (what he calls himself). 

🤖It was whilst he was doing security at the Mining Station Aratake of the Corporate Rim that Muderbot successfully hacked his governor module. He had to hide this success, however, for if the powers that be found out he had gone rogue, they would track him and liquidate him. 

🤖The module was wired to the nervous system, which prohibited disobedience. These units had to obey humans. 

🤖The ‘hippie scientists’ were from the Preservation Alliance. 

🤖Murderbot’s favourite TV show was The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, which included plot about the captain having an affair with a bot. Boldness is all. 

🤖After surviving the huge fauna attack, Murderbot asked permission before boarding the ship, whilst carrying the injured Professor Bharadwaj. I wanted to mention this in case we see a pattern in the next episodes.

🤖Did HubSystem warn Murderbot of the dangerous fauna where the scientists were working? Dr. Arada said there was not anything like that in the company database of fauna.

🤖The company ship would not arrive for a month. If they launched the emergency beacon, it would take a week before they came through the wormhole. Mensah recommended not launching the beacon, if Professor Bharadwaj was all right. 

🤖Could they even shut down Murderbot? Or could that only be done by the company that owned him?

🤖’Which is worse, speech or acid bath?’ Lol.

🤖Murderbot had a problem with eye contact.

🤖The scientists were stressed. Mensah was having a panic attack. 

🤖Yes, I looked. Murderbot was like Ken down there. 

Director: Paul Weitz

Writers: Paul Weitz and Chris Weitz

Original Air Date: May 16, 2025

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