‘Murderbot’ finale: David Dastmalchian breaks down Gurathin and Murderbot’s heartbreaking goodbye

For David Dastmalchian (Lifetime of Chuck, Late Evening with the Satan), filming Apple TV+’s sci-fi sequence Murderbot was “an incredibly emotional experience.”

Dastmalchian performs Dr. Gurathin, an augmented human and a member of the PresAux survey group. Not like the remainder of the very loving, very open group, Gurathin is extra cagey, in addition to instantly distrustful of safety android Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgård). Because the present reveals, Gurathin’s lack of belief and extra loner standing stems from his mistreatment by the hands of Murderbot‘s nefarious Firm, who coerced him into substance habit throughout his time working for them.

“Gurathin is, similar to me, a person who has struggled and wrestled with both addiction, as well as a compulsive disorder in which control is an addiction all in its own,” Dastmalchian advised Mashable in an interview for an upcoming episode of Mashable’s Say Extra. “So Gurathin is a person who maintains his own security and safety by keeping the people he loves very close and trying to control the things around him as much as he possibly can.”

That management manifests itself particularly in Season 1’s first few episodes, which sees Gurathin prodding at Murderbot and attempting to determine what’s “off” about it. Nonetheless, by the season’s finish, Gurathin has grown to like Murderbot simply as a lot as his PresAux compatriots, a lot in order that when he finds out the Firm has wiped Murderbot’s recollections, he finds a workaround to obtain all of them himself, then move them again onto Murderbot.

From there, PresAux head Dr. Mensah (Noma Dumezweni) buys out Murderbot’s contract, hoping to carry it again to the utopic Preservation Alliance, the place it’s going to have free will. Nonetheless, Murderbot decides it desires to make its personal choices, and it jets off into area by itself.

The final individual it sees earlier than it heads out is Gurathin, who tells Murderbot he is prepared to point out it round Preservation, and that he understands, to a sure extent, what that transition would possibly entail, as somebody tied to the Firm now being given free company.

Nonetheless, Murderbot interrupts, eyes watering. “I need to check the perimeter,” it says.

It is a phrase ripped proper from Murderbot’s function as a SecUnit, however it hides a deeper which means: Murderbot must strike out by itself.

Gurathin understands, echoing the phrases again: “You need to check the perimeter.”

It is a quiet but heart-wrenching scene, in addition to the fruits of Gurathin and Murderbot’s journey from adversaries to beings who lastly perceive each other. In response to Dastmalchian, the scene additionally spoke to his relationship with the Murderbot forged and crew, together with Skarsgård.

“The family that I’d grown to love in making the show, including my castmates and the creators and all the crew, we were very close,” Dastmalchian mentioned. “And it was odd, in a way, that makes you feel both that there is a beautiful, golden thread that connects the universe and also can make you feel a little crazy sometimes, when you’re like, ‘Wow, these words are more personally significant than I could have ever imagined.'”

He continued: “When we reach that moment where [Gurathin] is saying… ‘I just broke through a level of understanding about you, and now I have to let you go,’ it’s hard. It’s a part of the human experience that many of us experience, either through death or through the end of things. Relationships end. Sometimes people have to go away, sometimes for themselves, and that kind of acceptance hit me in the moment, while I’m performing as a fictional character in a TV series based on a book series. I was sitting there doing the scene with Alex, and he’s such a phenomenal actor, and he’s so, so present, even when portraying a construct, it was very emotional.”

As emotional because the scene is, each for viewers and the actors performing it, it’s fortunately not the tip of the street for Murderbot and Gurathin. On July 10, Apple TV+ introduced that Murderbot has been renewed for a second season. Whereas Gurathin would not present up within the second installment of Martha Wells’s The Murderbot Diaries, he does return additional down the road, which means there might be a reunion between Murderbot, Gurathin, and all of PresAux sooner or later.

Murderbot is now streaming on Apple TV+.