‘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 collection Murderbot was “an extremely emotional expertise.”

Dastmalchian performs Dr. Gurathin, an augmented human and a member of the PresAux survey group. In contrast to 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, just like me, an individual who has struggled and wrestled with each habit, in addition to a compulsive dysfunction by which management is an habit all in its personal,” Dastmalchian informed Mashable in an interview for an upcoming episode of Mashable’s Say Extra. “So Gurathin is an individual who maintains his personal safety and security by protecting the folks he loves very shut and making an attempt to manage the issues round him as a lot as he presumably can.”

That management manifests itself particularly in Season 1’s first few episodes, which sees Gurathin prodding at Murderbot and making an attempt 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 reminiscences, 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 convey it again to the utopic Preservation Alliance, the place it should have free will. Nonetheless, Murderbot decides it needs to make its personal selections, and it jets off into house by itself.

David Dastmalchian in “Murderbot.”
Credit score: Apple TV+

The final particular person 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 have to verify 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: “It’s worthwhile to verify 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 household that I might grown to like in making the present, together with my castmates and the creators and all of the crew, we have been very shut,” Dastmalchian stated. “And it was odd, in a manner, that makes you are feeling each that there’s a lovely, golden thread that connects the universe and in addition could make you are feeling a bit loopy generally, once you’re like, ‘Wow, these phrases are extra personally vital than I might have ever imagined.'”

He continued: “Once we attain that second the place [Gurathin] is saying… ‘I simply broke by means of a stage of understanding about you, and now I’ve to allow you to go,’ it is exhausting. It is part of the human expertise that many people expertise, both by means of loss of life or by means of the top of issues. Relationships finish. Typically folks should go away, generally for themselves, and that form of acceptance hit me within the second, whereas I am performing as a fictional character in a TV collection primarily based on a guide collection. I used to be sitting there doing the scene with Alex, and he is such an exceptional actor, and he is so, so current, even when portraying a assemble, it was very emotional.”

As emotional because the scene is, each for viewers and the actors performing it, it’s fortunately not the top of the highway for Murderbot and Gurathin. On July 10, Apple TV+ introduced that Murderbot has been renewed for a second season. Whereas Gurathin does 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+.