Hard to deny, given the *makes sweeping gesture* popular culture we all enjoy, that people enjoy watching killings. I think Murderbot and Bucky are slightly different, though, since they combine the pleasures of conscience-untroubling killing with this buried and slate-wiped-clean past of conscience-troubling killing. MCU's Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow character is similar: "I've got a lot of red in my ledger" she says, but we never really feel that she *does*, actually, or that this past interferes with her and our enjoyment of her present-day killing.

On The Manchurian Candidate (a very interesting film I agree) I might propose a sort-of Zizeckian reading, maybe. The ostensible conceit of the film is that "Communism" brainwashes people; but actually it's a movie that says the real brainwash is Capitalism, which has managed to convince millions that there is no alternative to it. But I stick to my original point: there is no such thing as brain-washing. It's a way of talking, exaggerated for dramatic effect and psychological acuity, about the regular way we are influenced by ideologies and other people and so on.