Altered Carbon season 2, episode 2 recap: Payment Deferred

Kovacs continues his investigation into Axley’s death and Quell’s involvement, while Carrera conspires to blame the murder on the Quellist Rebellion on Altered Carbon.

Colonel Carrera (Torben Liebrecht) of Protectorate Special Forces (aka the Wedge) and his team forcibly take over the investigation into Axley’s murder on Altered Carbon. He gets what information he can from the racist police detective and then his unit kills everyone involved. Some kind of cover-up is in progress and Wedge involvement implies a Protectorate sanctioned assassination.

Carrera is trying to blame Axley’s death on Quellists in order to maintain a Protectorate presence on Harlan’s World. Axley was killed with a new weapon that erased all his remote back-ups, leaving him permanently dead. By spreading fear about this new weapon, Carrera can justify Wedge authority on the planet. In the meantime, he can find Kovacs by tracking the biometrics of his unauthorized military sleeve.

Meanwhile, Kovacs broods over his encounter with Quell. Poe suggests the possibility that it isn’t Quell at all, but someone in her sleeve. Although it is illegal to replicate Quell’s sleeve on Harlan’s World, being a symbol of the Quellist rebellion and all, the fear she would inspire might be reason enough to risk it. But if it wasn’t Quell, why didn’t she kill Kovacs?

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The only thing Kovacs can do is find the bounty hunter who worked for Axley and see what she knows. Without knowing her name, he decides to find her by going bounty hunting himself for the top bounties on Harlan’s World. He’s bound to run into her while she tries to make up the lost payroll from Axley’s death.

Kovacs has some trouble narrowing the search because of Poe’s system defects. His short term memory is damaged but he refuses to reboot because he’s afraid he’ll lose the sum total of his experiences so far. Who would he be without them? Kovacs doesn’t have much sympathy for his dilemma, he just wants an AI that works. I would say that Kovacs maybe doesn’t consider Poe a sentient being, but he doesn’t treat anyone else with much more consideration either.

Kovacs collects the top five bounties and trades them for information when he finally runs into Trepp. She overheard Axley on the phone with his business partners talking about an extortion plot and some blackmailer who was wearing an illegal sleeve. Trepp tells Kovacs who Axley’s business partners are. Now he just needs to figure out where to find them. He gives the bounties to Trepp, who uses to money to increase the bounty on someone she’s trying to find. Some things are more important than money, she says.

Since Poe is of limited help, Kovacs finds out from Hideki that Axley’s business partners hang out at an elite club specializing in stolen memories for entertainment. Hideki gets him on the list of the club where Kovacs makes contact with the business partners. They tell him Axley was convinced Quellcrist Falconer was coming to kill him after he was sent a video of her going on a murder rampage. Kovacs watches the video himself, but whoever is in Quell’s sleeve can’t be her.

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Kovacs’ handprint tagged his location to Carrera. He and his unit gear up to go after him, but next thing you know Quell is shooting up the club. She and Kovacs fight it out until something seems to trigger her. She realizes it’s Kovacs and suddenly she becomes Quell, like waking up from a trance. She looks confused and horrified by the carnage around her. Kovacs hears Carrera coming and tells Quell to run. “I’ll find you,” he promises.

Carrera arrests Kovacs. Because Kovacs is wearing a military sleeve, Carrera has control over the sleeve, leaving Kovacs helpless to defend himself.

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