Altered Carbon season 2, episode 3 recap: Nightmare Alley

As Kovacs is sentenced to death by public execution, he comes face to face with an old enemy on Altered Carbon. Poe searches for allies to help him save Kovacs.

Kovacs has been arrested by the Wedge for the suspected murder of Horace Axley and his business partners on Altered Carbon. He is brought before Danica Harlan, and while he doesn’t admit to anything, he claims no association with the Quellist Rebellion. The cease-fire holds and Kovacs is taken to be interrogated before his public execution.

Poe hears about Kovacs’ arrest on the Array and begins his desperate effort to help him escape before it’s too late. He failed to warn Kovacs about his bio-tracker and feels responsible for his current situation. He seeks help first from the AI Management Union, attempting to recruit some fellow AIs to his cause. Here he meets Dig 301 (Dina Shihabi), an out-of-work AI programmed to excavate and catalog Elder artifacts. She’s been languishing without a purpose since the governor outlawed Elder research. She declines to get involved but tells him that if he wants to save a human he needs another human. Good advice.

While Poe seeks out a helping hand, Kovacs endures interrogation. He warns Carrera that he doesn’t know who he’s dealing with, but neither does Kovacs. Harlan’s World adheres to a gladiatorial method of execution called the Circle, but it’s more nuanced than that. They scan the mind and extract memories of the people closest to you and use them against you in the ring. However, Kovacs proves singularly difficult to scan. Carrera nearly kills him to get the data he needs and discovers exactly who he is in the process. The Last Envoy.

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Carrera knows better than anyone what Kovacs is capable of because it turns out that Carrera is Kovacs’s old CTAC mentor Jaegar. Carrera advises the governor to skip the show and execute him immediately. But the announcement has already been made and Danica doesn’t have any concept of how dangerous the Last Envoy really is. He will face the Circle as planned.

Poe tracks down Trepp and asks her for help, but she declines as well. Besides, those extra credits she put on her bounty turned up a lead, so she’ll be busy tracking down that info. But the only thing she learns is that Anil, her bounty, worked in the mines for a few weeks and then disappeared when he joined the Quellist Rebellion. Trepp gets arrested for beating up her contact when he calls Anil a traitor.

Dig decides to come back and help Poe, which is good because his glitch is getting worse. In the middle of their brainstorming, Poe forgets what they were even doing. It’s as if he’s suffering dementia and it is heartbreaking to see him begin to panic and tear up with fear and frustration. Dig promises to stay and help him. Together, they have a better chance of saving Kovacs. Try as they might to shut down the power grid though, they can’t do anything to help.

Meanwhile, Carrera is interested in taking down Kovacs at the soonest opportunity. He promises a new combat sleeve with full upgrades to whoever of his troops takes down Kovacs first. Kovacs is drugged up and thrown into the ring as combatants enter the Circle one by one disguised as people from Kovacs past.

The first one is Kristin Ortega (Martha Higareda), but Kovacs quickly realizes that it’s not really her and breaks her neck. The next one is Vernon Elliot (Ato Essandoh), who he also takes down. The third is harder because it’s his sister Reileen (Dichen Lachman). He can’t face killing her again, even if it is a synth copy. Luckily the fourth combatant, wearing the body of Quellcrist Falconer, enters the arena and takes the Reileen synth down.

Only it isn’t the Quell synth, it’s the real Quell. She saw the execution being broadcast on the Array and she came to save Kovacs. Carrera senses it immediately and sends his troops in to take them both out, but together they’re unstoppable.

It also helps that a secret Quellist is running the prison control board. She turns off the power and cuts the feed to the Array, giving Quell and Kovacs their chance. Together they kill off the entire Rapid Reaction Unit sent in to kill them and escape back to the Nevermore. Poe, who thought Kovacs was lost to him, is relieved to see him and even happier to see that he’s found his lost love.

Elsewhere, Trepp is still locked up for assault, but at least her wife loves her enough to bail her out. Trepp is in big trouble at home, but at least she’s free. We finally learn what most of us probably suspected, that Anil is Trepp’s brother and she’s just trying to find him and keep him safe. Bailing Trepp out of jail emptied their savings though and they won’t be able to make their next payment, which sounds important. So now Trepp’s plan is to collect the outrageous bounty on Kovacs.

Danica can’t risk Quell’s existence re-igniting the resistance, so she charges Carrera with tracking her and Kovacs down and eliminating them. Carrera has full authority to do whatever is necessary, so he gives the command to activate Evergreen, whatever that is.

Back at the Nevermore, Kovacs recovers from his wounds as Quell sits by his side. Quell says that she had to save him because she had to know. She knows him but doesn’t recognize him, doesn’t even recognize herself. Whatever is going on with her, it’s messing with her memory. She doesn’t even know her own name.

What did you think of this episode of Altered Carbon? Be sure to tell us in the comment section below!