Altered Carbon season 2, episode 4 recap: Shadow of a Doubt

Quell and Kovacs reconnect as he tries to make arrangements to get them off of Harlan’s World on Altered Carbon. But they’re caught in an ancient conspiracy they can’t escape.

Quell tells Kovacs about her internal mental struggle, saying it was like she was trapped beneath impenetrable labyrinthine roots – until she heard his voice on Altered Carbon. For some reason, she knew she had to get to him and her consciousness was able to break free. But she still doesn’t remember herself, or him. But it’s clear they have a connection and she trusts him.

Kovacs begins to make arrangements to get them off Harlan’s World. But it’s Harlan’s Day, the streets are teeming with people, and Trepp discovers where they’re hiding out – it’s not a good day to go out when you have the top bounty on your head. Kovacs hires Dig and fires Poe and makes his way to Hideki’s.

Meanwhile, Carrera pays a threatening visit to Hideki. Unless he brings him Kovacs, Carrera promises to destroy him so utterly that not even his family name will survive. Kovacs has a way of costing people everything they have, says Carrera. “Ask yourself, do you want to be one of them?”

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Along the way Kovacs allows Trepp to catch up with him so he can make her a deal. He’ll put all his training toward finding her brother if she lets him go. As they negotiate at the bar Trepp owns with her wife, we learn she has a son named TJ whose original sleeve was destroyed when he stepped on a mine and blew up. They’re renting a child’s sleeve for him and the lease is crazy-expensive. This must be the payment they need to make so badly. They agree to a team up and Kovacs is on his way again.

Thankfully, Hideki is an honorable man and not susceptible to the fear of threats. Kovacs comes of his help getting off Harlan’s World and he gives it – two blind transfers from the only open Needlecast station. But it’s not Carrera who eventually catches up with him.

Poe and Quell have a sweet existential moment. Poe has pretty much hit rock bottom and is considering rebooting, so he asks to Quell if she misses the woman she once was who she’s forgotten. She says its like missing land when you swim out too far into the sea. It’s there beneath you, out of reach, but still there. Poe finds this comforting and thanks her “for making it poetry.” Poe definitely has the best storyline of the season.

He is resolved to reboot. Even though that means he might lose everything, if he doesn’t he’ll eventually lose everything anyway. Dig persuades him to wait. She’s an archivist and she may be able to design a program to separate his memories from corrupt data. She could preserve him.

Kovacs returns to the Nevermore to find Quell has done some research into herself. It’s all Protectorate propaganda of course, so what she finds is that she’s known as a terrorist and murderer. Kovacs tries to tell her that she’s a scientist, warrior, and leader. She created stacks so they could go to the stars, but humanity corrupted it. She doesn’t want to bring back death, she wants to bring back life. Even so, she’s been killing Meths and doesn’t know why. What if she hurts Kovacs? He knows she won’t though and they end up making love.

Carrera’s been busy interrogating the techs who are suspected of sabotaging the Circle. The tech who cut the power to the arena is a secret Quellist, but she also has information about something Danica is hiding about the war. Carrera wants to know what it is, but as soon as Danica finds out what he’s doing she shuts down his investigation and removes the prisoners.

Carrera barges into Danica’s Harlan’s Day party and demands access to the prisoners for further interrogation, but Danica has them strapped to rockets of fireworks and kills them in a twisted display of control. There’s some kind of conspiracy afoot and Carrera is determined to uncover it.

Quell awakes in the middle of the night and she is overtaken by that other deadly personality. It is she who invades Hideki’s home and kills him. Whatever her reasons, he understands that it is justice for some terrible past deed and he gives himself up to her. Quell herself is the weapon that everyone is so afraid of. Before his death, Hideki calls Kovacs and tells him the arrangements have been made. “Forgive her,” he says.

Kovacs rushes over to Hideki’s place but he’s already dead. Whatever corrupts the DHFs, it hasn’t completely destroyed his stack yet, so Kovacs risks the corruption of his own DHF to interface with it and see what happened. He sees Quell, but he also sees Hideki with the Founders of Harlan’s World gathered around a burned corpse.

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Trepp turns up to pull Kovacs out of the interface before he gets infected. He realizes that Quell isn’t just killing Meths, she’s killing Founders. They need to find her, but she’s already killed another Founder and blown up the Needlecast station.

Carrera’s asset finally arrives on Harlan’s World just before the Needlecast station is destroyed. Evergreen turns out to be an earlier version of Takeshi Kovacs (Will Yun Lee), preserved and restored to his birth sleeve. This Kovacs has no idea that Jaeger ever betrayed him, never met Quell and joined her rebellion, and never had to kill his sister. Jaeger is just manipulating him like always and using him against himself.

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