Altered Carbon season 2, episode 5 recap: I Wake Up Screaming

Kovacs must keep Quell safe while he untangles a conspiracy. Meanwhile, Kovacs has been double-sleeved as Carrera sends a younger version of himself on his trail on Altered Carbon.

Kovacs and Trepp come back to the Nevermore to regroup and find Quell only to discover that she has already returned to the hotel on Altered Carbon. When Kovacs finds her, she is naked, shaking, and bloody in the shower. He comforts her, but she is traumatized and confused by her own actions. She doesn’t know why she’d destroy their only means of escape, or why she’s killing Founders. They decide to find out together.

We learn that Kovacs Prime exists because the Protectorate keeps backups of any officer they deem to be a valuable asset. He’s been on ice for 300 years, but Jaeger/Carrera brings him back for this special mission. He’s the only one who can take himself down. Carrera tells him a version of the truth, about Kovacs’s relationship with Quell and his betrayal of the Protectorate, but most importantly that he killed his own sister.

When Kovacs Prime investigates the scene of Hideki’s murder, Hideki’s son has a pretty good idea that Kovacs killed his father. Kovacs Prime lets him go, figuring that he knows more than he’s saying and that he will lead him to Kovacs.

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Meanwhile, Carrera brings Danica video proof of a living Quellcrist Falconer. She can’t risk the video getting out or it could cause a panic and reignite the uprising, so Carrera has it encrypted on her server. But that doesn’t change the facts and that the problem still needs to be resolved.

Somehow the Resistance is still able to get ahold of the video and they make an announcement revealing that Quell lives and that the ceasefire is over. Kovacs decides that the safest place for Quell now is behind the lines with the Resistance. Last Trepp knew her brother had joined the Quellists, so she goes with them to try to track him down.

They leave just in time to avoid an ambush by the Yakuza, quickly eliminated and followed by the Wedge. Kovacs Prime interrogates Dig, who at first refuses to say where Kovacs went, but he is able to override her program and track down a lead.

Team Quell takes the old mining tunnels to Stronghold. Kovacs knows it’s an easily defendable position, but he also hopes it will remind Quell who she is because it’s where they first met. Kovacs is desperate to believe she can be saved, but Quell is stronger and perhaps more pragmatic. Quell secretly gives Trepp a gun and tells her to shoot her if she begins to lose herself again. She can’t risk hurting Kovacs and she doesn’t want to hurt anyone else.

Quell passes out from the stress of whatever is happening to her. Trepp keeps an eye on her while Kovacs goes above ground to try to get a signal to the Quellist leader. Unfortunately, he runs into Kovacs Prime in the woods and they have an epic battle. Kovacs gets tossed off a cliff into the fog. His death is not confirmed, but it looks pretty bad. Meanwhile, Quell wakes up and puts Trepp in a sleeper hold. What is she up to now?

Konrad Harlan is the last Founder left, so Poe visits the Renouncer’s construct to try to speak with him about why Quell might be after him and what’s wrong with her. The Renouncers are a religious sect that has given up their bodies and live in an artificial construct. It is said that Harlan became a Renouncer and left the planet in Danica’s hands, but given Danica’s involvement in some kind of planetary conspiracy, I’m guessing that’s probably not true.

Poe goes to investigate under the premise of Renouncing, which is very exciting since he’s the first AI to join them. He’s momentarily lured into a false sense of security when they assign him a companion who looks like his beloved friend Miss Elizabeth. She even accompanies him on his mischief when he sneaks in to talk to Harlan, but it turns out he’s a fake and that he’s never been a Renouncer at all. They’re just paid to perpetuate the lie. When they chase him down, he uses his glitch to corrupt the construct and destroy it in order to escape.

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Danica was the one who released the Falconer video so that she could incite panic inside her Cartel and persuade them to vote in martial law. Once she has the power, she uses it to place the members of her Cartel under house arrest and suspend all official activities. Now she has ultimate control over Harlan’s World and Colonel Carrera.

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