Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 1 episode 10 recap: My Moon, My Man

In the last episode of the Netflix anime series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 1, David is exhausted from fighting using the exoskeleton and the Sandevistan. Regardless, he and the crew head to Arasaka headquarters to save Lucy.

There an epic battle against an elite warrior will go down to see who survives and passes into Night City legend. David and crew are making their run out of the desert and into Night City, pursued on the road by both Militech and Arasaka retrieval teams gunning to get the exoskeleton he’s wearing.

But he’s exhausted and needs to rest. Therefore, it’s Lucy and Falco’s turn to fight it out with the elite soldiers of the two megacorps.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 1 episode 10 recap: Descent into cyber psychosis

Meantime, David is waking up from his reverie and dipping in and out of cyber psychosis. He recalls the words of his ripperdoc regarding the nine times larger stronger dose of immunoblockers he’s been given.

He remembers that if he uses them, the side effects will stack afterwards, enabling him to keep it together and avoid psychosis for a few hours. The caveat is that they will slingshot him over the edge when they wear off.

David pumps himself full of the meds and uses the exoskeleton’s gravitational pulse rays to decimate both the Militech and Arasaka pursuers. In his fugue, he remembers his mother and his school bully.

He is back to being a young man, laughing like a maniac on the empty streets he grew up in, as he also cackles in the now, as a fully kitted chrome junkie on the brink of cyber psychosis.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 1 episode 10 recap: Enter Adam Smasher

The Arasaka counterintel duo have been forced to admit that Faraday has screwed up their plans. All subtlety has gone out the door what with David escaping the Militech cordon and re-entering Night City.

It’s going to cost them one hell of a cover up. While they’ve dispatched MaxTac to take care of David as a cyber psycho case, they’re also working on a Plan B.

In case David escapes again, they have decided to send in their secret weapon: Adam Smasher. Turns out the exoskeleton that David is wearing was originally designed for him.

Meantime, enroute to Arasaka HQ, Faraday meets up with Kiwi one last time at their rendezvous point. Kiwi declares again that she just needs her payment and will skip town ASAP, but Faraday shoots her, saying that he’s just cleaning up loose ends.

Kiwi escapes for a while, short circuiting Faraday’s gun hand. Before Faraday’s goons end her, she is able to place a call to Falco, sending him coordinate tags for the flying vehicle that Faraday and Lucy are in.

While Faraday does make it to the Arasaka HQ loading dock, David is right there with him. He pumps in the last of his immunoblockers and uses the Sandevistan to wake Lucy up, disarming the Arasaka goons too within seconds.

But Adam Smasher steps in and they go toe to toe, both of them with speed augmentation. David is able to escape with Lucy and they meet up with Falco and Becca, who are surrounded and being shot at by Arasaka minions and local police.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 1 episode 10 recap: Requiem for an edgerunner

Things go sideways when Adam Smasher lands into the scene and literally crushes Becca under his heels. David and Adam Smasher battle it out, like two gods decimating the environment with their intense combat.

But Smasher, the full cyborg, is clearly a veteran next to David’s scrappiness. He overpowers David within a few minutes, even with Falco and Lucy trying their best to help him.

In the confusion, before Smasher blows David’s brains out, Lucy and Falco are able to escape. We are also treated to a stirring montage of David’s short and (mostly) happy criminal life, punctuated by bright spots that is Lucy’s love.

All that had stemmed out of an unhappy, ordinary life eking out an existence in the sprawl of Night City. In the epilogue, Lucy finally buys a ticket to the moon and takes a lunar tour that she and David always dreamed of.

She remembers him fondly amid the lunar marias and she is, in her own way, happy.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 1 episode 10 recap: Review

The last three episodes have tried to cram so many arc resolutions in their running time that it’s almost tradition by now. This season ender is no different.

A lot feels rushed. Plenty of things are given the kind of speed writing surface treatment that would be frustrating if this were a series with more episodes and longer running times.

There’s even a literal deus ex machina in the form of Adam Smasher, just so we can’t argue with how David meets his demise in the form of an immoveable object. And yet, I can’t say this finale isn’t satisfying.

For one thing they pulled out all the emo stops for the end of Lucy and David’s young, volatile romance. “Wish we could go to the moon, together” isn’t the best of one liners in the annals of the genre’s history.

It may not be on the caliber of the Batty-an capstone, “Time to die”, after a heart-wrenching Shakespearian declamation on the half-organic condition. But David’s awkward and last words to his beloved truly did wrench some tears from my stoic heart in their utter sincerity.

If you’ve followed the series to this, it’s bitter and inevitable end, then you must also know that the producers aren’t really set on making a second season. So, if this is really all there is and all that’s left for me to do is play the original game, then you’ll know where to find me this holiday season.

David’s coming of age and criminal life in the fictional, projected future of Night City may be set in a gaming dystopia, but it’s felt more real and more visceral than many of the created worlds that populate mainstream entertainment today. Whether it’s in anime or non-animated series’, the world building and voice performances (by both the Japanese and English cast) here are top notch.

Though I still have some issues versus the herky jerky pace, the spotty character development (especially with Becca’s undeservedly gruesome end), and the overall cohesiveness of the storytelling. I cannot fault how the chemistry between characters and David’s hero’s journey made me feel deeply about this genre again.

They say there’s a drink named the David Martinez you can order at the Afterlife Bar in the Cyberpunk 2077 game. When I do finally play it, I’ll definitely send up a toast to the young edgerunner who dreamt big and burnt like nova.

How about you, choom?

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 1 can be streamed in full on Netflix.