History Recap / AlteredCarbonS01E04ForceOfEvil

* DirtyCoward: Dimi 2 spends a majority of the episode repeatedly torturing Kovacs to death in virtual reality, confident that his victim is powerless to do anything. The moment Kovacs gets free in the real world and begins slaughtering the clinic staff, Dimi immediately tries to make a run for it rather than stand and fight. [[OffWithHisHead It doesn't help him much.]]

* TalkingYourWayOut: Envoy training notes that this is the only option of escaping from VR interrogation -- resist breaking, find the weaknesses of your captors, then will yourself out of the VR construct and BreakThemByTalking. In the fourth episode, Kovacs executes it perfectly, first sowing seeds he's not who his captors think he is (while being dismembered over and over again), then stopping his heart to come back into reality to talk to the TortureTechnician pair who oversaw his interrogation and convince them that he's a CTAC officer and give them a full-blown ToThePain of how much they screwed up by abducting and torturing him, only to seemingly offer a way out to [[DividedWeFall the one]] who sets him free. Cue RoaringRampageOfRevenge.

* StopOrIShootMyself: Kovacs starts slicing up his sleeve in front of Ortega to give himself DeathByAThousandCuts to [[InterrogationByVandalism force her to tell him who Ryker is]]. He starts to cut his own throat before she agrees to tell him everything.

* OffhandBackhand: Kovacs kills a TortureTechnician with the Ingram while [[GunsAkimbo aiming his other pistol]] at someone on the opposite side of the room. Admittedly it was by accident, as they were killed by the flechette round being pulled back into his pistol.

** The torture techs keep [[TooDumbToLive Kovacs' weapons in the room where's he's being interrogated]]. Of course, he's StrappedToAnOperatingTable and his mind is locked up in a virtual torture chamber, so WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong

* DecapitationPresentation: Kovacs brings Dimi Two's head back to the Raven Hotel and leaves it in an ice bucket.

* InadvertantEntranceCue: A literal version--Vernon is demanding to know how to get into the Wei Clinic when Kovacs blasts open the door.

* InadvertantEntranceCue: Vernon is demanding to know how to get into the Wei Clinic when Kovacs blasts a hole in the door.

* RomancingTheWidow: It's strongly implied that Ortega's mother is involved with Ortega's partner, who was the friend of her deceased father.

* YouSaidYouWouldLetThemGo: The AntiHero version. Kovacs has been tortured for hours in VirtualRealityInterrogation, but he's eventually able to fool the {{Torture Technician}}s into waking him up in the real world. He then pretends to be an undercover officer for a [[TheDreaded CTAC special forces unit]], spells out a ToThePain description of what will happen to them for this stuff-up, but says the first man to release him will get to live. The technicians rush to do so, whereupon Kovacs proceeds to [[KilledOffForReal Real Death]] them and [[KickTheSonOfABitch everyone else in the building]]. As he's exiting the building, he encounters his sidekick Vernon, who's convinced the cyborg thug who originally captured Kovacs to take him to where Kovacs is being held. Kovacs {{Boom Headshot}}s the thug without breaking stride, whereupon Vernon says belatedly that he'd actually promised the thug his life.

* InternalReveal: Several:
** The unseen BigBad is revealed to be a woman, based on the comments of the head of the Wei Clinic, Mr. Phillips.
** Kovacs learns Ortegas has been tracking him with his ad blocker.
** Kovacs learns from Dimi Two and Ortega who the original occupant of his current sleeve was: Elias Ryker, an imprisoned cop and Ortega's lover.

* TalkingYourWayOut: Envoy training notes that this is the only option of escaping from VR interrogation - resist breaking, find the weaknesses of your captors, then will yourself out of the VR construct and BreakThemByTalking. In the fourth episode, Kovacs executes it perfectly, first sowing seeds he's not who his captors think he is (while being dismembered over and over again), then stopping his heart to come back into reality to talk to the TortureTechnician pair who oversaw his interrogation and convince them that he's a CTAC officer and give them a full-blown ToThePain of how much they screwed up by abducting and torturing him, only to seemingly offer a way out to [[DividedWeFall the one]] who sets him free. Cue RoaringRampageOfRevenge.