Title from: Bury Me Dead (1947)
Kovacs Prime bluffs Quell in order to get the weapon, while Trepp tries to save Kovacs.
Tropes in this episode:
- And I Must Scream: Rei's plan was for Kovacs to die in the shuttle with her, so he could be resleeved in a clone body. She uses this to resleeve Quell and keep her on ice, spinning her up now and again for torture and Evil Gloating.
- Armor-Piercing Response: Kovacs Prime initially has no empathy for Kovacs killing Rae. Kovacs is able to get him to listen with one comeback.Kovacs Prime: What kind of person kills his own sister?
Kovacs: The same person who killed his father. - Badass Boast: After Trepp drags Kovacs up the cliff, he immediately decides to go after the Wedge team.Trepp: How!? You're not exactly in fighting shape, and we have no weapons!
Kovacs: We are the weapons!
Trepp: [muttering] What the hell does that even mean? - Blood from the Mouth: Kemp, after being riddled with bullets by Protectorate soldiers.
- Bluff the Impostor: Quell quickly realized that Kovacs Prime wasn't her Kovacs, determined that he would be looking for the weapon, and offered to bring him to a cache where she had hidden it. She actually brought him to the tomb where Rae had tortured her for centuries, and used the holo-recordings to begin to sow doubt in his mind all over again.
- Camera Spoofing: Carrera at Mission Control can see and hear everything the Wedge soldiers are seeing and hearing. Trepps uses her implants to spoof the signal so she and Kovacs can attack them one-at-a-time. Ironically it's Danita who notices something is wrong as the images aren't moving like you'd expect from a transmitted signal from someone's eyes.
- The Cavalry: The rebels around Kemp save Kovacs and Trepp from being executed by the Wedge. Kovacs promptly lampshades the Dynamic Entry.
- Creepy Souvenir: Kemp has still-glowing stacks strung around his neck. Perhaps they're meant to be Battle Trophies, but Trepp notices that one of them belonged to her brother, who was one of Trepp's followers.
- Death Seeker: Rei is wearing a glaring red dress in the holo records Quell plays for Kovacs Prime. When she tells Quell that she's going to spin up her brother, she's wearing black and Quell notes that she looked like she was going to a funeral. Kovacs tells his other self that there were plenty of moves their sister could have made to survive, but she did nothing to avoid him shooting her stack.
- Easy Amnesia: Once Quell stands on the shore of the lake near Stronghold, she immediately gets her memories back.Kovacs: It worked.
- Eyes Never Lie: Kovacs Prime tries to fool Quell into thinking he's the real Kovacs and the other was an imposter, but Quell could tell from his eyes that he wasn't 'her Kovacs'.
- Godiva Hair: Quell's long hair is covering the sensitive parts of her naked body when lying in her cryo pod.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: The CTAC soldiers firing their automatic weapons at the heroes in the forest and not getting a single hit.
- Laser-Guided Karma: When Carrera points out that Danita has no justification to arrest him to hide her secret, she points out that 'his man' is obviously a double-sleeved Kovacs, which is a capital offense.
- Laser Sight: Kovacs gets an Oh, Crap! moment in the forest when numerous CTAC lasers are pointed at his chest.
- Lie Detector: The Ascertainment is an Envoy ritual to prove who you really are, regardless of what sleeve you're wearing. It appears to involve being asked questions while simultaneously fending off attack.Kovacs Prime: Haven't they heard of a lie detector?Kovacs: That wouldn't work on an Envoy. Quell taught perfect control of mind and body. They're testing both.
- Literal Cliffhanger + Don't Look Down: Trepp finds Kovacs unconscious, hanging from the side of the cliff by his left hand. Those subconscious survival instincts were built into his sleeve.Trepp: Don't move, don't look down, don't open your left hand.
- Makes Us Even: A Wedge soldier is about to shoot Trepps when Kovacs impales his head with a thrown knife. Kovacs then says it makes them even for Trepps pulling him to safety on the cliff.
- Meaningful Name: "Quellcrist" is not Quell's real name. She took the name from a type of seaweed on Harlan's World, which dries up and turns to dust, but immediately grows back a hundredfold when exposed to water.
- Neck Snap: Kovacs kills a Wedge soldier in the forest using this method.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Inevitably, Kovacs and his earlier self debate the subject. Kovacs concludes that they're Not So Similar because he always faces the truth, and Kovacs Prime is still lying to himself that the Protectorate protects anything but itself. Quell however is willing to trust Kovacs Prime enough to release him, as he's the same man she originally recruited.
- One-Man Army: Kovacs Prime is wearing a Super-Soldier combat sleeve, backed up by decades of training and ruthlessness. Quell, in an ordinary utility sleeve, beats him and makes it look easy. During the "Ascernment," she catches two knives without looking and then throws them to knock guns out of the hands of the guards.
- Orbital Bombardment: When the heroes are about to be overrun, Quell somehow manipulates the Elder satellites to call down angelfire on the enemy forces. Especially shocking because the satellites never fire on the ground.
- Pull the Thread: Kovacs transmitter was broken so he's not sure if the signal got through to Kemp. Kemp then turns up Just in Time to save them, so it looks like the signal did get through. But Trepps later powers up the transmitter and found out the coordinates never got through to Kemp, so how did he know where to find them? Turns out Danita tipped him off.
- Reduced to Dust: What happens to anyone hit by angelfire.
- Removing the Earpiece: Kovacs Prime cuts off the comm line to Carrera in order to talk to Kovacs about Rei in private.
- Resistance as Planned: The Quellist insurrection was orchestrated by Danita from the start. She found Joshua Kemp—someone from a family that was helped by Quell centuries ago—and recruited him as the face of the movement. The "peons" think it's real, but the war is all just bloody playacting.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Kemp gets shot by Danita's forces when he tries to reveal his status as her agent.
- Right Behind You: Danica overhears Carrera calling her a bitch while entering his command center. Leads to an Ironic Echo when she later announces that "This bitch is not going anywhere."
- Saved by the Platform Below: In the previous episode, Kovacs Prime threw Kovacs off the cliff, clearly thinking it will kill him. In this episode, it's revealed that Kovacs' fall was interrupted by him clinging to a protrusion on the cliff's surface.
- Sigil Spam: Trepp's family stamps their stacks with their family crest. Which is why she is able to immediately recognize her brother's stack on Kemp's necklace, despite him claiming to recognise neither the name or the face.
- Walk-In Chime-In: The Wedge have Kovacs and Trepps prisoner and ask Carrera for permission to kill them. The Kempists promptly shoot them full of holes.Joshua Kemp: Permission granted.
