You can't run forever...
Maine begins developing signs of cyberpsychosis as he starts having trouble controlling his implants, randomly blacks out, has hallucinations, and has significant mood swings. This culminates in him losing his self control and assaulting Kiwi as she is trying to hack into Tanaka's cyberware, seriously injuring her. Lucy agrees to take Kiwi's place, but only under the condition that Maine be kept away and David accompany her.As Lucy dives into Tanaka's mind, Tanaka regains consciousness and begs David to let him go, telling him that he was responsible for rescinding his expulsion from the Academy and he still has a future there, and that the edgerunners will kill him after they extract his information in order to tie up loose ends.
This causes David to hesitate long enough that Tanaka's neural implant shorts out, risking killing Lucy too. Dorio disconnects Lucy safely, but their jammer was disabled, allowing Trauma Team has received Tanaka's vitals and are en route with the NCPD. Maine sends David and Lucy to their escape vehicle first while he and Dorio take Tanaka to distract the authorities.
However, during the battle, Maine begins to succumb to his cyberpsychosis, resulting in Dorio's death when she attempts to protect him. With his companion gone, Maine gives in to rage and slaughters as many Trauma and Police associates as possible, all while dismembering what is left of Tanaka's body. The Trauma Team are forced to flee and call in MaxTac to handle Maine.
David tries to rescue Maine, but with MaxTac on the way, he can only watch helplessly as a regretful Maine blows himself up along with Dorio's corpse. All David can do is flee with Maine's arms.
Tropes in this episode:
- All for Nothing: The attempt to get Tanaka so they can get information on the cyber-skeleton project fails completely due to Lucy deleting the information to protect David.
- Awful Truth: Tanaka planned to use David for his cyber-skeleton project. Because of the danger this puts David in, Lucy deletes all of the information.
- Ax-Crazy: Maine gradually becomes like this as his cyborged-up body drives him mad. Not even his own teammates are safe. When his companion Dorio dies, he butchers the NCPD and Trauma Team. He's just lucid enough to recognize David.
- Boom, Headshot!: Dorio is shot in the head while injecting Maine with an Immuno-Blocker
- Combat Medic: As shown at the start of the series, and the game, Trauma Team is a bunch of armed paramedics who's sole task is to retrieve insured clients like Tanaka so he can be revived. When he is killed however, they end up leaving the areanote .
- Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Maine succumbs to cyberpsychosis here, developing hallucinations and uncontrollable rage that causes him to lash out at his teammates.
- Dark Secret: Lucy’s deep-dive neural port serves as this, as it reveals her Dark and Troubled Past being related to Arasaka. This catches David off-guard, as she was utilizing standard forms of connecting her body to cyberspace up to this point.
- Driven to Suicide: Maine decides to go out in the blaze of glory due to Dorio's death, refusing David's help in trying to escape.
- Friend-or-Idol Decision: While not knowing the man personally and having no love of Arasaka Academy, David shows significant hesitation to let Tanaka die at the hands of his friends. In the end, he chooses his friends.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: In the begging of his full descent into Cyberpsychosis, Maine does this to three NCPD officers with Tanaka's body.
- Irony: Katsuo Tanaka mocked David's loss. Now his own parent is probably coming home in something small, because that's all anyone will be able to find. And at the (accidental) hands of David's crew, which David joined partially because Katsuo was a jerk.
- I've Come Too Far:
- The Edgerunners already know how much of a risk it is to keep an Arasaka executive in custody. Regardless, they all have their own reasons for completing the task given to them despite David suggesting to call it all off.
- Maine's cybernetics have begun to catch up to him and is now suffering cyberpsychosis making his gang's job that much more difficult. When Dorio tells him that they'll have him switching to lighter tech when their job is done, he refuses.
- Mentor Occupational Hazard: Maine dies taking a MaxTac team with him, leaving David orphaned for a second time.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Maine has this reaction to hurting Dorio in the midst of his cyberpsychosis. By the time he comes to, Dorio is fatally shot and Maine blames himself.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Lucy is given the task of hacking Tanaka after Maine attacks Kiwi in the midst of his cyberpsychosis.
- Nightmare Face: One of the Trauma Team members has the misfortune of seeing an unhinged Maine before supposedly getting his neck snapped.Maine: Hey... This mess my fault?
- No One Gets Left Behind: David adopts this attitude when Dorio and Maine are left behind to face Trauma Team as well as the NCPD. Lucy tries to get him to drop it but it doesn't take. In the end, he's unable to save either of them when MaxTac is ordered as backup.
- Over-the-Shoulder Carry: After cutting Lucy's connection to Tanaka's mind, as she is still asleep, David throws her over his shoulder and runs with her to their escape vehical.
- Redemption Rejection: Redemption is a strong word, but David refuses to help Tanaka escape even when he knows it will result in the man's death.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
- Lucy unsuccessfully tries to convince David not to go back for Dorio and Maine.
- Maine kills Tanaka in a way that resuscitation is impossible, so Trauma Team gets the hell out of there for MaxTac to handle it.
- Self-Deprecation: In the English dub, Maine complains that the NCPD officers keep appearing out of nowhere, which is likely a jab at the pre-2.0 "wanted system" of Cyberpunk 2077.Maine: Fuck! It's like these pigs keep appearin' out of thin air for us! No end to 'em!
- Suicide by Cop: A variant. Maine ends up blowing himself up to take down as many NCPD and MaxTac associates as possible.
- Thousand-Yard Stare: The final seconds of the episode has David in this (Mixed with Broken Tears) after failing to save Maine and Dorio.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Maine, usually an abrasive but fair leader, verbally and physically lashes out against his crew. Either due to hallucinations or acting defensive towards the notion of him losing his mind and needing to remove his implants.
- Wham Episode: Two more of the Edgerunner gang are killed. So is Tanaka, severing David's ties with his old life.
