Title from: Nightmare Alley (1947)
Kovacs is captured and sentenced to be executed in the Circle. Poe desperately tries to save him.
Tropes in this episode:
- Adventurer's Club: The virtual meeting room of the AI Archaeologue Club has avatars in the form of 1930's Adventure Archaeologists. They take their names from the archaeological excavations of Elder sites.
- Almost Kiss: Between Kovacs and Quell in the Circle. They get interrupted by C-TAC soldiers storming in.
- Ask a Stupid Question...Harlan: Have you heard of the Circle?Kovacs: No. But I'm guessing it's round.
- Boats into Buildings: The spaceship that carried the founders of Harlan's World has been integrated into a cliff face as both a power station and prison/execution area.
- Bread and Circuses: The only reason why a televised execution would be in the form of Gladiator Games. Even Carrera is disgusted by the bets being placed, so puts all the money Governor Harlan staked him on Kovacs as a Take That!. Ironically he wins, and makes a point of telling Harlan he'll be back for his money later.
- Call-Back: Kovacs' conversation with the mental projection of Reileen starts the same way in the first episode of the series when he is in Bay City looking at the water. Only difference is this version of Reileen has the hole in her neck from where he shot her.
- The Cameo: Through the synths in the Circle, Ortega, Vernon and Rei get to make brief appearances.
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: The Circle, a public execution on Harlan's World, is not only popular watching, it is mandatory. One character makes mention that he would rather rip out his eye than watch "another one of these", and another points out that the Protectorate would just wire it directly to his brain, removing the need for eyes.
- Cut the Juice: Poe and Dig 301 attempt to shut down the power at the Circle, but only cause a momentary drop in power while the technician switches to the city grid. Ironically the technician turns out to be a secret Quellist sympathizer—on realising that Quellcrist Falconer has entered the ring, she shuts down the power herself.
- Dirty Coward: Kovacs considers the picador, the aide to a matador who stabs the bull to weaken it so the matador can "win against the beast," to be the ultimate coward. Carrera doesn't disagree and then calls his actions of drugging Kovacs to be the "picador."
- Don't Create a Martyr: Colonel Carrera warns the governor that killing Kovacs publicly will embolden the Quellists — and that's assuming it works at all. It doesn't, and things get much worse.
- The Dreaded:
- When Carrera figures out who Kovacs is, he freaks. He stops posturing and flatly tells the governor they need to kill him, now, no tricks. He spends the entire fight on the edge of his seat, just waiting for Kovacs to turn the tables.
- When Poe sees the Rei-synth coming in to the execution, he knows Kovacs well enough that killing Rei again, even if she is a false copy, would be pretty much insurmountable for Kovacs.
- Failed a Spot Check: After Quell breaks Kovacs out, the guards report that they've killed Quell. Carrera shows up and points out what all of them missed: what they've killed is a blue-blooded synth, while the Quell that broke Kovacs out is a red-blooded sleeve.
- Famed In-Story: Turns out The Last Envoy has become part of Quellist propaganda. Danica Harlan's motive in making a public display of Kovacs' execution is to show everyone that she has succeeded where her father failed, by killing the one that got away.
- Fantastic Racism: The other AI's derisively mock Poe as a bellhop, apparently just because he's a hotel AI and not an archaeology AI. Even Dig 301 thinks little of humans and can't understand why Poe would put himself out for one.
- Foreshadowing:
- Carrera's words about cutting Kovacs' nose off and his holding of Kovacs' neck hint at his true identity as Jaeger before he outright says it.
- After being given a blank slate to find and eliminate Kovacs and Quell, Carrera orders one of his soldiers to activate "Evergreen". The soldier looks surprised that he has authorization for this.
- Headbutt of Love: Between Kovacs and Rei in the Circle.
- Identity Amnesia: The end reveals that Quellcrist doesn't even remember her own name.
- Impairment Shot: After Kovacs gets sedated by the Carrera, the camera movement goes all wonky and the images turn blurry during his walk to the Circle.
- Kick the Dog: Danica Harlan is portrayed less sympathetically in this episode, with her treating Kovacs' execution as entertainment, gloating over his fate and placing bets on the outcome.
- Kill the Ones You Love: In essence, the horror of the Circle. By creating four synth-bodies for the soldiers to use to fight the drugged victim, they force the person to fight those they most care about and kill them in order to survive. No one has ever killed all the executioners before. For Kovacs, these would be Ortega, Elliot, Reileen, and Quellcrist.
- Living on Borrowed Time: Colonel Carrera is in fact Jaeger, the man who recruited Kovacs in the first place, but there's something wrong with his stack; he would have fragged out by now if he had spent the entire intervening time awake. He says he's only spun up for war, but he still doesn't have much longer to live.
- Machine Blood: Synth blood is blue. It becomes plot-relevant when the supposed Quell-synth surprisingly bleeds red blood.
- Mind Probe: Kovacs gets hooked up to a memory extraction device.
- The Mole: The Circle's control technician is a Quellist, and cuts the power once Quellcrist shows up.
- Moment Killer: Poe is smooching with her girlfriend when Poe hacks in on her to ask for help rescuing Kovacs. She turns off her implants so they won't be interrupted again, only for someone to call on her ONI.
- Neck Snap: Kovacs kills the Ortega-synth this way.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Carrera when he recovers the memories of the people his prisoner loves the most and sees first Reileen Kawahara, then Quellcrist Falconer. Only a handful of people still alive would have a personal memory of Quellcrist and only one person would love both her and Kovacs' sister. He realizes that the prisoner is Kovacs and freaks out.
- When the Rei-synth cuts Quellcrist and she bleeds organic red instead of synthetic blue. Meaning that's not another synth sent in to kill Kovacs, it's someone helping him.
- Only Friend: Poe admits he wants to save Kovacs because he's his only friend, who despite their being Vitriolic Best Buds has never abandoned him.
- Pet the Dog:
- Despite being dismissed as a psychopath by Kovacs, Tepp is shown to have a girlfriend and a missing brother she's willing to go to a lot of trouble to find.
- Dig 301 stops her fellow AI's from bullying Poe, and stays to help him after finding out his program is damaged.
- Price on Their Head: Tepp throws away the bounties Kovacs gave her on a useless lead to her missing brother. Her girlfriend then has to use up their combined savings to bail her out. However there's still the huge bounty on the recently escaped Kovacs...
- Psychic Block Defense: Envoy training makes Kovacs extremely resistant to memory extraction. During the first attempt, the only image recovered is that of a naked Carrera riding a pink unicorn. The equipment has to be turned way up in power for actual memories to be extracted. The techs' reactions imply that such a high setting would have killed anyone else.
- Public Execution: Not only are executions in the Circle standard procedure on Harlan's World and broadcast publicly on every oni on the planet, but it's considered seditious not to watch them.
- Sarcasm-Blind: It takes Poe a moment to realise that Tepp is being sarcastic and she's not going to help rescue Kovacs by shutting down the entire grid. Ironically he actually takes her suggestion.
- Shapeshifter Guilt Trip: The reason behind forcing those condemmed to the Circle to fight synth versions of people in their personal lives whom they have wronged in some way, as it makes it that much harder. Although Kovacs figures it out in the first round, even he can't bring himself to kill Reileen-synth.
- Spotting the Thread: Both Ortega-synth and Elliot-synth have flaws which lead to Kovacs recognizing they are fakes.
- Ortega-synth talks about her nephews being dead, but Kovacs knows he paid for them to be resleeved, and even gave the real Ortega all of Bankcroft's payment to her.
- Kovacs claims Elliot-synth doesn't punch as hard as the real one, although by this point Kovacs has caught on to the game and is probably just mocking the synth.
- Taking the Heat: Kovacs doesn't bother to defend himself against the assumption that he's the Meth killer, to protect Quell who's the real culprit.
- Tempting Fate: The Governor thinks she can control the situation and do something no one has been able to do. She is 100% confident in her plan.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: As well as the appearance, the synth gladiators also have Kovacs' memories of the people they're imitating, so use this to give him a Shapeshifter Guilt Trip.
- That Wasn't a Request: Carrera orders the Mind Probe personnel to up the dose on Kovacs. When they remind him of the danger, the Colonel shouts this line.
- Underestimating Badassery: Played with. The Governor and her staff completely underestimate what Kovacs is capable of. Carrera initially underestimates the prisoner but completely reverses after he finds out who the prisoner really is. So while everyone else is betting on Kovacs dying in round one or two, Carrera bets that Kovacs will defeat all four executioners. Turns out that the Colonel still underestimated what really happened.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Carrera fails to convince Harlan of the necessity for this, though he tries to stack the deck against Kovacs' by drugging him and offering a sleeve upgrade to the combatants if they kill him as quickly as possible.
- You Have No Idea Who You're Dealing With: Kovacs says this line to Colonel Carrera as he prepares to subject him to the Circle. Carrera spits back "Neither do you." Ironically this is actually true, since Carrera doesn't know who his prisoner is, while Kovacs doesn't recognise his old enemy wearing a new sleeve.
