Title from: Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Kovacs reconnects with Quell while trying to get them both off-planet during Harlan's Day.
Tropes in this episode:
- Answer Cut: When Trepp asks Kovacs who of the founders hasn't been killed yet, we cut to another one of them lying dead on the floor with Quell walking away from the scene in bloody footprints.
- Arc Symbol: The symbol that the Meth Killer scratched on the wall in the memory a few episodes back. Kovacs can't find any information on it. Hideki claims not to recognize it, but he later puts it in an envelope to be given to Conrad, and when Dugan sees it he panics and decides to get off the planet immediately.
- Arc Words: The tech being tortured (and who witnessed others being tortured) tells Carrera that "I heard their screams."
- Badass Boast: When Hideki taunts Carrera over how Kovacs is a Living Legend whereas he's never heard of Carrera, the colonel casually mutilates his Songspire bonsai and answers thus:"I'm the man who burned Innenin. The man who hunted down Munharto. The man who destroyed Stronghold and brought down Falconer. You see you don't need to know my name once you know what I've done. What I'm capable of. Kovacs may have played the loyal soldier and taken a fall on your behalf, but make no mistake, old man. I can destroy you so utterly, nothing will be left. No name, no family, no life."
- Bait-and-Switch: What seems to be a flashback of Kovacs and Jaegar just before the Gottfrid Saito mission is actually Carrera talking to Evergreen-Kovacs in virtual before he arrives on Harlan's World in the present day.
- Bastardly Speech: Danica calms a young girl who's refusing her father's insistence that she needlecast to another planet where it's safe, telling her that she needs to put aside her fear and grow beyond her father.
- Big Damn Heroes: Kovacs finds Hideki dying of the Meth-killing weapon and links with his damaged stack to find out what happened. Tepp arrives just in time to disconnect Kovacs before his stack is also corrupted.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: The Quellist who helped Kovacs and Quell escape the Circle gets a "tooth extraction" procedure from Carrera.
- The Conspiracy: The founders of Harlan's World did something near the beginning, worse than normal Meth crimes. Turns out the Meth Killer is actually going after the conspirators, and has no interest in Meths in the general sense.
- Cruel to Be Kind: Kovacs 'fires' Poe to force him to reboot himself.
- Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Dugan threatens to have someone resleeved inside a dog if she doesn't cooperate. Given that we've seen at least one Meth do this kind of thing for kicks, it's probably not an idle threat.
- Demonic Possession: Quell describes her time before waking up as like being locked in a prison made out of the roots of a powerful tree. Later in the episode, she dreams of Elder-tree roots slowly reaching towards her, and when she wakes up she is controlled again.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Dig 301 after all the archaeology on Harlan's World was stopped and the archaeologists killed or driven offworld. Fortunately, her skills in archiving and reconstruction are exactly what is required to preserve Poe's memories.
- Evil Knockoff: Colonel Carrera's secret weapon "Evergreen" turns out to be a clone of the original Kovacs in both body and mind, presumably from before he turned on the Protectorate.
- Face Death with Dignity: When faced with the Meth Killer, Hideki recites his death poem, and then simply asks if it will hurt. When she tells him it doesn't have to, he says he deserves it.
- Failed a Spot Check: Dugan races for the needlecast elevator and in the confusion fails to see that the Meth Killer has slipped in behind him.
- Fanservice: The passionate sex scene with Kovacs and Quell.
- Foil: Right after Carrera threatens Hideki's family to get his cooperation, Kovacs makes a deal with Tepp to help track down her missing family member in exchange for not trying to cash in on his bounty.
- Grand Theft Me:
- Danica's lover illegally steals the sleeve of a Mr. Fanservice he'd seen her checking out earlier and uses it to have sex with her.
- Carrera has had Kovacs double-sleeved which we know from the previous season is also illegal, with the law requiring one of them to be terminated.
- He Knows Too Much: Danica uses her authority to take control of the techs Carrera was interrogating, then has them strapped to her firework rockets so they'll be blown up. Whatever they know, she does not want it shared with Carrera.
- His Name Is...: The tech that Carrera is torturing is about to tell him something crucial when she's dragged away on the governor's orders. The next time Carrera sees her, she's Bound and Gagged to a rocket so she can't speak before she's launched to her death.
- Honor Before Reason: Even though Carrera threatens to destroy everything he has if he doesn't betray Tak, Hideki keeps his word and even arranges passage off Harlan's World despite him saying it's near impossible to do so.
- I Am a Monster: Quell thinks this after viewing the government propaganda on her past. Kovacs tries to convince her that You Are Better Than You Think You Are, just like Quell once did to him.
- In Love with the Mark: Turns out Tepp's girlfriend was a bounty she was sent to collect. She in turn was a former archaeologist who chose to stay in a poorly-paid job she hates to be with Tepp, rather than flee off-world.
- Instantly Proven Wrong:
- Poe is denying to Tepp that Kovacs is in the hotel when Kovacs walks out of the elevator.
- After landing on Harlan's World, Evergreen-Kovacs says that everything appears to be under control. Then the top of the needlecast spire explodes. Kovacs is not perturbed in the slightest.
- Like a Son to Me: Jaeger treated Kovacs like a son, raising him to be loyal to the Protectorate (he even greets the Everygreen-Kovacs as "son"). As a result, he regarded his defection as a personal betrayal.
- Lost in a Crowd: The most wanted man on the planet steals a Conrad Harlan mask so he can hide his face among a population celebrating Harlan's Day.
- Moral Myopia: Carrera/Jaeger hates Kovacs for his crimes against the Protectorate. He doesn't give a whit about the Protectorate's crimes, starting with the part where he personally sold Rae into slavery and lied to Kovacs about it.
- Mundane Utility: A ring of Elder orbitals shoot down anything that flies too high with "angelfire;" the only reason that the world was settled was because Conrad Harlan was able to pilot through a small hole in the defense grid. Now the locals use it to set off fireworks by intentionally launching them high enough to get shot.
- Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: Kovacs dumps Poe as his personal AI because of his glitching, specifically the failure to inform him of the tracker in his sleeve, then allowing Tepp to track Poe to the hotel where he's hiding Quell.
- Scar Survey: During their love scene, Quell touches the scar she inflicted on Kovacs.
- Shame If Something Happened: To get authority to transfer two people offworld despite the governor's Lock Down, Hideki turns up uninvited at her reception and threatens to tell an anecdote about her father that will not go down well with the assembled VIPs. Danica approves the transfer just to get rid of him.
- Single Tear: Poe sheds one after saying goodbye to Lizzy.
- Strapped to a Rocket: Danica orders the prison techs to be strapped to the firework rockets, to ensure their silence.
- Tentacled Terror: Quell has a Nightmare Sequence with tentacles reaching for her in bed.
- The Tape Knew You Would Say That: Played with; as the conversation between Poe and Lizzy continues it's obvious his answers don't quite match her side of the conversation, though it fools Dig for a moment.
- Understatement: Jaegar tells Everygreen-Kovacs that it's been "a while" since he was last sleeved. Like over 270 years.
- Wham Shot: Kovacs's birth-sleeve appearing in the last scene.
- With This Herring: When Tak thinks that Hideki might have betrayed him, he's shown reaching for the tiny bonsai clippers. Neither of them seem to have any doubt that they'll be enough.
