Alright, time for Episode 4. Will this episode continue to maintain the momentum or will this episode crash and burn?

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhFM8akm9a4[/embedyt]

Warning: Spoilers Ahead! Turn back now if you haven’t seen the episode!

We start the episode with Takeshi Kovacs (Joel Kinnaman), on a table with some wires and electrons attached to his head. Beside him is one of the guys who kidnapped him at the end of the last episode with the help of the stripper. He is also on a table with the same electrons on his head, it seems that he wants to dive into the mind of Kovacs and interrogate him. Meanwhile, Vernon Elliot (Ato Essandoh), is looking over the cam footage and is not finding anything. Poe (Chris Conner), is also in the room putting up Halloween decorations in Vernon’s room. Vernon asks Poe where Kovacs is and he doesn’t know, prompting Vernon to grow concerned. Meanwhile, Kovacs is being interrogated and the guy wants to know who Kovacs is working for. Before he can answer, we get a flashback to more Envoy training. This time the leader is talking about the virtual interrogation and how they can protect themselves and not crack. We then cut back to present time where the interrogator tells him that he lost his tracker and there is no signal around him so no one can find him. Meanwhile, Kristin Ortega (Martha Higareda), is looking at the footage from last nights party trying to look for someone that they can’t see. The tech guy tells her that this person is using new tech that causes cameras to not pick them up at all, the person becomes a ghostwalker. Ortega tells them to try and get an ID at all costs when she get’s a call from her mother. Her mother tells her that she is almost done the cooking for their family and that the father wants the wrong kind of cheese. A criminal brought in won’t stop shouting while Ortega is on the phone and she tases him. The cops drop him and leave him on the group and tell Ortega she can handle him because they are off duty. Meanwhile, Kovacs is still being Interrogated and tells the man that he is looking for Lizzie because he is her father. The man starts to glitch out in the virtual world, he decides to wear the face of his brother that Kovacs killed and Kovacs has another flashback. We see that the Envoy is learning how to fight the VR Interrogation. Meanwhile, we see that Ortega goes to but some cheese when she brings along the criminal from earlier who has been reprogrammed to be someone else. Meanwhile, Kovacs is still be tortured, killed and then revived to be tortured more. Meanwhile, Ortega makes it home with the cheese and we find out that the criminal has been reprogrammed to be her grandma. the mother voices her displeasure with this but Ortega tells her that it was the only sleeve available and everything will be fine. Meanwhile, Kovacs is still being tortured and has another flashback to his Envoy training. The guys controlling the program start to see that Kovacs’s body is shaking and are wondering how he is still holding up. Meanwhile, Ortega’s partner Samir Abboud (Waleed Zuaiter), brings over a pie and Ortega asks him if he has gotten any info from the program yet. Samir says no and he joins Ortega for her family dinner. Ortega and her mother go back and forth about how God is watching them and how they don’t believe in how people are using sleeves because it goes against their values. Meanwhile, Kovacs is being torched with a flamethrower and his legs get burned off, while this is happening we get another flashback. This time, we learn that no matter what happens, Kovacs is an Envoy and he will prevail over the torture and find a way out.

We then cut to Ortega and her family finishing dinner and her mother are taking the dishes. The mother is still upset about what Ortega said during dinner and Samir has to talk her down. Meanwhile, The torturer is taken out of the VR room and gives the owner crap about his program. He tells the owner that he needs something strong because everyone has a breaking point. He goes back into the VR room and brings along a container of slug creatures with him to help get Kovacs to break. Meanwhile, Ortega and her Grandma go back to the police station as they talk about her grandpa. Grandma then asks if they keep any drugs in the station because she wants to try some. Meanwhile, Kovacs has another flashback to the training and he finally starts to learn how to crack the VR Torture. The main lesson is to focus on the one thing you love with all your heart and you can prevail. Kovacs is able to escape the VR by stopping his own heart so they have to take him out of the VR room. Kovacs then tells them that they messed with the wrong guy because he is an officer and that people will come looking for him and they will kill them if he isn’t set loose. The scientists there start to panic and let him loose and Kovacs unleashes hell on all of them. He uses the guns in his bag to kill everyone in the building and takes the Torturer’s head with him. Vernon is outside with a guy who helped with the kidnapping and they find the building, right before Kovacs comes out and kills the guy with Vernon. Meanwhile, Ortega is with her Grandma smoking pot and she asks Ortega to not bring her back again by taking the stack out of the sleeve she is in. Ortega agrees and goes to do the procedure but gets a call asking her to visit a crime scene. The crime scene is the same place that Kovacs just escaped from and Ortega finds the tracker she put on Kovacs on a dead body. Ortega bursts into the hotel looking for Kovacs, Poe and Vernon try to tell her they don’t know anything and she tells them she will be back for them. Kovacs is in the shower and hears Ortega banging on the door. Ortega starts to yell at Kovacs with him asking about someone named Ryker that the Torturer kept calling him and Ortega won’t talk. Kovacs grabs her knife and starts to cut himself all over his body until she talks, he starts to cut his throat when Ortega finally says she will talk.

I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t really like this episode that much. It felt like a bit of a slough to get through. Kovacs being tortured for so long started to get boring after a while and the subplot with Ortega wasn’t very interesting either. The last few minutes though are the only good part of the episode because there is finally some action. I’m all for explanation and plot-driven episodes but this just felt like bad filler.

I feel like I didn’t learn very much this episode and the only thing I can take away is that Kovacs had the sleeve of someone else and maybe Ortega knows a thing or two. This was the first episode of the series that I felt like skipping halfway through because it just let stale.

We did get to learn more about the Envoys and the training they went through so they can become the best but it was handled in a forced way that just didn’t seem interesting. I will say that the acting for the episode was great and everyone gave a great performance. Even Ortega’s family was enjoyable to watch but too bad it felt like it didn’t make an impact on the overall story.

The Verdict:

Episode 4 was the first misstep of this season, it tried to focus more on Kovacs’s past training and Ortega’s family but just couldn’t keep me interested or engaged. I will say that the last 15 minutes of the episode were the saving grace for the episode and the acting was also great. However, I still can’t look past the flaws and I hope the next episode will be better.

6/10

Next up, Episode 5.