Alright, time for Episode 8. After the last episode was a great flashback, 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 Reileen Kawahara (Dichen Lachman), telling Takeshi Kovacs (Joel Kinnaman), is the one who was behind everything, getting Bancroft to buy Kovacs, Dimi coming after him, using the other sleeves to watch him and killing all of the Envoy. Rei says that she killed all of the Envoy because they were just soldiers using them and not family. Kovacs is upset by this and puts a sword to Rei’s throw and says he should kill her. Rei says that no matter what happens, she will always come back for her big brother, even if she is killed. Meanwhile, Kristin Ortega (Martha Higareda), heads back to the police station from the Fightdrome and gets stopped by some from the press. She asks her a bunch of questions about the Fightdrome and the mess with the police and Ortega notices Oumou Prescott (Tamara Taylor), lurking in the background. Ortega goes up to Prescott and asks her if she is the one who tipped the press. Prescott says yes and that she does it in return for other favours and Ortega wants her to talk. Prescott refuses and says that Ortega is paranoid and should just leave her alone if she doesn’t want to get hurt again. Ortega goes into the station and everyone stares at her, she asks them what they are looking at and goes to sit at her desk. She looks in front of her to find an empty desk because Samir is dead and starts to cry. Captain Tanaka (Hiro Kanagawa), asks her why she is here and Ortega says that she is looking for Kovacs. Ortega starts to get angry at Takana saying why isn’t there a search warrant out for Kovacs and that she broke his back. Tanaka responds by saying he got Bone Fusion and that took his deductible for the year. Tanaka then asks to speak with Ortega in his office. They go to his office and Tanaka tells Ortega she needs to leave because she is on paid leave while they sort out the Fightdrome situation. Ortega tells him that he needs to resign because he is crooked and Ortega will expose him. Takana tells her that she has no evidence so no one will believe her, Ortega starts to yell and ask him questions about Samir’s death, the Ghostwalker, where Kovacs is and who framed Ryker. Takana says that he can’t protect her anymore and fires her so she won’t take him down with her.

Meanwhile, Kovacs is still reeling from what Rei said earlier and she tells him that she wants him to close the Bancroft case quickly, even if it means having to frame someone. Kovacs tells her no and she brings in the Ghostwalker and tells Kovacs that she was the one who owns the torture clinics. She also says that if he doesn’t comply, she will put his friends in those clinics and won’t bring them out until they are insane. Kovacs agrees and says that he needs a Dipper. Meanwhile, Ortega goes to see Mickey to find out if he made any progress with the Ghostwalker program. He tells her that Tanaka forced him to stop and Ortega gets upset. She then asks Mickey to examine the blood on her hand so she can find out who took Kovacs (Rei of course but she doesn’t know that). Mickey agrees and Ortega tells him that he is the only one she can trust now that she knows the truth about the police. Meanwhile, Kovacs and Ghostwalker are in the elevator when Ghostwalker asks Kovacs about his beliefs. Kovacs tells him that he doesn’t believe in anything and the rich people he follows are false gods. Ghostwalker stops the elevator to set the record straight by saying that it doesn’t matter what religion they are because they live many years so that his employers are gods. Meanwhile, Mickey is able to finally get a location on Kovacs at a Sleeving Factory and tells Ortega to go find him. Meanwhile, Kovacs and Ghostwalker go to a Sleeving Factory to pick up their dipper and Ortega approaches the area looking for Kovacs. Ghostwalker tells Kovacs to get rid of Ortega or else he will kill the dipper. Kovacs approaches Ortega and tells her that what they had between them is meaningless, that Rei was the one he was looking for, she only cares about the sleeve and not the person in it and he will give her back the sleeve in time. Ortega doesn’t believe this and she runs off.

Meanwhile, back at the hotel, Vernon Elliot (Ato Essandoh), and Poe (Chris Conner), are watching Lizzie train with Knives. Vernon questions this method to Poe with him saying that it’s a great way to train herself so she can feel safe in VR and real life. Kovacs comes back to the hotel and brings the dipper along with him. We so find out that the dipper is Vernon’s wife, Ava. Vernon doesn’t understand at first because Ava is in a male sleeve, they soon reconnect with each other and Ava asks about Lizzie. Vernon takes her into the VR Room where she is training and they both watch Lizzie. Ava then steps out from the shadows and Lizzie recognizes her, even though she looks like a man. Vernon soon joins in and they have a family hug session. They soon leave the VR world to talk about Kovacs’s plan in the real world. Kovacs’s tells everyone that he needs their help to close the Bancroft case fast and that it will take breaking the law and murder. Kovacs’s shows Vernon and Ava the stacks of the Envoys and tells them that they were wiped out using the Rawling Virus. Kovacs wants Ava and Vernon to create the Rawling Virus to use on Bancroft and to give it to Poe when they are done. Meanwhile, Poe is at a poker game with his AI friends. Poe bets his last chips and says he has nothing left. However, his opponent says that he has Lizzie and that if he wins, Poe must give him Lizzie. Poe agrees and goes all in, he loses but he put the Rawling Virus on his chips which causes his opponent to die. Meanwhile, Vernon and Lizzie prepare the footage of Bancroft at the Fightdrome to edit it with some different footage. Meanwhile, Kovacs goes to Bancroft’s house and tells Miriam Bancroft (Kristin Lehman), that he won’t accept her offer from a couple of episodes ago. Kovacs’s invited everyone that was involved with the case to Bancroft’s house, including Rei in a different sleeve. Kovacs then executes his plan with Vernon and Ava helping him but creating documents and false info. All of this leads to Kovacs explaining how Prescott was the one who orchestrated the whole thing to get revenge on Bancroft. Prescott tries to deny this but all of the evidence is too convincing to Bancroft so he fires her and doesn’t press charges against her, but he is going to take everything away from her. Bancroft can now breath a sigh of relief knowing that the case is over and is going to make the arrangements for Kovacs to get his freedom and paid.

We then cut to Ortega getting a call from Mickey. He was able to get a trace of the blood of Rei, it’s from the same place that Kovacs got the dipper from and is not registered to an account. Mickey then tells Ortega that he is done with Ortega and any favours that she has because he doesn’t want to risk his job anymore. She goes to a food stand and finds an employee of Psychasec she arrested some time ago and she asks him for a favour. Meanwhile, Kovacs is looking around Bancrofts office and finds a telescope looking at a place in the sky, a place called Head in the clouds. Kovacs then starts to realize that everything that has happened has to do with that place in the sky. Bancroft comes in the room, tells him his payment has been processed and if Kovacs speaks to anyone about the case, he will kill him. Meanwhile, Ortega visits Psychasec with the guy, using him to get into the room with Rei in it. He opens the door, Ortega finds Rei’s stacks and get’s locked in the room. Ortega tries to call Mickey for help but Rei comes alive and attacks her. Rei stabs Ortega with a glass shard and she shoots her. Before Rei could die, she transfers her back up and is shoot in the head. Rei uses another body to attack Ortega and gets shoot. Rei keeps throwing bodies at Ortega until she has shot them all, except for one. Ortega tries to remove the glass shard from her body and Rei attacks her with a sword. Ortega gets the upper hand and kills the last sleeve. Ortega then tries to take a second to breathe and hears a child crying. She finds the same child who was locked in a vault crying and asking for help. Ortega grabs her and tells her everything is going to be alright.

I’m glad that we finally have the whole Bancroft murder case plot point finally dealt with. I said a couple of reviews ago that it was starting to drag out and I wanted it to end soon. Even though Kovacs had to lie about it, I’m glad that it’s finally over with (Or is it?).

Using Prescott as the murderer was something that I didn’t expect to see coming but I’m glad she is gone. It seemed like the writers didn’t really know what to do with Prescott because she would always be lurking in the shadows and not really doing anything. Using this as a way to get rid of her was fine with me.

Rei is really starting to become the villain at this point. It seems like she has her hand in everything and that she is running the show. The fact that she had so many clone sleeves stashed away is also concerning as well. However, Ortega took care of them so I can’t wait to see her reaction to this.

The acting in this episode was great and I really liked how they shoot the Psychasec Vault scene with many different Rei’s and Ortega risking her life. I also just love the whole concept of sleeves in this universe. I love how they got Ava to help out with the case and letting her see Vernon was sweet but also weird because Ava is in a male sleeve.

I can’t wait to see how the Head In The Clouds place ties into everything. The whole season has been dropping hints about it and we get to see all those callbacks when Kovacs sees the place for the first time and I hope that something big comes out of it. With only 2 episodes left, let’s hope this season can stick a memorable landing.

The Verdict:

Episode 8 was a great episode to come back to after the flashback. We got to learn more about Rei and her motives and the Bancroft murder has been closed, even by false means. Now we can move on to the last few episodes and hope that something big happens in the end.

9/10

Next up, the Penultimate Episode of the Season, Episode 9.