Alright, time for Episode 9. After the last episode gave us a look at the Head In The Clouds place, 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), drinking with Poe (Chris Conner). Kovacs tells Poe that he knows the truth about what happened to Bancroft but isn’t going to tell Poe. Kovacs tries to call Kristen Ortega (Martha Higareda), but she isn’t answering. She comes into the hotel and Kovacs grabs her and washes her in the bath. Meanwhile, Poe goes to visit Lizzie (Hayley Law), in the VR room and she is sharping knives. Poe tells her that he only wanted to heal her but thinks that he has done it wrong. Lizzie tells him to not worry and that she goes out into the night, spying on people while using her skills so she can learn and be ready to fight. Meanwhile, Kovacs is still bathing Ortega when she starts to ask him if he really loves her and Kovacs starts to get flustered and confused. Kovacs thinks that Ortega is not really there and it turns out he is correct, Rei is actually in Ortega’s sleeve right now. Rei tells Kovacs that Ortega is still alive but Rei says that Blood is now owed for the Blood of her sleeves that Ortega killed. Rei tells Kovacs that she has sent Ghostwalker to the house of Ortega’s family and Kovacs makes a run for it, trying to save them. Ghostwalker kills the family before Kovacs arrives and when Kovacs arrives, he is shocked and horrified. Kovacs meets Reileen Kawahara (Dichen Lachman), at a restaurant were Kovacs tells her that he is done with everything, including her. He wants to forget everyone and everything and go off world to somewhere else. Rei tells him not to leave her but Kovacs refuses to listen and storms off, Rei then calls for Ghostwalker to follow him. Kovacs gets into a car with Miriam Bancroft (Kristin Lehman), they drive off with Poe, Ava, Vernon Elliot (Ato Essandoh) and Kovacs (A clone I think) watching the car take off.

We then cut to 18 hours earlier,

Kovacs is in the house when he wants to know the address of the restaurant that Vernon and Ava are at. Vernon and Ava are talking about Lizzie and that when she is healed, they will plan on getting back together. Kovacs bangs on the window telling them that they need to go with him. Meanwhile, Captain Tanaka (Hiro Kanagawa), is at the crime scene of Ortega’s family looking around the house. Meanwhile, Kovacs takes Vernon and Ava back to the hotel and tells them the situation. Rei has Ortega and Kovacs thought she would go after Vernon and Ava next. Mickey comes in and tells them that no one on the police force is going to do anything about Ortega’s family murder and he finished the tracing program on Ghostwalker. Kovacs tells them that they should all leave the city and forget everything because he is going after Rei and Ghostwalker, he doesn’t need to worry about what happens to his friends. He also asks Mickey for his ID Tag so he can go to the evidence locker and steal some stuff. Meanwhile, Rei is talking to Ortega, who is chained up in a pod. Rei tells her that she almost took Kovacs away from her so, she is going to spend some time with Ghostwalker in VR. Meanwhile, Kovacs comes back to the hotel and has a cloning machine with him. He tells Poe to not let anyone in his room and to get everyone new IDs. Kovacs is making his clone and looking over the schematics of the Head in the Cloud fortress. Vernon kicks in the door and yells at Kovacs, Ava sees that he is looking at schematics and starts to tell him everything about it. Kovacs asks them why they won’t leave him and they tell him that he has helped them gain a part of their lives back and want Ortega to be returned. Kovacs creates his clone with the help of Ava and now he is drinking with his clone and playing Rock, Paper, Scissors to determine who goes to the Head in the Clouds. The clone wins and goes off with Miriam while the real Kovacs stays behind.

We cut back to present time when Kovacs goes to visit Lizzie in the VR Room. Kovacs wants to say goodbye to Lizzie before he goes off on his mission with Lizzie telling him that one of them is going to die. Meanwhile, Vernon isn’t sure he can install a micro camera into Kovacs’s eye. Vernon asks him why he wants it and Kovacs says he wants a confession from Rei about everything. Everyone goes over the plan, Kovacs will have to intercept Rei’s backup with an antenna caring the Rawling virus, which will delete all her backups. While, Vernon sneaks him onto the fortress, disguised as a Military General, Mickey and Ava will stay behind and monitor them. Vernon and Kovacs get into the car and head to the fortress. Vernon is escorted to a room with a blond woman who is a prostitute who will provide Vernon with anything he desires. Ava asks Kovacs if he knew about the place having whore and he says no, he didn’t ask Rei specifically what services the place offers. Vernon drugs the woman to knock her out so he can get the access panel near him to get Kovacs into the building. Vernon is taking a bit and Kovacs decides to improvise with dosing himself with Reaper so he can lower is body temperature to fool the sensors. Kovacs gets in and makes his way to Rei and is having some trouble because he is high on the Reaper. Vernon hears that they can’t get anything from Kovacs and he goes back for him. Kovacs makes it to the door with Vernon right beside him, he shoots the lock, the door opens and Kovacs throws the antenna at Rei’s feet. The antenna turns out while Rei is backing up and the backup surges the computers that Ava and Mickey they were using. It doesn’t matter though because Ava says that she was able to get into Rei’s backup system and upload the Rawling virus. Rei is pissed at Kovacs, telling him that he lied to her and betrayed the only person that loved Kovacs. Kovacs grabs a stem pack from Rei and takes it before he tells her that all her backups are deleted. Kovacs then tells her about the micro cam in his eye and tells Rei to give him a full confession about everything, no lies, no tricks and no more games. Rei tells Kovacs that she was the one that got Miriam to drug her husband before he went to the Head in the Clouds and got a room with 2 girls, one of them bring Mary Lou, he had sex with one of the girls and killed her. Before he could move on the Mary, she ran away with Rei stopping her and chasing after her. They both go on the roof and Mary jumps off before Rei could catch her. Rei also tells her that she was the one who framed Ryker for Mary’s murder. Rei also tells Kovacs that Laurens shot his own stack after what he had done. However, when he was brought back, he couldn’t believe he killed himself so he thought someone murdered him and wanted them to be found. Rei tells Kovacs that she did it all for him because she missed him so much. Until now because Ghostwalker and a bunch of guards come in and surround Kovacs.

We finally got to know the truth about Bancroft’s murder! I had a feeling that Rei was behind everything. She did all of this just to see Kovacs again and while that would be sweet, the blood on her hands is too thick to be washed off and forgiven.

Rei has gone from the sister who just wants to be with her brother again, to the big bad of the whole season. All the bad things that have happened this season was because of Rei and her actions. I love the family drama aspect of the episode and I can’t wait to watch the Season Finale.

I love how even when Kovacs treats his friends like crap, wants them to forget about him and leave him behind, they still stick by Kovacs until the end. I think they did that because they feel they owe Kovacs for what he has done for them and I’m glad they stuck around.

The Head in the Clouds place seemed like a nice place until we found out it was a place that you can have sex with underage women and get away with. That’s just all sorts of wrong and I hope that it get’s destroyed, along with Rei because there is no redeeming her at this point.

I really did really this episode and I loved the acting as well. This episode answers all the questions that need answers and sets everything up for what will seem like an all-out brawl next episode.

The Verdict:

Episode 9 finally gives us the truth about the Bancroft murder and sets everything up for an all-out war in the Head in the Clouds. Rei has become a full-on villain and she has no other choice but to die next episode, she is beyond redemption at this point. Let’s just hope that the Season Finale can stick the landing.

9/10

Next up, the Season Finale of Altered Carbon.