Hey Chooms, this one is bloody. Fair bit of nudity, and lots of violence. Make sure the littles are asleep okay?

 

So, yeah, time jump for us Viewers. David has grown, having a lot more augments. Rebecca as well, having changed up her arms. They're raiding a Maelstrom hideout. David, Rebecca and Julio go for the from with Kiwi providing net support and Falco ready at the wheel. It's clear under David the team's just at least as well as they were under Maine.

 

This also has a great scene with David going 1v1 against someone with some crazy augments. They get to move either near or at David's speed. We see this play out from David's perspective before seeing the lightning fast version everyone else witnessed. It just shows the difference of the experience very clearly. Just the ease of the fight, even when David needs to step his game up to take on a borg'ed out Maelstromer.

 

After the job, we get to see the team unwinding a bit. Becca seems to have taken over the role her brother had. Also, if you missed the subtle approach of Becca being interested in David, it's VERY PLAIN when David leaves to visit the Ripperdoc. The talk between Falco and David shows the care that David is exercising with the crew as well. He and Lucy are living together, but he does respect she doesn't want to go out on a job.

 

Doc is as talkative as ever. He does comment on things like before, but definitely is doing what he can to help David get what he needs. David, also, understands the level of maintenance that his cyber-body needs. There doesn't seem to be too much flesh left on him. In this, we also get a reminder of the XBD editor who tried to break David (and did succeed putting a crack or two in there). We also finally hear about Adam Smasher. The choice Runner of Arasaka, a person who's gone completely cyborg. Also someone who's VERY hard to kill. I should know, I had to do him in a few times writing the ending walkthroughs for Cyberpunk 2077!

 

This episode does one thing very well. Show the relationship that David and Lucy have. There's not a lot said, but looking at everything tells plenty. David is very confident around everyone else, it's only around Lucy that we see him being more vulnerable. It's clear he's changed a bit, not minding something carbonated. He and Lucy are very close as well. But we also see something a bit familiar at the end. David's hand has an uncontrollable tremor. Something we're familiar with...

 

This episode is one I've been waiting to talk about. Lucy actually opens up to David about her past. She explains about being “recruited” for Arasaka to be a Netrunner. They were put through the toughest training, blindly led by the company mantra, and then sent to dive the Old Net. This is the one shattered by Rache Bartmoss. This makes going there very dangerous. Arasaka wanted information about their past. These dives claimed the lives of the divers she went in with every time they got close. Rogue AI's would come in, breaking their minds, killing them off. The survivors banded together toward the end and everyone tried to escape. Those caught off guard were instantly killed by the quickhacks the divers had. It was the guards who managed to kill most of them. Lucy was lucky to have escaped. And in a nice nod to Cyberpunk 2077, she managed to escape but remembers coming to in a junkyard.

 

This does help explain why she doesn't want to have the suit and chair. They bring her back there, the Arasaka facility. She doesn't want to return to that and just wants to be free. She is, however, watching out for David. She's protecting him on the net by monitoring the Tanaka file. If anyone looks to close, she does kill them.

 

This episode is also the ONLY episode with a fixer from Cyberpunk 2077. Wakako is impressed and says she'll send more work his way when she gets something. Wakako was one fixer I, personally, enjoyed working for. Completing all her jobs nets you the Byakko Katana. Very much enjoyed completing “We Have Your Wife” and “Olive Branch”. On top of that, just her attitude in general toward you. Especially for those taking a stealthier approach as merited. She's generally aloof, but plainly does put some value on her runner's time. But this does mean you need to respect her's. As well.

 

We also get one other person come back from earlier, Faraday. He's been in touch with Kiwi (apparently) and asked her to put him in touch with David. This is just the beginning. Faraday has a “test” job for David and crew. He's paying well and willing to have David take over the contract he had with Maine. In honestly seems like he's just giving it to David over the course of the conversation. There's plenty of implication for it.

 

Music, as always, is key to the episode. Just loving the “Night City Aliens” by the Armed during the assault on Maelstrom. It fits really well to the carnage frankly. While the team is at the bar after the Maelstrom gig, we've got “Sila Mikrofonu” by Zjednoczenie Soundsystem feat King General pumping. “Cloudy Day” by Marcin Przybylowicz is what you're listening while David and Faraday are talking. It's straight out of Cyberpunk 2077, just part of what you'll hear running around. It does a great job of getting the right tone for this meeting. While Lucy is telling David about her past, we've got an instrumental version of “Let You Down” by Dawid Podsiadlo. You also have: “Gridflow” by Private Press, “Outro” by Zjednoczenie Soundsystem, “Midnight Eye” by Earthtrax, “The Other Room” by Earthtrax, and “Outsider No More” by P.T. Adamczyk.

 

Most of the time, I'd talk about the big thing the episode focuses on, but DataKrash is close to beyond me. It's the reason that the present world of Cyberpunk Red/2077 is more a series of local networks opposed to the internet model we have. Bartmoss (who you can find in Cyberpunk 2077) unleashed the Datakrash virus and killed off the Internet as we know it. There is no more global network, or a more restricted version of it exists. It's a huge topic with a lot of ins and outs to it. Seriously, look into the Wiki. There's a lot to it. All that's important is that the old internet is separated from the new one by the Black Wall. Going through there is akin to stepping into something close to unknowable and infinitely cast.

 

This episode, more than the rest, sets the tone for this second arc within the story of Edgerunner. David and Lucy are together, helping each other in a variety of ways but not being completely honest. David has built himself up. He does need to work on himself a bit more. But with everything we saw here, does he have the time?