Hey Runners, this is an adult show. Just like the others: casual nudity, lots of gore, moderate violence, and some mental health issues. Never recommended for the littles, let the teens watch, and the graduates are fine.

This episode has a sad opening. We get to see 2 people inside an Arasaka office. This was Director Marcus Evans and Jamie. The woman, Jamie (?) was looking forward to getting home to congratulate her son on getting into the Arasaka Academy. Here, we see the beginnings of something more with David. All set to background music from Cyberpunk 2077. We first see David he's squatting down, clutching his head. Jamie drops the sample which gets David's attention and he quickly kills her with glowing eyes.

This episode is good because we get to see a bit more from Faraday's perspective. His is rare to get, being a fixer with his fingers in a few pies. He's trying to get something big, corporate immunity, which only selected employees and all the higher-ups (like the board, CEO, President, and VP) get to enjoy. This angle lets us see what pressure is on him. Faraday is playing with both Arasaka and Militech, trying to get whatever he can from them. Militech is tired of his failure on the Combat Frame acquisition that was supposed to have come from Tanaka. Arasaka is getting him twisted around their finger (and trying to get as much as they can out of him). They offer to settle the debt to Militech in exchange for what he knows about the Cyberskeleton (and the elimination of those who know about it). Plus, the other condition is finding a meddlesome Netrunner who's been interfering with the recovery of the Cyberskeleton information. Arasaka wants this runner caught. $1 million eddies are nothing to sneeze at (short of having corporate pockets) as a Fixer or a Runner. They have Faraday through to the end for that change and his ambition.

There's also something else about David in his present state. When we see him in his apartment, it's clear nothing is going on for a moment. Lucy gets a response out of him after a moment. Once again, we get to see the tremors in his hands. Lucy doesn't deal with this dissociation that David is. Remarking he can't get his brain to “shut down” is curious, something anyone with a very active brain can associate with. David is having issues and needs to change what he's doing if he wants to just keep going. He’s focused on the future and not worrying about himself in the present. David does seem to only look at the present when on a job or in negotiation. This could be one of the earlier signs of what’s happening with David. He needs help and the medicine to get back on the right track. He really is starting to titter on the edge of sanity.

In those few scenes, he's alone, we see a flash of what's going through his head. Mostly, it's the trauma of him experiencing things from the perspective of a Cyberpsycho in the unedited XBD snagged by Jimmy Kurosaki. We, eventually, get the full scene from David of what happened inside Arasaka Tower. We also see him being lost in the PTSD he has from the loss of his mother. Mix this with all his chrome and his mind is just drifting from who he was. Getting to see how he sees Doc is intentionally a lot, with the friendly Ripperdoc becoming something horrifying. He does remark that Doc didn’t deserve what happened while he was lost there. Doc merely remarked after [David] can go off and become a legend. Just remember, there’s one way to become a Legend in Night City. David is well on his way to becoming one.

We get to see some of what the group is doing for eddies. Seeing Becca just destroy the Animals was delightfully satisfying (but then again, they became a favorite target of mine while I was skill-grinding). But this leads to the problems that David is having. Becca confronts him, talking about the few Cyberpsychos they've encountered. She's worried. She’s trying to get him to get the help he needs. Lightening the “Mental” load of cybernetics could make a difference here. But it’s getting David to take that time off and get the “light cybernetics”. As the saying goes, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink.”

When Lucy and David have their talk after visiting Doc, it's clear it's more strained between them then was first apparent. David is trying to get closer, but Lucy is staying away since she’s obsessively protecting him from all Arasaka attempts to recover the data about the Sandevistan.  This is ultimately her downfall here. She almost tells him about what she’s doing before running away to stop the hack attempt. Even a very prepared hacker can get caught off guard with a trap. Faraday laid just the right trap to catch her too.

The thing with Cyberpsychosis is that it can be something that slowly takes hold. The character gradually loses what made them, well, them. It takes lightening the Cybernetic load and therapy to start to clear the effects of cyberwear. And that's just to give the character a chance to come back from teetering on the edge of Cyberpsychosis. But that's usually the trick, someone has to want the help. It is not something that you can get to go away with medication (but it could be a part of it).

The music of this episode remains on point. It's something I'll have to live up to if I ever run Cyberpunk Red. Plenty from the game and a bit of original stuff. Beyond that, let's talk about what's heard where the episode. “Consumer Cathedral” by Marcin Przybylowicz and “Modern Anthill” by Marcin Przybylowicz is scattered throughout the episode, here and there during fights and other parts. “Outsider No More” by PT Adamczyk is what we’ve got while Becca and David are talking after the gig with the Animals. “History” by Gazelle Twin, at least the instrumental part, is what we’re hearing during David’s flashback into Arasaka. It picks up again, with its lyrics, when David is in the Ripperdoc’s shop. “Where Did Your Love Go” produced by Dawid Podsiadlo and Bogdan Kondracki is what we’re hearing at the end of the episode when Lucy and David have their “heart to heart”.

You know, I've talked about the TTRPG a bit, but not a lot of details about the actual game itself. This might just be the time to do that. This version of Cyberpunk was made (and released) in tandem with Cyberpunk 2077. Most versions of the game (especially if you connected with GOG) would just GIVE you the Red corebook. Everything you would need to play the game is found in the nearly 500-page book. Cyberpunk itself was originally released back in 1988 as Cyberpunk 2013. Plenty of changes came along as it progress through to Cyberpunk 2020, released in 1990 (with 2 revised versions: V 2.00 in 1992 and V 2.01 in 1993), then cyberpunk V3.0 in 2005, and finally, Cyberpunk Red in 2020. More than I should talk about, so let's just focus on the first edition, known as Cyberpunk 2013, and talk about combat a bit. The first edition had a lot of supplements. These added the Rockerboy, and Solo Character classes in Rockerboy and Solo of Fortune respectively. We also got the Hardwired and Near Orbit supplements as well. Hardwired was written by the author of the book of the same name. More than anything this was just a cyberpunk dystopian setting. You had a world embroiled in Corporate Wars at this point. All this would eventually be compiled and made Cyberpunk 2013. A lot of what is in Red already exists within the system for 2013. As always, it's the refinements and expansions of things that make it.

Having talked about that, I'd be remiss not to talk about Mike Pondsmith, the creator and designer of Cyberpunk. He started out as a graphic designer in the video game industry. He did plenty of work in the early days of gaming (around the 1980's) but felt constrained by the technology of the time. This led him to take advantage of his sidejob of typesetting to eventually design his first full TTRPG, Mekton. He had earlier redesigned Game Designer's Workshop Traveller (A science fiction TTRPG released in 1977) for his personal use naming it Imperial Star. This first game took heavy inspiration from the manga of Mobile Suit Gundum, which Pondsmith had managed to get Japanese copies of. He couldn't read the language, but loved the world and its technology. Under its initial release, Mekton was a pure tactical game. While it lacked anything for role playing, it would be its success that proved to Pondsmith that he could make a living doing TTRPG design. It was still a robust system. This led to the founding of R Talsorian Games (the company that owns the TTRPG Cyberpunk) and several other TTRPGS: Teenagers from Outer Space, Mekton II, Cyberpunk 2013, and later Castle Falkenstein. He'd been involved with a number of video game companies over the years as well He was involved in MechCommander 2, playing the role of Steel, and had a hand in Blood Wake, Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, as well as the Matrix Online. He's staying involved since then with CD Projekt Red and the Cyberpunk 2077 video game. He is canonically in every edition of Cyberpunk as Maximum Mike, the only character in the TTRPG line who will break the fourth wall to talk directly with the read. “Maximum Mike” does appear in Cyberpunk 2077 as one of the radio DJ's in Night City. Honestly, he's had a very interesting career and I suggest reading over it. This part is just a “quick” summary to give an idea of his involvement on a LOT of things.