Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (Episode 7) – Stronger
Some time has passed since Maine went full cyber-psychosis and now David leads the team. They’re working their way back up, although Lucy is having a break. There are some things she needs to take care of first.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (Episode 7) – Stronger
What happened?
David is now leading the crew and their latest assignment has them taking on a gang of cyberpunk that has kidnapped numerous women. They’ve even got a new guy coming along for the ride, desperate to prove that he might be useful. Kiwi hacks the gang members and makes their tech inoperable, giving David and Rebecca the chance to mow them down. Some managed to avoid Kiwi’s attention, but they are quickly dealt with too. Then, the big guy comes out to play, forcing David to use some of his new tech. They complete the mission, although the new guy walked into a trap and got himself blown to pieces.
After a brief celebration, David returns home to Lucy who is still not ready to return to action with the crew. She’s never quite gotten over what she saw in Tanaka’s memory and the death of Dorio and Maine. Maybe, it was the fact that David was willing to fight to the death beside Maine rather than choosing to run away with her.
Kiwi manages to get David an audience with Faraday, Maine’s old contact who is keen to see if David is up to the task of stepping into Maine’s sizable shoes. David tells him they don’t work for free, which is fine as Faraday is prepared to pay if he’s worth it. Meanwhile, Lucy has been watching cyberspace for anyone digging into Tanaka’s past and when she finds them, she blows their minds… literally… boom!
What did you think?
I mentioned a couple of episodes ago that I hoped this wasn’t going to be some sort of dream/simulation as I hate those endings. Well, there are a few things I hate more than that and one of those is a time skip! Seriously, this was horrendously jarring and worst of all it doesn’t do the characters any justice. David went from two implants to almost a full body’s worth between the ED of the previous episode and the OP of this episode. I have an idea why he went this way despite seeing Maine lose it for the same reason, but it would have been such a compelling story to see him actually go through it and give us a chance to understand his decisions.
This series is just ten episodes long which makes the idea of a time skip that much more absurd. It just feels lazy from a story point of view. The only thing they could do now to make this worse is to show us flashbacks of the missing time. I hate that approach to storytelling so much. It amounts to misdirection, especially when we’re witnessing the story from the main character’s point of view. For most of this story, we’ve been on David’s shoulder watching everything unravel alongside him.
So, this wasn’t necessarily a bad episode when you try to forget about the time skip, but it was easily the worst one of the season so far. I’ve really enjoyed the series so far and hope that this isn’t a trend that it slides into. I am looking forward to seeing more of Rebecca though as she’s a blast.
Episode highlights
Other posts in the series
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