Identity Crisis
Directed by Gray Haddock
Written by Gray Haddock, Jason Weight, and Evan Narcisse
Written by Gray Haddock, Jason Weight, and Evan Narcisse
Upgraded and fully rested the gen:Lock team decide to be on the offensive for once. They are going to take the fight to Nemesis, luckily some old friends are going to help.
This episode contains the following tropes:
- Boring, but Practical: Caliban notes that Chase's battle plan is "simple, yet effective", and that Dr. Weller often said as much about Chase. Chase is flattered.
- Brick Joke: Back in The Best Defense, when Cammie saw Yasamin's wrist-mounted lasers in action, she notes that it should've been Heat Vision instead. Come this episode, it's revealed Cammie added Heat Vision to Yaz' Holon.
- Chekhov's Gun: Back in episode 3, Weller commented that he had gotten some insight in the nano swarm signaling after the Sinclair incident. He made good on it to save The Anvil.
- The sixth Holon shown in the hangar in Episode 5, originally meant for Sinclair, comes into play when Leon pilots it to give the gen:LOCK team time to reset while fighting Nemesis.
- Clone Degeneration: Nemesis implies that part of why it's so unstable is that it was created from a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of the original Chase who was captured.
- Disability Superpower: Chase going past uptime means he is now stuck as a Holon, but on the upside he can now use the Holon to the fullest of its ability with little worry.
- Expendable Clone: In its final moments, Nemesis reveals that not only has it been horrifically tortured by the Union during its creation, its mind is also only one of several, possibly dozens, of copies of the Chase who was captured several years ago, and encourages Chase to destroy the others.
- Failsafe Failure: The Union uses a signal to keep their Smoke from attacking their soldiers and sympathizers. This is used against them twice.
- Foreign Cuss Word: Yaz slips into her native Farsi twice, first to tell Nemesis to go to hell. The second time, she's furiously challenging Chase's Heroic Sacrifice, which isn't quite cursing but a mini Foreign-Language Tirade.
- Heroic Sacrifice:
- During the battle with Nemesis, Chase stays uploaded past Uptime to give the others a chance to reset. This means he can no longer return to his body.
- Leon uploads to the spare Holon despite being too old for it to be done safely. While it works, downloading back to his body proved too much and he ends up in a coma.
- Hope Spot: Once the Gen:Lock team learns of the Anvil personnel's survival, they ask if Dr. Weller also survived. However, Migas reveals that the doctor died in the explosion he used to take out Union soldiers.
- "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight: Miranda pulls one of these on Nemesis which does succeed at bring his charge to a halt.
- Mercy Kill: When Chase has Nemesis at his mercy, he is unsure of what to do at first, only destroying its cyberbrain after Nemesis encourages him to do so.
- Monumental Damage: Mostly limited to the exterior landscaping, but the final battle took place at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Nemesis gains even more limbs in time for the final battle.
- No Ontological Inertia: When the Smoke it was controlling is shut down, Nemesis loses all the replacement limbs it made out of the stuff.
- Not Quite Dead:
- Migas and most of the rest of the Anvil crew turn out to be alive, thanks to Weller cracking the signal that the Union uses to protect themselves from their own nanotech.
- Sinclair is alive, and hiding in Union territory.
- Shout-Out: Nemesis' final design, with Smoke floating around it constantly forming and reforming legs as well as poisoning everything close to it, resembles the boar demon Nago from Princess Mononoke. Fitting, as Nago was also corrupted by hate and torture into a twisted shell of himself.
- Speak in Unison: When the five Holon pilots mindshare, all five of them (including Kazu, in his first full line spoken in English) tell Nemesis in unison, "You have something we need."
- The Stinger: The real Sinclair is alive, disguised as a Union soldier, and is desperately trying to escape New York City.
- You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: When Kazu is imperiled, Cammie cries out his name, and pronounces it correctly for the first time.
