Johnson does a great job continuing Ash's story from "Blade Runner 2019 (2019)." In this first arc, it's almost exclusively Ash's story. I was glad to see that Ash is still with Freysa, but Johnson keeps his focus tightly on Ash here.
Since returning to Earth, Ash has rejoined the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) as a Blade Runner. That said, "the brass" is unaware that she only retires Replicants whom she believes "deserve" it. As we see in the first issue, she helps all other Replicants she encounters transition to a new life.
After Ash helps a pleasure model escape a john, Ash's sergeant dispatches her to the Seawall to investigate a tip that a Replicant is working there. Given how high profile the project is, the Powers that Be are concerned that news could leak that a Replicant is involved in its construction. (Los Angeles is building the Seawall after a devastating tsunami in 2025.) Ash finds the Replicant, but he commits suicide before Ash can arrest him. Troublingly, his last words are "Yotun redeems," reminding Ash of a Nexus 6 she failed to catch in 2017.
(As a sidebar, Johnson makes sure we understand that the Replicants are invaluable to the Seawall's construction, given the strength required to build it. In so doing, he underlines the extent to which Replicants' contributions to society are completely ignored, lest society face uncomfortable truths. This theme runs throughout the mini-series.)
Later, at the morgue, Ash is surprised when the mortician tells her that the dead Replicant doesn't have the telltale digits under the eyelids. Ash exposits that Nexus 8s are the only Replicants still alive and they all have digits. The mortician suggests that someone may be making bootleg Replicants. Ash goes to the dead Replicant's last known address, but the trail goes cold.
She then heads to the Diamant, a swinging, Roaring Twenties-themed bar for freed Replicants who decided to stay in Los Angeles. (It's exactly the sort of place that I want to see in a Blade Runner story.) A redheaded patron overhears Ash asking the bartender about Yotun and bolts. Ash follows her, but the Redhead escapes. However, she drops her purse, and Ash is able to find her place.
In issue #3, we learn Yotun has outlived his use-by date via Nexus 8s donating blood to him. Before Ash can track down Yotun, though, her sergeant puts her on a different case. He wants her to investigate the murder of a Blade Runner named Ruskin. He himself was investigating the murder of a prominent banker, Hyman Bask (which we saw happen in issue #2), at the time of his own murder. After searching Ruskin's and finding nothing, Ash heads home. On the way, the Redhead knocks her unconscious and brings her to Yotun's base, at his request.
Yotun himself is indisposed at the moment, though: using the eye that Bask's Replicant servant brought him, Yotun and his crew enter the Mayor's skyship where the elites are holding a reception christening the Seawall. He informs them that the Replicants they all hypocritically and illegally keep as servants are throwing off their yokes. He detonates explosives that his Replicants (including the dead one that started the mini-series' action) implanted in the Seawall and departs the skyship with his team before destroying that, too.
At Yotun's base, a Replicant whom Ash previously helped frees her and shows her that Yotun isn't bootlegging Replicants: he's activating the Nexus 8s that corporations never activated. He's concerned about Yotun's vision, but before he can elaborate the Redhead shoots him. Yotun's disciple, Kalia, then informs Ash that Yotun will answer all her questions when he returns. I'm sure it'll be a pleasant conversation.
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