Warning SPOILERS below for Blade Runner 2049!
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Blade Runner 2049's marketing touts the reunion of the original film's director Ridley Scott, now serving as producer, and its star Harrison Ford, reprising his role as the former Blade Runner Rick Deckard. Ryan Gosling, who plays a new Blade Runner named "K', is also front and center, as is director Denis Villeneuve (Arrival), who takes over helming this visionary sequel 35 years in the making. Even Guardians of the Galaxy's Dave Bautista is a major selling point of the new film. As the trailers and advertisements convey both a return to and upgrade of the post-apocalypic Los Angeles of the Blade Runner universe, one vital piece of the original film's puzzle is absent entirely: Where is Rachael (Sean Young)?
"Too bad she won't live, but then again, who does?" are the last words about Rachael spoken in the original Blade Runner. These words, sadly, turn out to be prophetic. The new film does address the fate that befell Rachael, who was last seen in the company of Deckard as they planned to go on the run from Blade Runners hunting and seeking to 'retire' them. Whether it's the more ambiguous ending of the 1992 Director's Cut or 2007 Final Cut or the happy ending of the 1982 Theatrical Cut, every version of Blade Runner ends with Deckard and Rachael going on the run together. But what happens next to the Adam and Eve of the Replicant race?
Blade Runner 2049 does provide answers to what happened, not just to Rachael and Deckard, but to what their lives were like on the run and how they were destined to help usher a new future for all Replicants. The fate of Rachael, hidden from the film's marketing, ends up as the key to unlocking the story of Blade Runner 2049, both for the world in the film, and for Officer K's on personal quest for uncovering his own identity.
WHO WAS RACHAEL?
Rachael was a prototype Nexus model Replicant created by the late Dr. Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel). As the Nexus 6 model Replicants began to develop emotions, they began to rebel against their programming. Tyrell created Rachael and implanted her with childhood memories of his niece to cushion Rachael's developing emotions. Rachael was also unaware she was a Replicant and believed herself to be human; she even worked as an administrator in the Tyrell Corporation.
Rachael encountered Rick Deckard, who was a retired Blade Runner returned to active duty, when he arrived at the Tyrell pyramid to apply the Voight-Kampff test to Replicants in the building. Not letting on that Rachael was one such Replicant, Tyrell urged Deckard to test Rachael to see if she could pass for human. Deckard determined through testing that Rachael was both a Replicant and unaware she was a Replicant, though by the conclusion of the test Rachael began to suspect the truth about herself.
The relationship between Rachael and Deckard formed the emotional crux of the original Blade Runner. Deckard revealed to her that her memories, which she clung to as proof of her humanity, were in fact those of Tyrell's niece. Rachael later saved Deckard from Leon (Brion James), one of the Nexus 6 Replicants in the rebel group headed by Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer). After Deckard's climactic battle with Batty when Batty's 4 year life span expired, Deckard - who is himself suspected of being a Replicant by the LAPD - left Los Angeles and went on the run together with Rachael.
Set 30 years after the events of Blade Runner circa 2019, Blade Runner 2049 picks up the trail and answers the questions of what happened to Rachael, Deckard and... their child.
WHAT HAPPENED TO RACHAEL?
In 2049, Blade Runner K is assigned to 'retire' (Blade Runner lingo for execute) a Nexus 8 Replicant named Sapper Morton (Dave Bautista). Morton was once assigned as a combat medic, and after K retires him, K finds a box containing humans remains - bones and hair samples - buried under a tree on Morton's protein farm. Forensic analysis by the LAPD initially indicate the bones belong to a human until a serial number is found on the skull. It's determined that this was a Replicant female who somehow died in childbirth, though the child was delivered via Caesarian section. K brings the hair sample and serial number to the Wallace Corporation - the corporate behemoth that succeeded Tyrell and now manufactures Replicants - and they determine the female Replicant was in fact Rachael.
Furthermore, Rachael being pregnant was, as Niander Wallace (Jared Leto) fumed, "the last trick" of Eldon Tyrell, who was able to create Replicants who could procreate. The secrets of Tyrell's technology where lost in an event called 'the Blackout,' which was a Replicant rebellion that set off an EMP wiping out all electronic records. Since taking over Replicant manufacturing, Wallace had been able to make more advanced and human-like Replicants - like K - but with multiple off-world colonies needing Replicants as a disposable workforce, Wallace's company can't manufacture Replicants fast enough. Replicants being able to procreate would eliminate the limits of Wallace's ability to mass produce Replicants. However, if Replicants can conceive children as humans do, it would be a revolutionary step towards Replicants being recognized as having human rights. It begs the question of whether Replicants born and not made would have a soul as humans beings believe they do. It would, as K's supervisor Lieutenant Joshi (Robin Wright) stated, "break the world."
In any event, Rachael became pregnant by Deckard soon after they escaped Los Angeles in 2019. They sought out a fellow Nexus 8 Sapper Morton due to his medical expertise. Morton delivered the baby on 6/10/21, though the birth records for the date indicate an anomaly: "twins" were born on that day with identical DNA, though only the boy survived. Rachael died in childbirth while Deckard, as per their plan to keep themselves and their child safe, left and took refuge in the ruins of Las Vegas, never seeing Rachael again nor meeting their child. For the bulk of K's investigation, K believes himself to be the son born on 6/10/21 thanks to his memories of his childhood which he believes are real, and were verified as real by Dr. Ana Stelline (Carla Juri), the subcontractor who designs and provides the artificial memories for Wallace Corporation Replicants.
WHAT HAPPENED TO DECKARD?
K finds Deckard after having the wooden toy horse he has cherished since his (memories of) childhood analyzed for radiation. Real wood being a rare commodity in this future, the amount of radiation indicated that the wood the horse was whittled from came from Las Vegas. K finds Deckard in an abandoned casino where he has apparently been hiding for the last 30+ years. Wallace's forces track K to Las Vegas and to Deckard; they take Deckard prisoner while K is left to die and is rescued by members of the Replicant Underground.
It's revealed to K that the surviving child of Deckard and Rachael was actually a female. Meanwhile, Deckard is held captive by Niander Wallace himself, who taunts him with the possibility that as a Replicant, Deckard was programmed to meet and fall in love with Rachael. Wallace even provokes Deckard with a brand new Replicant of Rachael (with Sean Young's face perfectly de-aged and overlaid via CGI over actress Loren Peta). The new Rachael is physically identical in every way to the original except... "Her eyes were green," Deckard says as he rejects her. Rachael sadly dies a second time when Wallace has her executed and sends Deckard to an off-world colony to be tortured for information as to where his child is. K rescues Deckard before he's sent off world and, having figured out who the child really is, K brings Deckard to meet his daughter.
WHO IS DECKARD AND RACHAEL'S CHILD?
Sadly for K, who believed wholeheartedly throughout Blade Runner 2049 that he was born and not made, he figured out the truth: his childhood memories were real, but don't belong to him and were illegally implanted in his mind. The memories belong to Dr. Ana Stelline herself. Stelline, who lives isolated in her lab, grew up in the scrap yards of San Diego after being smuggled there by the Replicant Underground. She was meant to escape Earth for an off-world colony, but an auto-immune deficiency prevented her from travel and forced her to live in a sealed off chamber. However, being a genius at memory creation and design, she became a foremost memory designer and eventually sub-contracted herself and her company to Wallace, designing artificial memory implants for his new line of Replicants.
It's unknown how K himself ended up with Stelline's specific childhood memory of being bullied and chased by other children through a San Diego scrapyard and hiding the wooden horse in a furnace, where it remained for over 20 years until K uncovered it, believing it to be his. It's also not known how much Stelline herself knows about her true origins. However, with Deckard believed dead and delivered to Stelline thanks to K, father and daughter who have never met have some time to get to know each other and have pivotal questions finally answered. As K says about the woman who shared her childhood memories with him, "All the best memories are hers."