You look like a good Joe

We see Joi at factory settings: a different voice and a more sexualized look. She utters the same phrases as before, but the intention behind them is different. Erotic, but lacking empathy, promising the little death. She is devoid of the emotional experiences that made her real.

K faces the same temptation as Deckard: replacing what he had, hiding, and starting again. But it wouldn’t be real. Joi would look the same, sound the same, and ‘act’ the same, but the spark, the impermanence that made their relationship real, wouldn’t be there.

He’d be living a lie.

Like he did in the past.

Joi is K’s denial of reality manifest, and it cannot be ignored any longer.

For a moment Joi had lived. Her final words: “I love you” showed that she was living for someone else.

“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

As brief as the moment was, it made her human.

It’s here that K experiences an epiphany.

K is not Deckard’s son

He is the symbolic child of two Replicants.

Both sacrificed their future for their offspring.

Eysra: “Dying for the right cause is the most human thing we can do.”

Sapper Morton:“…because you’ve never seen a miracle”

K sees the miracle.

To give your life for something, or someone, that is the true mark of a devoted parent.

Of a creator.

It’s at this moment that he has his final realization. The dawning of his mortality merges with his newfound responsibility.

He sees his purpose.

He is father to the Replicant revolution.

This moment of illumination creates a storm of both literal and symbolic meaning.

The stage is set for the final showdown.