This may seem like a betrayal of the first order but, as we will soon learn, Luv does not see it that way. When we first meet her she is in the process of selling other Replicants as Off-World slave labor. Luv, like our central protagonist K, is a Nexus-9 Replicant model, a product of the Wallace Corporation.
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Once understood, the tragic depths of Luv’s story don’t just reveal a remarkable character but enrich the movie as a whole, adding an extra dimension to a narrative already dense with meaning.
Though it’s easy to miss during an initial viewing (I certainly did) Luv has a rich, deep story arc that branches through the whole of Blade Runner 2049, one that both parallels and intersects with K’s story, the two characters informing each other even as they violently ricochet off one another.
I think Luv is incredible, one of the most fascinating, nuanced, and profoundly tragic characters I’ve encountered in a very long time, a figure who both deserves and rewards our attention. If we think of Blade Runner 2049 as a pretentious yet inferior movie, a pale imitation of its source material lacking all the intellectual and emotional resonance of the original, these four words spoken by Luv mean nothing, existing as a tossed off line spoken by a tossed off character in a film that accomplishes nothing aside from looking pretty and making you wish you were watching the original. “I’m the best one.” Luv declares as she struts away from K, fresh blood from a stolen kiss adorning her face as she departs, having again reduced her opponent to helplessness and having again decided, bafflingly, not to kill him.