Here’s a show about people being downloaded into new bodies. I think. Enjoy!
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Out of the Past
Marines: I know next to nothing about this show, but I was in the mood for something new. And I do what I want.
We start with a very Orphan Black-esque title sequence. This one is heavy on the human body and features a snake.
After that, we watch from below as a human body floats in a body of water. We get artsy zooms in on its appendages, seen through the bubbles of the water.
Room, somewhere, and our couple from the shower. The woman is messing with those little fleshy tech pods. They are almost scale-like. The man is laying in bed, smoking, and having flashes of Renee Elise Goldsberry. A whispered voiceover says “we are the Envoys and we take what is offered.” I have no idea what that means, but this seems like the kind of show where I’d want to mention that in case it means ~*something*~.
The man gets out of bed while the voiceover continues by telling us to let experience wash over us and to expect nothing so that we may be prepared for anything. The man goes to a window, looking at what I can only describe as a very orange ocean view. He touches the window and it buzzes the buzz of TECHNOLOGY! and the screen fades to show the real city beyond. At first glance it looks both technologically advanced and also grimy and not like a place I would like to live. The man looks at it all with vague sadness.
Jessica: It is rather reminiscent of Blade Runner, but like, a slightly shinier version. Either way, he’s not happy with the view. Probably because it doesn’t include Renee Elise Goldsberry.
Mari: Tattoo Woman curses in Russian and then switches to English to curse some more at the bone fragments, which always give her splinters. She asks the man who he thinks an unspecified “they” is. He doesn’t care because they are getting paid to do this job. She asks him if he’s always been such an asshole, and he replies, “every sleeve, every time.”
Something powers on. Asshole Man puts his hand back on the window and it blacks out. He turns toward the wall, where he’s obviously hearing something. He can see bodies on the other side of the wall, like he’s got built-in heat sensors in his eyeballs. Tattoo Woman asks what’s going on. He reports: CTAC Praetorians, 12. Lethal loads. I know that’s bad but ONLY because I know what “lethal” means. Tattoo Woman doesn’t seem as fussed about lethal as I do. She’s more concerned about the fact that apparently Asshole Man sees through walls now. He tells her they have 3 seconds, so she should move. She grabs two guns, hands one to Asshole Man and then BOOM! The Lethal-Praetorians (or whatever) blow their way into the room. Tattoo and Asshole get blown back and into walls.
We’re back to the body in the water.
Same body, now in a plastic bag. The voice over tells us that your body is not who you are. You can shed it like a skin. Two technicians are handling the body in the bag. The man tells the woman that you can only learn through watching, so she’d better watch. The woman says they didn’t cover this during basic briefing. The guy tells her she’ll be fine. And also that the person won’t be able to walk at first. And also she’d better get used to getting whatever goo this body is in all over her. This seems like a terrible orientation. (J: Worst internship ever.)
Male Technician demonstrates by opening the bag and letting loose a big splatter of goo. The woman says she’s going to be sick, but he says she can’t be until she learns to take out the umbilicus. He grabs a long hose covering and inserted into the body’s mouth and pulls. The man grabs the technician and starts having flashes to Tattoo and Asshole being shot to hell by the Lethal-Praetorians. The female technician asks if this is normal. Male technician says that sometimes they flop around like fish, which usually means their last sleeve died violently. (J: Neat?)
We flash back to Asshole Man and Tattoo Woman being blown back against the wall. The Lethal-Praetorians enter in these gnarly suits with masks that make them really scary with a hint of bug. Asshole and Tattoo hide. We see that Tattoo is still holding both the guns. Asshole motions for one and she slides it over, alerting the Lethal-Praetorians of their location. Asshole focuses on the approaching enemy and we hear the Whisper Voiceover say “you are the killer and the destroyer.” Asshole shoots and his gun is like a mini-cannon, my god. He manages to take two Lethal-Praetorians out with precise aim, but they have machine guns and many more people.
During a pause in shooting, Tattoo stands up and gets a few shots in herself. She ducks back down to reload. She also grabs a grenade. Asshole takes out two more Lethal-Praetorians. Tattoo stands to throw the grenade and gets shot in the process. Her grenade lands though and short-circuits two more of the Lethal-Praetorians.
Back in the lab, the female technician is NOT here for the way this new body is thrashing around. The male technician tells New Body that that’s enough, and gets punched IN THE FACE for his trouble. The female technician starts yelling for help. New Body flops off the table and pulls out his own umbilicus. HATE IT. Another technician runs in and threatens New Body with a cattle prod. New Body takes him down easily and demands to know how long he’s been down. A third technician looks it up and wonders who the fuck this guy even is. Female technician answers his question: two hundred and fifty years.
DAMN.
New Body aka Asshole (the record the technician pulled up confirms they are one and the same) demands a mirror. Female Technician, proving to be more quick thinking than anyone else, grabs a metal tray and hands it to Asshole. He looks at himself and we see that his reflection is his old body. The reflection screams silently at him until it morphs to reflect his new body.
Asshole asks where he is. I would love it if someone would give him a name, too, but alas. Female Technician tells him that he’s at Alcatraz Prison, Bay City on Earth. He stands and holy moly, Joel Kinnaman‘s body… Dear Lord.
Asshole asks where the shower is, and I take this moment to fan myself forever. We also get a butt shot, which leads to even more butt shots because a whole group of new bodies have arrived to shower. Voiceover tells us that coming back from the dead is a bitch, every single time.
Jessica: Seconded on the fanning. Also, Kinnaman BEEFED UP from his previous role that I recognize him from, which is as skinny Detective Holden in The Killing. It wasn’t until he spoke that I put the two together. Just… damn.
Mari: We cut to this group, showered and in scrubs, sitting in an orientation. An overly peppy woman welcomes them to Alcatraz and tells them that now that they have served their prison sentences, they have been re-sleeved from an inventory of available prisoners. We see some people did not get jacked Joel Kinnaman bodies, but instead got older bodies. One woman is shaking. One woman is crying. Overly Peppy Woman goes on that you may feel confused or strange. Asshole looks up and sees Renee and she says “after all, you’re not supposed to be here.” But she doesn’t actually open her mouth so this is probably in Asshole’s head.
Overly Peppy Woman says that disorientation, hallucinations and even low-grade amnesia are normal. She opens her hand and we see a projected image of that little pod thing we’ve been seeing around. She calls it a cortical stack. As Protectorate citizens, they each had one implanted when they were one year old. Inside is their human mind, coded and stored as DHF: Digital Human Freight. It allows any consciousness to be downloaded into any stack and into any sleeve. She excitedly says that you can even “needlecast” in minutes to anywhere in the settled worlds. A sleeve is replaceable, but if a stack is destroyed, you die. And there is no coming back from real death. She cheerily warns them to avoid blunt force trauma to the base of the brain and energy weapons fired at the head.
A prison worker tells Asshole that the warden wants to see him.
Flashback to shoot-out. Tattoo is bleeding out. Asshole 1.0 tries to make his way over to her, but is attacked by a Lethal-Praetorian. They fight, and we establish that Asshole 1.0 is very good at fighting. Tattoo struggles toward a dropped gun. She picks it up, stands, aims it at the Lethal-Praetorians fighting with Asshole, and then another group of Lethal-Praetorians enter and fill her full of bullets. Asshole gets shot in the leg.
Alcatraz. Voiceover says that when you wake, the world will not be what it was and neither will you. Asshole 2.0 meets with the Warden who is looking at his redacted file, which still features espionage, crimes against the state and lots o’ murder.
Shoot-out. A Lethal-Praetorian has Asshole at gun point and charges him, also gifting us with a NAME: Takeshi Kovaks. Praise the Lord.
Takeshi is under arrest for treason against the Protectorate, working for the terrorist leader Quellcrist Falconer. The Lethal-Praetorian takes off his mask, and he’s just a regular dude underneath. Asshole 1.0 scoffs at his charges. He says he didn’t work for her. It was more like an autonomous collective. The Lethal-Praetorian tells him, in German, to shut his mouth. Asshole says it’s good to see the man, Jaeger, ’cause it’s been a while. Another one of the Lethal-Praetorians checks Tattoo out, noting that her sleeve is done for, but her stack is in tact. Jaeger gets a wicked gleam in his eye. He asks Asshole who the girl is, and he tries to play it off like she’s no one. Jaeger doesn’t buy it. He says that Asshole should’ve been respectful, because she would’ve lived. He shoots out Tattoo’s stack. Damn. RIP. (J: While I doubt she would have lived, still … womp.)
Back at Alcatraz, the warden is still reading Takeshi’s supposed list of crimes, and ends on having shot his own partner, which he’s just assuming is true because she was shot from behind. The Warden asks if he doesn’t have anything to say. Takeshi apologizes. He was waiting for a question. It was all monologue for a while there, so he tuned out. The Warden is not amused and moves right on to business: Takeshi has gotten this new sleeve, complete with shiny fighting upgrades, because he’s been leased out to Bancroft Industries. Takeshi asks about his rights, but it turns out he doesn’t have any. Failure to comply with his parole will result in de-sleeving. He’ll have to serve the rest of his sentence, which doesn’t actually have an end date. The Warden is convinced that Takeshi will screw up, because he knows people like him. Tak says there aren’t people like him. Not anymore.
Jessica: If there’s no end date, why store him instead of straight kill him? I suppose they figure he may be useful in the future. Like now.
Mari: We watch Takeshi gather his few belongings and leave prison into a kind of receiving room. We watch as people, in new and strange bodies, are reunited with loved ones. We watch the nervous, older woman from orientation greet a petite woman as “mommy?” Her dad yells at a guard because their daughter Cindy was seven years old when she was murdered in a hit and run. The law promises them a free sleeve. The guard coldly says that they get whatever is in inventory. If they don’t like it, they can pay for an upgrade or put their kid back in storage. Cindy cries. (J: Oh damn.) That’s some messed up shit.
Takeshi is greeted by a woman who will be driving him to the Bancroft residence. She explains, referencing what just happened with Cindy, that victim restitution means putting people in any sleeve they have hanging around. The prison leases the good bodies for profit. Takeshi snarks about the humanity of it all. They don’t have this stuff where he comes from. Before he can tell us where that is, we see that there is a protest outside the prison. People are in white face paint and holding up signs against resleeving. As Takeshi walks out in the middle of the crowd, they aggressively yell at him that he will not be forgiven. He should’ve stayed dead.
Out in the grimy future city, which I suppose we now know is Bay City, Takeshi is in a flying vehicle, looking over a pamphlet from the protesters. The driver says you would’ve thought that they would shut up once 653 failed and then explains that 653 proposed bringing back murder victims to identify their killers. Takeshi asks what’s wrong with that. The Driver replies that the archdiocese says that you only get the sleeve you are born with. Once you die, if they spin you back up for anything, even to identify your killer, you go to hell. Driver asks Taekshi what he thinks. He thinks no one in the Archdiocese has ever been murdered.
Back to the shoot-out. Takeshi 1.0 sighs heavily, telling Jaeger that he just had to be a dick. He stands up and looks like he’s going to charge, but Jaeger shoots him again, this time in the chest. With great effort, Takeshi stands and charges for Jaeger. He gets shot a bunch of times, but keeps on running until he crashes through a glass door and dies on the shower floor. He dies staring at his own reflection.
Now. Takeshi 2.0 watches the city pass by and we get Minority Report-esque adverts playing on screens that cover the city. This whole city reminds me of things I’ve seen before, but I can’t quite put my finger on? If y’all have ideas about sci-fi inspirations here, shout them in the comments.
Driver asks Takeshi what he was in for. He evenly says he blew some shit up and killed some people. Driver is clearly taken aback, so Takeshi tells her that some people just need killing. She asks how he decides who deserves to die. Takeshi says it depends on the day. Anything can set him off: interstellar dictatorship, genocide, people who talk too much. Wow, those are also all on my shit list, too.
To clarify: I’ve never killed anyone.
Also, the closed captioning just identified Takeshi’s dialogue as coming from Kovacks, so I’m not sure if the show wants us to call him Kovacks? The joy of recapping a new show. (J: Last name- so formal. We did just meet, after all. Or maybe more cool, I guess, like a sports team nickname.)
Kovacs says right now he’s feeling pretty hostile toward Laurens Bancroft, whoever the heck that is. Driver can’t believe he doesn’t know who Bancroft is, considering he’s one of the original Meths. Kovacs doesn’t even know what a Meth is. In answer, Driver quotes the Bible, specifically the story of Methuselah, the oldest living man, who lived for 969 years. Laurens Bancroft is over 360 years old. They get to where they are going and Kovacs stares in wonder at these giant towers in the clouds, aways from the noise and grime of the city. Driver, whose name I catch as Kristin this time around, parks. She’s still asking Kovacs questions, which he calls her on, but she laughs it off as just her personality.
Kristin really sucks at landing the car. Kovacs gets out and assumes she’s not really a driver. Kristin said she was security, but never said for who. She whips out her police badge. The whole car ride was really an interrogation. Kristin asks him for just a name. He gives it, Takeshi Kovacs, and tells her to look him up. Kovacs walks away. Kristin presses the bracelet she’s wearing and one of her pupils lights up with TECHNOLOGY! She blinks it away, follows after Kovacs, and tells him he can’t be who he says he is. All the Envoys are dead. All except one, he says.
A bunch of men with guns greet Kovacs and Kristin. She sasses at them, telling them to lower their weapons and tell her where their boss is. A woman in a flowing white dress comes out to say that Lieutenant Ortega is trespassing on private property and also stole one of their limos. She could have Ortega shot. Ortega (because I see that last names are a thing on this show) (J: Cool kids use last names) tells her to try.
Almost immediately, a police car lands next to them all. A man is being led out of the car and the White Dress Woman asks what’s going on. Isaac was supposed to drive the Envoy. Isaac says he totally wasn’t drunk, just loosening up. Another officer leads Isaac to his mother as Ortega explains that they picked him up on a DUI, which is how they came into possession of their vehicle. Mom White Dress protests, but Isaac tells her to just stop. It’s her fault anyway for sending him to pick the Envoy up when he isn’t a chauffeur. Isaac brats away and Mom White Dress accuses the police of harassment. Ortega is like yeah, there’s your kid, your car, and your pet terrorist.
Mari: Kovacs lightly protests at being called a pet terrorist, but Ortega just tells him that she’s not done with him. The cops leave.
Jessica: The more I think about this, the more I’m convinced Ortega crashed the car a bit on purpose, just to mess up the driveway garden area.
Mari: Brilliant if true.
Mom White Dress apologizes to him and introduces herself as Miriam Bancroft. Inside, we see that there is a big, creepy tree in the foyer. Kovacs asks if that shouldn’t be in a museum. Miriam confesses that she has a weakness for Elder civilization relics. It took a lot of money and time to get it here, but Miriam smugs that money was no object. Kovacs looks at it feelingly as Miriam explains that it’s the only Songspire tree on Earth and no one knows what it does. Takeshi doesn’t need this explanation because he’s seen them. He briefly flashes to a memory of a Songspire tree in a cave. Miriam says of course. He would’ve seen one in something called the Stronghold.
Miriam shows Takeshi to the study where Laurens Bancroft is waiting. In the elevator, Miriam gives Takeshi sexy eyes and asks if he can really read people’s minds. Takeshi says no, Envoys cannot reads minds. She says it’s a pity. He looks like he’s pretty okay with getting the heck out of that elevator.
In the study, Bancroft apologizes for his son again. Kovacs says it’s okay. The ride with Ortega was instructive. Bancroft can see how, especially since Envoys once dealt in details. Bancroft quotes something that Kovacs identifies as Falconer. Bancroft says he was alive during the uprising, after all. Kovacs bitterly says that he was, too. Bancroft apologizes because it’s all in the distant past for him, but it’s different for Kovacs, since he was asleep this whole time. Bancroft is one of the few left who actually saw what the Envoys could do. He was always a little jealous of the Envoys, trained by Quell herself to be the most formidable fighters in the universe. Kovacs says that all would sound better if they hadn’t lost.
Bancroft hands Kovacs a little journal. Kovacs flips through it while Bancroft waxes poetic on the written word. I paused on the brief glimpse we get of the pages. The top seems to be counting the days and children of someone, in Biblical style. The bottom has written, “Our bodies twined like tree roots tearing stone, voiceless cries to blind skies, heard only by our shared and secret skin.” Bancroft bought it at auction as it is supposedly written by Falconer in her own hand.
Takeshi is well over being messed with. He didn’t ask to be brought back to life and actually fought a war so people like Bancroft couldn’t do this to him. Some things cannot be bought, and he counts himself among those things. He suggests Bancroft tell him what’s going on right now before he loses his temper. (J: This delivery was pretty badass. Even “I’m 360 years old” Bancroft seems a bit taken aback.)
Before jumping into what is going on, Bancroft talks compensation: a full pardon signed by the President of the Protectorate limiting his sentence to time served; a line of credit opened in his name; the ability to keep this sleeve or upgrade to another one; and a salary of 50 million UN credits. All that Bancroft wants is for Kovacs to solve a murder. He dramatically pulls down a blanket to reveal a blood splatter on the wall. Kovacs asks whose murder. Bancroft dramatically says, “mine.”
For some reason, I was assuming that they wanted Kovacs for something nefarious. Probably all the RICH PEOPLE, EW telegraphing that I fell for. The fact that this just turned into a murder mystery (maybe?) has me more excited.
Jessica: The “mine” reveal was spoiled to me by the teaser, so I wasn’t surprised. Though thinking on it a bit more, it is kind of mysterious why he’d choose this one-last Envoy guy as his Sherlock. Maybe there’s more to it? Or maybe it’s his rich-guy ego coming into play. Either way it’s an intriguing concept.
Mari: Police station. Ortega is still obsessing over Kovacs’ file. Her partner tells her to drop it. So what if Kovacs was a soldier. He’s just another rerun. Ortega says it’s different. An Envoy could drop into any sleeve and be combat ready in minutes. She hands her partner the file to let him read all the Envoy skills for himself, which include absorbing languages, infiltrating and manipulating computer systems and other people. Ortega is really worked up and does not get any calmer when her partner suggests she calm down. She wants to know why Bancroft resleeved a terrorist into their city. Her partner doesn’t have any answers and really sticks to his “calm down, it’ll be fiiiiine” position.
Bancroft lays out the details of his murder: when Miriam found him, his head had been vaporized by a particle blaster he kept in a biometric safe that only he and Miriam can open. Bancroft isn’t dead dead because he’s filthy rich enough to have made a back-up of his stack.
Up in the loft of the study, Bancroft says he was born in London before they moved to what was then the United States. He redirects his telescope and asks Kovacs to look through. Kovacs spots a military grade satellite he assumes belongs to the Protectorate, but actually belongs to Bancroft himself. Every 48 hours, his stack is needlecast to the satellite as a back-up. And he was murdered 10 minutes before his back-up, meaning that he has no memory of the 2 days before his murder. Someone tried to hack his satellite feed moments after his death, meaning that someone really wants him dead dead. Kovacs says that for all he knows, Bancroft could’ve tried killing himself and failed. Bancroft assures him that he is not the kind of man to attempt suicide, and if he were, he would not botch the job in such a fashion. Kovacs tells Bancroft that he doesn’t want the money or the job. He prefers an eternity on ice. Bancroft suggests he take the day to consider, to remember what it’s like to be alive, and then make his decision.
In a car, Kovacs has lots of memory flashes: to his dead face reflected back at him in a shattered mirror; to Renee Elise Goldsberry saying his name; to him and a little girl, playing at the edge of a lake. We join him in the present, sitting next on the wall of a dam, when a woman’s voice says that all that water seems like home. IT’S DICHEN LACHMAN. Man, I can’t even explain why I have such a soft spot for this actress, even though the last thing I saw her on was Supergirl and that was not good. BUT LOOK! SHE’S HERE! (J: Yay!!!!)
Party music. In the busy, rainy Bay City streets, Kovacs stops for a smoke and a man offers him drugs, noting that he looks uncomfortable in his new sleeve. Kovacs takes all the drugs, little pink backpack included. We cut to him using some eye drops, his vision going hazy, and the world going warpy. He uses another little eye tube that makes everything go very colorful. He walks along and sees a lot of prostitutes? I think he’s seeing things at first, but they in fact are adverts playing in his head, including one for a monster fighting ring. He tries to fight the imaginary monsters and falls to the ground.
Ortega is on hand to put something on his neck. It’s an advert blocker, which she says is a peace offering. She wants to go get a drink and talk about what Bancroft wants. Kovacs semi-slurs that it was her case, and she fucked it up. She can tell that he’s high, so she tells him to just forget it. Before she walks away, Kovacs calls her back and offers to start over. He’ll take her up on that drink, but he’s going to pick the place.
It’s a strip club. He’s watching the stage as we get more details about Bancroft’s case, which Ortega worked. The wife passed a polygraph test and they chased down every single lead. It all came back to the fact that Bancroft locked himself in that study and blew his stack out. And he tried to ruin Ortega’s career afterward. She insists that there is no case.
A stripper gets close to Kovacs, but he’s put off because it appears she’s really some sort of AI. Kovacs calls for the check. Ortega says they aren’t done here, so he explains about how you keep making hormones when you are on ice, eyebrow waggle. Ortega calls him an asshole, which we’ve done heard before. He gets up in her face, “sexily” but then just says that his Envoy intuition is telling him that Bancroft believes he was murdered, which made it a lot more fun when he turned the guy down. He’s going back into storage. This isn’t his world. Ortega is surprised.
Kovacs pays for the bill and tells Ortega he’ll be staying at the Raven on Coronado Street, in case she changes her mind about making this a date. Ortega warns him off that place, saying that no one stays there. It’s an AI hotel, where the AI is hardwired to want guests, effectively turning them into stalkers. He ignores her warnings and says he’s going to get himself a nice meal and some high end hookers who will appreciate the stamina of the newly resleeved. A little vacation before he goes back to sleep forever.
Raven Hotel. There is a very enthusiastic front desk man (J: Who, by the by, is an Edgar Alan Poe lookalike because, Raven, geddit? Yeah, we got it.) who lays out many options of themed sex rooms, but Kovacs isn’t into it. They settle on a demure woman with a briefcase full of sex toys, just in time for Kovacs to get a gun placed to the base of his neck. The man holding the gun says so much for Envoy intuition. IT’S TAHMOH PENIKETT. WHAT KIND OF DOLLHOUSE REUNION IN THIS DOLLHOUSE-LIKE SHOW?
Jessica: Wait, I know this one. They’re all dolls! Everyone’s a doll! Right? Or … ah, I’ll just go back to watching and enjoy this on all the levels.
Mari: Tahmoh thought Kovacs would be bigger and more dangerous. He brought all this back-up he doesn’t need. One back-up guy takes offense to that and gets shot for his trouble. The front desk guy (Poe) really, really wants to make the sale and keeps repeating that Kovacs should touch the screen. Tahmoh starts punching Kovacs, who falls to the ground with not a lot of fight. Kovacs takes stock of all the back-up, the layout of the room, and the front desk man giving him 50 seconds to touch the screen. Kovacs starts crawling back toward the front desk, helped by Tahmoh, who keeps punching him in that direction. When he finally makes it to the front desk, he slams his hand down on the screen for payment and the front desk man says he can now provide full guest amenities. Two guns come down out of the ceiling and start shooting up the back-up. The front desk man pulls out his own gun. Kovacs fights those in his path. It’s all set to hotel jazz.
Kovacs takes Tahmoh on and quickly bests him, trying to get him to say who their boss is. (J: There’s this amazing thing where Tahmoh tries to throw a punch but Kovacs just kicks him straight in the chest and ha!) Tahmoh breaks free of Kovac’s hold and then the hotel AI is too enthusiastic and kills Tahmoh before Kovacs gets any answers. Poe is sheepish.
When the cops arrive, Takeshi is having a smoke and a drink at the hotel bar. Ortega walks in and asks WTF happened. Kovacs says his plans got interrupted by these guys who obviously knew who he was. Her partner has identified Tahmoh as Demitri Bad Guy. This Demitri guy has copied his stack and downloaded it into a black market sleeve, which is illegal. Ortega is happy for half a second about having captured one copy of Dimitri, before she pulls out the stack and realizes it’s fragged. And the information left on the stack isn’t enough to bring Original Flavor Dimitri in for questioning. Ortega asks if they couldn’t have just disabled the bad guys. Poe says that he was coming to the defense of his first guest in fifty years, thank you very much. Plus, those guys were RUDE.
I think Poe is my favorite character already.
Since a high end hit man was sent to kill Kovacs, it means that Bancroft’s death was not a suicide. Kovacs wouldn’t warrant this kind of hit so many years after his other death. He tells the police to stop being LOL about this all and actually investigate what’s going on. Ortega says she could arrest him for… something… here. Kovacs is like, “yeah, yeah. I’ll be in my room.”
In the elevator, it starts snowing? Kovacs is having a memory flash of a forest on fire in the snow in his Kovacs 1.0 body. Later, a still bloody Kovacs is getting high again and having visions of Renee Elise Goldsberry. He pulls out a gun as he tells her memory that he doesn’t know how to be in the world without her. Renee assures him that she’s here. In his head, I guess. Kovacs says he doesn’t have to go back on ice. He can blow out his stack and end it. Renee (Quell Falconer, okay?) tells him that wouldn’t end it, just him. It’s been 250 years. It’s time for him to move on. Never, he says. Not ever. Renee tells him to do what he was trained to do, then. This isn’t just about saving a Meth. There is a bigger question here. A box that needs to be unlocked. She encourages him to take this chance. This is how he finishes the mission.
Later, at the tattoo parlor outside Takeshi first scored drugs, he gets that snake tattooed on his arm. Then he calls Bancroft to tell him he’ll take the case.
PHEW, that was a lot of episode to recap. This show does something I love, and it’s that it lets the world build slowly for you, throwing out names, terms, situations, and trusting you the viewer to piece it together in time. This can be tricky, but I think it was mostly executed well here. It only felt laggy or a little confusing in the first 15ish minutes of the episode. You’ve got this intriguing world and characters and then you layer a murder mystery on top? That sells me, even though the overwrought dialogue and the on-the-nose voice overs could become more of a burden as we move on. It is a very pretty thing to look at, so I’m curious how we will proceed and if there is more fun than flaw to be found here.
Jessica: Very good episode, I’m definitely hooked. It’s like if Firefly, Dollhouse, Blade Runner, Total Recall and Sherlock all had a baby. Can’t wait to see how the universe is developed from here on out.
Next time on Altered Carbon: Kovacs tracks down a man who sent Bancroft a death threat in S01 E02 – Fallen Angel.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I'm a chronic book nerd and love storytelling in all forms. I'm particularly excited by the rise of the television show as an art form with long, cinematically beautiful plots and complex character arcs (I also watch cartoons). My travels in the past handful of years have led me through three continents and most recently landed me among the majestic mountains of Colorado. Some day I will compile all my travel journals/blogs into one place. Some day. Until then, you can find me with craft beer in hand, ready at any moment to deeply and passionately discuss survival tactics for the zombie apocalypse.
