Previously: Nooooo, Abboud!!!
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Man with My Face
Marines: Creepy lullaby as we see someone fiddling with their chains. Then suddenly, we are in the back of a car with Ortega and Kovacs. She is bleeding profusely. Kovacs is frantically trying to stop the blood, all while Ortega asks where Abboud is. Kovacs tells her not to worry about it. “He’s fine.” He is most certainly not fine.
Jessica: *cries*
Mari: Kovacs is trying his best to both drive the car and keep Kristen alive. (J: As with most of these shows, I am impressed with how the severely wounded/dying people can still be quippy. Since I turn into an insensible wreck when I merely stub my toe, I can only aspire to such heights. But also I’m good never being in Ortega’s current position.) When they finally arrive at the hospital, Kovacs carries a passed out and bloody Ortega into the lobby, calling for help. The nurse at the desk is unbothered, and tells Kovacs to put Ortega’s finger on the scanner. He has to literally toss her a bit to get her arm to hit the scanner. It reads INSUFFICIENT FUNDS. Kovacs asks if they are just going to let her die, then. Unbothered Nurse says of course not. They don’t turn anyone away. She’ll just have to wait in a packed waiting room for her turn. Kovacs spits on the scanner and it reads his big ass bank account. Unbothered immediately changes her tune and leads the way for them.
Jessica: This feels too familiar to real life in the U.S.
Mari: We are living in the dystopian future, cool.
Kovacs watches as Orega is scanned and then operated on. From the observation room, Kovacs asks the doctor if he’ll be able to save her. The doctor says her stack is intact, but the arm is too badly damage to save. They’ll need to amputate. However, for someone with his considerable financial resources, they do offer a wide array of replacement parts. On a screen near Kovacs, a bunch of robotic arm options show up. Kovacs selects one, but loses his temper when the doctor offers an extended warranty. He threatens to put the Doctor’s head through the wall if he offers anything else. The computer asks for payment with DNA, and Kovacs punches it. Payment accepted.
Jessica: That doctor is like a real-life form of those “ask your doctor about Drug X” commercials. So basically, the worst. But at least she’s getting saved, so yay?
Mari: Elliot watches as Poe is in mind therapy with Lizzie. She tells Poe that the monsters turned her insides to red. Poe says he can’t imagine, but he does know something that might help. He asks if she wants to hit him. Lizzie says that she doesn’t want to hurt him, but he assures her that she can’t. He tells her not to be afraid of the monsters. To make them afraid of her. He helps her form a fist and she punches him. He goes flying and then jumps up again, triumphant. He asks if she wants to do it again.
Suddenly, Elliot is there, asking what the fuck Poe is up to. Poe tells him to GTFO, because this is dangerous. Instead, Elliot talks to Lizzie, and she freaks out, asking where he was when she was in the dark forest full of monsters. (J: Now I want to hit Elliot.) Poe pulls Elliot out of the simulation and they are back in the hotel, by the bar. Elliot is yelling, accusing Poe of being sick for wanting Lizzie to hit him. Poe tells him that self-defense paired with psycho-surgery and trauma therapy are part of the treatment process. Elliot grunts and breaks a bunch of glasses. Elliot says if Poe is the hotel, and the hotel is him, can he feel pain? He very deliberately breaks another glass. Poe says he can’t feel pain, but he can feel anger. (J: Oh snap.) Suddenly, his machine guns come out of the ceiling and point at Elliot. He tells him to bring it, but their man vs. hotel showdown is interrupted when Poe receives an incoming message from a local hospital. Lieutenant Ortega has been injured. Elliot doesn’t move at first, but Poe amends “critically.” Elliot leaves with a “we’re not done Poe.”
Jessica: Elliot, don’t you dare threaten our beloved Poe! I will choose the adorable hotel over your angry shouting every time.
Mari: It’s not even a contest. Poe wins.
Kovacs is standing the rain, but this also appears to be indoors? Does this hospital have a “standing in the rain sadly” room because if yes, that is awesome. Maybe they are just standing outside the hospital, but I like the indoor rain room idea better. (J: 100%)
Jessica: She’ll be back – she’s just looking for a mind at work. *checks off “shoe-horn in Hamilton quote” box*
Mari: Elliot arrives and asks how Ortega is. Kovacs fills him in on the arm thing. Elliot says that “his girl” is a badass and will pull through. Kovacs says she isn’t his girl. Elliot is like O K A Y, S U R E. He asks why Ortega wasn’t re-sleeved. Elliot says that she grew up Neo-C, and even though she renounced it, Kovacs didn’t want to make that decision for her. She’d probably never forgive him. (J: Smart decision!)
Poe calls Kovacs, and he picks up in his eyeball phone. (J: Have we made an eye-phone joke yet?) (M: I think we have, and I forget it every time!) Kovacs yells that this isn’t a good time, but Poe has time sensitive information. The painting in Isaac Bancroft’s apartment? They were purchased through a shell company owned by Sergei Brevlov. Kovacs recognizes the name because Sergei was at the Rich People Party That Keeps Giving. (J: I’m so used to parties being random and frivolous, thanks to Pretty Little Liars and such. But now that you point this out – it has been a very useful party!) Kovacs asks Poe to send him an address for Sergei. Elliot is surprised that Kovacs is going to keep investigating for Bancroft while Ortega is being operated on. This isn’t about Bancroft, though. Sergei was at the Rich People Party That Keeps Giving, but so was the ghost walker who killed Abboud and hurt Ortega. Kovacs asks if Elliot is coming or not, and he’s in. “I could use something to hit.”
BCPD. Captain Tanaka is watching while a clean up crew cleans the blood in the elevator. Prescott enters with a quip about how a bloody elevator really inspires confidence in Bay City’s finest. Tanaka says he’s busy, but Prescott says not too busy for her. He has something that belongs to her client. Tanaka tells her to file the proper paperwork, but she threatens him and says that if she has to file anything, he’ll be looking at his own blood next. Tanaka gives in and instructs an officer to take Prescott to evidence and let her take what she needs. Before she leaves, though, Tanaka grabs her and pulls her aside. He tells her that even though she may work for them, she isn’t one of them. He tells her not to talk to him that way in front of his people. She’s ground-born, just like him. They are the same. Prescott tells him they most certainly are not. One of them is a powerless puppet being used by forces he can’t comprehend. And the other of them is her. She flounces away.
Jessica: Another burn! I’m a little bit interested in Prescott now. I hope the show continues to develop her a bit more.
Mari: An officer arrives to tell Tanaka that they found another officer in the basement, dead just like Abboud. Later, Mickey is showing Tanaka the footage of the attack, but of course, they only see Abboud, Ortega and one attacker. Leung has deleted himself from the footage. Mickey also shows Tanaka the footage from the Rich People Party That Keeps Giving, sliding in that Ortega might’ve scanned a few people while she was there and one of them didn’t show up on her ONI. Mickey thinks this person and the attacker in the elevator might be the same. Tanaka snaps because he’s just hearing about this and because Dimi is now loose in the city, thanks to him. Mickey tells the captain to tell Ortega he’s sorry when he sees her.
Restaurant. Dimi meets with Hemingway, and thanks him for sending Leung to save his life. Now he has another chance to kill Kovacs. Hemingway tells him that Kovacs is an envoy and Dimi is not to go near him. Dimi can’t believe that an envoy killed his brother, and Hemingway can’t believe Dimi calls his double sleeved copies his brothers. Dimi mostly ignores this to continue to be angry that Kovacs killed his brother. Hemingway understands loyalty, but Tahmoh Penikett Dimi was an idiot who was just supposed to retrieve Kovacs, but instead picked a fight with a murderous hotel. Dimi loses his temper and repeats that he wants Kovacs dead. Hemingway tells him that he’s destined for disappointment.
Hemingway excuses himself for a second, and we see that he closes his eyes, but his eyelids are twitching. Dimi tries to surreptitiously grab a knife, but Leung is still standing like right behind him. Leung puts a weapon to Dimi’s stack and threatens to end him painfully if he interrupts Hemingway’s backup cycle. When Hemingway fishes his reboot, Hemingway finishes by telling Dimi that he’s being taken to safe house to make sure he doesn’t kill Kovacs.
Jessica: The fact that anyone at this point thinks Dimi will not immediately go after Kovacs is getting harder and harder to believe. Have they met Dimi?
Mari: Truly.
Kovacs and Elliot bust into Sergei’s apartment. He’s like “YOU COULD’VE KNOCKED!” but Kovacs just pushes him down onto a table and holds a gun to his stack. He asks about all that money he funneled to Isaac and where the Isaac is. Sergei says he doesn’t know, but the man himself appears with a gun he doesn’t use very well, which we can tell because he shoots at Kovacs and misses and then struggles to get it to reload. It gives Kovacs plenty of time to grab the gun away.
Kovacs tells Isaac that he knows he was pretending to be his father. Isaac does a bunch of “I’m telling my dad” and “do you know who I am!” while Kovacs and Elliot are menacing and accuse him of murder. Sergei has recovered enough to reappear, now with a gun of his own. He shoots a warning shot near Elliot’s head, but again, Kovacs disarms him easily. Isaac pleads for them to leave Sergei alone. He’ll tell them anything.
With that, we cut to Suntouch. The Bancrofts are gathered. Miriam is upset that Kovacs is accusing Isaac of murder. Kovacs says he’s actually just reporting information to Bancroft about some of his missing time: when Bancroft cast back from Osaka, he went to Fightdrome and found Isaac there, beating him within an inch of his life. Bancroft asks why he would, and on cue, Prescott enters wheeling in the clone body she took back from BCPD. Prescott apologies for interrupting, and tries to promptly excuse herself, but Bancroft tells her to stay. And in the next breath, he asks who the heck Elliot is. Elliot says he’ll wait outside.
Bancroft confronts Isaac and asks if he planned on using the clone to take over his dad’s life. Sergei tries to defend Isaac, but Bancroft tells him to shut up. Isaac says that he was just trying to impress his dad by creating a clone and impersonating him! Duh. (J: Classic move.) Bancroft calls Isaac all sorts of names. Meanwhile, Kovacs is having flashbacks of hiding in the closet while his own dad abused his mother. Finally, Kovacs speaks up and says that Isaac didn’t kill Bancroft, based mostly on the fact that to be a father killer, you need to be a super angry person, and Isaac isn’t. Sergei confirms and offers up Isaac’s alibi: Sergei took him to an anonymous hospital after Bancroft beat him to a pulp. Bancroft asks why Sergei didn’t say that before, but Sergei is like “I shouldn’t have to!” Fair, but also, you needed to so maybe offer the alibi sooner next time.
Isaac gives a teary speech about how he doesn’t want his father dead. He wants his father’s respect. Bancroft replies that it’s a father’s duty to make sure his children have a fighting chance in the world, and sometimes against all hope, the apple falls far from the tree. Bancroft walks to the fireplace and grabs a poker. Miriam immediately gets between Bancroft and Isaac, but Bancroft moves back toward his clone and then goes HAM on the clone body. Just whacks it repeatedly. Everyone is cringing. Blood splatters everywhere. After the outburst, Bancroft thanks Kovacs for the update and shakes his hand.
Prescott and Kovacs ride in the elevator together. He asks if she still wants to be a Meth. Prescott says she has what it takes, but she’s shaky. Kovacs pulls a picture of Leung out and ask Prescott if she knows who he is. Prescott does not.
Leung and Dimi are walking together through some sort of catwalk in the city. Dimi asks why he takes orders from Hemingway, but Leung says he’s not taking orders. He’s got a holy mission or something. And as he goes on about his holy mission, Dimi uses the opportunity to jump down from the catwalk and run. (J: What. A. Surprise.) Leung chases and we get a sequence with both Dimi and Leung pushing lots of people out of the way as they run. (J: Seriously – the people pushing is so excessive it almost becomes comical.) It ends with Dimi running into a tattoo parlor. There he pulls the cushion off one of the chairs, revealing a communication device. He activates it and tells the person on the other line that he’s reconsidered the offer, but his one condition is that he needs extraction now. By the time Leung catches up, Dimi has cast out of his body, and is cast into Kovacs 1.0, which is of course in the Fightdrome under Carnage’s care.
Kovacs and Elliot get back to the hospital where Mama Ortega is watching over her daughter. She walks up to Kovacs and punches him in the jaw. And then she excuses herself to get a coffee. Elliot thinks that went pretty well. And he also sees that Ortega’s vitals look good. Ortega wakes up and when she sees Kovacs, she thinks it’s Ryker. Kovacs looks very hurt. He stands and tries to leave, but Elliot stops him. Kovacs says that Ortega doesn’t want him here. Elliot is very level-headedly replies that he’s the one she’s got, though. So he has to stay.
Jessica: OK Elliot, good job. Now apply that common sense style thinking to your daughter!
Mari: An excellent point.
After a cut, Ortega wakes up again. She sits up and asks about Abboud. Kovacs just looks down, so she knows. She gets angry because Kovacs lied to her and said he was okay. She squeezes the railing on her bed and crushes it. Now she’s freaked out about her new body part.
Tanaka walks in with a flower arrangement. Ortega asks how Mickey is, and Tanaka tells her not to worry about Mickey. He’s fine and on the case. Tanaka asks how Ortega is and she tearily says alive. Tanaka assures her that Abboud died saving her life. Meanwhile, Kovacs is checking out the arrangement. “Nice flowers,” he interrupts their very feelsy conversation. And then he clarifies that Mickey is indeed still employed and not on suspension. Plus the flowers are reaaaally nice. Like Tanaka is asking for forgiveness. Tanaka tells Kovacs to take this outside with him, but Kovacs plows forward: the only reason Mickey would still be employed is if Tanaka is avoiding an investigation. Kovacs figures out that Tanaka is being paid by the bad dudes. Ortega asks Kovacs to give them a minute. Kovacs walks out.
Ortega uses her super arm to body slam Tanaka into the floor. Tanaka says cops can’t do much good against meth money, so the best they can do is a very little good. Ortega is not impressed by his letting cop killers into the station because he’s a victim of society. Tanaka says he didn’t know about the cop killers, but Ortega is unconvinced and slams him around some more. Tanaka swears he just takes a few extra credits to keep a mysterious someone in the loop. Ortega asks who, but Tanaka doesn’t know. He just pings Mysterious Someone on a burner and meets him at a cheap VR cafe in Oakland. Ortega gives him a finally little slap and tells Tanaka to ping his contact.
Kovacs asks her if she had a productive conversation and she’s like yep.
Cheap VR Cafe in Oakland. Ortega approaches the bar and asks for the cheap stuff. Kovacs pets a bar cat. I must report. (J: A+ reporting, thankyouverymuch.)
Ortega wants to be the one to go into VR, but Kovacs tells her that one of his Envoy tricks is being able to control the construct. He can make himself look like Tanaka. Ortega helps him get patched in.
Upstairs, someone walks in with a cutting wire.
Kovacs promises to find out who Mysterious is, for Abboud.
In the pipeline, Kovacs meets with Hemingway, but Hemingway pretty quickly realizes he’s not Tanaka. And just as quickly, Ortega pulls Kovacs out of the VR. He’s confused, but Ortega says something is wrong upstairs. When they get up there, everything is quiet. People are still sitting around the cafe, seemingly upright, but they are all dead. Kovacs moves a body, and the head falls clean off, causing a chain reaction around the cafe. Heads everywhere. And in the corner is Dimi Kovacs 1.0. (Dimi in Kovacs 1.0’s body. Keep up ya’ll.) He throws a bomb at Kovacs and Ortega and they are blasted clear out of the cafe.
Jessica: This is a lot all at once. I am still stuck on the decapitation dominoes.
Mari: We see the chains that we saw at the beginning of the episode in flashes. Kovacs and Ortega have been captured. Dimi gloats over Kovacs about being in his old sleeve. And then Carnage comes out to gloat as well. Then, they are marched out into the Fightdrome as the crowd goes crazy, thinking that Kovacs is Ryker. You know, a cop surrounded by bad dudes. In the ring, two horned creatures are released. It’s not looking good for our friends, at first. But then Kovacs spots the chains they were brought in with, and he and Ortega use them to bring down and choke the weird creatures. They win.
Jessica: This all gave me strong Hunger Games vibes.
Marines: Dimi Kovacs 1.0 jumps into the ring and slices the back of Kovac’s leg. He has two knives and he starts slicing at both Ortega and Dimi. His blades are poisoned, so Kovacs goes all fuzzy. Dimi does victory laps and hams it up for the crowd. It gives Kovacs and Ortega enough time to gather themselves for another attack. Kovacs rolls with Dimi, ending up on top, but also with a knife to the chest. Kovacs grabs the knife and stabs Dimi in the neck with it, cutting out his stack. He tosses it to Ortega, who crushes it with her bionic arm. God, that’s great. I was really tired of Dimi. BYE.
Mari: Yes, when Tamoh Penikett died, I was done with Dimi.
Even though they’ve won, our friends are in terrible shape. Ortega drags herself over to a struggling Kovacs and tells him she loves her new arm.
Carnage is pissed. He opens the gate to the ring so that the audience can finish them off, but just as the first of them enter the ring, we hear shots ring out. A woman in black lands on top of the cage and fights her way through the angry crowd. She just absolutely slaughters everyone with her sword. Ortega tries to attack and protect Kovacs, but she’s in too bad a shape. And then the woman reaches Kovacs and takes off her hood. It’s Dichen Lachman! Wow, love it! She greets him with a “hey big brother” and he passes out.
Jessica: Such an awesome ending! I did enjoy this episode, with Dimi’s death, some quippiness, its cyberpunk Hunger Games vibes, and a promise of more badassery on the way.
Mari: Agreed! It was well paced and have we mentioned Dimi’s death? Great, loved that part.
Next time on Altered Carbon: A blast from the past in S01 E07 – Nora Inu.
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.
