Kovacs learns they’re back on Harlan’s World, and fills Poe in on what Axley said about Quell.Įveryone learns that Harlan’s World is now run by Danica Harlan (Lela Loren), who has just negotiated a peace treaty with the Quellists, the rebels inspired by Falconer. He gets dressed and discovers more carnage, including Axley. He wakes up with a large shard of glass in his arm. As he’s trying to adjust to the new face in the mirror, someone sneaks up behind him and smashes him into it. He may have a cool new sleeve, but he’s not only feeling residual pain from the shooting, there are also dead bodies around the lab. Seems Axley needs major protection, and no one can do that better than Kovacs, and he promises to give him Quell’s location in return, along with enough payment to disappear.
It’s also got a bunch of enticing bells and whistles, like rapid healing time and other special tricks. So now Kovacs is meeting with Axley anyway, who offers him a fancy new sleeve that looks like a Marvel superhero - specifically Anthony Mackie. Of course.Ī Meth named Horace Axley wants to talk to Takeshi, and when Kovacs refuses, Trepp shoots him. It’s only half of what he’s owed, though, and needs the other half to get off-planet. As the man who left the credits is leaving, the singer stops him - it’s Kovacs! And he knows that the guy tried to palm the credits and even kill Kovacs. Trepp looks bemused as the chaos heightens to the point that the singer flees the stage. Who is the real one? None of them, of course, but people start shooting and fighting and trying to claim the credits. Someone comes to pay Kovacs, and more than one person stands up to claim the credits. after a “vicious attack on his person-hood.” Turns out that he doesn’t even work there. They do a bit of catchup about who Takeshi and Quell were for viewers who haven’t seen the show in two years. He’s owed a lot of credits and will reportedly be at the bar to collect. He’s back! She’s traveling and had landed on a place called Maghda Prime looking for Takeshi Kovacs. A woman named Trepp (Simone Missick) sits at the bar, which appears to be run by Poe. Those words give way to a lounge singer doing her best at Cole Porter’s classic “Under My Skin,” a clever opening song given the premise of this show, but also thematically resonant with Kovacs’s search for his long-lost love Quell.
In a world where people are forced to go on, resleeving into new forms over and over again, finding no relief, death is something of a reprieve. After all, when you can’t die, you can’t become a ghost. The first line this season: “This is a ghost story.” It’s an odd opener, given that ghosts don’t really exist in the world of Altered Carbon. The season ended with him knowing she’s still alive, at least stack form, and the last line hinted at the plan for season two: “He will find her.” Many thought Falconer was dead, a martyr for a revolution that even sparked her own religion, but Kovacs’s sister revealed in the season finale that Quell had been backed up.
built on the image of Edgar Allen Poe, played by Conner, and spent much of the season flashing through memories of the leader of the Envoys, the wonderfully named Quellcrist Falconer, played by Goldsberry. Kovacs was one of the last of an elite group called the Envoys, and his stack was pulled from storage and put in the Kinnaman “sleeve” to solve a murder. Heavily inspired by Blade Runner, Altered Carbon was sci-fi noir, a show that asked questions about identity and responsibility. The first season was about a man named Takeshi Kovacs hundreds of years into the future. Sadly, the supporting cast from that first season, which included strong work by Martha Higareda and Dichen Lachman, was one of its strengths, leaving the second season premiere feeling somewhat empty, like a show unsure of what it wants to do next. In fact, most of the cast from season one is gone, although key roles played Chris Conner and Renée Elise Goldsberry keep us connected to the first year. This is how Joel Kinnaman can be replaced by Anthony Mackie as the character Takeshi Kovacs, and it makes just enough sense for the show to go on. After all, in this vision of the future, the human body is just a shell, something that holds a “stack” that contains a person’s memories, personality, and even skill set. Netflix’s Altered Carbon is the rare show with a premise that allows for a leading man to be swapped out, Bewitched-style, and still make sense within the construct of the show.
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