Altered Carbon S1E5: "The Wrong Man" (continued)

Ortega and "Ryker" blackmail Carnage into taking letting them into Fightdrome and letting him see the secret footage that he wasn't supposed to have taken. I still don't know why Kovacs is impersonating Ryker for this - it seems like the blackmail would be equally effective either way - but okay. As per Ortega's instructions, Kovacs just stays quiet and looks menacing while she does the talking. Violent, intimidating, and deferential to her; I can see why he was the man of Ortega's dreams. As he leads them in, Carnage explains that he's preparing for a big upcoming "humiliation bout." Not sure I want to know what that means. Possibly related to that though, he walks them through a hallway full of monstrous combat sleeves in stasis tanks waiting for gladiators to be sleeved in them. There's also a more normal looking sleeve that he just had cloned from a gene archive someone dug up on Harlan's World.

Well gee, what are the fucking chances?

I don't think there was anything even special about Kovacs' previous body? The Envoy stuff all seems to be mental conditioning and learned abilities, nothing physical. Well, except maybe the X-ray vision his old body had, but I didn't get the impression that was genetic. So, Kovacs' old body is just...a body. Right?

...

I'm still trying to figure out what was up with all those other faces with "Takeshi Kovacs" written by them when they were going through his history at the Alcatraz lab in the pilot. We later saw flashbacks to Takeshi's childhood where his kid self *looked* like it was supposed to be this body. So...how many sleeves has he had? Just the two, or more?

Also, the emptiness of the intervening two centuries of history is showing itself more and more whenever the topic of Envoys-in-pop-culture comes up. Aside from the bioweapon crisis that happened at some point during that period (but whose effects were only acknowledged for one scene) and the meths existing, it feels like nothing of any interest has happened since Kovacs' death to the praetorians. There's this just-under-the-surface cultural obsession with the Envoys and seemingly only the Envoys, with no other major threats having appeared since them.

And, how much of a threat did they ever even manage to be? If the Protectorate was able to stamp them out by destroying the Stronghold on Harlan's World, then that suggests they hadn't been able to spread out or entrench themselves in too many other places. How historically significant even were they?

Maybe other stuff has happened. Maybe those orc-looking sleeves that Carnage has in other tanks are recreations of another failed transhuman revolution that happened a century later or something. But nothing like that is being mentioned or hinted at. I guess the writers might just be afraid of overwhelming the audience with irrelevant details, but they're becoming really conspicuous by their absence at this point, and the unimaginativeness of the "modern America, but worse" setting as a whole makes me feel less charitable.

Anyway, speaking of unlikely coincidences, what do you guys think the odds are of Dimi the Twin stealing this body for the final confrontation? Like, holy fuck are they making this obvious.

...

Carnage sees Kovacs staring at the clone, and asks him if he'd like to see it fight. Or, for enough money, if he'd like to wear it. Kovacs manages to keep his cool and let Ortega usher them onward. They reach a computer station, where Carnage - still whining about their refusal to rat out the person who ratted him out - gets out the footage. He records it on VHS tape, to make absolute sure the data can't be hacked or stolen. That's a cool detail; I wonder if he had to build his own VCR in order to play this footage back. Grumbling all the while about what he's going to do when he finds out who turned his secret over to the cops, he puts it in and hits play.

It doesn't take them long to see that there were two Bancrofts in attendance at Fightdrome that night; the footage shows Laurens trying to wrestle an unruly Failson Isaac off of the bleachers because he...well, we don't see what exactly Isaac did, but whatever you're guessing it's probably correct.

Things escalate, and soon Laurens starts brutally punching Isaac in the face, over and over again, and then stomping on him after he goes down. Many of the audience members turn away from whatever was going on in the pit to watch this closer altercation and cheer and clap at it just the same.

I'm guessing that's a clone of Isaac that Laurens paid Carnage to plant in the audience so he could surprise attack and beat him to death. Probably some world-weary Fightdrome employee piloting it, or maybe even disgruntled AI servant Madison remote controlling it. We already know he likes to kill hookers, so recreational murder of what looks like his embarrassment of a kid would make total sense as a coping mechanism for him.

This might also be a contributing factor to why Isaac is such a little shit in the first place. If his parents just tolerate everything he does and then go take their frustration out on lookalike whipping boys behind the scenes, that would have meant pretty much no boundaries ever. In addition to the whole "keeping him dependent with nothing better to look forward to" thing that the show stupidly blames on immortality rather than the sheer miserliness that it obviously is.

Anyway, then Carnage tells them that the "show's over" without letting them see how Laurens and/or what looked like Isaac ever ended up leaving the place. And they don't bother asking him any questions about whether or not he provided that Isaac clone. He just tells them to leave after they watch the beating, and they do.

...

Maybe we're supposed to assume this scene was just a truncated version of what actually happened, but it's not shot that way. There are no camera cuts or anything that suggest a flashforward before he tells them to beat it, and they start leaving as soon as he does.

...

So, the two dummies leave. Kovacs informs Ortega that he was able to read Laurens' lips in the footage, and that during the beatdown he was whispering the sentence "You're not me, you never will be" over and over again. That could either be coming from a place of disappointment, or a place of fear. Possibly both. Laurens did compare himself to Zeus and Jupiter, and being overthrown by their sons was an ongoing concern for heads of the Greco-Roman pantheon. Granted, he also mentioned Odin and some other non-Greek father gods who didn't have that issue, so maybe I'm reading too much into this detail.

Still, Ortega and Kovacs agree, that doesn't much help them narrow down a suspect. Learning yet another aspect of Laurens' twisted relationship with his children doesn't give the latter any more means or motive than they already seemed to. Then, they take a police aircar to...somewhere? A house in the outskirts of the city, it looks like. Why here? Where even is this?

Ortega asks Kovacs if he thinks they should knock or if she should get a warrant or what. Kovacs wordlessly shoots the lock open and leads the way in.

Ortega, if you were almost anyone other than yourself, you would have the right to complain about Kovacs' approach here. But, you aren't, so you don't.

They go inside, and...okay, apparently Isaac owns this house. Alright? The place doesn't look at all lived in, with a very bare interior. By that same token though, the little that it does contain is very well organized and neat. There are also a bunch of paintings on the wall, and several others in frames stacked up against the walls. Poking around, they find bills of sale attached to some of the frames; apparently, Isaac runs an art dealership. I guess that's a more productive use of his time than I was imagining, so good for him I suppose. They also find some TV projectors, which have plot-relevant footage all loaded up and ready to play as soon as Ortega presses the button. Specifically, it's a video recording of Laurens closing that big deal of his in Japan, which seems like a weird thing for Isaac to have queued up on his TV ready to play as soon as you poke it.

Kovacs has a hunch about what might be going on, and cryptically whispers about how it's impossible to ID someone just based on their face nowadays. Spoken like a character who's spent most (if not all) of his life in a world where this is true talking to another character who has DEFINITELY never known anything else. Writing! They kick in another door, and find a spooky back room containing a highly expensive and highly illegal bioprinter.

These are expensive and controlled enough that even megazillionaires like Laurens chooses to slow-grow his clones instead of flash printing them. Getting his hands on this device must have been extremely difficult, even for Isaac.

Also in the room is a stasis chamber, containing a Laurens clone. Kovacs remembers that Laurens had been negotiating with those Japanese businessmen for months without making any progress, and then he closed the deal abruptly during the 48 hours of memory that he lost in the murder attempt. Kovacs concludes that - just like his older sister stealing their mom's clones to fuck the help - Isaac has been impersonating one of their parents. Where Laurens actually was while Isaac was in Japan out-businessing him, they can't tell.

Regardless, Isaac is apparently very, very, very good at playing dumb. He even made a fool of himself to those very same Japanese businessmen when he met them in his own body at the party, just to make sure no one would recognize his other persona.

And...maybe that actually was Isaac who Laurens found and beat up at the Fightdrome? He found out what Isaac was doing, violently confronted him over it at Fightdrome, and then the battered Isaac followed him home and killed him just in time to prevent him from backing up those memories? That would fit the timeline. Of course, the attempt to then permanently delete Laurens' backup could have just been an attempt to make it look like an assassination attempt by an outside rival, OR it could have been an actual murder attempt. If the latter, than Isaac was probably already planning to kill Laurens and then permanently assume his identity as a way of getting around the will, but had to speed things up when Laurens found out about part of what he was doing. Which might explain why the attempt ultimately failed, if Isaac hadn't yet made sure he knew how to hack his father's backup.

Of course...what would he have been planning to do when Laurens inevitably found out that the Japan deal suddenly happened without him doing anything? That's a hole in this story.

Also, Isaac didn't exactly make sure to hide that flash-cloning lab very well. Laurens could have found it at least as easily as Kovacs and Ortega did. Hmm.

...

That's always the issue when you're watching something badly written. You can NEVER be sure of what the creators are intentionally setting up as a mystery, and what are just plot holes.

Especially in shows like this one, which have already established that they DO have some actual bits of cleverness in them (inherited from the books, or otherwise) along with the truckloads of stupidity.

...

Anyway, Ortega calls this discovery in. The flash-cloning is illegal enough that nobody cares if she broke, entered, and searched without a warrant.

As the Bay City PD raids the house in force, Ortega notices that one of Kovacs' wounds has reopened and he's bleeding on the floor. She instructs him to come with her, and takes him off to receive urgent medical attention.

At her apartment.

She notably takes him by the hand in a way that the camerawork frames as suggestive, so I guess she might have more in mind than just medical treatment. I'm not sure if that makes her look better or worse, honestly.

They get back to her place. Her mother isn't there this time, fortunately for Kovacs. She hands him a bottle of something potently alcoholic to help him deal with whatever questionable medical and/or sexual operation she's about to perform and then goes to get a thing. As she gets the thing, Kovacs finds a framed photo of her and Ryker, and surmises that Ryker either used to live with her, or was about to.

That explains why Momma Ortega is over to do the cooking and cleaning so often. Whatever his faults may be, Ryker was apparently the responsible one when it came to housework.

...

Okay, maybe I'm being too mean to Ortega at this point. Laurens Bancroft has been trying to drive her insane, and at least much of her behavior can be attributed to him having succeeded.

But...we'd need to see more evidence for how much better she used to be before Ryker's arrest. And in the one flashback we got so far, while she did seem better, she didn't seem much better.

...

She has him take his shirt off, and then uses one of those little skin regrowth vibrators from TNG to heal the wound shut.

...so, if the Hitachi dermal regenerator is something you can privately own (and don't need to be rich to do), why hasn't Kovacs been using one from the beginning? Why has he been walking around with visible cuts and scabs all over his face from the pilot onward? And yes, some of those were the SAME cuts. Even if Kovacs wouldn't think to do this himself, wouldn't Poe have suggested it? Hell, does his insanely well stocked hotel really not have one of these?

...also. Unless these vibrators can heal deep tissue damage along with skin lacerations, how could Ortega have known he didn't need more serious treatment than her apartment could provide? I guess maybe he told her offscreen? Maybe?

While she works on him, Kovacs decides to ask about some of the earlier vibed-over scars adorning Ryker's body, some of which she probably treated herself. Each scar has some ludicrous copaganda associated with it that I don't believe for a second that Ortega is telling the whole story about. Well...until he gets to one particular scar that she tells him that SHE gave to Ryker, and that - while she can't remember why - she's sure he deserved.

So, that last bit there, about the last scar? Do you think that's me making a psycho Ortega joke, or that it's actually a literal, word-for-word quotation from what she says in the scene? What would you say was the probability of each, based on these reviews so far?

...

I'm sorry, but the show DOES NOT WANT me to be charitable toward Ortega.

And no, the fact that Ryker probably did actually deserve it doesn't help much.

...

Anyway, she finishes healing his reopened wound and then they have sex.

It's an excessively long and kind of boring sex scene, honestly. It might succeed at raw titillation if these characters weren't so completely lacking in chemistry, but it doesn't, because they are.

When she wakes up the next morning, Ortega randomly shoves Blondie's cortical stack into Kovacs' hand and tells him about that investigation. Like, she actually wakes him up and then immediately pushes it into his hand before saying or doing anything else, and then starts lecturing him about the case. Flash back to Ryker's arrest. He and Ortega were laying in this very bed when the door starts knocking, and they hear voices shouting that it's the BCPD.

Ryker's first reaction is to get his gun and run downstairs with it pointed in front of him. Even after they announce that it's the police. And he doesn't lower it until several seconds after they've come inside and descended the staircase into the living room. If he wasn't a cop himself, they'd have had him so fucking dead by the time he lowers it holy shit. As Ortega slowly comes downstairs after him (wait, did the other cops kick in the door? Who let them in?), the arresting officers inform Ryker that he's under arrest for the murder of a Protectorate agent.

Also, the arresting officers consist of the chief (what the fuck???), Kif (what...why?), and one rando. It increasingly feels like there are only about ten cops in this fucking city.

After looking dazed for a second, Ryker starts screaming about how "they" must have gotten to the others, and raises his gun straight at the chief's head. The others still don't shoot. They just keep calmly telling Ryker to calm down and come peacefully.

-_______-

This scene is so fucking stupid.

Ortega tells him that if he didn't actually kill the guy, he should have nothing to worry about, she has confidence that the truth will come out. In response, Ryker just gets outraged at her for using the word "if" in that sentence.

How could she not fucking believe you? Oh, I don't know Ryker, maybe that time she saw you capture, torture, and threaten to murder a random guy from a random agency for something you already would have known he had nothing to do with if you'd thought about it for just one second? That might put a little crack in your credibility here, just a small indentation. Even Ortega's insanity has limits (or at least, it did before Laurens started his harassment campaign).

So, they arrest him, and I guess now Ortega feels guilty for not having believed him at the time since Kovacs has told her what Dimi told him about planting the evidence. Personally, I'm surprised Dimi thought he had to plant any evidence in the first place; just waiting a few more days seems like it would have allowed things to happen on their own.

Also, back in the present, Ortega shows Kovacs a bunch of mugshots that she says "hold all the answers, but she can't get at them." At first I thought she was looking at the meth guest list again, but no, apparently it's a collection of Juggalo murder victims.

Kovacs recognizes two of the protestors who confronted him in full concert makeup outside the prison.

What? They were also murdered within the last few days?

She then goes on to say that these people are all alleged juggalo-Catholics who were only found to have secretly converted after their deaths. So...apparently the two who Kovacs recognized felt strongly enough about their beliefs to protest outside a resleeving facility and get all up in a tough, intimidating-looking man's face for them, but they weren't formal converts? Really? Really?

Did the writers even read their own scripts?

Then, Ortega says...oh. oh my. oh my FUCKING god.

Ortega says that she returned Blondie's body to her family because of how much pain her mother was clearly in about not having it, but kept Blondie's sleeve in the hopes that she could somehow crack the coding and revive her to testify.

Ortega doesn't mention that she, personally, was the cause of that pain. Or that she had *absolutely no reason whatsoever* to not just turn the body over while keeping the cortical stack in the first place instead of waiting a month to do it.

What the actual fuck even is this script anymore?

She also shows Kovacs a psychic paper sketch of Mr. Mustache the fake Jew, based on her sighting of him at the party. I still don't know how she knows that he has anything to do with anything, but she's very sure of herself, and now Kovacs is sure too. I mean, he is, obviously, but it's only obvious because of completely nondiagetic elements.

Just then, she gets a call from Micki. He's managed to get them some off-the-books interrogation time with Dimi in a spare body they had. They go to the station and ohmygodthatpoorguy

They put Dimi in the drug dealer's body. The same one that Ortega stole for her fucking grandmother a couple days ago.

And his first words when they start interrogating him are to complain about the weird hangover, aftertaste, and drug side effects.

To be fair, this sleeve's original occupant was a drug dealer and probably user to begin with, so Ortega might not have actually made much of a difference. But also, she might have.

They start interrogating Dimi, and he's surprisingly uncooperative. I guess he might be more than just an independent mercenary after all, as he's coming across as actually loyal to whoever he's working for. When pressed on who that someone might be, he gets started on this weird religious-sounding monologue about how "this altered carbon was meant to free us and make us angels, but it has only made us hungrier for that which this world can no longer offer" and "I serve those who are rich in the only type of wealth that matters; the appetites of the immortal" and similar. This might just be word salad he's spitting out to confuse them, but the title drop contained in it makes it seem like it's actually supposed to mean something. Maybe it does actually mean something, but I don't know what yet. Kovacs and Ortega get frustrated and start beating him bloody. I hope nobody wanted that sleeve back, lol. Dimi just tells them that he doesn't believe they're actually going to honor any deal they offer him, so why should he cooperate? On one hand, he's right; he was never formally arrested and this is all of the books, so there's no accountability. On the other hand, how could he possibly know that?

...

As an aside, this actor is really proving himself now. Before, he just seemed like your college friend who could do a funny little old Mexican lady impression. Seeing him now play Dimi the Twin, capturing the mannerisms and speech of the previously established (in two different bodies) character so perfectly, really shows how versatile Matt Biedel is. He also has very few acting credits to his name so far, so I hope to see him again (and preferably in much better things) in the future.

...

Then, they hear the angry voices of other cops outside asking what the hell is going on in the interrogation room, there isn't supposed to be anyone in there right now. Kovacs tells Ortega that she should just kill Dimi now, if they're not getting anything out of him. I'm *pretty* sure Kovacs is just trying to play bad cop here, but even if he is I am not at all sure that Ortega wouldn't just blithely say "okay!" and do it. Hope nobody wanted that sleeve back, lol.

Fortunately, before we can find out how serious either of them actually were about this, the door opens and the chief comes in followed by a group of other officers, and he does not look pleased. There's one great exchange here before the interrogation ends, though:


Ortega: "I want a name! I want a fucking name!"

Dimi: "Okay. Bob."


That got a chuckle from me. Dimi the Twin is somehow much more charismatic on this end of the interrogation than the other.

Well, the other cops burst in. Chief Whatsisname tells Ortega that this bullshit is the last straw, and at this point he's strongly considering just giving her the sack. She doesn't help her case when she tells him that the person she illegally captured and held at the station without telling anyone is a highly notorious and murderous criminal who's known to send copies of himself looking for each other when one goes missing.

Kovacs, meanwhile, is simply told to GTFO of the station. Kif glares at him murderously, and tells Ortega that clearly Kovacs has been playing her like a guitar. I'm actually starting to hate Kif more than I hate Ortega, wow. Ortega manages to badger the chief into letting her at least ride the elevator to the detention area with Dimi so she can ask him a couple more questions in those few seconds, and like a total idiot he allows it. So, she gets into the elevator along with Dimi, Kif, and an unnamed cop with Asian features and a distinctive mustache.

Despite having been obsessed with this guy for days now, Ortega completely fails to notice that she's gotten into an elevator with him. Kovacs recognizes him from Ortega's psychic paper portrait, but the elevator door closes before he can warn Ortega, and of course none of the other cops are willing to give him the time of day.

Kovacs looks really pained. Like he loves Ortega or something and is really worried about her. I guess he forgave her for everything and started caring deeply about her because they had sex.

Inside the elevator, Mustache asks Ortega if she's "a believer." I guess that's not just something he asked Levine as part of his fake-Jewish act, it's an actual bit. It makes him a much deeper and more interesting antagonist, you see. Ortega realizes something is wrong and draws her pistol, but he's faster than her and stabs her in the chest with an egg beater.

I have no idea what that absurdly inefficient and nonlethal-looking blade-thing is supposed to be, but it looks more like an egg beater than anything else so that's what I'm calling it.

...actually, it looks like it rips out a shallow, star-shaped section of flesh when you stab it into someone and pull it out. Which makes it seem like it might be designed for ripping out cortical stacks. But only if the stacks are just below the skin with their flat sides facing outward, which...I don't think is how it works. Also, to do this in combat you'd need to have absolutely insane hand-eye coordination and speed, which he evidently doesn't possess. Basically, it seems like this guy has brought a surgical tool to a gunfight for no particularly good reason.

Granted, he has the advantage of them having just been Dimi in handcuffs and not sent him with nearly as many escorts as you'd think someone like him should warrant. Dimi's current sleeve might not be in super good shape, but he's an experienced enough combatant to be trouble even handcuffed and with his companion's poor weapon choice. They both take some good hits, but Mustache and Dimi are able to eke out a win before the elevator arrives at its destination.

When Ortega and Kif are on the floor, Mustache stands over her and says a religious murderer mantra thing before shooting her.

Dimi just rolls his eyes and tells him to get it over with already, but Mustache ignores him and shoots Ortega when he's good and ready, right in the upper neck. Or not! Kif, also on the floor, manages to lurch into the path of the bullet and take it for Ortega!

...and, through some incredibly, HILARIOUSLY unlikely coincidence, he just happens to lurch in front of the bullet in exaaaaaactly the right way so that the bullet hits the exact same part of his own neck that it would have hit hers. Permanently killing him.

Unless cortical stacks are better at deflecting bullets than any part of the human body would be (unlikely; if they were, there'd be absolutely no assurance that these bullets would be able to destroy the stack in the first place), it would have been both smarter AND EASIER for him to just put his head in the way in front of her neck. Skulls are the toughest bones in the body, and the bullet would have to go all the way through in order to permakill Ortega. Why would he try to block the bullet with his NECK instead of that?

I guess the creators were hoping that I'd be so emotionally shattered by Kif's death that I'd overlook these details. Nice try, creators. I fucking hated Kif. The joke's on you.

In the interest of fairness, I actually can make sense of this from Kif's perspective though. If you had the option of continuing to be Ortega's sidekick forever, or separating yourself from her with the merciful protection of death, which would you choose?

Dunk on Kif, or dunk on Ortega, as you prefer. Whichever way you choose to read it, this scene is hilarious.

So, Kif dies. And then Mustache - thanks to him using the gun that Ortega tried and failed to shoot him with several times at the beginning of the fight - is out of bullets after that. And just then, they reach the floor they want to get off on and he and Dimi have to run, leaving her wounded, but alive and conscious.

That must be a really, really well soundproofed elevator, because apparently no one else in the entire precinct heard those multiple gunshots going off in it. Kovacs alone is trying to catch up to the elevator, and he unfortunately catches it on the floor AFTER the one the bad guys escaped through.

No cops running after it. No alarms raised. I guess Ortega is really regretting letting Ryker soundproof every small, out-of-the-way space in the precinct now.

There's just one random cop on guard duty who happens to be there and sees the door open as Kovacs does, and he quickly calls for reinforcements who take a little while to arrive. Kovacs carries Ortega to get her healed, and no one gets in his way for whatever reason. End episode.


While my brain was desperately trying to distract itself during the second half of this episode, it caught some details from the previous episodes that I probably should have noticed earlier. So, two questions:

1. Why was Dimi - with significant monetary investment from his employer - torturing Kovacs?

2. What is Ava Elliot in jail for?

Put the answers to those two questions next to each other and think for a second.

Oops.

Now, as I've often said in the past, all fiction breaks down in the face of sufficient scrutiny. A good author is a razzle-dazzler who knows how to distract the audience from seeing the strings (or, failing that, at least a good enough showman to make them enjoy the show even with the strings showing). With every passing episode of Altered Carbon though, the strings have become easier to spot and the performance has done less to keep my eye from sticking to them.

I'm still able to get some enjoyment - both ironic and otherwise - from the show here and there, but it keeps getting harder. Part of it is the politics of the work hanging over it like a rancid, mold-infested blanket. It's not just the "neoliberal economics are dearer than life itself" bullshit at this point, it's everything. Like, at this point it's very hard for me to NOT think that the writers intended for Ortega and Ryker to be flawed, but mostly "good," cops, and for Kovacs to be the darker antihero who pushes the boundaries. And holy fuck, there is just so much wrong with that that I could write a whole essay just about it. Most actual cop shows aren't this fucking awful with the copaganda. Kovacs (at least as he currently is; his days as a space CIA agent probably had him as a much darker character) not only looks better than them due to him not having the same social contract and public trust that they do, but is also more humanitarian than them in absolute terms. Like, when Ortega said the whole "Ryker wasn't corrupt, pay attention!" thing, I think the writers actually believe that she was right about that. Capturing and torturing someone from the wrong agency just because you couldn't be assed to pay attention is a reasonable mistake that a good cop can make.

And oh my FUCKING god is there so much Progressivism™ here. You can tell that this show really thinks it's being feminist with its Strong Female Characters Ortega (who the story fridges as soon as there's an actual fight scene with her in it) and Falconer (who it fridged BEFORE THE STORY EVEN STARTED), while failing to notice how many creepy sexualized camera angles of dead or dying hookers it contains. It thinks it's being multicultural with how it goes out of its way to tell us that one of the dumb stupid idiot side characters is Muslim and going all in on another's Mexican background, without realizing that it's painted the latter's family as cringey Latin stereotypes. Meanwhile the only living black character with a speaking role is an incompetent short-fused thug and the only non-American character is a Russian mob stereotype right out of a bad 90's gangster film.

Falconer does help a little bit to counteract Hubert, as far as black representation goes. But being dead makes this hard work.

How many of these problems are inherited from the book and how many aren't, I couldn't say. I still do plan to read it sometime, and I think I might do an extra compare-and-contrast post once I have. Maybe all of the blame for this goes on the show writers' shoulders, and all of the (sadly underexplored) good ideas are from the book. Maybe it's the opposite. Maybe it's fifty fifty on both counts. In any case, Altered Carbon is just a badly written show. Like, moreso than the bad politics and the bad scifi, it's biggest problem is that it's just plain poorly written. In a way that drags the occasional clever ideas and amusing protagonist down rather than allowing the latter to lift it up.

A great example of clever ideas being dragged down by bad writing from this episode would be Laurens' cult leader scene with the plague victims. That was actually a really cool idea for a fucked up thing a transhuman megalomaniac might do. It followed the implications of the setting to a logical AND non-obvious conclusion, and it characterized the bad guy as a special kind of asshole who it's really fun to hate, without needing to resort to torture porn or the like. But the dialogue. The way Kovacs forgets all about his reason for coming here to confront Laurens three seconds in and just humors him for the rest of the scene for no apparent reason. Dumb practical things like how easily Kovacs got the guards to let him into the plague zone (and, apparently, how easily he then GOT OUT AGAIN) can just be laughed at and taken as an (unintentional) part of the charm. The main character being put on hold for an extended scene ISN'T funny, though. It's boring and frustrating in a way that fails the interesting concept being introduced.

If I just watched one episode of this every month or so, I might be able to keep enjoying it in the "Sharknado" sense. Watching multiple episodes of it a week just makes me bored and slightly irritated. Fortunately, this is the last episode of it I'm going to be watching since @Lupercal changed her commission. All in all, I guess Altered Carbon does mark the beginning of "Netflix Original Series" being a joke punchline.