How would you feel to wake up from a hundred-year-old absence, on a different planet, in a new, foreign body? Most people would be hopelessly confused, even sick for hours and days, as their mind adjusts to the new environment. Most people except Takeshi Kovach that is – his Envoy training allows him to reorient himself almost instantly, to quickly assess new situations and take control of available resources for his own interests. After the last Envoys have been hunted down and killed on Harlan’s World more than two centuries ago, Kovach finds himself back on Earth, having been revived from his detention/suspension by Laurens Bancroft, a billionaire ‘Meth’ who needs an exceptional detective to solve an exceptional murder: his own.
Where is the voice that said altered carbon would free us from the cells of our flesh? The vision that said we would be angels. Instead, we became hungry for things that reality could no longer offer. The lines blurred.
From the dawn of time, one of humanity’s most sought, yet most unreachable, ideals was to defeat death, to be able to live forever… and in the Altered Carbon future this becomes routine. Using ‘stacks’, a technology inspired by the mysterious precursor artefacts of the Elders, minds can be backed up in real-time like computer drives and introduced into new bodies (or ‘sleeves’) upon the death of the previous one.
One of the greatest strengths of the TV show is exploring this concept in its many aspects and far-reaching consequences. As I mentioned in my review of the Night’s Dawn trilogy, Peter Hamilton employs a similar idea there, bringing back dead people not with future technology but with a fantasy plot device, but fails to imagine the large variety of possible situations. In Altered Carbon though, reincarnation reshapes the economy and society deeply. Rich people can continue to accumulate wealth and influence into their next lives, income inequality continues to grow and power structures become virtually impossible to challenge and reform. This became the main ideological reason behind the Envoy Uprising, whose leader Quellcrist Falconer argued for a self-imposed limit on the human lifespan of a hundred years.
One of my favorite scenes shows Bancroft meeting Takeshi in a colony of people sick with a dangerous, incurable disease, where the Meth goes regularly to make a show of charity. As they finish their chat, Bancroft’s body succumbs to the disease, while his mind safely transfers to a fresh cloned body. It’s a very succinct, yet powerful way to convey the power and wealth he wields, and to show how meaningless bodies have become in this world. Probably my second favorite scene has Takeshi’s partner, a lieutenant in the Bay City Police Department, breaking into a secret storage facility, where the naked clones awake and attack her wave after wave.
As for the poor… well, not many people can afford to pay for a top-of-the-line sleeve, not even to choose the same gender as their original body. Many rely on social security for their revival, resulting in awkward situations like a teenage daughter, dead in an accident, being given the decaying body of a former junky. Or a grandmother coming back from the dead to be reunited with her family in the sleeve of a middle-aged tattooed biker. Some even, like the Neo-Catholics, refuse to be revived, considering stacks an abomination, contrary to the Will of God. In more extreme cases, this fundamental devaluing of human life results in brothels where girls can be killed as part of violent sexual fantasies – some are lucky enough to have their client pay for a replacement sleeve – and a revival of gladiator fights to the death – winner receives an improved sleeve as reward, loser gets re-sleeved into a worse body.
Lost amid this deep exploration of the idea of human immortality, the pacing of the story suffers a bit. The investigation into Bancroft’s apparent suicide frequently takes a back seat to the dubious agendas of various other people, from Bancroft’s wife and son to a criminal organization that mistakes Takeshi for the local cop whose sleeve he now wears, resulting in an entire episode with Kovach being subjected to brutal VR torture – and promptly slaughtering his captors as soon as he escapes. Another episode, with a runtime of about 80 minutes, is dedicated to flashbacks from Takeshi’s earlier life, showing him joining the Envoy movement and his developing relationship with its charismatic founder Quellcrist. Her image makes frequent appearances throughout the series, punctuating Takeshi’s thoughts in such a way that you’re never quite sure if these are hallucinations, vivid memories or something more. The investigation concludes two episodes before the end of the season, leaving Kovach time to deal with a bigger, and more personal, issue.
The show hits a surprisingly melancholic tone in some early scenes, a welcome counterpoint to the grim violence, with Takeshi’s voice commenting as the body of a beautiful young woman hits the water and slowly sinks to the bottom. The acting is impressive, considering the complexity of the roles (some actors need to act similarly, as they play the same person in different sleeves, while others must switch between multiple personas as their stack gets rewritten with new people), and the design perfectly with the cyberpunk story. A nice touch is the stark contrast between the dark, neon lit streets of Bay City, where most of the population lives, and the sleek, bright towers where the rich reside, far above the clouds.
Another aspect of the show I liked was the references I could discover in various characters and situations – no idea if they originate from the novel or have been added by the screenwriters. The Envoy movement reminds me of the early Christians, from the all-too obvious name of their leader to how they were defeated because of the betrayal by one of their members, a reference to Judas. Their mission feels like a reversal of the Christian promise of eternal life – now that we achieved it, maybe the world was better without it… The Envoy name itself carries similarities to apostle, implying a mission, a message to be delivered to the masses.
Quellcrist Falconer: This sleeve is a tool. It does not control me. I control it. This is the weakness of weapons. They are tools to kill and destroy. They are not what gives you power. You are the weapon. You are the Killer and Destroyer.
I probably say this too often, but I sensed influences from Dune as well. The ‘Envoy intuition’, the ability to integrate a vast amount of information and quickly discern its meaning, reminds me of Mentat training. The conditioning required to resist VR torture is reminiscent of Bene Gesserit training, as is the mental attitude towards sleeves as tools, which enables Envoys to quickly switch bodies without the side-effects experienced by average humans. Some of the Envoy teachings sound like the Missionaria Protectiva: discover the beliefs of the locals and enlist them for your own mission by any means necessary. In another twist that makes the series more mature and enjoyable, Takeshi starts out following this lone-wolf credo, but throughout the episodes he develops closer relationships with the people he recruited, helping them solve their own personal problems as they deal with his issues from the past.
I could probably go on much longer about this series, but I’m sure you can already tell I enjoyed it very much and highly recommend it. I was very disappointed a couple of months ago, as the future of the series was uncertain, but in the mean time Netflix announced it will be indeed renewed for a second season. It will likely be very different that the first, but hopefully just as engaging and thought-provoking.
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