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Altered Carbon Season 1, Episode 2 Recap: Fallen Angel

Published Sat, 03 Feb 2018 03:07:01 -0600

This article contains spoilers for Altered Carbon episode 2 – Fallen Angel.

The episode starts with a dead woman falling out of the sky and into the water, this is Mary Lou Henchy (Lisa Chandler) and someone tries very hard to make this body go missing. She's a Catholic, which is important because they are the one group that can't be re-sleeved because of religious beliefs. There was a bill to override that, but the bill failed. We move to Kovacs (Joel Kinnaman) waking up the morning after accepting the case and meeting Bancroft's lawyer, Oumou Prescott (Tamara Taylor). She takes Kovacs to the company that keeps Bancroft's clones ready and Bancroft (James Purefoy) arrives in all his glory. He tries to threaten Kovacs back into line, but Kovacs doesn't take threats and pushes back. We find out that Ortega (Martha Higareda) has a tracker on Kovacs, that her father was a cop and Catholic so they have no idea who killed him. And we see Poe (Chris Conner) try to meet up with other A.I.s but it doesn't go well.

Kovacs starts going through the death threats Bancroft has received and is lead to Vernon Elliot (Ato Essandoh) whose daughter he believed was killed by Bancroft and whose wife is in prison (which now means taken out of her body and her stack stored) for hacking crimes. Elliot is an ex-marine and tries to fight Kovacs but fails. Kovacs gets a lead on where Lizzie Elliot (Hayley Law), the daughter, was killed and goes there. He finds a stripper (Stephanie Cleough) to ask about Lizzie, claims to be her mother cross sleeved and looking for Lizzie's killers. The stripper offers to ask around. As Kovacs leaves, he is confronted by Elliot, but then two enhanced thugs attack them both. They take out the thugs and Ortega shows up and takes Kovacs in while Elliot takes off. Prescott shows up at the station and gets Kovacs out. Ortega, who has already had to tell Mary Lou's mom that the body is lost and deal with her own overbearing mother, is frustrated by Kovacs and Prescott. She sneaks into the morgue, finds Mary Lou's hidden body, removes the stack from it and then puts the body in the middle of the morgue where it can be found by someone not trying to hide it.

Kovacs returns to the Raven where Poe has been watching old detective movies and wants to help as Kovacs assistant… who usually gets killed in the movies, but it's okay since Poe is an AI. Miriam Bancroft (Kristin Lehman) is waiting in Kovac's room. We find out two interesting facts, that when you get re-sleeved the body is really worked up and needs sex. And Miriam's current sleeve is genetically enhanced to excrete a pheromone/drug that heightens sexual arousal. And they have sex. I'm sure that won't be a problem later on.

This is getting to be a bit of China Town with the mess Kovacs is making and the fact he has a wound on his nose. The world continues to be expanded and we can see the plot laying out but not so much that we can start guessing at what's going to happen. If you're a science fiction or film noir fan you should be hooked by now.

The big differences from the source material is an expanded role for Ortega, diving into her family that is only mentioned in the series as well as spending time with just her. The novels are all from Kovacs perspective. Her taking Mary Lou's stack is completely new. Also, Vernon following Kovacs back to the sex club is different. In the book Vernon only pops up twice and the second time is minor. He's already gotten a bigger role here. And the whole thing with Poe talking with other AIs and the detective movie thing is new. None of these detract from the story and all keep within the narrative, just adding more to the story. I know the author, Richard K. Morgan, worked as a consultant on the series so I'm guessing these additions don't contradict what he wanted his universe to be.

Time to sleep then back to the binge.

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