Ortega, meanwhile, remains a troubled character – at least as she relates to the overall story. It’ll be a bummer, for sure – he’s pretty much the only character I actually like at this point. I’m not sure when, but be assured this poor, avuncular goof is going to die. He plays such a lovely foil to Ortega’s spikey pugnacity – doting and fretting from afar, covering for her at work, lecturing her when she needs it…he’s even on a first-name basis with her mother! At this point in his characterization, two things are painfully clear: 1, Abboud is a stand-in for Ortega’s dearly departed dad (himself a police officer). But Waleed Zuaiter’s performance is a wooly wonder. Abboud leans into the flurry, countering every jab with the avuncular suggestion that maybe she might want to, y’know…go on a date or something? Ortega sweeps his legs and works the ribs.Ĭan we talk about Abboud for a sec? Okay, so he’s not much of a character. Sweaty and ornery as all getout, Ortega jabs and hooks at her partner, insisting that she’s happy and normal and EVERYTHING’S JUST FINE, THANK YOU. Meanwhile, Ortega, spicy and unpleasant as ever, weaves through a sparring gym, beating and berating her partner Abboud. I don’t care what Kovacs says – we learn to be monsters. I don’t want to give Altered Carbon too much credit here, but it still bears mentioning: the boy wanted to help. “She’s not our problem,” he insists, and the boy lets her go to sink into the dark. But in the end, he’s stopped by his father. It’s literally his first thought – to help her. While Kovacs kvetches, we see the boy splash and paddle toward the fallen woman. Personally, I think it’s a load of horseshit – the kind of petulant fauxlosophy I espoused in my late teens, when I mistook pessimism for depth.Īs for whether Altered Carbon agrees with him, however, remains unclear. As a philosophy it’s both too much, and not nearly enough. We’re beasts – crude and violent – and our only true expression is found on a battlefield. We’re born rotten, we live rotten, and we die that way too. A skin we stretch over the bone, muscle, and sinew of our own innate savagery.”Īs far as Kovacs is concerned, human beings are the pits. “Peace is a struggle against our very nature. Unfortunately for us, Kovacs has all the depth and delicacy of an Evanescence lyric. That’s what good VO does – it lets us see how the speaker sees the world, and develop an intimacy with their viewpoint. And while VO is valuable for setting up the narrative stakes and smoothing out the corners of the world we’re inhabiting, the real task it should attempt to accomplish is to grant us insight into the speaker. Look, I get it: Altered Carbon is a neo-noir, which means gloomy, cynical voiceover is par for the course. “Peace is an illusion,” Kovacs croaks in voiceover, “and no matter how tranquil the world seems, peace doesn’t last long.” Oof. The father and son paddle over to help, but it’s too late – she’s gone. Suddenly a half-naked woman plummets from the sky (like an angel) and splashes into the pond (like a herring?). Behind them, Bay City looms across the horizon like a pewter storm. In it, a father and son cast their reels and chat amiably about…fish, I guess. A rowboat drifts lazily across the surface of a pond.
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