Altered Carbon Review: Out of the Past

Season: 1 / Episode: 1 / Netflix Welcome to Episode 1 of the new Netflix original series, Altered Carbon! My approach to these reviews will be different than the other excellent recaps/reviews you can find here on Black Nerd Problems. With only ten episodes, it’s safe to assume that viewers will binge this season over the weekend and that you’ll know the plot before the next review goes up. Instead, I want to discuss each episode while centering on one of the show’s many themes. There are many interesting things to say about Altered Carbon, and I hope you join in by commenting below or tweeting me. If you need some background on the show, check out my preview here. But enough preamble. Let’s get into Altered Carbon. The episode opens with the protagonist, Takeshi Kovacs, engaged in some unspecified illegal activity with a woman. Kovacs, played in the opening scene by Byron Mann, is a man of Japanese descent. However, as the episode progresses, we learn that these scenes are flashbacks. After “dying”, Kovacs was re-sleeved into a white man’s body, played by Swedish actor, Joel Kinnaman, and brought back by Laurens Bancroft to help solve Bancroft’s own murder. When Kovacs is given a mirror after being re-sleeved, he reacts with visceral horror at his new identity.

This shift highlights the racial elephant in the room. Takeshi Kovacs prefers to use phenotypically Asian sleeves when he is brought back. He was placed into a white man’s body against his will. There have been accus…