Altered Carbon: In A Lonely Place Show Only
February 16, 2018 10:26 PM - Season 1, Episode 3 - Subscribe
Kovacs recruits an unlikely partner to watch his back during a banquet at the Bancroft home, where Ortega oversees the night's grisly entertainment.
"They're not used to it."
RECAPS (some book references):
Vulture: Ain’t no party like a futuristic rich people’s party.
Bleeding Cool: The third episode of Altered Carbon starts with a story about a patchwork man, a monster created to scare children.
Decider: This isn’t the most action-packed hour of Altered Carbon, but it definitely has some interesting points to get across.
Very Frankensteinian opening. The creations of Man coming back to kill the creator. So what about AIs, VIs, and other such things?
Or children? Looks like some Oedipal / Electra complex leaning (bad Freud! Bad!) but Tak's got a point: if you're always under the thumb of your parents, how can you grow up?
Tak recruits with a similar deal to what he got - the things you (might) want most, for your unique and valued skills.
The "build a pack" sounds like what Army SF (Green Berets) have to do - not be killer supersoldiers or a one-man SWAT team, but able to identify, recruit, train, and utilize assets on the ground in chaotic, mulivariate environments. I guess an Envoy is the terrorist/insurgent equivalent?
Trapped as a snake - and laws don't apply to them. I'd say it's hamhanded, but people do really think and talk like that.
There's a lot here about stacks that could be applied - copying, backups, downloading, running multiples, re-integrating (or not!) David Brin's excellent Kiln People explores similar territory, I recommend it.
Zero-G hand-to-hand would not look like this - no leverage! It would be very close up and boring and grunting and intense, and not at all fun to watch.
Once a Marine .... sorry pal!
"They're not used to it."
RECAPS (some book references):
Vulture: Ain’t no party like a futuristic rich people’s party.
Bleeding Cool: The third episode of Altered Carbon starts with a story about a patchwork man, a monster created to scare children.
Decider: This isn’t the most action-packed hour of Altered Carbon, but it definitely has some interesting points to get across.
Very Frankensteinian opening. The creations of Man coming back to kill the creator. So what about AIs, VIs, and other such things?
Or children? Looks like some Oedipal / Electra complex leaning (bad Freud! Bad!) but Tak's got a point: if you're always under the thumb of your parents, how can you grow up?
Tak recruits with a similar deal to what he got - the things you (might) want most, for your unique and valued skills.
The "build a pack" sounds like what Army SF (Green Berets) have to do - not be killer supersoldiers or a one-man SWAT team, but able to identify, recruit, train, and utilize assets on the ground in chaotic, mulivariate environments. I guess an Envoy is the terrorist/insurgent equivalent?
Trapped as a snake - and laws don't apply to them. I'd say it's hamhanded, but people do really think and talk like that.
There's a lot here about stacks that could be applied - copying, backups, downloading, running multiples, re-integrating (or not!) David Brin's excellent Kiln People explores similar territory, I recommend it.
Zero-G hand-to-hand would not look like this - no leverage! It would be very close up and boring and grunting and intense, and not at all fun to watch.
Once a Marine .... sorry pal!
They have null-grav knife fighting, so I can suspend by disbelief on Suntouch House. Though, in the book, it's just a beachfront house, if I recall correctly.
The whole find-my-murderer thing is kind of weaksauce anyhow. The obvious flaws are never addressed (I mean, surely you would have MULTIPLE BACKUP COPIES of yourself, so that your "murderer" would have to somehow corrupt all of them).
I also didn't like the knife-fight sequence conceptually either. Kovacs is supposed to be the last of the intergalactic badasses and he nearly dies fighting two people who mostly just alternate dying at the other's hands for a living? What now? And if to-the-death null-grav fighting is such a common entertainment event that this couple does it for a living then why is Bancroft, who has more money and influence than anyone on the planet, using such bourgeoisie entertainment for his party?
posted by axiom at 1:26 PM on February 18, 2018
The whole find-my-murderer thing is kind of weaksauce anyhow. The obvious flaws are never addressed (I mean, surely you would have MULTIPLE BACKUP COPIES of yourself, so that your "murderer" would have to somehow corrupt all of them).
I also didn't like the knife-fight sequence conceptually either. Kovacs is supposed to be the last of the intergalactic badasses and he nearly dies fighting two people who mostly just alternate dying at the other's hands for a living? What now? And if to-the-death null-grav fighting is such a common entertainment event that this couple does it for a living then why is Bancroft, who has more money and influence than anyone on the planet, using such bourgeoisie entertainment for his party?
posted by axiom at 1:26 PM on February 18, 2018
The writers probably just thought that the husband-wife gimmick was enough. Although it was an interesting window into how kids adjust to parents who come home in different bodies more often than their friends'.
They could have had a more realistic and gritty knife fight with a "nudge wink" that it'll be Real Death instead of using null-G. Gibson's cantilevered suspension-bridge-like Killing Floor was a much more interesting concept that null-G (but much more costly to film).
I can see how Bancroft wanted to test his new toy, but combat training only goes so far and a lot devolves to the sleeve's abilities, either gene-spliced in or endocrine control via neuralchem. Kovacs as a badass is at least as much his problem solving and psychosocial insight/manipulation capabilities as his combat prowess.
I think that almost all of the implications of Stacks and DHF is handwaved away with draconian and still-developing United Nations laws.
posted by porpoise at 5:46 PM on February 18, 2018
They could have had a more realistic and gritty knife fight with a "nudge wink" that it'll be Real Death instead of using null-G. Gibson's cantilevered suspension-bridge-like Killing Floor was a much more interesting concept that null-G (but much more costly to film).
I can see how Bancroft wanted to test his new toy, but combat training only goes so far and a lot devolves to the sleeve's abilities, either gene-spliced in or endocrine control via neuralchem. Kovacs as a badass is at least as much his problem solving and psychosocial insight/manipulation capabilities as his combat prowess.
I think that almost all of the implications of Stacks and DHF is handwaved away with draconian and still-developing United Nations laws.
posted by porpoise at 5:46 PM on February 18, 2018
I like that the backpack made another appearance in this episode.
posted by ODiV at 10:01 PM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by ODiV at 10:01 PM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
I thought the backpack was going to be full of drugs still when we first saw it
the gun makes more sense. But it also would have been interesting if he just showed up to the rich people party with a backpack full of street drugs, because why not
posted by vibratory manner of working at 12:54 PM on March 25, 2019
the gun makes more sense. But it also would have been interesting if he just showed up to the rich people party with a backpack full of street drugs, because why not
posted by vibratory manner of working at 12:54 PM on March 25, 2019
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posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:44 AM on February 18, 2018 [2 favorites]