Welcome back to Takeshi Kovacs’s journey to find Laurens Bancroft’s murderer! The last episode ended with Detective Kristin Ortega nearly getting killed by Ghostwalker. So let’s just jump right into Kovacs taking her to the hospital for episode 6 of Altered Carbon, “Man With My Face.”
1. Poe’s Therapy Interrupted
Outside of Bancroft’s case, Poe’s working with Vernon Elliot’s daughter trapped in a virtual loop of the night she was killed. Poe denied Elliot any access to his therapy sessions with his daughter but allowed him to watch. However, now Poe is getting more extreme in his sessions and asking Elliot’s daughter to hit him to get her anger and pain out of her system. It can seem unorthodox to a human but then again it’s artificial intelligence as the therapist. This conflict between the two keeps things interesting for the sideline stories and reminder that Elliot isn’t interested in Bancroft, he just wants his daughter out of the virtual loop and at peace. Poe on the other hand is a needy A.I. that just wants to keep Kovacs happy so that he stays in the hotel.
There is the underlying question of what happened to Elliot’s daughter and how it relates to Bancroft. Was it Bancroft that killed her or was it someone else in a shell of him trying to frame him?
2. Isaac Didn’t Do It
Trying to distract himself from Ortega being attacked and on the verge of death, Kovacs jumps back into the case in search of number one suspect Isaac. Kovacs finds him and takes him directly to Bancroft to be handled directly – – and hopefully quickly. However, it turns out that Isaac only had a clone of his dad to make a business deal and make him proud of him. It’s a story as old as time: a child just trying to prove that they can survive with what they’ve been taught. With this revelation, Kovacs quickly figured out that no way could Isaac kill his dad when he just wanted his dad to say he loved him and say he was proud. Instead, Bancroft just replies by smashing the clone Isaac made into a bloody mess instead of hitting his son. It’s another power move by Bancroft to show that he has no love for anyone but himself.
And now Kovacs is back on the hunt for a better clue to figure out who actually may have had a hand in killing Bancroft.
3. The Police Captain
Captain Tanaka gets a lot of screen time in this episode. He’s been shown in previous episodes but usually behind a desk barking orders or telling Ortega to stay out of trouble. However, now that she’s in the hospital he wants to come and make sure that she’s okay. His mood is unusually positive and trying to soothe her but Kovacs sees right through it and realizes it’s not because he cares, but because feels guilty. The entire time Ortega has been trying to go above and beyond to get ahead of the meths, he’s been feeding them information on what she’s doing. All he ever got was a payoff for some info. He didn’t know she would end up in the hospital and that her partner would be killed.
It goes back to the idea of money can buy anything. Even as he’s getting his ass beat by Ortega he still pleads that the shift of power will never change. Money buys influence and it keeps the world spinning so there is no point in trying to fight back. Ortega has always been on the edge of breaking the law but with this revelation, she’s got nothing holding her back now.
4. Ortega’s Metal Arm
Aftermath of nearly dying in a futuristic world Kovacs gave Ortega an upgrade instead of getting her a new sleeve, mainly because he thought she’d be more pissed waking up in a new body. She does get upset initially, but after using it to question Tanaka she realizes how useful it really can be. It’s similar to Winter Soldier’s arm but with actual human skin instead of a metal coating. It comes in handy in this episode because they get put into a fighting pit with two giant monster-looking guys and she’s able to hold her own for the most part. The addition of the arm for Ortega is perfect for her character. She could hold her own with the help of a gun and maybe some tech, but with some brute force and her intelligence, she’s going to be able to get some answers.
Continued below5. Samurai Hero
Ortega and Kovacs manage to kill the two monster creatures and Dimi The Twin in Fightdrome, but the host is not going to play fair. Laying on the ground trying to figure out how to stand up again the host, Carnage opens up the cage to the masses in hopes of just killing them. Someone starts shooting at whoever attempts to get in and jumps in the cage with a sword cutting people down one-by-one. Ortega manages to get up and fight this person off just in case they start going for them, but to their surprise, it ends up being Kovacs’s sister coming to rescue them. The shock to this moment is that she is in the same sleeve that she was in back when Kovacs was first training to be an envoy. It’s an easy possibility that she paid a huge fee to find and replicate it again, but still another ally for Kovacs is exactly what he needs.
Everyone that has come in his path usually wants something from him or has a side agenda. Kovacs just needs to figure out where she has been all this time and if she’s the same as the last remembers her.
