Alright, time for Episode 6. After the last episode left a bloody mess on the floor, will this episode continue to maintain the momentum or will this episode crash and burn?

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhFM8akm9a4[/embedyt]

Warning: Spoilers Ahead! Turn back now if you haven’t seen the episode!

We start the episode with Takeshi Kovacs (Joel Kinnaman), taking Kristen Ortega (Martha Higareda), to a hospital to save her and her sleeve. Kristen tries to pay for her treatment but Kovacs has to step in and use his credit. Meanwhile, Vernon Elliot (Ato Essandoh), is watching Poe (Chris Conner), talk to his daughter Lizzie (Hayley Law),  in a VR Room. Poe tries to teach her to not be afraid of the monsters around her and instead become one. Poe gets Lizzie to punch him because he feels no pain, Vernon interrupts this and causes Lizzie to go haywire. Vernon then yells at Poe for what he did and starts to anger Poe by destroying glass around him. Poe is ready to open fire with his cannons when he gets a call about Ortega, Vernon then leaves and tells Poe they are not finished. Meanwhile, Kovacs is outside in the rain and talks to a vision of his former Envoy partner. They talk about love and how Kovacs never had such a thing when Vernon interrupts. Vernon how Ortega is and Kovacs tells him that she is in surgery and she won’t give up her sleeve due to religious coding. Poe calls Kovacs while he is talking with Vernon and tells him that he was able to find out who Issac bought some paintings from, Sergei Brevlov, who Kovacs remembers was at the dinner party a few episodes ago. Kovacs wants his address so he can talk to him and Vernon wants to come with him. Meanwhile, Captain Tanaka (Hiro Kanagawa), gets a visit from Oumou Prescott (Tamara Taylor). She is looking for the clone body of Laurens Bancroft that was taken from Issacs Apartment last episode. Prescott tells the Captain that he needs to hand it over now or face consequences, which the Captain doesn’t take too kindly too because he doesn’t want her speaking like that in front of his officers. Tanaka gets a call from Mikey who tells him everything he knows about Ghostwalker and all the theories and evidence he has him. Tanaka freaks out and wants Mickey to drop this unless he can come up with anything concrete. Meanwhile, we see Dimi and Ghostwalker visit a man named Hemingway (Arnold Pinnock). Hemingway tells Dimi to stay away from Kovacs because he needs him and Hemingway has him locked up in a safe house because Dimi is stepping out of line. Meanwhile, Vernon and Kovacs go to Brevlov’s place and find that Issac is there while they are interrogating Brevlov. Issac finally agrees to tell them he was using a clone of his father to impersonate him and they all go to Laurens place to have a family meeting. Prescott brings in the clone that Issac was using to become Laurens and Issac finally explains why he did this. He wanted to finally earn his fathers respect by working with Brevlov. Laurens is angry about this and destroys the clone out of rage and thanks Kovacs for the update.

We then cut to Prescott and Kovacs in the elevator together and Kovacs ask Prescott if she saw the Ghostwalker at the party, which she says no. Meanwhile, Ghostwalker and Dimi are talking to each other and Dimi gets under the Ghostwalkers skin. This causes the Ghostwalker to chase him down until they reach a tattoo place where Dimi contacts Carnage to transport himself into Kovacs OG Sleeve. Meanwhile, Kovacs and Vernon go to visit Ortega in the hospital and find her mother there. She slaps Kovacs and leaves to go get coffee, Vernon looks at Ortega’s vital signs and everything seems to be fine. Kovacs takes him as a good sight to go back out but Vernon convinces him to stay with Ortega until she wakes up. Some time passes and Ortega finally wakes up, being greeted by Kovacs. Kovacs tells Ortega that Samir died and that he was able to get her a new arm because she would have lost the sleeve if they didn’t replace the arm. Ortega is upset by this and wants to hit Kovacs but before she can, Captain Takana interrupts. Takana brings flowers for Ortega, Kovacs notices that they are expensive flowers that are a sight of guilt. Ortega then interrogates Takana about how he knew something about the Ghostwalker coming to the station, Takana says that he didn’t actually know and he only gets updates from someone on a VR cafe who also pays him to keep his mouth shut. Ortega is able to get an address from Takana to the cafe he goes to and Kovacs goes with her. They get to the cafe with one goal in mind, to find out who the contact is, for Samir’s sake. Kovacs dives in and becomes Takana to talk to the mysterious contact, who we find out is Hemingway. Ortega pulls him out before he could do anything else and they find the place to be quiet. Why is it quiet? because someone came in and cut all of the people’s heads off, that someone being Dimi in a new sleeve. He throws a pulse grenade at the two and sends them flying out the windows.

We then cut to the Fightdrome where Dimi has taken them so that they can fight in Carnage’s arena, to the death. We see that Carnage is hosting a one-time event where Kovacs and Ortega must fight some creatures for the first round. They are able to fight and kill the creatures by working together. Dimi then enters the fight and starts to cut them up multiples times in different spots, he reveals that the blades are laced with Reaper. Dimi hypes up the crowd, grabs Ortega, throws her beside Kovacs and tells him that he is going to cut her into pieces. Before he can, Kovacs stops him and Dimi is able to stab him with the knife. Dimi thinking he is a deadman starts to get happy and Kovacs is able to get the knife, stab Dimi in the neck, grabs his stack, throws it to Ortega and she crushes it with her bare hands. This angers Carnage to the point of him sending everyone to kill them both. However, before they can, a mysterious person in a hood with a sword is able to slash her way to Kovacs and Ortega. We find out that this person is a woman who is Kovacs’s sister, making Kovacs, not the last Envoy.

This was another great episode for the series. We got to see Ortega get a new upgrade, we got to see Dimi take over Kovacs OG Sleeve and more Fightdrome. I really do love the concept of Fightdrome and I love Carnage, they just feel like they are future versions of the Thunderdome, and there is nothing wrong with that.

One thing that keeps me intrigued with the series is the world that they are establishing around them. The whole concept of Sleeves plays a big part and Stacks are a great way for someone to remain alive while not being forced to one single body.

The acting in this episode was great and everyone really did a great job. I loved how Ortega reacted when he found out about Samir and her new arm. She was able to go from Sad, too shocked, Intrigued and then angry when she finds out about Takana’s secret dealings.

One thing I hope will get answered is that who is Hemingway? He feels like he is someone important but he needs more development for me to get fully invested in who he is.

Another thing that I hope get’s solved soon is Bancroft’s murder. I know that this is the overarching plot point for the season but it’s really starting to drag at this point and I’m more interested about what the world of this show has to offer and I would rather see more of Fightdrome, AI Hotels and whatever else goes on in this world.

The Verdict:

Episode 6 was another solid episode of Altered Carbon. It had a great twist ending, more Fightdrome, Dimi finally got what he deserved and the Bancroft murder is one step closer to being solved….. maybe. The one complaint I have is that we really do need to speed up the murder investigation because it’s being dragged out and I would rather see more of what this world has to offer. Other than that, another great episode of this awesome series so far.

9/10

Next up, Episode 7.