A Love Letter to: Altered Carbon (TV, Season 1)

(15 min read)

 

Ah this should be a fun one to write. A nice break from the often-depressing tale of my illness years.

 

This is (hopefully) the first in a ‘Love Letter to’ series I’m intending on doing. As it’s a bit more niche than most of the other things I’ll likely write I’m not expecting people to engage with it so much, but I want to do it anyway.

 

Somewhat ironically, it was some cynicism that actually inspired this. A close friend of mine had shared with me his review of The Matrix and long story short, he didn’t like it. I had become very cynical during my illness years and so usually would jump on just about any invitation from someone to dump on something – as long as the criticism was at least somewhat justified (as it gave me an outlet for the frustrations I felt). But in this instance his criticism of the film had a different effect on me; I felt moved to respond by expressing why I had such fondness for the film (in the form of an audio recording ‘love letter’ to the film). It was probably the most glowingly I had spoken of anything in years.

 

Since then it has become an occasional part of our exchanges where one of us will go into detail about why something (could be a song, an album, a film, TV show, manga, even a concept) left such a (positive) impact on us. And then some time down the line I had the idea of doing this publicly.

 

So on to Exhibit One: The Altered Carbon TV series season one. And very specifically this is about season one. Season two lost just about everything that made the show stand out to me. And then in typical Netflix fashion, it got shitcanned.

 

I’m not going to spend a lot of time here on summarising the show. If you want to look it up, you can do that yourself. Go on Wikipedia or something. I’m always conscious of how limited people’s free time is and so try and stick to the point, and in this instance it’s the impression that the show left on me specifically.

 

So here is a brief overview:

Protagonist (Kovacs) wakes up 250 years in the future from let’s call it cryosleep of sorts. In this universe humans have developed the technology to download their mind or consciousness into digital form and preserve in hardware called ‘stack’. A stack can be inserted into any body (called a ‘sleeve’ in the show, as they’re now so disposable), although being ‘re-sleeved’ into lots of different bodies or the body of someone of the opposite sex to you will cause the mind issues. Theoretically, you can live forever, and as a result certain individuals (‘meths’) have accumulated enormous amounts of power and wealth.

 

The protagonist (a former ‘freedom fighter’ of sorts) gets woken up and hired by one of these individuals (called ‘meths’) and given an assignment. As he undertakes this he comes across all manner of other events and conspiracies taking place. It’s very much sci-fi/cyberpunk (a genre I’ve always been drawn towards), as well as something of a detective story. But the aspects that stood out to me were a bit unexpected. I’ll get stuck into those now. Quick note – it’s adapted from a book triology.

 

The first was the humour. ‘Sardonic’ and ‘ascerbic’ come to mind. The protagonist has or opts to basically have no filter and it’s hilarious. Sometimes he’s interacting with people who are used to having more well-mannered exchanges and they often don’t know what to do (‘I’m not sure I’m enjoying your tone’). There are also several other characters in the show who likewise seem to have either no access to or no use for a filter, and the results when they all get together I found hilarious.

 

The general tone is one of people having had enough of the bullshit of their world. The protagonist especially, who seems to have total and open contempt for much of it and especially those at the top of the pyramid. The meths see themselves as basically gods and are demanding of respect. Kovacs doesn’t share this view – ‘they’re not Gods, no matter how much they believe their own propaganda…They’re just a bunch of rich assholes who don’t look their age.’

 

I think it’s very relevant to touch on the space I was in when I first came across the show (I’ve rewatched it probably five to ten times since, which I don’t think I’ve ever done with a TV series – I’ve been much more of a film person).

 

This was early 2018, so heading into the fifth year of my illness and I had really had enough of it by that point. Not just that, but my tolerance for just about anything was shot – including other people. Or specifically, what I saw as other people’s bullshit, which I had increasingly found myself seeing through. I was also enormously frustrated. I don’t know if I can convey it very well yet, but the experience of being chronically unwell (at least in the way I was) became exceptionally aggravating. Because there was just no let up – I was constantly in pain, in discomfort, dealing with this and that. Physical stuff, psychological stuff, blah blah blah. And over time it just started to feel incredibly irritating. I didn’t feel it was necessary; to be constantly reminded of how bad my situation was, but this is what my body and mind were doing.

 

Watching the show I realised that the way the protagonist was expressing himself (and to some extent the other characters) resonated with me enormously. It seemed very cathartic to me – to express myself in a similar vein (in my own way). To not be always spending energy biting my tongue (which takes a surprising amount of energy compared to just saying what’s honest). And so that’s what I started doing.

 

I became more blunt and direct; quite matter of factly expressing how I felt and what sort of space I was in. Yes, my life is basically a living hell. No, I’m not going to tell you I’m ‘fine’ like you expect me to. If you don’t like that, fine. I’m not playing this silly game. It was really liberating actually.

 

One of the things that happened was that my lack of filter started to filter people out. Those who could handle my honesty (and the brutal situation I was in) from those who couldn’t. It really didn’t bother me if it was too much for people at the time and they started avoiding me, I just figured it was best for both of us if we kept our interactions to a minimum going forward. No offence taken, nothing personal, but this is how I would like to be going forward as it works well for me so I’ll leave it to you to decide what to do about that. I didn’t have much energy for compromise.

 

Out of my friends at the time, the one who seemed to handle it best was Michael, who had a remarkable capacity for dealing with bluntness.

 

It wasn’t a one-way thing either, like when someone likes to dish it out but throws a toddler tantrum as soon as something is thrown back at them. I’ve come across that a bunch and I don’t have much time for it. I was perfectly happy with people being equally direct with me; in fact I welcomed it. I was too tired to have to read between the lines and resolve the frequent conflict of someone’s mouth saying one thing while their tone and body language communicated something totally different, all while they were probably totally oblivious to it. I found myself often seeing right through it. People would often get very uncomfortable when they realised that their attempts to project something didn’t work on you. The people I got on best with where the ones who accepted that they weren’t going to kid me so they were just themselves. It’s hard, being ourselves isn’t it? My goodness. I really saw the extent of that while I was unwell. Sometimes third parties would see how me and someone else would communicate with one another and get offended on behalf of one of us, such is the extent of many people’s allergy to honesty. We’d just shrug it off as normal. Airing things out if there was tension allowed us to move on and for the tension to dissipate.

 

Ok I’m going to stop myself from going too far down this path here, but I will note that the honesty started opening up other doors in my interpersonal relationships. My god, what a relief it is when you know where you stand with someone because you’re not hiding stuff. It really struck me how much stress is caused by the ambiguity in our personal relationships. Ambiguity that could be resolved. And it could come from all manner of places. Illness forced me to be more honest, and the results were quite incredible.

 

The humour was another thing I embraced. Cynical and often absurdist (I want to do a love letter to absurdist humour at some point); it would often prompt surprised laughter at the way I’d just straight up state my opinion on things with no sugarcoating. It’s became a running theme of mine and James’s exchanges and has caused a huge amount of laughter. Sometimes I like having fun ‘translating’ things people do or say (like those awful corporate statements) into what the honest equivalent would be. Even just straight up saying something how you see it and watching the shock on people’s faces would be funny at points. And as I say, I was more than happy for it to go both ways. I enjoyed it (and still do) when someone would troll me back.

 

The other thing I was going to mention is that Kovacs in the show has a very distinct ‘don’t fuck with me’ vibe. I wasn’t too sure I had it in me, but I could feel something building up around that time and decided I liked the thought of some of that too. Especially as I was still in a very vulnerable space and I simply didn’t have the energy to have people take liberties with me. It was basically ‘look, if you’re not going to be understanding and compassionate towards my situation, then get out. I will show you respect but I expect the same in return.’ You can probably see why my circle of friends shrank down to a fairly select few. But those few were worth a huge amount to me. I still compromised (quite a lot) with them as I felt I needed to, but it was a more manageable level of compromise. I figured once I started to get my energy and tolerance back that I could expand things outwards again. But I still maintain the practice of being quite firm if I feel someone is being disrespectful (and explaining what I have a problem with).

 

I think I’ll save going into this in more detail for when I get to writing about that stage of my illness journey, but it was incredibly effective. Over time I started to realise that just about no one was taking liberties with me any longer unless I allowed it. I could pretty much put my foot down any time I wanted. I didn’t feel intimidated by anyone anymore. Thank you Altered Carbon for the inspiration.

 

The show to me was incredibly quotable, and I’ll give some of my favourites here (as well as why they resonated with me personally in some cases). This will be a long list:

 

“Whatever answer you may seek, it is precisely where you are not looking.”

 

“When everyone lies, telling the truth isn’t just rebellion. It’s an act of revolution. So think carefully when you speak it, because the truth is a weapon.” – not one I’d necessarily expect many others to click with, but to me it very much does. During my illness years I found myself seeing through things more – first with people individually and then with the wider world. And I realised just how enormous the extent of lying and deception is. Little wonder my simply being honest seemed to be so impactful. But more on that another time

 

“Technology advances, but humans don’t. We’re smart monkeys, and what we want is always the same. Food, shelter, sex and in all its forms, escape.”

 

“When the victors rewrite history, it’s just another kind of war, waged after the battlefield is done, to murder the memory of the defeated.” – probably much more true of our world than people realise. But that’s the point isn’t it? We get the official version of history (or rather, his-story). You’ve got to go digging to find the alternatives and then holes in the ‘accepted’ narrative tend to start opening up

 

“What we believe shapes who we are. Belief can bring us salvation or destruction. But when you believe a lie for too long, the truth doesn’t set you free. It tears you apart.” – leads on from the other two quotes I commented on. I’ve experienced this myself and seen it in others, especially over the last few years as it slowly dawns on people that a lot of what they believe(d) to be true is not. Seeing through things is often destructive as much, if not more, than it is liberating. More on this another time, and why the mind often will often hold on to an obviously flawed framework of the world than move on to a new more robust one

 

“Finding truth is more than a search for data. It’s an excavation of self. You have to keep going, no matter where it takes you. Because nothing can stay hidden forever.” – noticing a theme yet? The notion of finding truth and the damage wrought by lies are strong themes throughout the show

 

“Expect nothing – only then can you be prepared for anything.” – certainly resonated with me during the very unpredictable ride through my illness years

 

“Take what is offered.” – although it’s short, this also took on significance for me while I was unwell. The idea being that you might not be able to get at what you want, but you can at least take what is on offer. Make the best of the limited options available to you. Illness was an exercise for me in doing that. Everything was a compromise

 

“Get to the next screen.” – in the context of the show, this is initially used as part of the training for surviving and escaping VR torture (part of the technological world in the show). ‘Get to the next screen’ means basically to keep finding a way through, and eventually look for an opportunity to get out of the VR program and take that opportunity. For me illness felt like torture, and it was basically a case of trying to keep finding a way through each set of challenges as they came up until, hopefully, one day I was free of it

 

A couple more

 

“Let your enemy believe you are weak, until the moment he realises you are not.” – sounds like one of the Sun Tzu quotes you often see thrown around. One thing I noticed is that people (some types especially) have quite a tendency to underestimate others and overestimate themselves

 

“The enemy is despair.” – certainly felt true of the years I was unwell

 

“When did the world get so complicated? When God put people into it.”

 

As I was looking up the quotes to check them, I stumbled across some snippets from a couple of articles, several of which were referring to them as things like ‘empty platitudes’ or ‘uninformative’. Good work critics, seemingly unaware of the irony of them making these comments. I see these types of comments at times on other channels too and I’m reminded that a) it really is about perspective and b) it’s astonishing how few people grasp that. Because something doesn’t resonate with them they assume it must resonate with no one. It’s infuriating. It is possible for us to each perceive the world differently. It’s a topic James and I come back to quite a bit, in large part thanks to the sheer volume of instances where we have a different opinion on/experience of something to someone we’re talking to or to the ‘masses’ and this seems to be almost incomprehensible for said person. As if we all have to be a homogonous hive mind that thinks exactly the same about everything. That may seem comforting to a lot of people, but to me that sounds dreadful and incredibly boring. I don’t want to be too harsh here as I think I better understand these days where this comes from and it makes me more sympathetic, but I do find it irritating.

 

Last couple of things I’ll say before I wrap.

 

The protagonist is trained as one of what are called ‘envoys’ in the show. Amongst other things, they are trained to be very observant, to listen to their intuition and to be adaptable. It’s about mastering body and mind. The protagonist is portrayed frequently as spotting things other miss and making connections that they don’t. Again in light of how I was becoming during my illness years these aspects resonated a lot. Illness and meditation together made me far more observant and tuned in to what was going on around me than I had been before.

 

For good measure and to make the show resonate even more with me, there’s the portrayal of how the protagonist finds it coming back into the world. He hates what he sees, and pretty much everything he fears would happen and fought against has. This was largely how I felt as I started to return to things, as I’ll probably elaborate on more another time. A lot of the trends I spotted before my illness have continued and worsened, and it was very tough to see. I really hated and struggled to come to terms with how things looked to me. There’s even a line ‘this isn’t my world’, which is how I’ve felt as I’ve tried to reintegrate and come to terms with it.

 

Generally I’m not much of an advocate (to put it mildly) of the relationship we collectively seem to now have with escapism and fictional worlds. I think we learn much more from the real one and seem to have largely moved away from that. So I tend not to take much inspiration these days from fictional works, in whichever form they take. Some I feel have more real-world relevance than others, and of course it’s personal. I think it would do us good to connect more with real stories, even though reality can of course be disappointing. But in this instance for me the show seemed to click with me in so many ways and to some extent still does. I actually re-watched it very recently, which is partly what prompted this.

 

I don’t know that I’d ‘recommend’ it as such. It definitely wouldn’t be to everyone’s tastes. The violence, language and sex are all pretty graphic, and the show is quite dark. But the people I’ve watched with really clicked with it and so it could be worth a look (it’s on Netflix), especially if you like the sound of it from what I’m describing.