- Title: Altered Carbon – Force of Evil
- IMDb: link
The fourth episode of Altered Carbon puts the murder investigation on hold, where it will continue to simmer as only a minor priority for the rest of the season. Captured at the end of the last episode, “Force of Evil” features Takeshi Kovacs (Joel Kinnaman) being forcibly tortured by Dimi (Michael Eklund) who has mistakenly taken him for the person who used to walk around in his new body. In order to withstand the torture, Kovacs thinks back on his training as an envoy which begins to fill in the character’s backstory a bit more and help explain why he’s such a bad ass to be reckoned with. As in his training, eventually our protagnoist will gain control of the simulation and take advantage of his captors leaving several dead bodies in his wake once he makes it back to the real world. Dimi will stick around and be a minor thorn in our character’s side until the true antagonist of the series is revealed.
While the may story explores both our hero’s backstory and the concept of futuristic psychological torture, the episode’s B-story focuses on Ortega (Martha Higareda) who, fed by her frustration over a loudmouth prisoner, abuses her authority to temporarily steal the main’s body and bring her grandmother back for the Day of the Dead. The scenes provide most of the episode’s lighter moments as well as touching on the conflict between religion and the ability to live multiple lives in different bodies. Matt Biedel will show off his range, here playing both the dumb street criminal and Ortega’s grandmother, and in later episodes becoming a new host for Dimi.
