WARNING: The following article contains spoilers from Altered Carbon, season one.
The griping sci-fi epic from Netflix showrunner Laeta Kalogrididi and starring Joel Kinnaman follows mercenary Takeshie Kovacs, who wakes up centuries after he’s gunned down by armed forces in a revolutionary new world where reincarnation is the norm.
Moments after waking in the body of an ex-police officer, Kovacs is hired by Laurens Bancroft (James Purefoy) - to solve Laurens Bancroft’s murder.
Somehow, just days into his first case - in his ripped new body - Kovacs finds himself tangled in an affair with Bancroft’s wife, Miriam (Kristin Lehman).
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It’s in my saliva, in my sweat, in my c**t
In the closing moments of episode two, Miriam effortlessly seduces Kovacs in one of the most shocking scenes to hit the small screen.
Miriam’s genetically enhanced “sleeve” is laced with a biochemical pheromone, which “puts bodies in touch with one another”.
“It’s in my saliva, in my sweat, in my c**t,” she urges a trembling Kovacs.
Taken over by pure lust, the pair strip off for a night of wild sex.
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The moment sets the tone for the action ahead, which is packed with explosive romps and extreme violence. And it’s great.
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It was recently revealed that Netflix axed a scene from Altered Carbon for being “too violent”.
In the episode, titled Force of Evil, Kovacs is kidnapped and tortured with his nails being ripped out and his limbs chopped off.
Richard K Morgan's original book sees Kovacs turned into a woman “on her period” when inside the virtual torture chamber which would “make her more vulnerable to pain”.
He then explained that violent men take advantage.
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It reads: “There's no kind of conditioning in the known universe that can prepare you for having your feet burnt off.
“Or your nails torn out. Cigarettes stubbed out on your breasts. A heated iron inserted into your vagina.”
Showrunner Laeta Kalogridis's revealed that she insisted the sequence was cut.
Speaking to i09, she said: “There was no pushback from Netflix or Skydance [Media] about that sequence. But there was pushback from me.
“The whole point of that [scene] in the book is, I believe the quote is, 'Women are the race.' Men are just f**king fighting machines.
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“We have more nerves per square inch, we have heightened pain tolerance, we last longer. And the point of torturing a woman is that she feels more and she endures longer.
“You can't get that across [on television], there's just no way. It's going to turn into some torture porn thing, and I wasn't comfortable with that. So pre-emptively – again, it was never a conversation with the studio or the network, it was my decision – that isn't something I wanted to make. And if I PC'd myself, I seriously do not care.”
She added: “Whoever got tortured has to be the person who gets up and does the killing. [Otherwise] the emotional math doesn't add up. There's no moment when I can really enjoy, for lack of a better word, the vengeance.
“Because what I've done is I've objectified the female form, made her the object of all the torture, and put a dude in the place of taking care of the business.”
Altered Carbon is currently streaming on Netflix.
