10 TV Characters Who Died In 2020
5. Takeshi Kovacs (Anthony Mackie) - Altered Carbon
It's fair to say that death has a unique meaning on Netflix's gorgeous sci-fi show Altered Carbon, given that a person's consciousness is contained on a disc-like device called a "stack," which is then inserted into synthetic human bodies called "sleeves.
And so, unless characters suffer "real death" by having their stack destroyed, they're always able to return by simply having their stack inserted into a new sleeve.
In season one, protagonist Takeshi Kovacs' stack was hosted by the sleeve of Elias Ryker (Joel Kinnaman), but after Kovacs surrendered the sleeve at the end of the first season, Anthony Mackie was brought in to play the new host sleeve for season two.
Unsurprisingly given Mackie's schedule and the clear appeal of simply re-sleeving the character every season, the season two finale ended with Mackie's character sacrificing himself to defeat the Elder, being turned to ash by Angelfire in the process.
Despite the season finale suggesting that the third season might pick up with the original Kovacs aka Kovacs Prime (Will Yun Lee) taking up the mantle, Mackie's demise proved a little more concrete than anyone was expecting, given that Netflix cancelled the show this past summer.
In essence, the series itself experienced "real death," ensuring that Mackie's death was far more of a death knell than it was ever intended to be.