The second season of Netflix’s Altered Carbon dropped Friday of last week and had quite a hurdle to clear.

First, it had to make the replacement of Joel Kinneman seem natural (which is hard to do when you take into account that his replacement is Anthony Mackie, an African-American) then they had to make the second season seem like a natural expansion of the first, as opposed to because “sequel.”

And it works because if you remember the central conceit of Altered Carbon–due to the creation of cortical stacks, which everyone has and contains the essence, the soul, essentially everything that makes you a human, you can switch sleeves–the human body–whenever convenient.

This way, if your body is running down, you can remove the stack and place it into another body.

And you can backup your stack, so even if you can’t immediately find a sleeve, it’s just a matter of doing so, then “you’re” back.

And here’s where things get really interesting because bodies are EXTREMELY expensive and not everyone can afford them, which means that while immortality is a very real possibility, it’s primarily for the rich.

Though as I mention in my video, while Anthony Mackie may the the star of the series, it’s heart is Poe (Chris Conner). And if his plight doesn’t ring a few tears from you by the end of the series then you’re a stronger person than I am.