Content warning for suicide, drug use, graphic imagery, transphobia, multiple references to dead naming, police brutality and adult themes, because this show is very horny. Also, I apologize in advance for any names I mess up on this one, I promise I did my best. Oh, and one more warning the
last section of this video, chapter 6? includes some clips with
pretty intense flashing lights, I'll include some time codes in the
description for sensitive viewers. And spoiler alert for all of Sense8, and finally this is your regular reminder that these are just my opinions and art is subjective. So. Sense8 is a show that I kind of can't believe happened, like when you think about it. It was one of the early flagships for Netflix's burgeoning series of original programs back in 2015, after the success of shows like House of Cards, Marco Polo, and Orange is the New Black. It had a wildly diverse cast, fluid sexuality, It filmed all over the world and cost millions to make, and was just so...good, so let's talk about Sense8. Sense8 first aired in 2015 with its final special airing in June of 2018. And...it's a hard show to talk about because, it is so jam-packed with ideas and genres and characters, but let's start with the basic premise. Eight people across the world one day
find themselves mentally connected. This Cluster of people are as it turns out, a new species of human and known as Sensates. They can mentally pop in with each other for a chat, they call this Visiting. Or in a pinch, one person can take over for another if for example, you find yourself in a fist fight and you can't fight for shit, but your new Korean brain friend can, they call this Sharing, because they're sharing knowledge and skills and stuff. Oh, and there is a shadowy organization that is trying to track down sensates for shadowy purposes, so these eight new sensates have to band together to protect eachother, and themselves in this wild and turbulent new reality they face, and...that's just the basic premise, So deep breath,
[Takes a deep breath] Let's do the usual rundown, it's a big one. There's Brian J. Smith as Will Gorski, a cop in Chicago, and one of the few actors I knew going into this series, he was actually one of the leads on 'Stargate Universe,' Hey Scott, how is it going? And...yes, this show has a cop on it and like...we'll get to that in a minute, Oh! And his dad in the show is a Wachowskis regular, Joe Pantoliano, who you might recognize as Cypher from 'The Matrix.' Then there's Tuppence Middleton as Riley Blue Gunnarsdóttir, an Icelandic DJ living in England
trying to escape her tragic past. She's one of two actresses you might
recognize from a role in 'Jupiter Ascending,' which I personally didn't catch until after I saw the first season of Sense8
but I digress. Doona Bae plays Sun Bak, a businesswoman and underground kick boxer in South Korea, Oh and yes, you guessed it, Doona Bae was also in 'Jupiter Ascending' and 'Cloud Atlas.' You might also remember her from one of Bong Joon Ho's early films, 'The Host.' Jamie Clayton plays Nomi Marks, she's a transgender hacker living in San Francisco, and she's played by a trans actress, Hell yeah! I would expect no less from Lana and Lilly
Wachowski but it's still a thing to celebrate, especially back when this premiered in 2015. Anyways Nomi's girlfriend Amanita
is played by Freema Agyeman, AKA Martha Jones from Season 3 of 'Doctor Who,' God I love this cast. Tina Desai plays Kala Dandekar. She's a trained pharmacist and devout Hindu living in Mumbai, who was engaged to be married to Rajan Rasal played by Purab Kohli. Max Riemelt plays Wolfgang Bogdanow, a lock smith, safe cracker, and all around fighty boy, who is ready to fuck shit up at literally anytime. He is based in Berlin and has a best friend named Felix, who was played by Maximilian Mauff. We have Lito Rodriguez played by Miguel Ángel Silvestre. He's a clositive gay actor in Mexico city with his secret living boyfriend Hernando, played by Alfonso Herrera, and also a pretend public girlfriend, Daniela played by Eréndira Ibarra, and rounding out our main Cluster, there's Capheus Onyango, a matatu driver in Nairobi, Kenya. In the first season, he's played by Aml Ameen, the actor look the show somewhat abruptly during the beginning of production for Season 2. There are lots of articles that speculate why, but it's mostly heresay, and I don't want to malign anybody involved. The character was recast in Season 2 with actor Toby Onwumere. There's also Naveen Andrews as Jonas Maliki, a mysterious member of another Cluster who can be a friend and adversary. You might remember him as Sayid on 'LOST.' also Daryl Hannah, who you might recall from 'Blade Runner,' plays Angelica Turing, Who, well...she "birthed" our main Cluster...that's a whole thing. And then Terrence Mann plays a guy we mostly know as Whispers, he's our big bad, if you couldn't tell by his whole everything, and that's just the cast I told you the show is big. I'll get to the creators, but I'm going to try, [Capheus singing] "Oh my god do I try!" Yeah I'm going to try to, as succinctly as possible, do a recap of this show, with eight main characters, and all of their own individual plot lines, This is kind of more involved than the usual recap. But if I don't do one of these,
this video is just going to devolve into, 'Hey remember that one scene that was really cool?' 'And that other scene that was really cool?' 'Hey you remember that one ti--?' So here we go. So Season 1, we start with this woman, Angelica. She's alone in this big busted up church, and she's, well, it looks and sounds like she's giving birth? Suddenly there's a man with her, Jonas Maliki, and although he's there with her, the scene is edited and filmed in such a way where the audience knows he's definitely not Physically There, and then the birth seems to...uh..happen when we get this montage of these eight people all around the world, and all of them seem to see Angelica. [Angelica] "Protect them." Also, this asshole Whispers shows up and he's creepy and menacing. [Angelica] "Go." [Whispers] "Is that Jonas?"
[Angelica] "Please" [Whispers] "Tell him, I'm looking forward to meeting him." Jonas and Whisper seem to know the other is taking up real estate in this woman's head, but they don't See each other, and again, both of them are in her head, and then when the flesh and blood Whisper shows up, Angelica kills herself. And from what we can tell, this is somehow meant to stop him from whatever his nefarious deal is, and that's just the opening scene. So Will is a cop in Chicago going around with his partner Diego played by Ness Bautista, they hear a call about gang activity and find this kid who's been shot. Will takes him to the hospital in spite of everybody objecting for some reason. [Will] "You do not want to stand there and let this kid die either." [Diego] "That's what he'd do if it was you or me." Oh and his dad is a former cop and current alcoholic and the two have kind of a contentious relationship. Then one evening Will meet Jonas by chance at a convenience store, and according to the authorities Jonas is supposedly a terrorist, so this first meeting doesn't exactly go well. [Jonas] "Don't do this Will." [Will] "WHAT THE FUCK?!" [Jonas] "You spent your life trying to understand what happened to you," "if you don't let me go you might never find out." He's the one who explains a lot of the Sensate rules to Will and to us. The intricacies of Visiting which can be done between any Sensate, but if it's outside the Cluster, Visiting can only happen after two Sensates make physical eye contact, and Sharing can only happen between the eight members of any given Cluster, Oh and because Will catches him by way of a car accident, the FBI caught Jonas away before he can explain too much, because this shows mysteries have to unfurl slowly you know. There's Riley in England with her often hinted at, but as yet to be revealed tragic past. She's a DJ and she's gotten mixed up with some bad people. These guys all shoot each other over money or drugs or whatever,
while Riley's high on some stuff. and she gets the hell out of there, but the jerks find her again. Will has a very public freak out in a bar full of cops, but also helps her escape, and Will and Riley keep having these mental 'meet-cutes.' [Will] "I think its safe to say we're not going crazy."
[His voice echoes through the phone as well] [Riley] "Oh my god this is so cool!"
[Her voice echoes too] Kala the pharmacist in Mumbai, is engaged to this guy, Rajan. Everybody seems very excited because he's handsome and rich. There's a decadent party complete with a full-on Bollywood dance number. with a full-on Bollywood dance number. It seems Rajan's infatuation is quite genuine, but Kala seems unsure about the whole thing. Also due to this new mental connection, she discovers Wolfgang and might be into him. Then she sees him naked at her wedding and passes out. Wolfgang in Berlin, along with his friend Felix, steal some diamonds out of some apartment that his cousin was about to rob. They party hard and at a club, Wolfgang sings, 'What's Up' by the 4 Non Blondes. And everybody sort of mentally joins in, especially Kala [Kala and Wolfgang singing along]
"I said hey! What's going on?" Also Wolfgang has a mountain of daddy issues and his whole family seems to be like, oops, all crimes. Lito in Mexico is a closeted actor and Daniela is just the latest woman he's stringing along so that he could pretend to be straight in public. His secret boyfriend Hernando, is adorable and incredibly patient, even as Daniela sort of inserts herself further into their lives when she learns Lito was gay. [Dani] "This is like a dream come true." Eventually, the three become quite close. Also Daniela has a rich and abusive ex-boyfriend named Joaquin. Oh and one day Lito accidentally picks up some of Sun's PMS. [Lito] "There's a crying Korean woman." [Sun] "I'm not crying." [Lito] "There's a Korean woman standing next to me and she's not crying the same way that I'M NOT SCREAMING!" So we get the most iconic line in history of television. [Honking car horn] [Lito] "I see you villain. With
your fucking villain moustche!" Sun is a Korean business woman by day and underground kick boxer by night. She has a shitty brother and an emotionally distant dad. And when she finds out their company is being accused of embezzling, she agrees to take the fall to protect her father and brother, and she goes to prison for it. Capheus is a bus driver in Nairobi, Kenya. His bus is called the Van Damn after the actor Jean-Claude Van Damme, because Capheus and his friend Jela, played by Paul Ogola, are big fans of the actor and his films. They basically subscribe to this life philosophy of like, 'what would Jean-Claude do.' Also, his mom is sick with AIDS and he spends all of their money to get her some good medication and then the bus gets cornered by members of a gang called Superpower, who get on the bus to steal everybody's stuff and they steal the medication. [Superpower Gang Member] "We are the Superpower, we take the fuck we want!" So, Capheus goes to get it back and only manages it because of a well-timed mental connection with Sun. This scene kicks ass by the way. Afterwards, he's something of a local legend and he agrees to work for the shady guys Silas Kibaka, driving his daughter to school in order to get his mom more meds. When he gets in over his head, he begs for 'the spirit of Jean-Claude Korean Lady' to come help him out again. Nomi is a self-described
hacktivist in San Francisco. She lives with her loving girlfriend, Amanita, and when her strange visions lead her to collapse at a pride parade, she ends up in a hospital where her mother shows up and deadnames her constantly. Her mother and the doctors then go on to declare that her brain is broke and they decide to operate on her without her consent. [Nomi] "You can't keep me here against my will." [Nurse] "I'm sorry, but we can." Eventually she breaks out of the hospital some mental help from Will who is still figuring out this whole Visiting and Sharing thing and knows how to bust out of a pair of handcuffs. And then some physical help from Amanita. [Amanita] "I gotcha...I gotcha." From there, she's on the run from the authorities and out to find out why these people are after her and why that doctor wanted to lobotomize her. [Amanita] "I sense a costume opportunity." Tired yet? We're about halfway through season one, so hang on because none of our Sensates understand what's happening yet, most of them think they might be suffering a mental break, Or they're just ignoring the weird shit they keep seeing and writing it all off as figments of the imagination. A couple of them just seemed to be rolling with it, but the mental connections between them continue to grow stronger and draw them together. More and more the Sensates seem to reach out to each other in times of need. Nomi and Amanita's fact-finding mission leads them to the only patient who survived this procedure they tried to do on Nomi, his name is Niles Bolger and he's completely catatonic. Then they follow that doctor who did the procedures, intercepting his phone calls, and they go sneaking into the doctor's apartment, which means they get to see the catatonic Niles Bolger impossibly show up and kill the doctor before killing himself. and it seems he was somehow being puppeteered by Whispers. Then in a later, incredible sequence, Nomi gets cornered by some cops and... [Nomi] "Someone please help me." [Sun] "Stay calm." [Will] "Aw shit!" [Cop] "Get on your knees!"
[Nomi gasps] Will and Sun help her plan and fight her way out. [Will] This guy's right handed, he's going to go for your right wrist...Now!" And then... [Nomi] "I don't know how to drive." [Car engine starts]
[Capheus] "I do." Capheus takes over to drive the getaway car. Also at one point they get some help from Nomi's old hacker friend Bug. He knew her before her transition and so he says some pretty off-color stuff initially, but Bug is pretty great. [Bug] "The Bug suspected foul play." Nomi and Amanita spend most of the rest of the season fact-finding and planning behind the keyboard. Oh and Amanita is totally on board for the whole, her girlfriend is mentally connected to seven other people thing, like even before they have proof or anything. [Amanita] "Impossibility...is a kiss away from reality." Honestly, relationship goals. Meanwhile, Sun's in prison now and I genuinely love her cellmates. [Lina] "The embezzler." [Soo-Jin] "You stole all
of those investors money." [Min-Jung] "Shamed her father and brother." [Lina] "And almost destroyed their company." [Min-Jung] "Well done." Her father comes to visit her and says he regrets letting her take the fall for things she didn't do and and he's going to reopen her case and admit everything. Then a few days or possibly weeks later, her brother comes and says their dad committed suicide. Sun surmises that he had their father killed and... [Sun] "Look at me Joon-Ki! I know what you did." "You will pay. I swear it!" She spends a lot of the rest of the season in solitary confinement. Capheus ends up getting waylaid by the Superpower gang again.
Apparently Silas Kibaka once killed this dude's sister. So they demand that Capheus deliver Kibaka daughter to them or they'll kill Capheus' mom. He ends up going alone and they try to get him to kill Kibaka. Sun steps in to help him out again. This scene is hella violent and after an extended car and bus chase with some assistance from Will in a tight spot, Capheus escapes, So now Kibaka is safe and so is his daughter. Kala's pretty peaved that a vision of Wolfgang might have ruined her wedding. [Kala] "I don't know what is going on here." "If one of the gods or goddesses is angry with me" "And has sent a...dangerous pervert demon who never seems to have any clothes on." But it seems Rajan is chill and still very ready and willing to be married to Kala. Oh and also his family is kind of shady. They run a drug company, but also Rajan's dad is involved in
politics, and he's looking to instate some law that might ban certain religious practices, so this happens. [Kala screaming] Also Kala keeps seeing Wolfgang and like clearly they're getting closer. Wolfgang and Felix end up
in trouble when his cousin, the jerk with the diamonds they stole? Comes for payback. Felix is shot and eventually Wolfgang has to hide him somewhere because his family clearly has it out for them. Then he goes to face down his cousin and ends up in another tight spot. Lito steps into help him out because apparently Wolfgang doesn't know how to bullshit under pressure and he just needed to distract them for a minute. [Lito] "May I?" "Do you mind?" I love this scene so much. And then Wolfgang blows them all up with a bazooka, because of course he does. [Lito] "Fucking hell! That's what i'm talking about!" [Wolfgang] "Thank you." And then he goes to take out
his uncle's entire everything. Kala helps them build a bomb at one point when he's cornered, which sure is something. In Mexico, Daniela apparently took pictures of Lito and Hernando, and Joaquin steals her phone and blackmails them. So Daniela goes back to Joaquin to try and fix it. [Hernando] "He hit you."
[Dani] "We were negotiating." [Hernando] "This is wrong, you can not go back to that asshole," [Dani] "I told that asshole I would marry him if he left you alone." And Lito is ready to let her go and just move on. But Hernando is heartbroken over the lengths that Lito is willing to go to protect his career at the expense of Daniela, so he leaves. Lito gets depressed in a hot tub, goes to some pretty dark places and finally decides to fix it by getting Daniela back from Joaquin. Unfortunately, he's not great in a fight, so Wolfgang steps in. God, I love them both so much. This scene is the best, with Wolfgang's help he gets her out of there and goes to reconcile with Hernando. Now the terrific trio are together again. Riley goes back to Iceland to be with her dad and we find out a bunch of stuff like how this lady Yrsa convinced Riley when she was a kid that she was cursed and she shouldn't go back to Iceland. This lady is also a Sensate, I guess, who knows stuff about Jonas, and Whispers, and Angelica. She says Jonas and Angelica collaborated with Whispers to kill Sensates and apparently Sensates communicate through a Psycellium network, it's a whole thing. Then in one wild sequence, she watches her father playing an orchestra, all eight Sensates remember their literal birth, not the Sensate birth. Riley remembers when she gave birth to her child Luna, and there was a horrific car accident and she collapses to the ground with blood dripping down her face. She ends up in a BPO facility and Whispers is on his way to find her. In Chicago Will gets suspended
from the police force because of all the digging he's been doing into Whispers and everything. Between him and Nomi, they find out the guys involved with a company called BPO, which stands for Biologic Preservation Organization. And when Riley collapses, he gets on a plane to Iceland to get her out of there. Oh and remember the Sensate eye contact thing I told you about for Visiting outside the Cluster? Well Whispers is a Sensate, so if any of our heroes make eye contact with him, it's game over. He will be in their head, know what they know...ish, and be able to track down all of the other members of the Cluster. So Will goes to Iceland and with the help of every member of the Cluster, he breaks Riley out of the BPO facility before they can cut into her head. But oops! He does make eyes at Whispers on the way out. Meanwhile, Riley is going on a traumatic flashback journey or something, vividly reliving the car accident that killed her husband while she was in labor, and at one point this happens. [Will] "OH MY GOD, WHAT THE FUCK!?" All the while Will is trying to get them both the safety and eventually they end up here and everybody is about to give up. But Will decides to basically drug himself because if he's a asleep, Whispers can't find them through their mental connection. He tells Riley to get herself together and get them both out because he loves her to bits and they should both live. When he wakes up, he's on a boat with Riley. She did it. She got them both out of there and saved them all. She injects Will with more knockout juice and all the other Sensates appear in the boat around them as they sail off into the unknown. [Big Exhale] That's season one. Now let's talk about a few issues I have with the show. Some of the issues I have with the show are little things like, well, if you think too hard about it, this show could fall apart beneath the weight of its own internal logic. How come when Will decides to stop taking drugs in season two, he never seems to suffer from any withdrawal symptoms. How is Lito over there doing stunt bartending, interacting with stuff in this space while Nomi stands next to her girlfriend who can't see anything in particular happening. Well...my roommates and I have a concept we like to call, It's Tuesday. Don't worry about it.
[Bell Ding] How does a boxing match against one dude in Seoul, Korea match up with a fight against four dudes in Kenya? It's Tuesday, don't worry about it.
[Bell Dings] I'm sorry. Did you say say Psycellium network? Is this like Midiclorians? Well, you guessed it, It's Tuesday, don't worry about it.
[Bell Dings] This is the sort of show that I wouldn't recommend overthinking because it would break the show. At some point, you just have to let yourself get swept up in it and not sweat the details because good God, they sure aren't. While some parts of the show are all Tuesdays,
[Bell Dings] Others are...well a matter of personal taste. Like, for instance, I'm one of those people who really struggle watching scenes of public awkwardness or humiliation. I get that secondhand embarrassment really badly. And due to the nature of the show where every character has seven other voices in their heads. There are a lot of scenes that get really uncomfy. [Wolfgang] "You did this."
[Kala] "You did too." [Rajan] "I did what?" UH OH [Director] "Tears are not sexy."
[Lito] "Sorry I'm just feeling a little emotional today." NOPE [Diego] "The fuck are you doing Gorski?" Oh God! Or there's the fact that I can respect and applaud the sensuality of this show because hurray representation and that they are trying to encompass all of the human experience. But boy, oh boy, do they love a sex scene. And as an ace person, I don't get much out of that. Like at most, I find them academically interesting, and I admire the choreography. But by the third orgy, I have to shake my head with fond chagrin at the sheer horniness of the show. Another thing that I honestly don't know if this is an issue of me being a prude or an Issue, but listen. I like having clear consent in romantic scenes in films. While not every movie can be 'Portrait of a Lady on Fire' where the director literally put them both in face veils. So they each had to choose to unveil before a kiss. Making consent happen visually...like okay, In films, consent is often assumed rather than clearly stated. If two characters start enthusiastically making out, we can assume that this is the filmic equivalent of two
characters consenting to make out. Of course, in real life, consent should be crystal-clear. If your partner isn't saying yes, then it's a no. Silence is not consent in real life. In Sense8 though, there are more than a couple of moments that are... iffy when it comes to that clear consent, even when we're playing by film rules, and it pretty exclusively happens with men. It's either played for jokes or meant to be like oooh sexy. Like for example, in season two, when Lila starts mentally...um... like is this harassment or sexual assault if it's mental? Wolfgang pretty explicitly doesn't want this, at least not right now, it's mostly played as a joke because, oh no, he looks weird to the non-Sensates in the room. Most of Lila's screen time is devoted to her being pretty creepy towards Wolfgang. Like, I think she's a great villain. But I wish there was a little less of this. [Lila] "I thought it was time for us to know each other a little better." [Wolfgang sighs] Or in season one there's Daniela taking pictures of Lito and Hernando having sex without their permission, fetishizing them multiple times. [Dani] "It so fucking hot I can't even stand it and I--" "I love gay porn."
[Lito chokes on his coffee] Trying to force herself on Lito before she realizes he's gay. [Lito] "Daniela, Dani!" [Lito] "This isn't going to work."
[Dani] "This isn't work." "It's just a little harmless sex." [Lito] "No. No."
[Dani] "Come on." Again, played for jokes, although the photos do become a serious thing later. And to be clear, I don't think that the Wachowskis J. Michael Straczynski had some secret agenda here. This is Just a bit of a cultural blind spot that's very common. There's a great two-part series from the Pop Culture Detective Agency about the sexual assault and harassment of men being played for laughs and I'll link it in the description. But I am willing to talk some of the points I just mentioned up to personal taste. What's not personal taste is the fact that this show features a main character who is a cop and is largely uncritical about it too. In the year of our Lord 2020, there's been a lot of reexamining of media that glorifies and romanticizes a law enforcement agency that frequently abuses its power at the expense of the citizens it was formed to protect. A study released earlier this year by the advocacy group, Color of Change suggests that Even a more liberal show like 'Brooklyn 99' has come under fire for scenes where the lead characters infringe on people's rights to solve a case. In that show, it was played for comedy. [Jake Peralta] "Two, three, four."
[Bad Guitar playing and singing] Recently the Netflix film 'Project Power' came out and was clearly trying to show the way American society disenfranchises African-Americans. It also shows us, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a cop who un-ironically does 'Dirty Harry' impressions. Now, before you tell me, 2015 was a different time, this show begun development in 2013 and was in production when the Black Lives Matter movement started in Ferguson, Missouri in August of 2014, following the murder of 18-year-old Michael Brown by police officer, Darren Wilson. But this goes back farther, in 1966, three years before the Stonewall Uprising, trans women and drag queens protested being targeted by police at the Compton cafeteria in San Francisco. says Felicia 'Flames' Elizondo in an article for The Advocate. Three years later, many LGBTQ folks would be protesting again on June 28th, 1969, when New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn.
A gay club located in Greenwich Village in New York City. The police manhandled patrons and employees, which sparked an uproar. Protests lasted for six days as New York residents decried treatment at the hands of the police. According to a 2013 report by the Anti-Violence Project, trans people are 3.7 times more likely to
experience police violence and 7 times more likely to experience physical violence when interacting with police than cisgender victims and survivors. This year we've seen multiple examples of police violence against trans men and women. For instance, the deaths of Tony McDade and Layleen Polanco. McDade was shot by police
while Polanco was left to die in her cell after multiple seizures, while officers stood outside her cell and laughed. Police brutality is not new, and police brutality towards trans people is not new. The Wachowskis as two trans women could have been more aware of this when writing Will Gorski and all his Chicago pals. But they weren't, possibly due to being wealthy and white or just maybe they didn't think about it in that way.
Although much of the Wachowskis work is critical of power structures that pushed down on people, the rich and the powerful, etc. It seems that they have critiqued that in the abstract without maybe sussing out some particular issues that face real people in a real-world setting. But I hope that like the rest of us, they're still learning. Maybe the fourth 'Matrix 'will have Neo look at
the camera and say ACAB, that would be fun. Now, when it comes to Will's writing, some of you may be asking, Does Will Gorski glorify cops? The answer is, yeah...kinda. In season 1, we see a lot of what is typical in uncritical police narratives, Will abuses the rights of average citizens and circumvents that ole' red tape when it suits his purposes, illegally looking at records and CCTV footage and so on without expressed permission or warrants or whatever. [Car rental guy] "Paperwork is in the back office, but without some warrant or something." [Will] "Warrant is going to go right to your bosses," "we probably have to file a corporate headquarters too...right?" "Just to be thorough."
[Diego] "Yeah." [Will] "Trust me, man, you do not want that." Even one of the first scenes we see of Will, shows him waking up from a nightmare to grab a gun off his bedside table and wave it around and what is presumably a populated apartment building. Then when he goes to try and get a neighbor to turn down his music, he eventually yells [Will] "Hey, open up, it's the police!"
and breaks down the door. Luckily, nobody's there. So we didn't directly abuse anybody's rights. But like...yeah that's not great. But the show does go out of its way to
say that Will is "one of the good ones," not like those other "bad cops." [Diego] "Gangbanbers hate cops, cops hate gang members. Like dogs hate cats." "With any luck they'll be a few less cats in the world." In episode one, Will, and his partner Diego, find a young boy who has been shot in an act of gang violence. Diego says they should just let the kid die because ambulances wouldn't get there in time. Also because he's probably a member of a gang who would let a cop die if their roles were reversed. [Will] "You do not want to stand there and let this kid die either." [Diego] "That's what he will do if it was you or me." The child even points a gun at Will when he first enters the room as if to further prove Diego's point. Will still takes him to the hospital, has to convince an African-American nurse to stabilize him despite this. [Nurse] Are you new? You need to go and get an ambulance to take him to Mt. Sinai." [Will] "The kid is going to be dead before we get there." [Nurse] "I'm sorry, is policy." [Will] "What kind of policy lets a kid die?" Which I don't know a lot about how hospitals work, but I'm pretty sure a hospital would at least stabilize a kid who's bleeding out before shipping them off to another facility. But even if the policy thing is real, his partner's complete lack of care for this child's life, followed by Will begging this nurse to see to the kid's injuries. Paints Will as 'A Good Boy,' not like those other 'heartless people,' many of whom are people of color, which makes this whole scene even more tone-deaf honestly. [Nurse] "If he lives and he kills someone, let's say a cop." "How are you going to feel about that?" Good lord lady, that's not even your job. What do you care? In later episodes, other cops will show dislike or distrust towards Will, because he went out of his way to save the life of a child who literally everybody else's written off. [Michael Gorski] "But if this punk ends up killing somebody, then you got to live with that." Now, I would guess, pure speculation here, but I think they might have decided to make the character Will Gorski a cop because it was an easy justification for a tactical skill set. All of the Sensates have a unique skill they bring to the table, and that's kind of Will's thing. Plus being in law enforcement allows him to go on these fact-finding missions that many of the other characters couldn't go on. It gives him access to resources and records. So when he has to try and find out who this person is or go watch the CCTV footage, he can do that. I mean, Nomi can do that too with her hacker skills, but I'm guessing that was the intent behind making him a cop. I would also guess that maybe the then-recent outcry against police brutality in Ferguson might have been the reason for the almost absurd amount of time the show spends justifying, yes, Will is a cop...but he's a nice cop. By season 2, Will is mostly a cop in name only, but the show still harps on it as one of
his defining positive characteristics. [Riley] "I miss my cop."
[Will] "He missed you." [Will] "Every cop knows there are times when the only choice you have left is to defend yourself." "Okay, my bad cop feeling about this is buzzing." Also his partner Diego says a lot of shit like this, [Diego] "With any luck, there will be few less cats in the world". He's a character we're also supposed to like. [Will] "He's a good cop." Like I've said before on this channel, I don't mind watching stuff with problems. I just think it's important to view things with a critical eye. Media can often espouse ideas either intentionally or unintentionally. That's why I spend so much time harping
about representation and feminism and stuff. All art is political and Hernando agrees with me. [Hernando] "Art is political. Never more so than when pretending, it's not." Then you go and watch, say 'Dirty Harry' and you might think, yeah, look at this good cop doing good work. [Rothko] "You're lucky I'm not indicting you for assault with intent to commit murder." Yeah, he's breaking laws and doesn't know what Miranda rights are. [Rothko] "Where the hell does it say you've got a right to kick down doors," "torture suspects, deny medical attention and legal counsel, where have you been?" "Does Escobedo ring a bell? Miranda?" But it's good, it's 'justice.' There's a great video series from Jack Saint on the problems of police in media. I'll link it down below. Basically, I'm probably not going to buy a
movie ticket anytime soon for, I don't know. A RoboCop movie or Speed 3, this time they riding bikes. Because I do think the media's fetishization of our current
law enforcement system needs to die. But a show like Sense8, which is also unabashedly queer and
accepting of people all over the world. Well, as long as we recognize the ideas that are maybe outdated and don't let them inform our perceptions, I would totally like people to watch Sense8, but I'll understand anybody being completely put off by the show because of how Will and his friends are written. Honestly, I like his character best when he's helping the other Sensates, using his planning and tactical knowledge
and standing at the center of the busy storm, that is his Cluster with the plan that might save the day. And...you know...Abolish qualified immunity and defund the police. And with that, let's talk about season 2. [Kala] "Bring it bitch." We've talked about a few issues I have with the show. Now, let's dig into season 2
because there's plenty to discuss. I mean, any show that can flip genres on a dime from Bollywood musical, to heist film, to boardroom drama would be pretty dense. The show would continue to weave fluidly between genres and characters. But now the bond between the eight of our Cluster is tighter, so their plotlines are even more interwoven. First, Will and Riley spend a lot of the season shacked up in Amsterdam. Will is on drugs now because this fogs up the connection between him and Whispers. But on occasion, the asshole slips through and he and Will are basically in an extended mental game of cat and mouse. At one point, Will's eavesdropping finally gets them some good info, the name of a higher-up and BPO and they even get Milton locked up for a bit. Will goes to meet that higher up at a museum. Apparently he's one of the good guys who wants to steer BPO in a less ethically horrendous direction and he gives Will these. [Croome] "These is psy-blockers, the same tools Milton takes to immunize himself for a period of time." Then Whispers, drone puppeteers a lady into murdering that guy, à la Niles Bolger back in season one. Will escapes the museum with some help from the gang, including one of my favorite bits. [Lito screaming] [Riley screaming] [Lito] "I saw the terrorist! What is the world coming to with this!"
[Guard] "Ma'am!" In Mexico, Lito, Hernando, and Daniela spend a lot of the
season facing the fallout for Joaquin releasing those photos of Hernando and Lito. They get kicked out of their apartment and Lito just generally has to struggle being a publicly out of the closet actor in Mexico. There's this one scene right after he gets dropped by his agent where he gets in an elevator with this young guy who is probably an actor and maybe closeted like Lito was. We don't know for sure. The scene is almost entirely without dialogue, but he just out of nowhere, reaches out and hugs Lito. It's lovely, but Lito spends a chunk of this season hiding and depressed
by the destruction of his career. Nomi spends a lot of the season in hiding as well, while Amanita pretends everything is normal and still works at that bookstore and tries to avoid this pesky FBI agent named Bendix. He's the worst by the way, they spend some time hiding with Bug who continues to be excellent. [Bug] "Hello Angels." [Bug laughs] They also eventually clue him in on the Sensate thing and he's totally down and also a huge fan of Lito's work, leading to another favorite scene where they
watch one of Lito's movies at the theater and Lito sits with Bug, as Bug talks about why he loves this movie. It's so sweet! Also Nomi's sister is getting married and asked Nomi to be her maid of honor. Sun spends the first half of the season in prison, but after her brother pays people to kill her...twice! And the second time it nearly works, Sun and one of her cellmates escape. It's another really great sequence. [Min-Jung] "Where did a banker's daughter learn to be a car thief?" [Sun] "Other lives." After escaping prison, we meet this cutie, Detective Mun, who, well...first off back when they were teenagers, Sun beat him in a martial arts tournament, and like...Mun seems to be really into a woman who can kick his ass, which...what a mood. Either way, he also seems to have picked up on the fact that Sun's alleged crimes might not be as cut and dried as the records say. Also, in one scene he challenges her to a sparring match and it turns into the flirtiest fistfight I've ever seen, I freaking love this show. Capheus is even more of a local celebrity in Season 2. When a reporter interviews him on TV, his speech makes waves in the community and
also charms this reporter whose name is Zakia. Then when the price of water rises in his town, Capheus attempts to intervene and help people when the protesting starts, and the guys even agree to give them their water. Although that's probably a temporary thing. In Mumbai, Kala is now married to Rajan and struggles in their relationship. One time she broke his dick. No, I'm not kidding. [Doctor] "A phantom fracture." It was an accident. [Rajan] "Your love causes pain." But their struggles mostly center around the fact that sometimes he seems very sweet and other times it seems like he's extremely embroiled in shady business dealings he might have inherited from his family. The pharmaceutical company his family runs does things like send medicines that don't meet regulations to Africa, and he's like. [Rajan] "This is how this business works." He'll walk this back later, but most of Kala's time in Season 2 is spent balancing her concern for and about Rajan with her growing closeness to Wolfgang. In Berlin, after Wolfgang basically murdered his whole crime family, there was a power vacuum in the city. A lot of criminal groups are interested in Wolfgang, either to his benefit or detriment. Felix gets a club out of it and Wolfgang meet Sebastian Fuchs, a man running his own criminal empire, and Lila Facchini, another Sensate who was out for her own ends while pretending to date Fuchs. She spends a lot of time messing with Wolfgang and eventually meet him at a restaurant where she explains that she works with Fuchs and even with the likes of BPO and Whispers in order to basically secure a city that would be exclusively for Sensates. She views it as a potential paradise without pesky humans and invites Wolfgang to join her quest. He says, no. [Wolfgang] "Take your fucking 'mai soli' and the three guns Fuchs hired and fuck off." [Lila] "I'm going to enjoy scraping you off my shoe like the dog shit you are." And we get one of the most insane, incredible sequences ever. [Kala] "Bring it bitch." I love this shit so much. Oh my God, did you see them all take the hit. This show is bananas! Back in Amsterdam, Riley and Will along with the Cluster decide they need resources if they're going to fight BPO, they need contacts and they need to find other Sensates. Riley DJs a concert hoping some other Sensates might come out of the woodwork and it's a cool bit that happens to actually work. And she meets Doctor Who! I'm kidding. This is Hoy played by Sylvester McCoy, best-known for playing the seventh doctor back in the day. He's Scottish and says things like this. [Hoy] "I'm not about to be out-trusted by a DJ from Iceland." "With hair the color of a smurf. Come on now Miss Blue." He's great and also involved with this mysterious Sensate network called the Archipelago. So when they ask for some information on Whispers' whereabouts, there is an incredible sequence of the Sensate network in action. Also, this very mysterious lady named Bodhi, shows up to be mysterious at Riley while she goes to Chicago to follow up a lead on the whole history of Angelica and BPO. In Chicago Will and Riley learn that Will's dad is dying. We've gotten a few hints throughout the season that he's not well. [Will] "Are you drinking?" [Michael Gorski] "What do you care?" [Will] "You are not supposed to be drinking" [Michael Gorski] "You're not here!" But Will's been unable to see him because he's been branded a terrorist or God knows what. It's pretty sad honestly, and even after Will's been getting cleaned up, it's not really safe for him to go home. So Riley goes to see his dad as he's dying in the hospital, and somehow Will is able to say goodbye to his dad through Riley. [Michale Gorski] "Willy, I knew you'd come." [Will] "You see me dad?" [Michale Gorski] "My boy." The scene made me cry a lot. In San Francisco, Nomi gets to go to her sister's wedding, when a guy is gross to her while walking down the aisle, this happens. [Sun] "Did he say what I think he said?"
[Nomi] "Uh-huh" [The sound of bones breaking and the guy squawking in pain] Then Bendix the FBI douche bag shows up
to arrest Nomi right there in the church. Amanita realizes that his warrant might be expired because of a hacker thing they did. [Bendix] "Nomi Marks is one of the most wanted fugitives in the city." [Amanita] "Prove it. Show us the warrant. Agent Bendix." This whole scene is pretty great. The best part, of course, is when her dad actually stands up for her. [Bendix] "She did something, l think. She did some kind of hacking." "This is bullshit!" [Lawrence Marks] "Take your hands off my daughter." [Nomi] "He's never called me daughter." It's really nice, so is the speech, she gives at the reception. [Nomi] "To Teagan. The best sister anyone could hope for." "I love you and I wish you and Tom all the best." Capheus' recent actions have led to enough notice that he's approached to run for local office. Eventually he agrees and he's running against a guy called Mandiba, who is apparently extremely shady and releases false campaign ads. At one point Mandiba incites a riot at Capheus' first campaign appearance and this guy from the Superpower gang shows up and actually helps him out, which is neat! Also, he and Zakia start dating and it's cute. Lito spends a while being unemployed and depressed. It's especially funny when he pops in with other members of his Cluster and just mopes around their apartments. Eventually Daniela gets Lito an excellent role in an artsy American film and so the gang goes to America And The Wachowskis and Co. take this opportunity to make lots of fun of the Hollywood machine. In Korea, Sun is keeping a low profile so she doesn't get
caught by the police or her brother. There's a really funny sequence starring a depressed, unemployed Lito who keeps on appearing to Sun like this. [Sun] "What are you doing?" [Lito] "I'm practicing." [Sun] "For what?" [Lito] "For my future as a homeless unemployeable failure." Seriously, this is so funny, but then it ends up being really wholesome once Sun explains her situation is pretty damn bad, but she isn't crying about it. [Sun] "My parents are dead." "My only brother will kill me if I don't kill him first." "If anyone should be laying of the bed crying it should me." [Lito] "But you would never do that." "Maybe that's why I'm here Sun." That's really nice. She ends up going under cover at a big party that Joon-Ki is putting on for their company so she can get close to him and probably kill him. Lito helps her out here because he knows how to do stunt bartending. In the final episode of the season Sun is at Joon-Ki's party and sees her brother get approached by Detective Mun. Apparently, the detective has found out about his shady activities and Joon-Ki shoots him in the middle of this party. [People screaming] [Joon-Ki] "That's my sister!"
[Gunshots] So Sun goes full terminator here in nothing but a sports bra and gogo shorts. And the whole gang backs her up in a multitude of fun and interesting ways. At one point Nomi hacks some streetlights to hit the police van that Sun is in, and this whole sequence is pretty amazing. In the end, she doesn't kill Joon-Ki and she manages to get away with the help of this guy. His name is Puck. He's a creep and a Sensate. Riley met him once before
and he's like, aggressively unpleasant, and yes, he styled his hair like Riley.
Yes its weird. [Riley] "What's with the hair?"
[Puck] "Dunno what you're talking about." But whatever, he gives them some info which more or less amounts to Whispers is on the hunt. Also, Nomi and Amanita propose to each other in the cutest scene ever. [Nomi] "Amanita Caplan, will you marry me?" [Amanita] "Abso- fucking-lutely!" Relationship goals. Then Wolfgang is basically in hiding because of everything going on and then gets caught by Lila and BPO. [Lila] "Imagine my surprise when I found out how badly the cannibal wanted you." It's really bad. [Whispers] "Hello Wolfgang." Milton tortures Wolfgang to try and track the rest of the Cluster. Also, everybody feels it when the torture happens and...it's really bad! [Hernando] "Call an ambulance please!"
[Lito] "I can't go to a hospital." [Hernando] "What are you talking about? Come on. What's wrong with you baby." [Lito] "We have to go to London...I'll explain everything, we have to go to London!" But don't worry, Will has a plan. Basically, he does a tricksy on Whispers that allows the gang to capture him and smuggle him out of a BPO facility in a body bag. They also grab Jonas because he's been shady lately. The final shot of the season is seven of our eight senses in this van, together in the same room for the first time. And then Netflix went and canceled the fucking show. And now let's talk about the creators of Sense8. [Balem Abrasax] "I CREATE LIFE" The original concept for Sense8 did
begin with the Wachowski sisters. Oh, and if you've been wondering about the
lack of behind the scenes clips of Lilly, she didn't come out as transgender until after season one and wasn't involved with the production of season two. And out of respect for her, I don't want to use clips of her pre-transition, so just, yeah. But anyways, the Wachowskis have had a buck wild career. So indulge me because I want to talk about them. I'll get the J. Michael Straczynski too, just you wait. The sisters grew up in Chicago with two other sisters. Lana Wachowski went to Bard College and Lilly went to Emerson, but they both dropped out before completing their degrees. They started a carpentry business together and spent some time writing comics for Clive Barker's Hellraiser and Night Breed series in the early '90s. Their first foray into film was actually a screenplay that never went anywhere. It was a story about cannibals eating rich people, which was supposedly too dark, but sounds great in 2020. Hey ladies, could you revive that one? From there they wrote the screenplay for
the 1995 Sylvester Stallone film 'Assassins.' Brian Helgeland was brought in to do a pass on the screenplay after them, Hey we know that guy! Anyway, his pass drastically changed the screenplay, to the point that the with Wachowskis actually tried to get their names removed from the film, but the Writers Guild wouldn't allow that. Although their work on that film was enough to catch the attention of executive producer Dino De Laurentiis, who financed their directorial debut, 'Bound,' and gave them free reign on the story, which was a lesbian crime filler that practically dripped with style. Albeit on a much smaller scale than their next film, which would change the film landscape for years to come. If you haven't seen 'The Matrix,' first off, what are you doing? Stop this video and go watch 'The Matrix.' It was genre defining and movies and TV shows have been borrowing from it ever since. Either in parody or in homage, and the lifting of techniques that they pioneered, or the style that they popularized. I cannot overstate how much this movie
rocked our collective world in the year 1999. After that they wrote and directed the second
and third films of 'The Matrix trilogy,' which I'm not super into, but they still feature all the style and ideas that were quickly becoming the Wachowski's calling card. They also feature Hugo Weaving being absolutely bananas. [Hugo Weaving's Agent Smith laughing maniacally] From there they wrote and produced an adaptation of the dystopian Alan Moore comic, 'V for Vendetta.' [V] ""Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate." This movie also made some pretty
strong impacts on pop culture. Maybe not to the same degree as 'The Matrix,' but...yeah, this hit hard. Then in 2008 they wrote and directed the eye popping high saturation LSD trip, that is 'Speed Racer,' adapted from the classic '80s anime. This movie gave me a headache and fueled the night of my roommates doing this around our living room. [Roomie #1] "I'm gonna get some water."
[Roomie #2] "I'm just gonna go to my room."
[Me cracking up behind the camera] [Roomie #2] "See you later."
[Roomie #1] "Okay bye."
[Me cracking up behind the camera] In 2012, they adapted the David Mitchell novel, 'Cloud Atlas,' into an expansive epic that was sometimes beautiful and often messy. [Zachry] "You come elbowing in my life, yibbering about the true-true." Oh, and if you're wondering, yes, this movie features a series of white actors and also Keith David using prosthetics to do yellowface. [John Mulaney] "Now we don't have time to unpack ALL of that!" And then in 2015, they wrote and directed the absolutely bat shit crazy
'Jupiter Ascending,' which I love with all my heart and soul. You should watch this movie. It feels like watching the horniest, most involved fan-fiction for a show you've never heard of and it's amazing. This movie is a masterpiece. Oh, and there really isn't a good spot for this, but I just want to let you know that in an interview they did around the
release of the first 'Matrix,' the Wachowskis said that if they had a creative disagreement, they resolved it by asking their mom, and I think that's really cute. I hope they still do that. And then back in 2013, the Wachowskis began
developing a television series. Sense8 apparently began life one night when the Wachowski sisters had a talk about the ways technology simultaneously unites and divides us. And out of that paradox, Sense8 was born. The Wachowskis had been wanting to collaborate with J. Michael Straczynski. Partly because they liked his work and had apparently been friends for awhile, but also because he had a familiarity with writing for television. Since this was their first attempt at the small screen, they wanted to work with someone who knew the format. The pair invited Straczynski up to Lana Wachowski's house in San Francisco for a weekend stay to spitball ideas. In an interview with IndieWire, Straczynski said that he, Lana, and Lilly were big on notions of connectivity. By the end of that weekend, they had apparently developed
about three hours of the show. Maybe not three episodes, but one big one. From there they dedicated themselves to the concept and prepared to pitch the show around to studios. Netflix was the first studio they pitched and according to Straczynski, it was an unusual pitch. Less about action and incident, and instead about gender and identity and sexuality. To their surprise, Netflix loved the idea and bought it up almost immediately. What I find interesting looking over the filmography of the Wachowski sisters, is that after 'The Matrix,' and to a lesser extent 'V for Vendetta,' it seems like for a time, they were handed blank checks and told to follow their bliss. They absolutely did bless them both. I'm endlessly fascinated by the strange, heady stories they choose to tell, even when I don't love the end product, their films are always interesting. Their writing is full of ideas and philosophy and a grand scale of humanity, as well as an abundance of visual style. It's amazing, but admittedly, the future for them does look a little different. As I said, Lilly Wachowskis left Sense8 after season one. According to an interview with actress Jamie Clayton, it was to focus on her well-being after are somewhat tumultuous coming out in 2016. The plan was for her to return for season three. Of course, the show was canceled after season two, so that never came to pass. Since then it seems that Lilly has largely stepped back from film-making and the Hollywood machine. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, she described an exhaustion and frustration with the industry and a dissatisfaction with the end result of all the effort involved in producing a film. But she is producing and writing a Showtime comedy called, 'Work in Progress,' so good for her. Lana Wachowski stayed on for Sense8's full run and is now working on a fourth 'Matrix.' And again, good for her. When it comes to collaborating with J. Michael Straczynski, I'll be upfront here. I'm not nearly as familiar with his work as I am with the Wachowskis. I've done some reading about 'Babylon 5' and I watched the pilot episode, but that show was five seasons and I didn't want to watch five whole seasons just to better understand his influence on a show that only lasted for two. I know his writing on 'Babylon 5' was often praised for its dense, character-driven storytelling, as well as its immense planning and world-building for multi season arcs. And I do think he had an influence on Sense8. He was one of the main writers. I checked out some films he wrote, like the hyper-violent goofy, 'Ninja Assassin,' and the tight drama, 'Changeling.' But without doing the full deep dive on 'Babylon 5,' the output that was his most successful and the most under his creative control. I find his influence mostly in the absence of the Wachowski thumbprint, which is all over Sense8. Anybody who wants to talk about Straczynski's writing style in the comments, I'm happy to listen. But overall, it seems that this collaboration was a perfect one for all of them. The Wachowskis high minded operatic stories were, I think, grounded by Straczynski thoughtful character work and planning. And again, I don't have a good place for this, but Straczynski said in an IndieWire interview that he was actually the one to pitch the trans-hacker character Nomi, and when he did, Lana apparently shot up out of her chair dancing around going, "It wasn't me this time. It was him, it was his idea!" Jamie Clayton said in an E Entertainment interview that Nomi's story about getting abused by a bunch of young boys in the school gym showers actually came from Lana's own life. In another interview, Freema Agyeman said that the character of Amanita was inspired by Lana's own wife. And I just think those are a bunch of interesting facts. Also, there are several references to their other works peppered throughout the show, particularly in season two. [Amanita] "Abrasax Electronics, still in business" I see you Lana. No, really, I do. She's right there.
[Bell Dings] Basically, I think the Wachowskis are an excellent case study when it comes to their work as a pair of auteurs, but also in their collaborations with other writers and directors on Sense8. I think they found an excellent balance to their stylistic excesses, working with other writers like Straczynski. And in season two, the writer's room added David Mitchell, author of 'Cloud Atlas' and Aleksander Hemon, who wrote the novels 'Nowhere Man' and 'Lazarus Project.' Over both seasons they worked with directors, like Dan Glass who did visual effects on 'The Matrix' films, and James McTeigue who directed 'V for Vendetta' and Ninja Assassin,' and Tom Tykwer for who you might know for his film 'Run Lola Run.' He also directed 'Cloud Atlas' with the sisters. I've talked before about how much collaborations
can be good for film and TV shows. The original 'Star Wars' trilogy was improved by collaborations with editor Marcia Lucas as well as other writers like Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan. 'Mad Max: Fury Road' would not be the movie it is without input from Eve Ensler and the editing of Margaret Sixel. 'Into the Spider-Verse' had two writers and three directors. Basically, I think some projects can
blossom when lots of artists collaborate. The Wachowskis worked with a lot of people
on Sense8 and it was to the shows benefit. And the end result was a show that managed
to be big and small, grand and detailed, much like the Cluster of Sensates in the show, I think you could say all the writers and directors on Sense8 were made stronger through the work they did together. This is not the work of a singular voice, but of a collective. As the show would say, 'I am also a we.' Now production on the show was wild. Since this series was devoted to filming
on location, they block-shot everything. They would spend a month or whatever in Mexico City filming ten episodes
worth of stuff with Lito, and other cast mates would come in, and out, and then they would move on to the next location. Due to the show's format, and premise, that could often mean filming an
entire scene on location in Mumbai, and then filming it again in Berlin. In the words of Straczynski, and they scheduled the location shooting in such
a way where for Season 1, they filmed at the actual
Pride parade in San Francisco, the fourth of July fireworks
celebration in Chicago, and the Ganesha Chaturthi
Hindu Festival in Mumbai. In Season 2, they filmed at the
Sao Paolo Pride Parade in Brazil, which is said to be the biggest
pride parade in the world, and then there's this cinematography on the show. Specifically due to the nature of the mind sharing, there's a lot of tricks that are done in camera to lend to the feel of each character's multiplicity. A lot of it is just one actor ducking out, and another stepping in. It's a basic trick but it's so fun every time they do it. This one in particular is my favorite. Then of course there's the editing of this show because this show can montage like no other, because of the fluidity of space, and time that comes with the connection between these eight characters, we can slip between moments all over the world. The show was edited by Joseph
Jett Sally, Joe Hobeck, and Fiona Colbeck, and honestly
let's just clap it out for them. [Clapping] The editing of this show is very purposeful, and due to the way the show was shot, it's clear that a lot of my favorite
sequences were found in the editing room. The "I feel you" montage in the finale, the birthday montage in the Christmas special, there are many examples I can cite. I love this editing that centers so much around evoking an emotion rather than bothering to clearly establish time, and space, since the show is so loosey-goosey with those concepts anyway. These characters are all over the world experiencing different pieces of joy or lust or sadness, I'm sure you can guess but it's the
joy that's my favorite...or the peace. I love when the show will stop in its tracks, and show us an amazing sequence of our characters just having a nice day! enjoying a good song! dancing together, laughing together. Although they are often far flung from each other, their bond allows them to share in emotions, all sorts of emotions. But no other show can quite do what this show does to express such a pure in the moment happiness. Honestly, it might be one of my favorite things about Sense8, even when there's a lot of darkness happening, everybody can stop, and enjoy some fireworks with Will or do some meditation with Sun or just dance, and have fun, and letting us revel with them is one of Sense8's greatest strengths. So with that, let's talk about the end of Sense8. [Rajan] "I'm not doing anything better until someone tells me just what in the hell is going on here!?" Sense8 was a wildly expensive program to produce. Each episode cost an estimated $9 million. Game of Thrones for comparison, cost about 6 million per episode, and Netflix still doesn't really release their viewer numbers but they reportedly weren't seeing enough bang for the buck, and so a month after season 2 was released in May of 2017, it was announced that Netflix was canceling the show, and people were furious on so many levels. Sense8 was canceled around the same time as other acclaimed, diverse programs like The Get Down, not to mention the massive cliffhanger season 2 ended on with Wolfgang's fate up in the air, and the first glimpse of all of our Sensates
in the room together for the first time, and that was it? The show ended there? People were pissed. Netflix released a statement on social media saying, Brian J. Smith aka Will Gorski, who had been through being on a canceled show before, spoke up saying that they had seen the signs that the end was coming for Sense8, and thanked viewers for the outpouring of love for the show. But fans were not prepared to call it quits, there were petitions, somebody actually dug up this Netflix request page, which I definitely recall spaming a few times. People mailed flip-flops to the Netflix office! which is a reference to the scene by the way. And about a month after cancellation, Netflix relented, and announced there would be a big finale episode to wrap up the series, and provide some actual closure. Fans were elated. Lana Wachowski released a statement thanking fans, and all of the press surrounding the finale
made it very clear who made this happen. [Tom Tykwer] "Thank you!" [Multiple people saying variations of] "Thank you!" "Thank you from Sarofsky!" [Freema Agymen audibly blowing a kiss to the camera] And so with that, let's talk about the finale. Amor Vincit Omnia, which is Latin for 'love conquers all.' The finale begins with some more flashbacks into Wolfgang's past, while he floats in a semi-conscious stupor. Kala Visits him when she can but he's not doing well. Meanwhile, the Cluster is altogether in Paris, and it's amazing to just see them all together. I loved the fluidity of geography in these scenes because even when they're so close together, sometimes they pop into a space mentally rather than physically because... I don't know, it's Tuesday. I think this is fun. Hernando, and Dani are there now, and have been recently filled in on the Sensate situation. [Hernando] "So right now, Will is talking to Riley."
[Lito] "And with Sun..." [Capheus] "Check it out!"
[Lito] "And now Capheus." One of many unavoidable shortcuts in the finale is most characters don't have long to absorb this whole Sensate situation. [Capheus] "This is her."
[Jela] "Spirit of Jean-Claude?" [Laughter]
[Sun] "Hi." Only Rajan gets a lot of screentime to process this, and I really wanted the scene of Hernando, and Dani learning what was going on since this was how we left them in Season 2. [Hernando] "Call an ambulance."
[Lito] "No, no no." [Hernando] "Call an ambulance please!"
[Lito] "I can't go to the hospital." [Hernando] "What are you talking about?" "Come on, what's wrong with you baby?" But anyway, everybody's planning how to get Wolfgang out of BPOs hands, and they got Milton AKA Whispers as leverage. We get several scenes of him being creepy, and horrible in the cell when they have to go down, and give him as blocker shots so he can't contact Lila or whatever. Upstairs, Jonas is being kept in slightly
better condition but he's being held too, and continues to be maddeningly
vague at every turn. Oh at one point, Wolfgang tries to escape, and considers killing himself to save the Cluster, and Kala stops him, and my trashy shipper heart likes the scene a lot. [Kala] "You can't give up...not you." But I do have to point out, this is, I don't know, like the fifth time that suicide has come up as a way to save folks, and is some self-sacrifice or like just as a plot point? This will come up again in this episode, and I don't know what to do with it but there it is. Also, those are all the people BPO has for their drone program, AKA the thing where Whispers pilots a Sensate they lobotomized? YIKES [Nomi] "Bug?" [Bug] "Angels!" Bug joins the gang here. And have I mentioned how much I love Bug? [Bug] "You've...multiplied." This man is a good damn delight in every scene. [Bug] "What's up Born Free?"
[Sun chuckles] He shows up with some hacker tech to help out Nomi so they can amp up their search into the head of BPO, and the drone program. At one point, the authorities show up leading to this whole bit of business, including Nomi, and Lito going back in when Amanita, Dani, and Hernando almost get caught. [Lito] "Family we're coming!" Of course, Will, and Sun help out too. [Amanita] "Nom! Hot Damn, I've been waiting to see that!!!" And all of this gives Jonas time to escape. [Jonas] "I'm on your side." Oh and Rajan shows up in the middle of all of this, and gets the Sensate crash course. [Rajan] "I'm not going anywhere until someone tells me just what in the hell is going on here?" They tell him off screen, I guess, and my God, this shot is so funny. Why is Bugs so funny? And it's here we figure out Rajan really is just a good dude. [Kala] "So you believe me?" [Rajan] "Are you and, all these people out there medically insane?" "I don't think so. So what other choice do I have?" Maybe one who was embroiled in
some shady shit but A+ boy. We find out from a news cast that Sun's brother is getting arrested, and going to actually pay for all the crime he did, and Sun uses a boner ph--- A boner phone? [Hysterical laughter] [In a high pitched voice as I lose my shit] A boner phone [With a sigh] Sun uses a boner phone and Sun uses a burner phone to call up Detective Mun. [Sun] "Are you saying you miss me Detective Mun?" [Mun] "I miss you like I've
never missed anyone in my life." Oh my God, they're so cute, I could die. [Mun] "Now you?" [Sun] "I miss you." Oh and Riley has a mental meeting with Hoy and these two, basically they tell her to kill Whispers. Apparently, he's the only one who can pilot the drone program. And if he's dead than that villainy would be cut off at the knees, then everybody bolts because BPO is trying to purge the archipelago and there's a terrible moment when it looks like Hoy will kill himself rather than be caught but... [Ms. Stromness] "Let's nip in the bud all this nonsense about dying." [Hoy] "How did you get here?"
[Stromness] "By taxi you great numpty." [Hoy] "Its not safe!" [Stromness] "Well it's a great deal safer now, since I chucked the bullets out of the window." Apparently, this legend has
it under control and I guess BPO's whole thing is basically to
annihilate and subjugate all Sensates? Real mustache twirling stuff here from the head of BPO who keeps his face hidden for Reasons. So the whole gang set up a meeting with Lila to exchange Wolfgang for Whispers. It happens in a club and they plan for the eventual doublecross. So it all works out and they get Wolfgang out. Of course, Lila also gets Whispers, which is bad, but...you know...for now, hurray! Sun actually gets separated from the group in all the chaos and almost gets caught. But guess who shows up to help her out? The world's cutest detective! Another A+ boy, honestly look at them, GO! [Sun] "Are you going to tell me why you went to all this trouble detective?" [Mun] "I'm not really good with words Miss Bak." "Would you mind if I showed you instead?" This. Is. My. Trash! So from there we get to briefly enjoy the Cluster all safe and together again. There's a hilarious moment when Kala is sitting with Bug in a car and she's afraid to approach Wolfgang and Rajan because... [Kala] "what rules do I follow". Of course, Bug points out, [Bug] "since you can, in fact, be in more than two places at the same time," "I would suggest that there are no rules". So this indecisive queen makes out
with her husband and her boyfriend. I also love how quickly Wolfgang just vibes with Rajan because he knows from his connection with Kala and he's seen through Rajan's actions, taking part in the save Wolfgang escapade, that he's a good dude, so they just Vibe. It delights me. So they take a minute to have a good time, which is then interrupted when Bodhi pops up again. She's popped up once or twice already. Now she shows up and all the Sensates can see her in spite of only Will and Riley having met her, and that breaks some rules of the show to which everybody
says, "it's Tuesday, don't worry about it."
[Bell Dings] She introduces us to another mysterious ancient group called the Lacuna. They probably would have been more organically teased out over a few seasons but whatever. They're here and Bodhi delivers this baller line, [Bodhi] "that neutrality in the face of such evil, is complicity." Then this lady tells the gang that Whispers wants to use the drone program to live forever and that they need to take him down. From there, everybody has a great time traveling to Naples, which leads to this aforementioned favorite sequence. They all take a minute to enjoy the song "I Feel You" by Depeche Mode and it's amazing, and the song slaps, and I love this bit a lot. After this, a bunch of folk are popping in and out. Lila shows up to do some evil monologuing about grand plans. Jonas is there and gone, being mysterious. Once they get to Naples, Puck shows up. [Sun] "Oh. My. God."
[Puck] "What?" He's there along with the Archipelago to help them plan their next steps. Also Felix and Diego are here now and that's fun. Although Capheus people are notably absent, I wished Jela or Zakia could have joined them here. It's sucks how much his storyline gets short shifted, but again, I can only assume they intended to build it up better over the seasons that didn't happen, so alas a lack. So, what happens next? Well, there's a hilarious plot involving everybody pretending to be tourists, but that's all just a ruse so they can get inside this building where Lila may have stashed Whispers. It goes well for a bit. I love watching Mun and Sun kick ass. Hang on, did they make their names "Moon" and Sun?
Oh my God. There's a really fun moment where Kala, with Wolfgang's help, uses a gun and does a cool murder, and Rajan with no toxic masculinity insight is like," wow, can you teach me? And it's Wolfgang teaching through Kala, which I love. [Wolfgang] "So here's the safety." [Kala] "Do not point unless you're sure about the target, okay?" Then she gets shot and initially
it's really, really bad. [Kala] "Is anyone going to actually do anything?" "Or are you going to just let me die in your arms?" [Wolfgang] "You're alive." [Rajan] "She's alive?"
[Wolfgang] "She's alive!" [Kala] "But I won't be if you don't do something quickly." Through her connection with Wolfgang, Kala's, able to tell them how to treat the wound so she doesn't die. Rajan has some good ideas too, and it's enough to stabilize her and get her to a hospital. Meanwhile, Will chases down Lila and Whispers to a BPO helicopter landing site. Jonas pops up on the way for one last info dump. He's been shot breaking into a BPO facility. He explains that Angelica sabotaged the drone program once before, which is why the chairman of BPO's face is all messed up behind this mask. Then he tells Will that he made a promise to Angelica to destroy the drone program once and for all and he wheels in a shit ton of explosives and blows the place up. Then Will, with the help of the rest of the Cluster, blow up the BPO helicopter with a rocket launcher because of course they fucking do. From there it's time for Nomi and Amanita
to get married at the Eiffel Tower. It's a last curtain call for the cast and everybody is there now. And Kala's gunshot is fine apparently. And Mr. Hoy made it out just fine. [Hoy] "If it was a film...I wouldn't have believed it." And then we have this beautiful ceremony with Bug walking Nomi down the aisle. [Bug] "Thank you for being my family." [Nomi] "Thank you for being mine." Then Nomi and Amanita give the most gorgeous vows. [Nomi] "I'm afraid of things pretending to be permanent," "because nothing is permanent but with you that doesn't scare me." "It actually makes me happy. It makes me excited." "Because inside your arms is the only place I've ever felt like I was home." Then everybody has one last ENORMOUS party. Nomi's mom has her transphobia cured with a pot brownie, because we are deep in the Tuesday and everybody wants to know what Kala is going to
do about Rajan and Wolfgang. I love how everytime somebody asks Wolfgang, he's just like, "I don't know". I think that's a very funny and well... it turns out the solution was... They solved a love triangle with polyamory. I love this show. So we get this last glorious celebration,
and then one last big fuck off orgy. The last line of the show is, [Rajan] "I didn't think such things were possible," [Kala shushes him] And we end on a used rainbow dildo, Poetic cinema. The entire finale is so wild
and gorgeous and wonderful. I've tried to sum up many of the emotions I'm left with in the shows ending. And the best way I can describe it is with a quote from the podcast, "Welcome to Night Vale", written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor. I'm going to paraphrase it a little bit, but... I can't help but admire how the people behind this show thre so much into it. You can see how much thought and care went into the creation of it. I know its corny but, It truly feels like everybody was so invested in making this
incredible heartfelt show. And a lot of the problems towards the end of the series mostly come down to them being canceled and having to race to throw together and ending that felt even remotely satisfying, like sure. We have two Sensate secret societies. We just have to kind of nod our heads out because there just isn't time to develop them, especially this one featuring the triad mom. [Triad Mom] "I am a trinity of mothers." And this is the second batch of bad guys in
two seasons to be taken out by a bazooka. One character's rampant transphobia is fixed
by a magic pot brownie and I don't care! I just don't! They did an amazing job given what they had to work with. And every time I watched the finale, I smile so hard, my face hurts by the end of it. Even this final orgy scene, which I've said before does very little for me personally, makes me smile, like, you do you Sense8 At the end of the day, the show was a celebration of love in all its forms. A celebration of wonder and hope and humanity and family, a celebration of the most elemental commonalities of the human experience. Because we can celebrate all of our
differences of race, gender, or sexuality and appreciate that every
person in the world grieves or gets scared. But most of all, every person in the world loves. First off, sorry, this one took so long. Y'all hear about this pandemic depression people are talking about? I think a got it. Also I live in an apartment with no AC in a city that gets very hot during the summer. So that was a lot. Yes, I know window units are a thing. Don't @ me. Aside from that, there are some issues I didn't touch on in the video because there wasn't time and I didn't really feel qualified to speak on them. But there's a great Medium article linked
in the sources, if you want to read up. Oh and the Nebula thing is not a joke. If you want to watch this video
without all the Sense8 logos and nonsense on the....adult scenes from this show, go check it out on Nebula. I think that covers all the basics. Next step we're doing "The Haunting of Bly Manor" and yeah! That's all for now. Thank you so much for
watching and I'll see you on the next one.
