SENSE8 Finale Discussion- SPOILERS

[sense8ional]

It didn't look like a great cost to me. Everything about the episode seemed much smaller in scale and scope than usually. For example the anti-collaborators force consisted of all of 3 people, only 2 of which were seen in battle, for like 30 seconds.

To me it looked like a $10-15M parting gift if I compare it to previous seasons (and if it's closer to $15M, it must be because of the Eiffel Tower sequence and fireworks show), which isn't that expensive given its length (~3 episodes). I'm glad they greenlit it, Netflix were by no means obligated, but I don't think they struggled to allocate the amount of money it cost, for one final time. It wasn't that much.

edit But maybe you don't mean "great cost" as literally as I took it

[Ubik]

So, no one is going to mention that this series ended with essentially a psychic orgy scene?

Yeah, it was another thing that felt shoehorned in 'for the fans', and for me it broke a few rules of the established lore, and not in a believable way. It just felt very self indulgent.

What surprised me the most was that they let it end so well for most everyone. The plots have seemed a bit simplistic, but good fun. I don't think there was a way to end this series so quickly without it being a bit simplistic.

Yes, there are no real consequences and everyone is suddenly an action hero. I had a major issues with that, there's no dramatic tension because of it. None of the plot lines felt satisfying. Even very simple things like Capheus making it to Paris, plus his whole entourage at the wedding made absolutely no sense whatsoever. In fact, the group convening seems like the stupidest thing they could possibly do in terms of BPO taking them all out with ease. I've already discussed how laughable a bad guy BPO had become in the finale.

I wish the series could have gone into more of the complications that would be inevitable when you find yourself in a group mind. It wouldn't always be nice. But I also get that shows like Sense 8 gave many people characters that, maybe for the first time, were more relatable. I'm glad for them that the series always respected and celebrated different life choices.

YES! I mentioned this in another thread I think, the core concept of the show is superb, but to me it has never been explored enough, especially in terms of how stressful and invasive being in a cluster could be. No one goes slightly crazy? No one wants out? No one drags the whole cluster into danger with their personal problems.

I am unsure about the characters being more relatable, a lot of them fall into cultural stereotypes and I never did get very attached to many of the lead characters, because frankly some of them seemed slightly pointless. Kala is a big one here, as is Riley. Even with Riley's convoluted sub-plot I still struggled to warm to her. I still feel that Hernando was one of the best characters and he's not even a Sensate! I think I was expecting more from the outset with JMS' involved, more depth, more payoff, more arcs where characters changed drastically.

[sense8ional]

Yeah, it was another thing that felt shoehorned in 'for the fans', and for me it broke a few rules of the established lore, and not in a believable way. It just felt very self indulgent.

What are those rules?

[Ubik]

What are those rules?

I just couldn't buy the non-sensate members of the group also experiencing the link during the final orgy, with no real explanation given.

Sure, I accept that we're watching an SF show, so anything can happen, but a lot of the sharing / visiting / Sensate experience seemed very tightly nailed down in S1, with it getting sloppier and sloppier as the series went on. Just didn't work for me. For the non-sensates, it seems more plausible that they'd have totally lost their shit and broken off making love at that point. But, that doens't make for a great orgy scene...

[sense8ional]

Who said that they were?

[Ubik]

Who said that they were?

It's intimated by a number of characters, I think Rajan primarily? I'd have to go back and re-watch, but it's strongly suggested.

(EDIT)

"Then there was the final shot. When one of the straight male characters, Rajan (Purab Kohli), is seen connecting with and kissing Wolfgang during the group sex scene, he tells his wife Kala (Tina Desai), "My God, I didn't think such things were possible." Some characters are connected physically, others by their minds. The camera then pans to the rainbow-colored dildo first shown with Nomi and Amanita in the pilot, now discarded after being used at the center of the orgy" - https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/li...lained-1118748.

[sense8ional]

It's only Rajan that says "I didn't think such things were possible". He was having a threesome.

The non-sensates appearing to have sex with multiple sensates we have seen in season 1.

Here is Amanita having intercourse with both Will and Nomi in season 1: https://abload.de/img/qqqnyjri.png

Personally, I didn't take it that she was literally seeing Will penetrating her back then, just because the directors shot it like that, and I didn't take it like that in the finale either.

[Ubik]

It's only Rajan that says "I didn't think such things were possible". He was having a threesome.

The non-sensates appearing to have sex with multiple sensates we have seen in season 1.

Here is Amanita having intercourse with both Will and Nomi in season 1: https://abload.de/img/qqqnyjri.png

Personally, I didn't take it that she was literally seeing Will penetrating her back then, just because the directors shot it like that, and I didn't take it like that in the finale either.

So wait, are we assuming that Wolfgang was physically with them? I'd have to watch it again, but I came away with the impression that it was suggested that everyone was connected in a sensate way during that scene.

[sense8ional]

Wolfgang was there!

Wolfgang taps the bed "come here" (like he did in season 1 to Kala), and Kala motions to Rajan "shall we?", and Rajan takes an expression "oh boy, what am I getting myself into, but I guess I will try!".

If it was just him and Kala in the bedroom, then he wouldn't be making that expression - he has had sex with her before.

Also, if Wolfgang wasn't there.. well, it wouldn't explain where is Wolfgang? So the finale ends with the audience knowing everyone's whereabouts (in their hotel rooms) but his? Why? What's the purpose of hiding his whereabouts in an episode that was specifically about locating or getting Wolfgang back, lol!

Yes, it is definitely subtly implied everyone can *feel* the connection, but it is done in a subtle way, like in the season 1 orgy Amanita and Hernando were shown having sex with multiple sensates (season 1). The same way we are told Amanita's mom was able to find her daughter when she was a kid and got lost via a mother-daughter link (season 1, again). The same way we are shown Will's dad see Will through Riley right before he dies, likely by the release of DMT in his brain (season 2), the same way we are told limbic resonance connects us all (season 1). The same way we see Amanita celebrating Pride during Lito's coming out (season 2). The same way we are shown the non-sensates connect through music during the train sing along (finale).

It is a constant theme in the series, that love, sex, music, some drugs, and so on, can connect all people, that there's a way to transcend limits through them, but it is always done subtly, and not once did I think in seasons 1, 2, or the finale, that non-sensates were suddenly *seeing* and *touching* other sensates for real. Including the final orgy.

So to conclude my view regarding the the final scene. Are they *feeling* the shared love? Sure. Anything more than that, that's not how I understood it at all, and personally I haven't read anyone interpret it as literally as you did, either.

[Ubik]

Yep, my recollection of the scene was less than clear! All points taken, I definitely got that one wrong. Ha.

Do I still think the final orgy was needed? Not sure. It is very nicely shot and it does sum up the series nicely. Sorry, I got carried away having a moan about the somewhat scattershot nature of the finale. I think they did well to make it happen full stop.

[Hypatia]

Yes, there are no real consequences and everyone is suddenly an action hero.

I was bothered with that in another series, Orphan Black (which I actually considered my favorite t.v. series when it was on). I think I'm adapting my way of thought, this is simply not something most modern sci-fi writers feel bound by (any sense of our heroes finding murder, even when justified, to be something that is not always easily overlooked when the law shows up later). I think I have to just accept that it's kind of part of this new, should I call it "Hipster Sci-Fi/Fantasy"?

I had a major issues with that, there's no dramatic tension because of it. None of the plot lines felt satisfying. Even very simple things like Capheus making it to Paris, plus his whole entourage at the wedding made absolutely no sense whatsoever. In fact, the group convening seems like the stupidest thing they could possibly do in terms of BPO taking them all out with ease. I've already discussed how laughable a bad guy BPO had become in the finale.

BPO becoming the good guy with just a few bad eggs was really unsatisfying, but how else could they have ended it all in 2.5 hours? But bringing all of the Sensates to the same geographical location when it only made them weaker really did make me wonder, too. I guess they needed him to drive (even though he could drive through anyone of them, but don't think about that right now....)

YES! I mentioned this in another thread I think, the core concept of the show is superb, but to me it has never been explored enough, especially in terms of how stressful and invasive being in a cluster could be. No one goes slightly crazy? No one wants out? No one drags the whole cluster into danger with their personal problems.

I'm going to benefit-of-the-doubt them here and assume that would have played into Season 2 if it wasn't the fact that it was to be their last season. I read and loved the novel "More Than Human" when I was in college. I wish the authors of Sense8 (which mostly were not JMS at all, especially after season 1, I think) had read and considered some of that. That story was a lot more than an action/HBO-style-screw-when-you-can kind of thing.

I am unsure about the characters being more relatable, a lot of them fall into cultural stereotypes and I never did get very attached to many of the lead characters, because frankly some of them seemed slightly pointless. Kala is a big one here, as is Riley. Even with Riley's convoluted sub-plot I still struggled to warm to her. I still feel that Hernando was one of the best characters and he's not even a Sensate! I think I was expecting more from the outset with JMS' involved, more depth, more payoff, more arcs where characters changed drastically.

I mean the Trans/super-QUEER style gay/transgenger/genderflex group, mostly. There really had not been a lot of sympathetic series portrayal of that, before Netflix. There is Transparent, but it seem like it is a lot less fun and party-oriented compared to Sense8. Let's just say Sense8 had PRIDE written all over it, and it's the first series I recall seeing that really showed that in a pretty positive and sympathetic light.

[Ubik]

I mean the Trans/super-QUEER style gay/transgenger/genderflex group, mostly. There really had not been a lot of sympathetic series portrayal of that, before Netflix. There is Transparent, but it seem like it is a lot less fun and party-oriented compared to Sense8. Let's just say Sense8 had PRIDE written all over it, and it's the first series I recall seeing that really showed that in a pretty positive and sympathetic light.

YES. Totally. I think the Nomi was actually JMS' idea. He suggested a Trans character. The diversity in that respect is great. I watched a short interview with Clayton last week that the Sense8 FB account shared, and her main point was that she'd love to play more characters who have a role, but just happen to be Trans, that 'being Trans' isn't the central story. I totally get that, we should logically come to the point whereby 'being Trans' isn't not the focal point of everything for the character. In the case of Sense8, I totally understand the focus, and I believe it also allowed Lana to tell her story and push that agenda in a positive way, which I applaud.

[YorgosH]

Hello everyone,

First off, I want to say that I am a huge Wachowskis fan and this is where I come from.

Now that this is out in the open, my stance on the finale is the following:
Character arcs have been thrown out the window since 'You Want a War', that's a given. Wachowskis have never been great at characters, and they don't even seem to care, but they DO care about creating sympathetic characters, and this, combined with Straczynski's immense sensibility and ability to give character depth, shows in the show, resulting in those characters continuing to work in the two last episodes. Also, their tendency to create scenes before thinking about structure gives all the characters extremely good moments. But the abscense of emotional character arcs is the worst part of the series finale.

My second point is that the Wachowskis (and Lana, in particular) tend to hide the more intriguing and serious story and philosophy bits behind a more simple and cheesy story with a convoluted plot, which is the reason why the (amazing) Matrix sequels are hated so much. I am going to explore this, by responding to the other posts in this thread.

Thus, I would like to point out that auteurs do tend to be interested in the same subjects during their career, see: Lynch, Nolan. The theme of using people for life prolongation/energy source is explored completely differently here, because the detail is that Jonas talks about the alchemical process early in the episode, presenting the aim to prolong life as something positive and the side effect of inventing ammunition as something negative. Later in the episode, we are presented with a twisted version of this: prolonging life by turning unwilling people into controllable robots, which is absolutely and clearly negative.
Here, it's not about extending life, but about the absolute dominance of a single mind (Whisper's mind) over all the rest of humanity. It's the opposite of what sense8's ideal, empathetic life is about, which is sharing multiple minds and views in one body, and the same multiple minds in multiple bodies, something that even the chairman talks about during the Wolfgang scene.

Continuing with the philosophical topics that are hiding in the finale, at first, I was really disappointed with the final 20 minutes, including the orgy. I thought that it's ridiculous and sad that such a complicated concept is wasted on a revisit to views on sexual freedom. I thought we would see a giant cluster birth, I thought we would SEE what is being hinted at (so I assume it happened) : humans learning about and accepting homo sensorium. I was quite angry because Lana got derailed again.
But then I thought...maybe that's true, but what happens in the finale is something even better, something even more humanistic, and something unexpected.
The whole finale culminating in this orgy is about simple humans not being inferior to sensates. It's about humans transcending their inability to share minds and bodies by things like love, sex, music, joy and caring. It's showing that you don't need magical abilities to simply care about one another and it shows that homo sensorium doesn't need to take over the world with giant cluster births or replacing human cities with sensate sanctuary cities.
It's telling that the first orgy is about surprise, intrigue and (forced) excitement, the second orgy is about sexual freedom and emancipation, and the final, much more grounded than psychic, orgy is about: empathy, love, acceptance and complete unity, and most importantly, all of that occurs and is celebrated between different species, besides between completely different personalities.

I might have more to add later, but I think that beneath this slightly disappointing finale, a very profound and original one exists and I'm so glad it does. It could just have used a bit more Straczynski, so it could have a better structure and a more fitting character closure.

Thank you all for reading.

[sense8ional]

Welcome. Nice post.

In my case, the last 20-30 minutes were the best thing in the entire finale, so I didn't find anything in these moments the least disappointing. I have my gripes with the execution in some of the earlier parts though, but nothing that I can't excuse knowing how rushed, reportedly if one checks the interviews with EP Grant Hill I have posted in the other thread, both writing and filming were compared to the earlier seasons thanks to a very tight schedule, and how difficult it was to bring the story to an end in just 2.5 hours.

My stance is that while some things could have been done better... they could also have been done worse. Case in point, there were episodes of Sense8 I enjoyed less than the finale. So overall I'm satisfied with it.

And nice catch with Jonas + alchemy, I caught this too during my second watch

[Looney]

EXCELLENT FIRST POST YorgosH!!!!!

I think you really nailed a couple of really important points. I don't think I'll ever be satisfied with the finale because it is just that, a finale. I wanted more and I'm not going to get it. But I still think it was about as good as they could do given the frame work they had to work within. It has flaws, but it also magic that works so well.

Welcome. Can't wait to read more of your thoughts.