Sense8 says farewell with a flourish — ‘for our fans’
Spoiler alert! The following contains mild reveals for the Sense8 series finale.
No one knows how to throw a party like the cast and crew of Sense8.
To the devastation of its wildly devoted fan base, Netflix canceled the science-fiction celebration of diversity and inclusivity last year after two seasons but announced weeks later that fans would get closure in a finale film.
That film (streaming Friday) feels like 21⁄ 2- hour party. It is as perfect an ending as co-creator and director Lana Wachowski ( The Matrix) could offer fans, a joyful and emotional closing chapter that doubles as a kicky action comedy (if you’ve read into the series’ complex mythology enough to get the punchlines). And, of course, in true Sense8 fashion, there’s an orgy.
Sense8 left its central characters — a “cluster” of eight “sensates,” or a slightly altered species of human with psychic powers — on the defensive at the end of the second season. BPO, the corporate entity that has been the series’ main antagonist, has captured Wolfgang (Max Riemelt), while the cluster has their own prisoner, Whispers (Terrence Mann).
The cluster plots a rescue for Wolfgang as well as a way to permanently disarm BPO, which has been lobotomizing sensates and turning them into “drone” bodies that Whispers can control. Along the way, favorite characters return, relationships are tested, and there are at least three dance parties.
The finale’s complex plot mostly makes sense, but it was always the emotion of Sense8 that really mattered. The series has received wide praise for its portrayal of LGBTQ characters, particularly Nomi (Jamie Clayton), a transgender woman. The show long celebrated love in any form: heterosexual, homosexual, polyamorous or something else, and the finale doesn’t disappoint. It gives as much screen time to resolving romantic pairings as it does to tying up loose ends in the sci-fi mythology.
The movie runs the gamut of emotions from joy to terror to despair to love, the series’ omnipresent theme. Without spoiling too much, the movie feints at a tragic ending, but all is resolved in the last seconds. Its ending may be a bit too tidy for some, but it’s doubtful any Sense8 diehards will fall into that category. Anything except a happy ending would feel disingenuous for this show, which has an undaunted faith in the human spirit. In the world of Sense8, love conquers all. And you can feel the love radiating off the screen before, during and after they save the day.
After the final frame (a hilariously lewd and outrageous shot that harks back to the first episode), the screen flashes “for our fans.” And indeed,
Sense8 was always a TV series for its fans in way that few others are. It was, especially for its LGBTQ fans, the best and perhaps only way to feel seen. And it will sorely be missed.