The time has finally come to say goodbye to the psychic, sexually-fluid sci-fi series from Netflix, Sense8.
When the series was canceled last year after only two seasons, outraged fans lobbied until Netflix announced we would get a series finale TV movie.
The movie attempts to tie up several layered storylines of the diverse group of human beings who suddenly found themselves interconnected via telepathy in two and a half hours instead of what was originally planned to be a five season arc.
[Warning – while there are no specific spoilers in this article, stop reading now if you don't want to know anything about the TV finale]
The creators are not wasting much time recapping where we were left off at the end of season 2, so here’s the wrap-up plot: for the first time, seven of the sensates are physically together in Paris to plan a rescue of Wolfgang (Max Riemelt), who's been captured by BPO, an organization of evil doers who have chased our heroes from the outset.
To save Wolfgang, the seven have kidnapped their own prisoner, the evil scientist Whispers (played by Broadway’s Terrence Mann), hoping to trade him in a prisoner exchange for Wolfie.
Swirling over, under and around this central plot, there’s plenty of fight scenes, dancing in a Parisian club, chases, another epic mental orgy and a rapturous road trip to Naples.
And we’re going to have to move fast here, so if you don’t like a certain set of characters, don’t worry – the scene will change in a minute.
I won’t offer any real spoilers here but a few thoughts:
Fan favorite “Lito,” a sexy Mexican movie star who recently came out (played by Miguel Ángel Silvestre), was woefully under-utilized in my opinion. It seemed like every major cast member had a “moment” except Lito.
Perhaps that lapse in screen time happened because just not only are our 8 heroes here, but so are their significant others – and more. If a character had more than a couple of scenes during the two seasons of the series, they pretty much got a ticket to come back.
One of the advantages of having our protagonists in the same place was the budgetary savings for the movie. During the two seasons of the series, when members of “the cluster” would share their knowledge and abilities via a sort of shared consciousness across the planet, it required traveling the actors around the globe to appear in two sides of highly choreographed action scenes. Since the heroes are now all together there were fewer of those oh-so-cool sci-fi moments it seemed.
That said, the movie is visually stunning.
The series received well-deserved praise for its diverse cast that included several LGBTQ characters, including the previously mentioned Lito and his totes adorable bf, “Hernando” (Alfonso Herrera); and trans woman "Nomi" (Jamie Clayton) and her girlfriend, “Amanita” (Freema Agyeman), who have a beautiful moment of resolution.
In fact, the finale spends as much time on resolving romantic connections as it does solving the sensates predicament. Bonus points – a possible love-triangle made for an interesting plot twist.
I felt like the final resolution kind of came and went pretty fast, but seemed appropriate for the pace set by trans director/producer Lana Wachowski.
The final screen of the movie reads, “For our fans.” And I do think it’s great that we at least got this last hurrah.
If you were a fan of the series, you’ll probably really get jazzed by the finale movie.
If you weren’t already a fan, this may not convert you. It’s a lot of info coming at you fast.
This writer loved the series, so I was all smiles by the end.
The finale movie is currently available on Netflix. You can check out the trailer for the finale below.
Grade: B
