I Just Finished Netflix's "Sense8" And It's Amazing

Source: Netflix

It all started when I was browsing for a high-quality series with impeccable LGBTQ+ and racial diversity to fill my Dynasty-sized hole (review on that show coming soon!), and I came across a sci-fi action-packed Sense8 which had rave reviews especially in their diversity department. The 2-hour long pilot, Christmas special, and series finale was daunting for me, to be very honest, for someone with a pretty short attention span. However, I powered through the show pretty effortlessly, even with the 2-hour long episodes, because it's just. That. Good. I finished the whole 17-hour series in less than a week, and right now I just have a lot of thoughts. Warning: spoilers ahead!

The Plot

Sense8 (which is wordplay on "sensate") follows eight strangers around the world who were all born on August 8. These eight people, called "Sensates" or Homo sensorium, all share an interconnected neural system after witnessing a woman named Angelica (Daryl Hannah) kill herself. They can feel one another's pains and pleasures, and they can even "inhabit" one another's bodies. These eight strangers are Chicago cop Will Gorski (Brian J. Smith), Icelandic DJ Riley Blue (Tuppence Middleton), San Francisco-based hacktivist Nomi Marks (Jamie Clayton), South Korean businesswoman-slash-wrestler-turned-prisoner Sun Bak (Doona Bae), closeted Mexican actor Lito Rodriguez (Miguel Angel Silvestre), German thief Wolfgang Bogdanow (Max Riemelt), Indian pharmacist Kala Dandekar (Teja Desai), and Kenyan bus driver and Jean-Claude fan Capheus Onyango (Aml Ameen in season 1 and Toby Onwumere in season 2).

The conflict that thickens the plot is that they're being hunted by an organization named BPO, short for Biological Preservation Organization, led by a man named Whispers (Terrence Mann). Long story short, Whispers wants to capture Sensates and lobotomize them for awful, awful reasons. Although the whole plot is continuously progressing, the arc of eight different people always ties in together very neatly, especially with all the parallelisms provided.

The Diversity

This show, which was led by the famous Wachowski sisters (The Matrix series, Jupiter Ascending) literally said diversity. Being non-heterosexual transgender sisters in real life, I feel like they've poured a lot of love, passion, and thought into promoting diversity through race, sexual orientation, and gender identities. The show has at least six different races and blurs the line between straight and gay. The whole cast was also very diverse, with the presence of transgender actress Jamie Clayton, gay actor Brian J. Smith, and bisexual actress Eréndira Ibarra.

Season 1's episode 9 has one of the strongest, most profound glimpse into Nomi Marks's early life as a boy. Nomi, being a transgender woman, recalls her experience of being harassed by boys from her swim club in a locker room, and as someone who grew up being confused with my own gender, that particular scene hit hard. It gives people a chance to understand how hard it is growing up different and how cruel people can be.

Season 2's episode 5, which was filmed right within the biggest pride parade in the world in São Paulo, Brazil, was also a big testament of a very integral part of an LGBTQ+ person, because in this episode, Lito publicly came out while being grand marshal of the parade. Earlier in season 2, particularly in the Christmas special, we also see Lito's mother accepting her son's sexual orientation.

Knowing the Wachowski sisters, they're not shy with the steamy sex scenes—or, as I quote one of the characters from the show, "sensorgy". Since the Sensates can feel one another's pleasures, their sex is often portrayed as a wild, sexually charged, beautifully choreographed orgy. It's a portrayal of raw emotion and human instinct. The Sensates don't really care if their lips were connected to a woman's or if the hands on their body was a man's.

Final Thoughts

Sense8 is one of the best Netflix originals I've ever seen, if not all shows in general. The cinematography and direction are flawless. The fact that they shot around up to sixteen different cities, in which one scene is oftentimes carried out by more than one actor in more than one locations, is very impressive. The scenes and actor changes are seamless, and the transitions from one actor and/or location to another contributes a lot to the awesome visuals. The progressive overarching plot, individual character arcs, and parallelisms between two or more arcs ties the show together like nothing else could.

Sense8 promotes more than just a fantastical world where everyone can sense emotions. It promotes racial diversity. It dethrones patriarchal systems. It portrays the fact that the world isn't black and white—nothing's always good or always bad.

Sense8 is streaming now on Netflix.