Sense8: Episodes Eleven and Twelve: Now We’ve Got A Great Show

Warning: HUGE SPOILERS IN THIS POST.

Turns out it takes a disaster to make a village Cluster.

I think one of the things that made me nuts about this series was how good these last two episodes were. The whole season could have been this focused, this kind of character-in-action that builds character and depth ten times faster than people discussing their lives, but instead they decided they had to do Set-Up. And they knew that was going to be a problem:

This is from a Straczynski interview:

“I know folks are going to be confused by the first hour because you only know what the characters know, and they don’t know what the hell is going on with them for the first hour. It’s like, “What the hell is this all about?” So Episode 1 is “What the hell?” and Episode 2 is “Eh?” and Episode 3 is “Okay, I got it.” So there’s going to be some measure of consternation . . .”

They knew. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I love the idea that it’s okay to confuse your viewers for three hours because there’s payoff later. Not if nobody makes it through the first three hours there isn’t.

Episode 11: “Just Turn the Wheel and the Future Changes”

But this episode? They got everything right.

Capheus has his showdown with the thugs holding Kabaka, refusing to give them Kabaka’s little girl. They hand him a machete to kill Kabaka with. Sun takes the machete.

Sun’s a little tense because she’s just found out her brother killed her father to keep from going to prison. She does beat the crap out of him, screaming “You will pay!” as the guards break in, and then the thugs hand Capheus the machete, and Sun blows off a little steam. I’m not usually a violent-movie kind of person, but Sun? I will watch Sun kill thousands and cheer.

Meanwhile, Nomi’s got new computer equipment (Bug’s back!) and she and Will confer over how to save Riley, and you know when this would have been good? Episode Three or Four. Will’s in Chicago really, but he’s also in San Franciso planning with Nomi, and holding Riley’s hand in that hospital in Iceland, and then Kala gets accosted by zealots in Mumbai and he kicks them out of the temple, and then Capheus shows up and says, “I think I’m going to die” and Will says, “Nobody’s going to die” and leans out a bus window in Nairobi and sucker punches a thug, taking his gun and giving it to Capheus. I think Will’s got the hang of this Cluster thing, and it’s a pleasure to watch. He’s so calm while he’s punching people, skipping from city to city, always going to back to Riley’s bedside to hold her hand. This guy is such a hero he should be mock-worthy, but the actor just nails the Good Guy that is Will.

Okay, ALL the actors in this show are outstanding.

Then Capheus takes a bus to a gun fight and saves himself by being a complete badass. That’s pretty wonderful, too.

Kala’s in a car in Berlin trying to talk Wolfgang out of killing his uncle. She finally tells him she loves him and that she knows he loves her, too (good motivation for that since she’s terrified he’s going to die), and he tells her that he has to kill his uncle or she won’t be safe. After all the fun flirting in the Bollywood romcom that has been Kala-and-Wolfgang, she’s finally in his grim-dark movie, so when he kisses her, it’s a real kiss, not goofing around, a good-bye kiss. Then he drives for the house. Kala weeps, and that takes her to Sun’s cell where Sun tells her crying won’t help Wolfgang. “This is what life is: fear, rage, desire . . . love.” Kala says, “What should I do?” and Sun gets her great line of the series: “I take everything I am feeling, everything that matters to me, I push it all into my fist, and . . . I fight for it.”

Oh, and Jonas stops by to tell Nomi and Will that Whispers is heading for Iceland to take Riley, and that he knows Will will be on the next plane. It’s a trap. Will gets on the next plan. He’s a hero, damn it. Also he loves Riley and he’s not exactly going alone: It takes a disaster to build a Cluster.

(Note: Try not to name your characters with the same beginning letter. Out of nine major characters, three start with W: Will, Wolfgang, and Whispers. Good names, bad idea.)

So here’s one of the many things that makes this episode excellent: It sets up expectation that means that the next episode, the finale, is un-missable:

• Sun’s in prison and she’s not getting out, and her brother’s getting away with murder.

• Capheus defeated his gangster, but the guy’s still alive and vowing vengeance.

• Kala’s admitted she loves Wolfgang and is weeping for him at work; she HAS to tell Raj she’s not going to marry him now.

• Wolfgang’s headed into his uncle’s mansion that’s full of his uncle’s bodyguards and mob buddies. He’s gonna die.

• Will’s flying to Iceland to save Riley, with Nomi on the keyboard, doing hacker magic stuff to pave the way.

• Whispers is flying to Iceland to grab Riley and Will and bring down the Cluster, probably with Jonas’s help because I do not trust that guy.

Who’ve we got left? Right, Lito and OT3; they’re probably still in bed. But please notice, everybody else is in motion against antagonists in plots we understand and can therefore anticipate. This is key.

And thank god, this is Netflix, so we can click that remote and go right to . . ,

Episode 12: “I Can’t Leave Her”

This is a weird title for the finale of a show about eight people bonding mentally and physically. Very singular in that it refers to Riley’s breakdown over her baby, and Will’s refusal to leave Riley, which I think is just another clue that they weren’t thinking of this series as a whole story even at the climax when they finally bring everybody together.

Terribly weak opening: little Will at his therapist’s twenty-some years ago. They better pay off all that missing little Sarah girl stuff by the end of this episode because it’s just hanging there. Yes, I know, Whispers lobotomized her, but it better mean something to THIS story in particular or I’m going to be annoyed at the waste of story real estate. Also, the therapist is an Exposition Fairy. Way to kill the pacing, people. Sarah better show up lobotomized in Riley’s hospital, that’s all I’m saying.

Will’s in Iceland, and Riley’s reliving her accident in her coma. As flashbacks go, it’s horrifying–no wonder she’s so shadowed–but also terrible in the never-write-this sense is her husband whispering for her to come with him. You’re dead, Magnus. Also a cliche. Time to let go. But Will’s there, too, saying, “I’m coming for you.” Of course he is. Nomi and Amanita do the computer thing, and Will gets a fancy car loaded with the coordinates and a plan to distract the guards (Amanita is once again amazing). Riley’s still remembering the horror, trying to break out of a crashed car with a baby in her arms and, in a nice callback to Sun, smashes the window with her fist. I don’t think you can actually do that, but I like it anyway. Then there’s a shot of Riley in the middle of a frozen nowhere singing a song about a dead baby to her frozen newborn, promising her that she won’t leave her as she lays down to die with her child. This is the stuff that stays with you.

No wonder she’s staying in her coma.

Then she’s delivered to BPO, and Yrsa tells her to kill herself to protect her Cluster, a flashback to Angel in the church, but the whole Cluster is there, and Will says, “Don’t, I’m coming for you. Don’t give up.” She drops the gun, the Bad Guys inject her full of meds, and Jonas joins Will in the car as Will prepares to shoot his way into BPO.

Meanwhile, Wolfgang’s visiting his uncle, who really wants to know what happened to his son (that would be Steiner, the sociopathic cousin Wolfgang blew up the day before). Wolfgang shoots a lot of people who are shooting at him, and then Will is there, stopping him as he turns away, thinking they’re all dead–“I know the way bullets sound when they hit Kevlar”–and Uncle sits up and starts blasting, along with a lot of non-dead bodyguards. It doesn’t look good for Wolfgang, who escapes thanks to Will. I’m gonna go with Will’s the Leader here with Nomi as his Lancer (see Five Man Band). Wolfgang’s out of bullets, so he shows up in Kala’s lab: “I guess I’ve come to say good-bye.” Seconds later, they’re both behind the kitchen counter in Uncle’s house with the bodyguards blasting at the door, and Kala saying, “This was your plan?” So Kala builds a bomb (SCIENCE!)and hands it to him: “I’m not ready to say good-bye.” He kisses her, lights it, and blows up the bodyguards.

I could watch that scene forever.

Then he goes downstairs, tells his uncle that he killed his father (at twelve, by strangling him and then putting him in a car and torching it; when these writers do the Ancient Wound Memory bit they really wound people) and then he fills his uncle full of bullets in front of Kala. It’s a hideously terrific scene, beautifully written, beautifully acted, a virtual suicide for Wolfgang. “Marry Raj,” he tells Kala. “I’m a monster.” When this show is good, it’s really good.

Meanwhile Will races his fancy red car toward Riley as Whispers races his black helicopter toward Riley. (Bob Mayer: “Black helicopters always make a scene better.”) Nomi and Amanita do computer magic, Will destroys the car in a scene that’s actually funny in the middle of all the trauma, and finally we get a Cluster scene.

Whispers is mad because he can’t Riley to look into his eyes because she’s unconscious; this is the first time Whispers has shown anything but creepy arrogance, so it’s a nice change. Jonas mocks him; that’s fun. More fun: Lito shows up to help Will and Nomi: “Do I know you?” Will says. Lito nods: “We had sex.” Will tries to think of something to say. “Uh. That was . . .” Lito: “Very special.” “We’re on the clock here, fellas,” Nomi said. Then Lito seduces a nurse to get Riley’s room number. He’s magnificent.

And it just gets better. Will sees Riley’s room: “Shit, four guards.” Sun: “Is that all?” Sun defeats the guards and kicks the door in. Riley hallucinates Will coming to get her in the ice, but he’s really there in her hospital room, where he really touches her for he first time and feels everything she’s feeling; it’s beautiful. Nomi shows up and says they have to wake her up but she doesn’t know how; Kala shows up and says, “I do,” and hands Will a hypodermic that brings Riley out of her coma gasping. Riley and Will head for the garage and the getaway ambulence, but so does Whispers, and in one of the few real surprises, Will looks through the glass door of the elevator and meets Whispers’ eyes. Well, just hell. There are no keys in the ambulance, but Capheus shows up to hotwire it. Will’s in the ambulance with Riley, but so is Whispers, firmly insides Will’s head now. Jonas shows up to tell him it’s over and to give up. But Amanita saves the day (Honorary Cluster Member) except that it means taking Riley up into the mountain where her baby froze to death. Meanwhile Whisper’s black helicoper is blocking them, and Whispers knows Will won’t crash the ambulance into the helicopter that’s blocking him and kill them all. “You can’t do it,” he says. “Maybe I can’t,” Will says, “but I know who can,” and Wolfgang is behind the wheel, blood in his eye, not worried about a higher body count since he’s already way past the I’m-still-human mark and feeling suicidal anyway. Whispers blinks and they get away.

But then they’re in the mountains and for some reason Angel shows up on the road and the ambulance swerves and Riley’s giving birth again. Will stops the ambulance and Riley runs, in a fugue state, still trying to save her baby. Okay, I know they’re really pushing the Damaged Flower bit here, but this is a woman who’s haunted by a newborn daughter who froze to death, who’s witnessed a multiple shooting in a drug theft gone bad that left her spattered with blood, who was almost suffocated with a plastic bag by a sociopathic drug dealer, who had some kind of brain bleed triggered by music and ended up in a hospital pumped so full of drugs that the nurses can’t understand why she’s still moving, who almost committed suicide because she had people in her head telling her to do it but who didn’t because she had people in her head telling her not to, who has seven imaginary friends who just shot her full of adrenalin so she could escape from an organization that wants to lobotomize her, and who is now back in the exact place her daughter died, her evolving brain trying to process everything, which is harder because there are seven other people in there. Normally female characters who break down weeping unable to move annoy me, but in this case, Riley, you’ve earned it. Cry all you want, in the fetal position if necessary.

And then this show does something brilliant. There’s Will the Hero and Riley the Broken Flower, and Jonas and Angel are there, telling Will to kill both himself and Riley to protect the rest of the cluster. (I knew those guys were bad news.) And Will says, “No.” Well, of course, he says, “No,” he’s the Hero, but here’s the thing about heroes: they save the day. And he can’t, as long as he’s conscious, Whispers can get to them. So he shoots himself full of sedatives and tells Riley that she’s going to have to save them, and then he passes out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a hero abdicate like that, not just hand the gun to somebody else, but leave, telling the Girl that she has to save them all. “If you don’t, we’re all going to die.” But to Riley, cradling her frozen daughter, that means she’ll have to leave her again instead of dying with her as she promised. It’s an amazing scene.

And then ARGH we miss actually seeing Riley finally DO something because they can’t waste story real estate on that (cut the damn therapist and give Riley some agency), but we get this last great image of her holding Will (and injecting him with more sedative) as her friend sails them away to . . . god knows where, they’ll never be safe anywhere now that Will’s looked into Whisper’s eyes. But they’ll also never be alone because the camera pulls back to show that the Cluster is with them, all eight of them, in spirit only, of course, but for the Cluster that’s still powerful. Also really disconcerting if you have any interest in privacy, but right now they’re just all glad they survived.

So fascinating characters and a plot that finally comes together, and yet the ending was pretty widely panned. Why? Because it’s not a freaking ending, it’s a midpoint. Whispers is thwarted but not defeated, Will the Hero is going to have to spend the rest of the story in drugged stupor and if he gets out he’s still suspended from the police force, Sun’s still in prison and always will be since her rat bastard brother took her get-out-of-jail-free card, Capheus is still up to his ass in murderous gangsters, Nomi and Amanita are on the run from the government and from Whispers, Riley’s still got a drug dealer after her, Kala’s still engaged (okay, not a biggie), and Wolfgang’s been foreshadowed as suicidal (watch that execution scene again; that’s a symbolic suicide) and . . . who did I miss? Oh, Lito. He’s in bed with Hernando and Dani, but Joaquin’s still out there with those pictures and a thirst for revenge. Also Jonas and Angel: good or bad? And why do we keep seeing Angel, she’s been dead since the first seven minutes of the series. And what the hell was all that about Sarah, the little girl Whispers lobotomized in Will’s flashbacks? And why does Whispers want them dead? Yeah, I know they’re too powerful, but you’d think he’d try to control them, not off them. And why not just off them; what’s with the lobotomies, is he building a zombie army (which would be pretty cool, I have to admit).

In other words, they escaped, they didn’t resolve anything. I’m okay with some unanswered questions, but not with ALL questions unanswered. The Cluster fought back and made things worse (which is good in storytelling) but they’re only at the midway point. THEY DIDN”T FINISH THE DAMN SEASON.

I’ll come back later when I’m calmer, but it’s really annoying when you have two great episodes like this (not counting the therapist) and then no ending, no climax, no satisfaction. AAAAAAAAAARGH.

Back later this week to talk about series structure and ensembles and romance writing. You know a show is good when you have that much to discuss after two weeks of bitching.