2-8. All I Want Right Now Is One More Bullet.

Wolfgang gets caught in an assassin's trap.

Running Time: Approx. 57 minutes. Written by: Lana Wachowski, J. Michael Straczynski. Directed by: Dan Glass.


THE PLOT:

Jonas is alive.

Though the group was certain they had witnessed his death, he reveals that he was saved through the intervention of BPO's Chairman. He is still BPO's prisoner, forced to work with them, but he is alive - and Whispers' position may not be quite so secure as he had believed.

Meanwhile, having been dropped by his agent, Lito decides that his career is over and wallows in self-pity and comfort food. But his skills may soon be needed. Sun's brother is soon to attend a function, and Nomi and Amanita have found a way to smuggle Sun in with the help. The catch? She will have to pose as a bartender, which will only be possible if she borrows the skills Lito learned on the set of a previous movie.

Capheus is drawing attention in his bid for public office, but is also drawing a backlash from his opponent, seeking to paint the upstart bus driver as a "thug" who extorts protection money from his neighbors. As Capheus absorbs this, he receives a visit at gunpoint by the leader of the Superpower Gang, who lets him know in no uncertain terms that his life is in danger - but that he also has support in some unexpected places.

Finally, in Berlin, Wolfgang realizes that Lila, the sensate assassin, is planning to play him off against gang leader Sebastian Fuchs (Lars Eidinger) - all to further her dream of transforming Berlin into a haven for sensates. She hopes to enlist Wolfgang to her cause - But will settle for eliminating him to remove the threat he poses!


CHARACTERS:

Nomi is rather adorable in this episode, from accidentally waking Sun and begging her not to hit her to admitting that time zones confuse her to her clutziness in high heels. When Amanita tries to relax her nerves, correctly diagnosing that she's worried about seeing her parents again, Nomi observes that Amanita knows her in ways her Cluster never will.  Speaking of Amanita, at this point she could be considered an honorary member of the Cluster.  When Nomi knocks herself out of action near the end, Amanita effectively fills her role via FaceTime (with an assist from Bug), which ends up working seamlessly.

Lito's self-pity is amusing, and Miguel Angel Silvestre continues to show a genuine knack for comedy. The scene in which he curls up on Sun's bed, clutching a stuffed animal and crying, is genuinely funny, with Sun alternating between exasperation and compassion in her response to him. At the end of the scene, after Sun has spelled out exactly how much worse her situation is than Lito's, he passes her the stuffed animal and grabs another one for himself.

My favorite part of the episode is, of course, the standoff between Wolfgang and Lila at the end. But there's a great character moment before the shooting starts, when Lila tries to persuade him to become a "king" for Berlin. He dismisses that as fantasy, telling her Berliners always ultimately reject would-be kings. When she tells him that he's not like other people, he dismisses her by replying, "You are." The great thing about a character who says little - When he talks, his words are never wasted.


THOUGHTS:

When Jonas returned at the very end of the previous episode, my first thought was that he was another kind of "meat puppet" for Whispers to use to try to ensnare the Cluster. When he coldly referred to Will as "Officer Gorski" at the start of this episode, I was certain my suspicions were about to be confirmed.

Instead, we discover that he is another kind of puppet - kept alive for the benefit of "The Chairman" (whom I do hope we meet before the series ends), as a potential check on Whispers. Later in the episode, Will gets a glimpse of Whispers, hiding with his family in a hotel room. His wife and daughter are losing patience with the disruptions to their lives, and he is losing patience with them, shouting that all he is doing is to "protect this family!" Will realizes that Whispers is just as much a prisoner of circumstance as he is, or as Jonas is.

These revelations are intriguing, likely setting up major plot developments for the finale. The episode also sets up other strands. Kala's husband comes home bleeding, then later takes an angry midnight phone call, both of which he lies about (and not very well, so at least Kala can take comfort in knowing that Rajan is a lousy liar). In the midst of Lito's epic self-pity, Dani and Hernando observe that his Sao Paolo speech has generated a lot of buzz, and that his situation is actually much better than he thinks; it's just that Lito is unable to see this in the midst of his wallowing. And of course, we set up the inevitable conversation between Sun and her brother.  With only a handful of episodes left, I actively hope they don't set up anything else - These strands and the BPO arc are already quite a lot to resolve in the four remaining installments.

In short, this is a transitional episode, carefully moving pieces into place. The kinetic action climax aside, this installment exists to get the characters ready for the season's final Act.  The script offers some amusing bits of comedy alongside several good character exchanges. But transitional episodes never are the ones that leave you breathless, and despite the fantastic final scene, this episode is no exception. It does its job well - But when I think back on this series after completing it, I doubt there is much my mind will cling to from this particular piece.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Previous Episode; I Have No Room in My Heart for Hate
Next Episode: What Family Actually Means



Review Index

1-2. I Am Also a We.

Nomi and Amanita share a happy moment

 before everything goes wrong.

Running Time: Approx. 54 minutes. Written by: The Wachowskis, J. Michael Straczynski. Directed by: The Wachowskis.


THE PLOT:

In San Francisco, Nomi updates her blog, talking about her past life, raised by strictly religious parents:

"For a long time, I was afraid to be who I am. Because I was taught by my parents that there's something wrong with someone like me, something offensive... I was afraid of this parade, because I wanted so badly to be a part of it. So today, I'm marching for that part of me that was once too afraid to march, and for all the people who can't march, the people living lives like I did. Today, I march to remember that I'm not just a me - I'm also a we."

Nomi doesn't get very far on her Pride march, however. Her eyes meet those of a mysterious onlooker - Jonas. A second later, she passes out on the street.

She wakes in the hospital, with her mother (Sandra Fish) at her bedside, insistently calling her by her birth name - Michael. A surgeon, Dr. Metzger (Adam Shapiro), comes in to inform Nomi that she has been diagnosed with UFLS, Undifferentiated Frontal Lobe Syndrome, which means that her brain tissue is fusing together. He tells her she will experience increasing hallucinations and will be dead in six months unless they perform immediate surgery. But once Nomi is alone, Jonas "visits" her, telling her what she can already sense: Metzger is a liar, and she has to get out of this hospital as fast as she can.

In Mexico, Lito finds that Daniela (Eréndira Ibarra), the young actress he has been seeing for the sake of the press, is becoming seriously infatuated. He tries to dissuade her - But she shows up at his apartment, determined to spend the night. When she discovers his secret male lover, Hernando (Alfonso Herrera), she has a most unexpected reaction...

Meanwhile, in Chicago, Will discovers that camera recordings from the night of Angelica's death have been altered. Before he can follow up on that, however, a federal agent informs Will's precinct about a suspected terrorist: Jonas!


CHARACTERS:

The focus in this episode is on Will, Lito, and Nomi, with most of the others relegated to one or two scenes (in some cases, a wordless piece of a scene). This is a good choice, allowing us a chance to connect to those three characters without other plotlines getting in the way.

Will's interactions with Deshawn (William Burke), the boy he saved, show his innate decency, while also allowing him to reveal a bit about his past as a juvenile delinquent, rebelling against his career cop father (Joe Pantoliano). He also deals with fallout from saving Deshawn, as veteran officers at a cop bar shun him, and his father tells him that if Deshawn goes on to kill a police officer, then that's on Will.

The revelation that Lito is gay is... honestly no surprise at all, though his interactions with Dani are highly entertaining. Outside of the blog speech that gives this episode its title, Nomi actually gets the worst of the three spotlighted characters, being relegated to largely a victim role once she wakes in the hospital.


THOUGHTS:

The series' second episode is slower-paced, but it's also much more engaging. Because we aren't constantly being moved from one character and continent to another, there is a chance to genuinely connect with the episode's three focal characters. Will and Nomi brush up in different ways against the Big Secret Plot, but that is wisely not the focus. The mystery is teased in the gap in the police recording, and Dr. Metzger is balanced as both believably a medical professional but at the same time a sinister figure. But for the most part, the episode defers plot mechanics in favor of building the first episode's sketches into fully-rounded characters.

All three characters are likable, and some parallels are already emerging. Will is in the shadow of his father, just as we saw Wolfgang in the shadow of his own parent in the previous episode. Just as Wolfgang had an obviously terrible relationship with his father, we see Nomi's relationship with her mother - a mother who refuses to even acknowledge her by her current name, and who seems almost relieved to hear from Dr. Metzer that something is wrong with her child, as if clinging to the diagnosis as an explanation for sexual identity issues, and not just blackouts and hallucinations.

The three seem to exist in alternate genres. For this episode, Nomi is mostly in a family drama, attempting to stand up for her own identity even as circumstances pull her back to her estranged family. Will is in a paranoid conspiracy thriller, stumbling across altered evidence while being used to track down a falsely-dubbed "terrorist." Meanwhile, Lito is in a sex farce. The changes in tone complement each other, with Will's investigation keeping the thread of mystery alive, Nomi's family issues granting substance, and Lito's thread lightening the mood at the right moments.

Save for an end chase that leads into another effective cliffhanger, this is not a particularly exciting episode, and at this point I was starting to wonder if it should have been "Sense6" as neither the Kenyan bus driver nor the Korean businesswoman appeared to be receiving any script attention at all (that is very soon to change). But by rounding out three of the characters while still keeping the central mystery alive, I Am Also a We manages to engage emotionally in a way that the previous episode did not, marking a significant forward step.


Rating: 7/10.

Previous Episode: Limbic Resonance
Next Episode: Smart Money Is on the Skinny Bitch



Review Index

1-1. Limbic Resonance.

Angelica (Daryl Hannah) on the last night of her life.

Running Time: Approx. 67 minutes. Written by: The Wachowskis, J. Michael Straczynski. Directed by: The Wachowskis.


THE PLOT:

Late at night in an abandoned church in Chicago, a woman named Angelica (Daryl Hannah) prepares to shoot herself. Her lover, Jonas (Naveen Andrews) appears, telling her that "it has to be now" and that she can give "them" a chance. Her pursuer (Terrence Mann) appears. He is dismissive of Angelica's suicide threat, noting that she has made such threats before. But this time, she means it. She puts the gun in her mouth (actually not a reliable suicide posture, as Larry McMurtry famously pointed out in Dead Man's Walk) and pulls the trigger.

Eight people in various parts of the world have visions of her suicide: Chicago police officer Will Gorski (Brian J. Smith), San Francisco lesbian Nomi (Jamie Clayton), London DJ Riley Blue (Tuppence Middleton), Mexican actor Lito Rodriguez (Miguel Silvestre), German safecracker Wolfgang Bogdanow (Max Riemelt), Indian woman Kala Dandekar (Tina Desai), Korean businesswoman Sun Bak (Doona Bae), and Kenyan bus driver Capheus Onyango (Aml Ameen). As the eight go about their entirely separate daily lives, they keep seeing flashes of Angelica, and even of each other.

Timing that may prove tricky for a few of them, as Riley's boyfriend pulls her into the orbit of drug dealer Nyx (Joseph Mawle), while Wolfgang and his friend Felix (Maximilian Mauff) prepare to snatch a big score out from under the nose of Wolfgang's insufferable criminal cousin, Steiner (Christian Oliver).

Meanwhile, Will discovers the site of Angelica's shooting, and realizes that his visions are not just dreams after all...


CHARACTERS:

They are all pretty much in sketch form in this episode, which is not surprising since even with extra runtime, the job of establishing eight different characters in eight different settings and situations is daunting. Each character is given some "hook" to earn our empathy. Wolfgang may be a criminal, but he doesn't come across as being as odious as Steiner and we learn enough about his family life to see him as fully human. Will breaks procedure and risks the ire of fellow officers by saving a wounded youth in a gang area. Nomi recalls being deeply touched when her girlfriend, Amanita (Freema Agyeman) stood up for her at a previous Pride event. And so on - We spend more time with some than with others, but we touch long enough on each of them to be able to feel some measure of sympathy. For a first episode tasked with doing so much, that is enough.


THOUGHTS:

I've currently watched the first four episodes of Sense8. I had no intention of doing reviews - It was just a show I'd been interested in that I finally decided to watch. The end of Episode Four made me decide to go further, and actually write reviews of the show as I watch - more on that when I review that episode, but anyone who's seen the show probably knows which scene pushed this series from simply "view it" to "review it."

The series is the brainchild of The Wachowskis and J. Michael Straczynski. So on the one hand, it's brought to us by the creators of The Matrix and Babylon 5... Though on the other hand, it's also brought to us by the creators of Jupiter Ascending and... well, I can't think of a comparable JMS title, so I'll settle for the competent-but-uninspiring Jeremiah. The series ran for two seasons on Netflix, before finally being canceled due to the extreme expense of the production (around $9 million per episode)... Though fan outcry eventually resulted in a wrap-up movie, so at least I know I'm not going into something that will remain unresolved.

With the best will in the world, this first episode is a difficult one. With not only eight characters, but eight separate settings, I doubt there was a way around that. Episode One was always going to be limited to setting up the characters, building a tiny bit of mystery, and not much else. The opening scenes, with Angelica, are intriguing but also oddly distancing, and for the first half of the episode I will admit to wondering if I would be continuing with this series as I watched in 10 - 15 minute snippets.

The second half of the episode settles into a more comfortable dramatic rhythm, as the script settles on the most immediately accessible characters. Will presents viewers with the comfortably familiar protagonist figure of a police officer, and the script puts him in a sympathetic dramatic position when he insists on running a boy with a gunshot injury to the hospital - violating procedure because it is the only way the boy will get medical attention fast enough to save his life. Wolfgang and Riley spend the last part of the episode in situations that carry an immediate threat of danger, raising tension just as it is badly needed. An end connection between Will and Riley, followed by a bout of sudden violence that leads into the cliffhanger, conclude the episode on a strong note.

The episode presents barriers to viewing, and I would advise any new viewer to stick with it for at least three installments. Limbic Resonance is, on its own, best viewed as a foundation (really, part of a foundation) for what is to come. It is interesting, but not particularly immediately gripping... Though I suspect it plays better on rewatch, once you actually know who these eight characters are.


Rating: 6/10. The foundation is there... But I suspect a lot of viewers of Episode One did not stick around for Episode Two.


Next Episode: I Am Also a We



Review Index