Sense8 - Season 2
Jun. 25th, 2017 05:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatWhile I loved the series Sense8 as a whole, I think I preferred Season 1 to Season 2, it was better structured and the season finale was less busy and less rushed. I felt the first season to be tighter than the second, and that it wandered less. The stories seemed to interconnect more, and by the end of it, each character's arc was completed with a sort of open feeling of more to come. But it could have ended there, without feeling too jarring.
Season2....oh dear. It has moments of brilliance, but it is a bit of jangled mess at the end. I agree a great deal with the AV Club review of the finale episode, found HERE. The final two episodes felt more like a mid-season episodes than a season finale, and left the audience with more questions than answers, and sense of being left with a major cliff-hanger. I almost wish I'd stopped with S1, although there are bits in S2 that I'm rather glad I saw, and at least four of the eight characters story-arcs are to some degree completed.
My difficulty with it...or how it was a jangled mess? As the AV Club states - - various plot-lines are rushed, while others come to a dead stop, and others seem to go nowhere. I can see why it got cancelled. The writers and creators got a bit too ambitious, and tried to add far too many characters to an already top-heavy cast. While I understand the desire to have them meet other Sensei, this sort of makes the series a bit busy and there's just not enough time to cover everything. Various episodes drug a bit in the middle -- Wolfgang and Lita have long sexual seduction scenes that go nowhere. Kala has long scenes with her husband, where they say nothing of much import and she just looks confused. She spends both seasons confused. Also she has a long sensual sex scene with Wolfgang, but ...it doesn't quite go anywhere.
The Nairobi and Mumbai storylines get a bit lost, and the Korea storyline is drug out far too long, rushed a bit at the end and not quite resolved in a satisfying manner. Sun chases after her brother, but is still accused of all of the crimes he did. And her brother still survives.
Wolfgang seems to continue to run into people who want to kill them. None of which are developed. All are one-dimensional villains. Lita, is never developed and comes across as villainous. A typical femme fatal. It doesn't have quite the emotional oomph of the previous season, where he was trying to protect his friend. After while, I found myself wondering why he didn't just fly to Bombay, or Mumbai. And I didn't quite understand why Lita decided to turn him in to Whispers/Cannibias, when he was clearly no longer a threat to her power base. Is she a one-dimensional sadist as well? Just one of many? The only fully fleshed out character on the other side seems to be Jonas, and his character is hard to understand.
The only storylines that feel fully fleshed out and resolved to any level of satisfaction by the end of S2 are Naomi (San Franscico/transgender -- who by the end of the season manages to foil the authorities and BPO, get engaged, and be at her sisters wedding), Leto (Mexico - who manages to come out of the closet as gay, get a prime role, make love Burt Lancaster style on the beach, and have Dani become his manager), Will (Chicago, who declares his love for Riley, makes peace with his partner and father, and organizes a heist to take down Whispers and capture both Whispers and Jonas from BPO) and possibly Riley (Iceland/London -- who figures out how to get past her own feelings of grief and loss to help Will through his). Van Damn/Caiphus also gets some sort of closure. He runs for a government office, makes peace with his nemesis, and pushes forward a message of peace and hope over violence and warfare. He also addresses his father's death -- stating his parents were from rival tribes, and love was seen as a weapon as opposed to a bridge between cultures. At the end of his arc, he is greeted by four Sensei, who are like him, and wish to help. Sun to a degree finishes her arc, she finally is given the chance to come to terms with the various male figures in her life, and whether to kill her brother. She chooses not to kill him. (Although if I were her I'd have put the steel pole through his shoulder.) And chooses to give herself up to the police again, only to have to escape again. Honestly I think she'd have been better off if she'd just left the country and left her brother to his own devices. It's a nice action sequence, but not a satisfying one, and why Sun is always fighting in her underwear, I'm not sure.
But alas, Wolfgang, and Kala get short shrift, in particular Kala and there's almost no character growth. Just as she's about to take a stance -- she gets cut off. Again and again. Every time she tries to talk to her husband, he cuts her off and controls her life, she has little say. The final order conveniently lets her do what she'd originally wanted to, but it also lets her off the hook for making any decision on her own. Kala continues to be yanked around by a leash. In fact each time, she's about to take any pro-active action at all, she gets cut short. Before she can join Wolfgang, he's caught and taken, finally motivating the others to act and take down Whispers and Jonas. Her story seems to be controlled by the men she's involved with.
The Wolfgang capture is brutal and a lot of time is shown with each character being tortured. I was thinking at this point, yes, yes, but move on with it. This is the last episode of the series, you have a lot of plot to get through and no time.
This episode should have been four hours long, not one. It contained Sun's long chase scene after her brother, and the conclusion of that storyline. Along with the marriage for Naomi. And Wolfgang getting taken, and the heist to take down Whispers. Too much for one 60 minute episode.
I'd have shortened the torture scenes, focused more time on planning the heist and let the audience in on more of it. Sense8 is at its best when it shows the planning behind their activities. As they did in S1. Also, showed Wolfgang getting rescued. Big mistake leaving him captured and tortured at the end. If you knew this was the season finale, and there was an outside chance it wouldn't get renewed. You should rescue Wolfgang.
Instead they wanted to surprise us when it was shown that Will was actually in the room with Whispers, and that his friends were actually outside Jonas' door and not just "visiting" telepathically. But physically there and on blockers. They did at least set it up well enough, showing how Kala was making the blockers, and packaging them, and how everyone was buying plane tickets to London and meeting up there to take down BPO.
I found the last two episodes slow and disappointing. A let down after S1 and the first six or seven episodes. Almost as if the writers/producers were rushing through the material or got stuck somehow on the back end.
I really wish there was a third season which would help even things out a bit and fix some of this.
But also, it isn't going to happen. So time to move on.
Again, any good Sense8 fanfic out there?
Season2....oh dear. It has moments of brilliance, but it is a bit of jangled mess at the end. I agree a great deal with the AV Club review of the finale episode, found HERE. The final two episodes felt more like a mid-season episodes than a season finale, and left the audience with more questions than answers, and sense of being left with a major cliff-hanger. I almost wish I'd stopped with S1, although there are bits in S2 that I'm rather glad I saw, and at least four of the eight characters story-arcs are to some degree completed.
My difficulty with it...or how it was a jangled mess? As the AV Club states - - various plot-lines are rushed, while others come to a dead stop, and others seem to go nowhere. I can see why it got cancelled. The writers and creators got a bit too ambitious, and tried to add far too many characters to an already top-heavy cast. While I understand the desire to have them meet other Sensei, this sort of makes the series a bit busy and there's just not enough time to cover everything. Various episodes drug a bit in the middle -- Wolfgang and Lita have long sexual seduction scenes that go nowhere. Kala has long scenes with her husband, where they say nothing of much import and she just looks confused. She spends both seasons confused. Also she has a long sensual sex scene with Wolfgang, but ...it doesn't quite go anywhere.
The Nairobi and Mumbai storylines get a bit lost, and the Korea storyline is drug out far too long, rushed a bit at the end and not quite resolved in a satisfying manner. Sun chases after her brother, but is still accused of all of the crimes he did. And her brother still survives.
Wolfgang seems to continue to run into people who want to kill them. None of which are developed. All are one-dimensional villains. Lita, is never developed and comes across as villainous. A typical femme fatal. It doesn't have quite the emotional oomph of the previous season, where he was trying to protect his friend. After while, I found myself wondering why he didn't just fly to Bombay, or Mumbai. And I didn't quite understand why Lita decided to turn him in to Whispers/Cannibias, when he was clearly no longer a threat to her power base. Is she a one-dimensional sadist as well? Just one of many? The only fully fleshed out character on the other side seems to be Jonas, and his character is hard to understand.
The only storylines that feel fully fleshed out and resolved to any level of satisfaction by the end of S2 are Naomi (San Franscico/transgender -- who by the end of the season manages to foil the authorities and BPO, get engaged, and be at her sisters wedding), Leto (Mexico - who manages to come out of the closet as gay, get a prime role, make love Burt Lancaster style on the beach, and have Dani become his manager), Will (Chicago, who declares his love for Riley, makes peace with his partner and father, and organizes a heist to take down Whispers and capture both Whispers and Jonas from BPO) and possibly Riley (Iceland/London -- who figures out how to get past her own feelings of grief and loss to help Will through his). Van Damn/Caiphus also gets some sort of closure. He runs for a government office, makes peace with his nemesis, and pushes forward a message of peace and hope over violence and warfare. He also addresses his father's death -- stating his parents were from rival tribes, and love was seen as a weapon as opposed to a bridge between cultures. At the end of his arc, he is greeted by four Sensei, who are like him, and wish to help. Sun to a degree finishes her arc, she finally is given the chance to come to terms with the various male figures in her life, and whether to kill her brother. She chooses not to kill him. (Although if I were her I'd have put the steel pole through his shoulder.) And chooses to give herself up to the police again, only to have to escape again. Honestly I think she'd have been better off if she'd just left the country and left her brother to his own devices. It's a nice action sequence, but not a satisfying one, and why Sun is always fighting in her underwear, I'm not sure.
But alas, Wolfgang, and Kala get short shrift, in particular Kala and there's almost no character growth. Just as she's about to take a stance -- she gets cut off. Again and again. Every time she tries to talk to her husband, he cuts her off and controls her life, she has little say. The final order conveniently lets her do what she'd originally wanted to, but it also lets her off the hook for making any decision on her own. Kala continues to be yanked around by a leash. In fact each time, she's about to take any pro-active action at all, she gets cut short. Before she can join Wolfgang, he's caught and taken, finally motivating the others to act and take down Whispers and Jonas. Her story seems to be controlled by the men she's involved with.
The Wolfgang capture is brutal and a lot of time is shown with each character being tortured. I was thinking at this point, yes, yes, but move on with it. This is the last episode of the series, you have a lot of plot to get through and no time.
This episode should have been four hours long, not one. It contained Sun's long chase scene after her brother, and the conclusion of that storyline. Along with the marriage for Naomi. And Wolfgang getting taken, and the heist to take down Whispers. Too much for one 60 minute episode.
I'd have shortened the torture scenes, focused more time on planning the heist and let the audience in on more of it. Sense8 is at its best when it shows the planning behind their activities. As they did in S1. Also, showed Wolfgang getting rescued. Big mistake leaving him captured and tortured at the end. If you knew this was the season finale, and there was an outside chance it wouldn't get renewed. You should rescue Wolfgang.
Instead they wanted to surprise us when it was shown that Will was actually in the room with Whispers, and that his friends were actually outside Jonas' door and not just "visiting" telepathically. But physically there and on blockers. They did at least set it up well enough, showing how Kala was making the blockers, and packaging them, and how everyone was buying plane tickets to London and meeting up there to take down BPO.
I found the last two episodes slow and disappointing. A let down after S1 and the first six or seven episodes. Almost as if the writers/producers were rushing through the material or got stuck somehow on the back end.
I really wish there was a third season which would help even things out a bit and fix some of this.
But also, it isn't going to happen. So time to move on.
Again, any good Sense8 fanfic out there?
no subject
Date: 2017-06-27 12:34 am (UTC)Yes, I had to wonder how he could up and go to England in the middle of a campaign. And I'm guessing they expected to spend more time on Sun's story (perhaps eventually have her take over the company which could be significant in providing resources to sensate groups). But I understood that Wolfgang was indeed rescued?
no subject
Date: 2017-06-27 12:33 pm (UTC)No, I rewound twice, he wasn't in the group, and wasn't rescued. Also read some recaps, and they agreed. Instead they took Whispers and Jonas. Big mistake. I don't know what happened behind the scenes, but the writing was very sloppy in the last two episodes. Since the creators have refused to comment, I'm guessing there were problems behind the scenes that have not been disclosed, which most likely lead to the cancellation.
no subject
Date: 2017-06-27 02:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-06-27 04:01 pm (UTC)It was such a big thread -- for the first time in forever, I went hunting for fanfic. I needed closure. Also, they didn't show certain things fans were waiting for - and had clearly been building up to:
It was rushed, and they spent far too much time on unnecessary party scenes that didn't add to or progress the plot. Also, definitely two aims -- J.M.S seemed to want to go more the sci-fi angle, with the Whispers/BPO and Sun storylines, while the Wachowski's were more interested in Naomi, Leto angle. The two aims felt jarring at times. As if we were doing an LGBTQ relationship film at the same time they were doing a far darker, sci-fi thriller. And the two weren't merging well. Lito or Leto's storyline felt sort of off to the side, Naomi's fit in better...due to the hacking.
The two characters that I think were the most developed and had the completest arcs were probably Will (tragic) and Naomi (uplifting).
I want to go in and fix it so badly. Just a few tweaks here and there, and it would be brilliant. But alas. I can't.
no subject
Date: 2017-06-27 05:04 pm (UTC)Yes, I generally skipped those and the sex scenes because they weren't going anywhere. I think a few of them on occasion, such as the Christmas one, were good in reminding viewers of the sort of unity and shared experience they have. But otherwise that must have added to the expense of having to have all cast members in particular locations and it just slowed down the pace for no good reason.
You're right, as well, about the two aims. I was just thinking of that re: Twin Peaks, which I've been looking at again. It was sold as a mystery story but is actually a supernatural soap opera with added weirdness. I remembered things unspooling more slowly but really the show starts coming apart fairly quickly. It really should have been a 4 or 5 part mini-series but networks weren't doing that anymore by then.
no subject
Date: 2017-06-27 05:25 pm (UTC)Agree on both points.
"Yes, I generally skipped those and the sex scenes because they weren't going anywhere.."
Agree - they were also repetitive. Reminded me of some fanfic and romance novels I've read. Yes, we know, but less is more. We don't need a twenty-thirty minute sex scene, not in a 60 minute episode. We only really needed one extended sex scene. Not multiple ones. The Kala/Wolfgang sex scene could have been shorter. As could the Lita/Wolfgang seductions. I got bored at different points, and my attention wandered. And the party scenes....too many.
" I was just thinking of that re: Twin Peaks, which I've been looking at again. It was sold as a mystery story but is actually a supernatural soap opera with added weirdness. I remembered things unspooling more slowly but really the show starts coming apart fairly quickly."
That's the reason I haven't bothered subscribing to Showtime for a trial period to try the new Twin Peaks. Because...from all reports, it appears to be the weirdly surreal supernatural horror soap opera that went off the rails in S2 or 3. I loved the first season, which felt more like a straight drama, with a mystery, and some added weirdness. Then...it just go convoluted, and began to go off the rails. More Eraserhead less Muholland Drive.
I think Lynch sold the mystery drama with horror underpinings to the network, then went off to do his own thing after it got renewed for a second season. He doesn't really like the straight up narrative style. Which is cool and I appreciate, but I'd rather more story and less horrific metaphor that keeps me awake at night.