I’ve finally put my finger on what’s wrong with this series. As a whole, I think that Sense8 will probably work… and I do mean “as a whole.” Individual episodes like this one, a relative chunk of out of a larger narrative, seem flat with little to no resolution. Sense8 is a show that demands to be binge-watched in one setting.
As I don’t have that kind of time, I’m starting to find the process more and more grating.
Take “Art is Like Religion,” for example. Episode five of the series unfolds in all manner of predictable ways and characters are behaving stupidly.
I’ll just start out with Mani and Nomi as they are heading up the second weakest story of the show (that’s right… second): As Mani pointed out, there’s two possibilities: Either there is something wrong with Nomi’s brain and she’s going to die, or her doctors are lying and there’s something else going on. Who the heck talks like that? Sure, as an audience, we know that Nomi is a sensate and that her hallucinations are more than just hallucinations, but the bottom line is… Nomi is hallucinating and a doctor just told her something is wrong with her brain! Here’s an idea, you idiots, get a second opinion! Go to the police and tell them you were being held against your will! Something else is going on? Are you kidding me? Sure, we know something else is going on, but what are the odds that a character with no contact with any of the other characters beyond some hallucinations would make such a leap?
It’s lazy writing.
What’s the worst story in Sense8 so far? That would be Kala and her wedding. How many Indian girl doesn’t really want to get married stories are we going to be exposed to? This story has been so boring and so predictable that I honestly had to look up the character’s name because I didn’t have the slightest idea what the heck it was. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Kala wasn’t going to get out of the ceremony somehow and I’m pretty sure that everyone else watching had that suspicion as well. Now, was it shocking that the reason she stopped the ceremony (or rather fainted out of it) was because Wolfgang showed up butt-naked announcing that Kala didn’t love her husband to be? Well… yeah, that was pretty shocking, but produced the same result we knew was coming.
Lazy writing.
Lito’s story in this episode was just terrible… It was period humor. Yes, I’m sure that somewhere, a man having to go through the sensations of a period is funny. That somewhere would be around 1983. Honestly, has the writer or directors of this episode actually been around a woman on her period before? Or was this just some commentary about how a man couldn’t handle one?
Either way… it was just stupid.
The redeeming scene of this episode came from Capheus and Sun meeting and having a conversation which was well shot and well written and actually cleared up why Sun would be contemplating doing something so stupid as to take the fall for her piece of crap brother. I enjoyed the scene and wish that the entire episode could have carried this emotional resonance.
I’m afraid, though, that my fears about this show are starting to come to light and it’s going to end up wasting its premise. Sense8 would have probably been better served up as a movie so that a lot of the superfluous bull and double-talk that’s weighing it down could have been scrapped.
Hopefully, episode six will be better.
Jason Gaston 