The Defiant Weirdness of ‘Sense8’ Proves the Wachowskis Deserve All the Chances

This week, it was widely reported that Lana Wachowski is teaming up with Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss to make a fourth Matrix movie. Sister and collaborator Lilly Wachowski is sitting this round out (because she’s a little over the “subtext” of the sci-fi genre), but the news marks something of a renewed respect for the Wachowski siblings’ work. After revolutionizing the sci-fi genre with their mind-bending mega-hit The Matrix, the siblings struggled to repeat that movie’s commercial, critical, and cultural success. The duo was consistently creating stunningly beautiful work, but it was always content that challenged the mainstream. No where did the Wachowskis take full liberty to pursue the strange scope of their creativity than in the defiant, weird, and bizarrely delicate Sense8.

Sense8 is a wholly original science fiction story about a “cluster” of sensates connected to each other. That is, there are eight gorgeous people scattered all over the world who become intrinsically linked with each other. They can feel what each other feel, see what they see, and access each other’s knowledge. Among them are a martial arts expert, a closeted Mexican actor, and a transgender woman in a loving lesbian relationship. There’s a cop and a thief, heiresses and paupers. Their shared connection works not only as a superpower, but an ecstatic ode to the human heart. Together, they vibrate with love, if not also lust. Heck, Sense8 even ends its run with a beautiful orgy of love and passion, set to classical music.

In a “Thank You” video made for Sense8 fans in 2017, Lana Wachowski explained the ethos of the show was to challenge the “dominant narrative in our culture about difference.” She says, “Difference is something to fear. Difference is something to laugh at. Difference, most importantly, is something that divides. So when I pitched Sense8 to Netflix, I told them that I wanted to tell a different story about difference. I wanted to tell a story in which difference was not something that set us apart from each other. It was actually fundamentally the thing that united us because difference is the one thing that we all have in common.”

Sense8 is, uh, very different. It’s true. Sense8 is also a difficult show to get into. It takes its sweet time setting up the stakes, and it wears its heart on its sleeve. There are times when I found myself rolling my eyes at the schmaltz of some of the dialogue; it was so earnest, so fairy tale-like in its wonder. Nevertheless, it is this sweetness — this rebellious heart — that also makes the show so easy to obsess over. The characters are worth rooting for, easy to idolize, and hard not to fall for.

Sense8 is also visually extraordinary. Filmed literally all over the world, the production uses good old fashioned editing techniques to sell you on the link between these characters. Rather than lean on the grim-dark color palette preferred by most of prestige TV’s showrunners, the Wachowskis let the light in. This is a bright, rainbow-toned show that uses bursts of color to its benefit. The story starts in the shadows, but chases the sunlight. In fact, by shooting globally, the Wachowskis are able to establish setting by leaning into the different ways sunshine looks in different parts of the world. We get the hazy golden glow of Seoul and the cool blue of London.

“Sense8 is different from most shows. I know that. It’s different on purpose,” Wachowski says in that “Thank You” video. The show isn’t bonkers or challenging or strange by mistake. The weirdness is the point. Love is the point of it, too. The Wachowskis have taken their early successes and never sold out their guiding ethos: that different is good, kung fu is cool, and that art should champion the underdog. We’ve already seen that when other creators get a big streaming deal, they just play the hits and cash the checks. The Wachowskis let their freak flags fly. Sense8 — and all its glorious artistry and defiant weirdness — proves the Wachowskis deserve every platform and opportunity we can give them.

Watch Sense8 on Netflix