“Sense8’s” two hours Christmas special spends most of its two hours not celebrating Christmas, but celebrating all your favorite parts of being a sensate.
Visiting, orgies, dancing and heartfelt moments between the cluster are abundant in “Sense8: A Christmas Special.” We also pick back up right where Season 1 leaves off, assuaging worries that the Christmas special will be a filler episode that leaves balls up in the air until Season 2 premieres in May of 2017.
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Will (Brian J. Smith) is still mentally linked to Whispers (Terrence Mann), meaning he cannot be aware of his surroundings at any time for fear that Whispers will deduce where he is and use him to locate the rest of the cluster. The result? Heroin addiction. Drugging himself might be the easiest way to sever his sensate link, but we’re seriously worried what the long term affects will be if Will stays hooked on the drug long term. Climbing your way out of an addiction while on the run doesn’t sound like a great way to spend Christmas or New Years.
On the other hand, we can’t help but notice that Will isn’t the only sensate leaving himself open to tracking.
Nomi (Jamie Clayton), also on the run, has hunkered down with Amanita (Freema Agyeman), jumping from place to place when BPO gets close to smoking her out. We can’t be the only ones nervous about Bug’s (Michael X. Sommers) “online community” who knows more about him than anyone, right? All it takes is one little slip, and Bug could lead BPO right to Nomi.
Another potential risk is Capheus’ (Toby Onwumere) tale of being possessed by the “spirit of Van Damme.” The story has spread far enough that people are riding his bus to try to tap into that spirit, which could spell disaster if it reaches the wrong people. Especially if they heard the version where Van Damme is actually an imprisoned Korean woman.
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Besides those few security risks, however, “Sense8: A Christmas Special” is mostly a celebration.
The sensates shared birthday makes for an excellent montage with popped champagne and dancing on the beach, which is only slightly brought down by the relationship angst of Kala (Tina Desai) and Wolfgang (Max Riemel). Those two are definitely star-crossed, but the special doesn’t make much headway on their relationship issues — besides revealing that Kala did in fact marry Rajan (Purab Kohli), as Wolfgang asked.
When “Sense8” returns in the spring, we’ll still have some big questions to answer: How is Sun (Doona Bae) going to get out of prison and make her brother pay for everything he’s done? Can Will find a way to turn Whispers’ own spy game against him? And most importantly, how long can the cluster avoid BPO before another one of them ends up in a hospital, and accidentally alerts the company to their whereabouts?
“Sense8” is set to return May 5, 2017 on Netflix.