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was pretty disappointed when they used Will instead of Wolfgang to unlock Nomi's handcuffs for that reason. They could have used the professional locksmith to break her out and it would have at least tied him in.
The whole bit with Will learning to undo handcuffs in the back of his dad's cop car set this bit up. Wolfgang certainly would have been able to do it, but he didn't know Nomi's plot at that time, and would possibly not grasp the importance/emergency of the situation. Will and Nomi already had a rapport which my impression is that makes it more likely to connect again. Wolfgang is also used to picking locks/cracking safes, not necessarily escape artist checks.
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Did anyone else hear the line about how painful it was for a sensate to have someone in their cluster die and wonder who the first will be to die in this one?
I'm really hoping it's Riley. She is so, so boring, and really brings nothing to the table for the group.
Also, favorite line by far is Lito to Will. "We had sex..."
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I'm really hoping it's Riley. She is so, so boring, and really brings nothing to the table for the group.
She'll stick around to provide an anchor and dramatic point for Will if nothing else. I found myself caring more about her dead husband and the friend with the boat, than Riley's character.
Yeah, Capheus being the team "cheerleader" is a better fit, and he actually has a useful skill to add to the team.
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I'm not gonna assume that anyone will die.
But yeah, if someone has to, Riley's a good choice. That and Wolfgang and Kala getting together would make for a nice role switch between Wolfgang and Will in terms of angst, and her character is likely the least developed and useful.
That said, if someone does die, I actually hope it's Will. Don't get me wrong, I like Will and he's very useful indeed but his death would make sense logically (as a heroic sacrifice to protect the cluster from Whispers) and narratively. Specifically, I think killing the closest thing we've got to a single protagonist would be very cool, allow for Riley's character to actually develop and become useful and interesting, as well as not being a helpless woman dying (which has unfortunate 'stuffed in the fridge' implications).
To be fair, it's quite the over-used trope, but that doesn't necessarily make it bad.
Your three options for a weak character are: Improve them, leave them (the lazy and least effective opton), or kill them off (also a fairly lazy solution, but can be good for cheap drama).
They're the perfect fodder for "tonight someone dies" if someone needs to die for the story.
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Ah, that's right. I forgot that storytelling has to backseat to avoid tropes involving women.
Eh. That's a tertiary reason I like the idea at best.
I mostly just like the idea of, if anyone dies, it being the most genre defying, which would be Will.
Frankly, I think that's better storytelling than having Kala or Riley die, since people won't be expecting it, and because as a whole I think people like him more, which really increases the impact...which is particularly important in making us empathize with the profound loss the others are suffering.
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Riley is indeed the odd sensate out in that she doesn't have any skills which are immediately apparent and useful in the situations the cluster will be in. That said, I and others wonder if she might have the best control of her powers because of her drug use. IIRC, she was the first to sustain a conversation with one of the others (Will in the church back in the first episode), and she was central each time the entire cluster interacted as a unit (the singalong, her attempted suicide, and the boat scene). If so, then she may prove to be the spanner in the works. Whispers may have never seen a cluster come together this well this quickly.
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That's possible, though even there Capheus seems almost as good as her, with an almost instinctive control over his ability and a lot of instinctive skill at contacting the others, both intentionally and not.
She does seem better at coordinating the full group, mind you, but that's nice rather than essential.
Ah, that's right. I forgot that storytelling has to backseat to avoid tropes involving women.
That's right, because I completely ignored every other part of a completely reasonable and logical post about why another character would make for a much more interesting and worthwhile death to move the narrative along so I could dump on feminist themes.
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Why do you all hate artists? What makes music not a useful skill?
Every other character starts the show with their life mostly together. They know what they are doing and where they are, and then s&*~ hits the fan for them. Sure, they have issues of their own, but most of them are things they could cope with on their own. Riley starts the show lost, barely coping with her daily life, still not over trauma, with her suicide attempts not as far behind her as she would like. The season finale is Will convincing her that she needs to cope or she will kill him. And she gets him to safety. I suspect the season 2 Riley will be very different from season 1.
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Why do you all hate artists? What makes music not a useful skill?
Music is beautiful and wonderful...but if you're in a dangerous situation, bering a brilliant musician is not generally much help. Y'know who has skills that are useful in such situations? Everyone else. Hacking, driving, fighting, lying...everyone has something. Except for Riley.
I actually quite like Riley and find her an interesting character...but she's sorta underutilized and doesn't demonstrate a particularly useful skill set in any of the situations presented.
Every other character starts the show with their life mostly together. They know what they are doing and where they are, and then s*&# hits the fan for them. Sure, they have issues of their own, but most of them are things they could cope with on their own. Riley starts the show lost, barely coping with her daily life, still not over trauma, with her suicide attempts not as far behind her as she would like. The season finale is Will convincing her that she needs to cope or she will kill him. And she gets him to safety. I suspect the season 2 Riley will be very different from season 1.
I actually agree to a large extent. And both hope and expect that will be the case, but that doesn't exactly retroactively solve the problem, it merely solves it going forward.
I think Riley is supposed to be (end up) the "Angela" of this group.
Hopefully it will go better for her.
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It's not a matter of hating artists, and in fact I have great admiration for artists (I just wish I was a better one). But with the nature of the show, artistic talent is not, as Deadmanwalking noted, the best fit for their situation.
If the first season had focused more on the sharing of sensation, then yes, she would be a great member based solely on her artistic ability. But the first season introduced the big baddie and put the cluster in jeopardy.
Add into the mix that a single skill does not define who a person is or what they can contribute. An artist can have other skills as well as those relating to their art.
It could be her level of empathy will be a defining ability not only for her but also the cluster as a whole. Or maybe not. It may be something that has yet to be revealed.
Bottom line is being only 1 season in, it is hard to even speculate how any of the characters will develop in future seasons and what kind of impact that will have on the group. That, I believe, is the general point being made.
And I really hope they don't have Riley in there solely as a "someone has to die in episode x" placeholder character. It's the lack of reveal surrounding her character's abilities that has me greatly intrigued.
Thinking about it, I'm wondering if her drug tolerance will come in useful for someone else.
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Ooooooo ... another possibility. The sensate who birthed the cluster (blanking on the character name ... whoever Daryl Hannah is playing) used drugs to block Whispers ... maybe Riley's drug use will block Whispers from being able to link to her ... and maybe she can pass that on to others when needed. Could help keep Will from having to off himself to protect the cluster.
Ooooooo ... another possibility. The sensate who birthed the cluster (blanking on the character name ... whoever Daryl Hannah is playing) used drugs to block Whispers ... maybe Riley's drug use will block Whispers from being able to link to her ... and maybe she can pass that on to others when needed. Could help keep Will from having to off himself to protect the cluster.
Having rewatched that opening scene, there are a lot of things in there that I'm wondering about, like the profession of love.
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Did anyone else hear the line about how painful it was for a sensate to have someone in their cluster die and wonder who the first will be to die in this one?
Spoiler:My current bet is Kala. Something needs to fuel Wolfgang's massive amount of burning angst now that he has taken care of his family issues.
O_o
Oh what a big Dark Side you have Grandma Marie.
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Riley seems to have the best at keeping attune with the entire group, I am not sure if that is coincidence of by design. She also had her foreshadowing of her abilites the longest, in her background she was driven away from Iceland to keep her safe. Although there are hints that Will had some trauma from his childhood as well.
Nice catch Evan her drug use may have left her mind open to being a channel for the group.
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Maybe Riley is the cluster's wifi (psifi?) router?
Riley seems to have the best at keeping attune with the entire group, I am not sure if that is coincidence of by design. She also had her foreshadowing of her abilites the longest, in her background she was driven away from Iceland to keep her safe. Although there are hints that Will had some trauma from his childhood as well.
Nice catch Evan her drug use may have left her mind open to being a channel for the group.
Thank you, baron. The way I see it, the drug use has to have some significance, and this is the most likely way. I'm sure that most of "our" cluster has had some experience with a degree of intoxication, but to our knowledge none of them have experimented with drugs to the degree that Riley has done. It isn't a stretch to say that her experience with altered consciousness would pay off in her development of her powers. The others had flashes of what was happening; Riley got high and successfully visited Will. They had a sustained conversation and everything. I don't think that's a coincidence. Put it together with Nyx's speech about limbic resonance and the fact that Riley seemingly has little to offer her clustermates otherwise, and I think we have a strong case.
Will's also carrying around some sensate related trauma. He had his issues with his dad's alcoholism already, but throw in his narrow escape from Whispers and his inability to help Sara Petrell (which he probably considers a failure even though there was nothing he could have done), and those issues would have been compounded. He just didn't suffer from them to the extent that Riley did, until now. I don't think it's a coincidence that Riley has made great strides on her issues just as Will is incapacitated as a partial result of his.
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Man, that's lame.
Will: I can pick locks, shoot a gun, and subdue people!
Capheus: I can drive like a m@*@%!&@%*#%!
Sun: I kick 16 kinds of ass!
Wolfgang: I'm a master thief, can shoot a gun, and I'm a ruthless bastard! Also I keep an RPG in my trunk. Just sayin'. Don't piss me off.
Kala: I have in-depth knowledge of pharmaceuticals and can build a bomb in inder a minute from the stuff under your kitchen counter!
Lito: I am a sexy Latino man who is really good at lying!
Nomi: I can hack the S~~+ outta that!
Riley: I can...do a lot of drugs, I guess.
Okay just finished this series, which is truly awesome...
Anyway, random thoughts:
I didn't pick up any moment where Whispers would have been particularly easy to kill. And I agree with some others...we don't really know his full capabilities or the powers of a sensate. WE know he can puppeteer people for instance. Who knows what else he is capable of. Hell...he could be capable of body jumping for all we know, so putting a bullet in him would just result in him getting pissed off.
Also, yeah unfortunately Riley was the designated damsel in distress this season. Its possible however that next season we will figure out what role she will play in the cluster, and be able to more proactively contribute to the cluster's survival. Whether that is through some unrevealed background, experience with drugs, or development of powers beyond the other sensates, I have no clue.
Just marathoned Sense8.
Very good, though I feel the spotlight was a bit unbalanced, in terms of usefulness. Most of the consistently useful people were Will, Wolfgang and Sun; though Lito, Kala and especially Nomi picked up a bit in the finale. Capheus felt like he was pigeonholed as "the driver" and Riley felt very helpless in general.
I liked how diverse the cast was, and how each of them got put through the grinder throughout the entire season (though I felt it was a bit excessive in Riley's case; she felt like the show's punching bag towards the end).
Sun was absolutely amazing and my favourite by far, followed closely by Nomi. Kala actually felt rather sympathetic (the actress was really good at conveying a sense of average-person-empowerment), and I wish she had been allowed to be more useful earlier on, I especially feel there was a missed opportunity for her to help out Wolfgang with Felix. Capheus felt like he could've been given more skills than just "a damn good driver and car jacker", and Wolfgang sort of lost his uniqueness as the show went on, sorta overlapping with Sun and Will (originally I thought Will was more of a firearms specialist and Sun was the melee specialist, but Will and Wolfgang sort of started blending together as "generic fighters").
I really wish Riley had been given a more obvious talent to help people out, and I think there was a missed opportunity with her (and everyone in general) in that there weren't any scenes where one character is scouting ahead/behind another. Riley could have been the character with the best eyesight and hearing of them all (especially hearing), and she could've showed up all throughout the season as a "spotter" and a scout for the others.
Overall it was an extremely good show and I am looking forward to S2.
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Have none of you figured out that...
She's also the only one of them who's not only been born, but given birth. Yes, her daughter is going to play out in a later episode, somewhere down the line - this is the gun on the mantle, as it were - but remember that whereas Angelica symbolically gave birth to the Cluster, Riley's actually done it physically. That's going to come into play.
Something I can't figure out, though, and it's just very likely that Jonas was lying lying pants on fire-ing, but...
If that's the case, I wish we had seen more of Riley doing that.
As for the other part, the way I see it,
It's probably the ultimate reason Whispers is tracking them down. He may have some sort of villainous "for the greater good" reason (imagine what might happen if Wolfgang had no conscience and superior willpower than the others, and could just forcibly take the others' skills and use them for crime, imagine if he was a terrorist, etc.).
Yrsa is IMO the most telling case. She is this wavering vaguely-neutral figure that seems to disagree with Whispers' doings, but still works for the corporation, which means she probably agrees that the Sensates must be monitored/controlled before they can just take the world by storm.
If that's the case, I wish we had seen more of Riley doing that.
** spoiler omitted **
As for the other part, the way I see it,
** spoiler omitted **
Yrsa is not working for the evil corp or with Whispers. In fact she plainly states that contacting Riley in the present was a mistake, and that she was picking up and getting out of dodge to prevent Whispers from finding her.
Jonas on other hand...I think he is probably secretly working with Whispers. Will seems him strapped down, but since Will can contact him he HAS to put on a air of captivity.
At the best, Jonas is a magneto figure who might be against Whispers, but probably has his own not very nice agenda.
** spoiler omitted **If that's the case, I wish we had seen more of Riley doing that.
** spoiler omitted **
As for the other part, the way I see it,
** spoiler omitted **
Wolfgang sort of lost his uniqueness as the show went on, sorta overlapping with Sun and Will (originally I thought Will was more of a firearms specialist and Sun was the melee specialist, but Will and Wolfgang sort of started blending together as "generic fighters").
There's a major, subtle but important difference between Will and Wolfgang.
Wolfgang is a stone cold killer. Will thinks like a police officer, he'll threaten to shoot you, and he'll do it if he has to, but he'll try all non-violent means first, and nonlethal means second before killing a man. He's compassionate and hesitates to take human life.
Wolfgang does not. Enemy humans are an obstacle to overcome. He's not emotionless, or a "monster" like he claims to be, he just feels very little (or even no) remorse about killing someone who needs to be killed, and he will not hesitate to do it.
Have none of you figured out that...
** spoiler omitted **
So far there's nothing to "figure out". It's an interesting theory, but until I see proof otherwise, I'm just going to keep on going with the less mystical idea that it was the usual "Great artists can make you feel, man" flowery language.
There's a major, subtle but important difference between Will and Wolfgang.
Wolfgang is a stone cold killer. Will thinks like a police officer, he'll threaten to shoot you, and he'll do it if he has to, but he'll try all non-violent means first, and nonlethal means second before killing a man. He's compassionate and hesitates to take human life.
Wolfgang does not. Enemy humans are an obstacle to overcome. He's not emotionless, or a "monster" like he claims to be, he just feels very little (or even no) remorse about killing someone who needs to be killed, and he will not hesitate to do it.
Yeah, I know they're different characters, but I'm talking in terms of their skillset. They are both decent at melee fighting, decent at firearms, and good at physical intimidation. While Will has "cop instincts" that Wolfgang lacks, and Wolfgang has that "ruthlessness" that Will doesn't have, they are still fairly similar when it comes to the talents they can lend to the other Sensates.
Not to mention right now Riley doesn't seem to have a skill to lend to others (even if she's good at linking them and all the stuff people are pointing out, she doesn't have a lot to offer to the others in terms of "I need someone who can do X!").
There's a major, subtle but important difference between Will and Wolfgang.
Wolfgang is a stone cold killer. Will thinks like a police officer, he'll threaten to shoot you, and he'll do it if he has to, but he'll try all non-violent means first, and nonlethal means second before killing a man. He's compassionate and hesitates to take human life.
Wolfgang does not. Enemy humans are an obstacle to overcome. He's not emotionless, or a "monster" like he claims to be, he just feels very little (or even no) remorse about killing someone who needs to be killed, and he will not hesitate to do it.
Yeah, I know they're different characters, but I'm talking in terms of their skillset. They are both decent at melee fighting, decent at firearms, and good at physical intimidation. While Will has "cop instincts" that Wolfgang lacks, and Wolfgang has that "ruthlessness" that Will doesn't have, they are still fairly similar when it comes to the talents they can lend to the other Sensates.
Not to mention right now Riley doesn't seem to have a skill to lend to others (even if she's good at linking them and all the stuff people are pointing out, she doesn't have a lot to offer to the others in terms of "I need someone who can do X!").
She's a musician. Though not as useful as some of the other skills she's your girl if you need to rock out on karokee night. Plus maybe she's got something we don't know about.
Basically she's a bard.
She's not even a musician. She's a DJ.
Hey, DJs are musicians too! Riley's father made a point of explaining it as well! xD
She's not even a musician. She's a DJ.
Her job is DJ. Growing up with her dad I'd bet she can play an instrument or three.
** spoiler omitted **** spoiler omitted **If that's the case, I wish we had seen more of Riley doing that.
** spoiler omitted **
As for the other part, the way I see it,
** spoiler omitted **
Yrsa was working in a doctors office and happened upon Riley's medical tests or whatever then. Presumably EvilCorp monitors that information, and Yrsa just prevented them from getting wind of Riley. I never got a sense she was working for them.
Something I just thought of: what if Riley's talent is her extreme endurance? Like, what if, in D&D terms, she has a massive Will and Fort save bonus? After everything she's been through, she might have an epiphany thanks to Will's hope, where she harnesses the strength she had to summon to survive everything that's happened to her, and she can lend that strength to the others?
It would be really cool if some of the Sensates are under extreme pain (perhaps after a car crash, or torture) and Riley takes over and manages to push through the pain for them. I can definitely see her having a type of mental, emotional and physical endurance not even Wolfgang could match.
** spoiler omitted **
I dunno, she seems to know too much. I guess we'll see next season.
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I have a feeling she will be the one to learn how to repel Whispers, and share it with the rest of them.
Something I can't figure out, though, and it's just very likely that Jonas was lying lying pants on fire-ing, but...
Spoiler:
If the Sensates are this way genetically, why do they have to be activated? Clearly Will had the ability to synch up with someone like him (the little girl whose case he's been following all his life, natch), but if that's so, why did they have to be "Born" through Angelica's sacrifice? Things that make you go hmmmm...
** spoiler omitted **Something I can't figure out, though, and it's just very likely that Jonas was lying lying pants on fire-ing, but...
** spoiler omitted **
But...
Because it means that their natural state only comes into being when trauma takes place. When something terrible happens to them. As though it's a defense mechanism, and not a baseline, default way of being.
Perhaps I'm over thinking it.
** spoiler omitted **Something I can't figure out, though, and it's just very likely that Jonas was lying lying pants on fire-ing, but...
** spoiler omitted **
But...
** spoiler omitted **
Perhaps I'm over thinking it.
Jonas is probably a unreliable narrator when it comes to what Sensates are. A bit of a Sensate supremacist was my interpretation. So of course he is going to go on an on how sensates are a new species and have nothing in common with old humanity, are empathetic, and just plain more awesome.