If you feel like putting into words everything that went wrong/made you dislike the finale, I'd love to hear it
plotwise, it’s under the read more below! and it’s more of a rambling i had 2 years ago + what i remember 2 years later now lmao. logistically, what went wrong i think i’ve answered before. basically if netflix didn’t give the show a tight timeline for filming the finale, i think things would have turned out smoother. if it took an extra year or two to release the finale, i think it would have turned out with much higher quality and more consideration with regards to like everything really
act 1: the plan
planning and subsequent rescuing of wolfgang in the first 30-40 minutes instead of the whole thing taking an entire goddamn hour. cut out wolfgang trying to kill himself. a waste of 5 minutes that should have directly introduced the chairman.
cut out lito’s meltdown and don’t have rajan show up at all. it was a lazy plot device to help jonas escape and a waste of 7 minutes
will and riley meet up with felix and bug instead of that French lady riley like can we get some more lito and kala instead
will fighting bodhi was absolutely pointless??? An excuse to have a fight for no reason like it wouldn’t have made bodhi trying to stab whispers in the club any different (it would’ve made it better imo coming out of nowhere)
the dani and amanita scene was good but a serious continuity error since the show is supposed to be from the perspective of one of the 8
river el-sadaawi was a completely useless character to introduce like it should’ve just been hoy and yrsa talking with riley
convo between hoy, Riley and kirsty was a solid waste of 3 minutes
act 2: the exchange
rajan should not have been part of the exchange lol just swap him out for Felix and it’s all good
Considering Whispers does nothing in this finale other than being a hot potato passed around by people if he died in the club when Bodhi stabbed him it would’ve made an interesting turn of events
hot take: mun shouldn’t have shown up and a more creative resolution to sun’s story could have been written better
I feel like puck should have been part of this scene somehow
everything else pretty much okay
act 3: the lacuna
instead of staying at rajan’s random friend’s place just say it’s riley’s friend? literally makes more sense that way
no lacuna or bodhi shit. it was all deux ex machina like something could’ve been written better by strictly having old man of hoy and yrsa without needing to introduce new mythology
The lacuna concept felt cheap and removed a lot of what I thought kept the sense8 universe grounded in reality.
The mother was pointless to introduce like they could have gotten yrsa or some shit to get them the info on lila being in naples with whispers or just simply have his damn blockers wear off momentarily for will and wolfgang to figure out where he is instead of some weird old lady telling them her son’s backstory and somehow omniscient power of knowing whispers’ location
If Bodhi really didn’t want to be complacent with her stance on Milton and BPO why only NOW did she bother to take action? Why did the Mother only contact them now when God knows how long this weird zombie shit has been happening?
Also why the fuck did Bodhi not even bother to go with them to Naples to kill Milton? She didn’t want to remain complacent and yet she remained so throughout.
act 4: naples
another hot take: they all should’ve sang “rather be” by clean bandit instead on their way to naples. also diego didnt need to show up lol
capheus, felix, wolfgang, kala in the car. rest is the same
this scene should have happened halfway through at the ~90 minute mark
exposition of talking with lila could have been more elaborate. i don’t like that they cut out lila interrupting their pizza party
The transition to Sun and Riley meeting Alphonse and Sutra was messy and badly edited. Everyone in the cluster suddenly is there too? Like at least give some sort of indication they all went to meet Puck
trojan horse/forcella was good but not written or executed well
Kala should have been with Felix and Wolfgang while infiltrating the Forcella. Capheus should have been driving Nomi, Bug, and Amanita and picking up the rest of the cluster along the way/during infiltration of the Forcella.
“My wife... you’re a killer! Teach me!” seriously uncomfortable with Rajan saying that as if he didn’t sound like some kind of sociopath
Kala shouldn’t have gotten shot anyways it was literally 5 minutes of screen time that could have been allotted to a more satisfying confrontation between Lila, Milton, The Chairman, and our Cluster rather than an attempt to get an emotional response from a shock moment.
Jonas’ last monologue went on for too long; for some reason he really had to explain things instead of just “showing” and letting the audience infer to figure it out (particularly the psychic ligature/psycranium stuff)
the bad guys died in literally the most emotionally unsatisfying way. i didn’t need the chairman in this. say shit about whispers manipulating everyone from the top. the chairman being the zombie of like whispers or lila would’ve been way more elaborate. seemed like the writers somehow wrote themselves into a pit where they couldn’t think of anything better. Will and Wolfgang not confronting Whispers for a final time detracted from the emotional and psychological impact Whispers had on their well-beings.
Also like the bloodbath overall was a bit unsettling considering we saw pretty much everyone we know from the show kill bad guys which wasn’t really justified? Like Sun and Mun just knocked people out and killed maybe 4 or 5 people but damn the rest of them not even the slightest hint of trauma? Idk it was weird and I didn’t like it
my queen lila shouldn’t have died
there was so much bad editing here especially with trying to make it look like miguel/lito wasn’t absent
act 5: wedding
if they just cut out a bunch of the bullshit i mentioned earlier we could have gotten a montage or at least some sequence of the sun, lito, kala, and capheus’ stories getting resolved. maybe even some shit with nomi and the guy.
Cutscene to talking about a penis joke with rajan and kala instead of updating us on Cepheus or lito’s lives? Yeah totally makes sense
Hernando should’ve officiated the wedding
Transphobia curing weed brownie? No thanks
rajalagang... cool motive but terrible execution for the most part? idk i needed more rajan and wolfgang being gayer with each other. but then again if rajan wasnt in all of this it wouldve not really made any difference other than probably having just kala and wolfgang kiss
the orgy should have strictly been the 8 + hernando + amanita + mun + zakia. no one else.