Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what movies I’ve seen over the past week. Below, you will find short reviews of those movies along with a star rating. Full length reviews may come at a later date.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

Sense8

They may have had made their debut in 1996 with the acclaimed Bound, but the Wachowski Sisters (then brothers) reached the pinnacle of their success three years later with the sci-fi blockbuster The Matrix. After two ill-advised sequels, Lilly and Lana Wachowski would move on to other projects, none of which ever quite reached the luster of their original Matrix.

Speed Racer was a visual smorgasbord, but otherwise seemed cheap. Cloud Atlas tried to convey a compelling concept, but did so fitfully and without satisfying success. Jupiter Ascending was another solid sci-fi concept that didn’t work in execution thanks to a bevy of cheap, excessive performances. While they never collapsed as filmmakers like M. Night Shyamalan did, they have also found their rebirth in the Netflix original series Sense8. Born on August 8 of the same year, eight individuals from diverse economic and cultural backgrounds become linked, sharing memories, conversations, and actions with one another.

Over the course of twelve episodes, each characters is given time to shine as we discover what makes each one tick, what makes each one strong, and what makes each one love. There’s the South Korean businesswoman (Doona Bae) who fights against cultural bias as her father and brother ignore her contributions. There’s the transgender American hacker (Jamie Clayton) and activist struggling to battle an emotionally abusive mother and find justification in the arms of her lover (Freema Agyeman). There’s the Indian scientist (Tina Desai) who must battle cultural who must rectify her independent nature and love of the gods against her culture and parents’ demand for marriage even if they cannot understand what it all means to her. There’s the Icelandic music DJ (Tuppence Middleton) who must come to terms with the painful death of her husband and her escape into the drug-fueled party scenes of London.

There’s the German safe cracker (Max Riemelt) whose violent environment helped him build character while escaping his familial baggage. There’s the Mexican movie star (Miguel Angel Silvestre) who must keep his relationship with an art lover (Alfonso Herrara) a secret or jeopardize his career. There’s the Chicago cop (Brian J. Smith) whose memory of a young girl’s murder haunts him and his ex-cop father who would rather he focus on his future rather than the past. And there’s the Nairobi bus driver (Aml Ameen) who works to afford the medicine to get her AIDS-stricken mother the medicine she needs to stay alive.

These eight characters are expertly woven together, creating a rich tapestry of fascinating characters who must, over time, come to understand their connection and the benefits and limitations of those connections. With Bae’s Sun Bak providing needed martial arts training to help less capable individuals to fight off their enemies, or Desai’s Kala using her vast scientific knowledge to help out where necessary, this is a film about relying on one other to build and defend their community while fighting against a nefarious program wanting to destroy all sensates, including this newest cluster.

The final episode takes every element that’s been quietly explored as the film progresses and builds to a capably woven tapestry of cause and effect, pushing the group towards the protection of one of their own. The fascinating interconnectivity is just one aspect of this compelling program to impress. The wonderfully diverse cast paired with a progressive, all love is equal approach to unity make for a thrilling production. This is easily the best thing the Wachowskis have done since The Matrix, and although I know the show has been cancelled, I look forward to watching the second season and hope that Netflix hears the outpouring of support the show has received and decides to reverse its decision to end the program, especially since the final episode of season 2 is said to be a cliffhanger.