Sense8 Recap episode 3: Smart Money is on the Skinny Bitch

A.K.A the episode in which Sun kicks literally all of the ass, Capheus steals my heart and drives away with it, and I meet my new favorite character in all of fiction ever.

The episode begins with flashback-Will trying to convince us that he’s still relevant you guys, honest. Anyway, the little foreshadowing girl (who is named Sarah Patrell) says something ominous and then adult Will wakes up in a hospital bed. The nurse implies that they need to keep him in for observation (read: lobotomy) but Will just nonchalantly walks out of the hospital like it’s no big deal. Wait, that was an option? Why didn’t anybody tell Nomi? He learns that because of him, Jonas is now in custody, so he goes to the precinct hoping to interrogate him, but finds out that the feds have moved him to a more secure facility and won’t let him enter. That’s all we really get out of Will this episode, which is just as well. He’s kind of generic at this point, and everyone else keeps getting more and more awesome by the minute, so it’s really no big loss.

Speaking of characters that really need to start getting awesome stat, we cut to Riley on the London subway station. She sees a blind man playing the piano and decides to give him all of Nyx’s money. Did she just inadvertently implicate a disabled person in mass homicide and theft? That is cold, Riley. Anyway, she goes to a friend, Shugs, to see if he can put her up for a while. He and his girlfriend Bambie (who is Australian, and she’ll keep reminding you of it every time she opens her mouth) are more than welcoming. Shugs takes precious time out of the episode to compare Riley’s mad DJ skills to the freaking Aurora Borealis, suggesting (nay, outright stating) that the aurora has nothing on Riley. Okay… are those mad DJ skills going to be useful at some point? Everyone and their mother keeps hyping them up. They better accomplish something soon.

Ah, but who cares? We’re now moving on to the single most adorable couple in the world: Hernando and Lito. Hernando is teasing Lito by mockingly mouthing all of his costar’s lines while making breakfast. He’s also making me fall more and more in love with him by the second. Daniela comes in and ruins the moment, but she also echoes my sentiments by calling them adorable, so I forgive her. Lito and Hernando try to get Daniela away from them, but Daniela rightly points out that they have no right to play with her emotions and then kick her to the curb. Besides, she has no problem being their beard, so long as they’re willing to put her up while things cool down with her ex. Said ex is apparently not the nicest guy ever, and he’s probably more than a little upset that she, and I quote, “fucked his best friend.” Lito and Hernando’s reactions throughout this scene are absolute perfection, but this has to be my favorite:


Over dinner, Lito digs for more information about Daniela’s infamous boyfriend, Joaquin. She kinda sorta maybe heavily implies that Joaquin is a drug dealer that works for her father and that the ‘conversation’ between him and his best friend was kinda sorta maybe a little more violent than you’d like. Y’know, normal stuff. She then deflects the interrogation by asking Lito why he chose her to be his beard. Lito explains that Hernando thought she had kind eyes. And I just…I can’t even.


The next day, during shooting, Lito gets a surprise visit from…Joaquin. This can’t end well. Joaquin is charming and funny and personable and just the nicest guy to Lito.


Joaquin offers (read: demands) to take Lito to lunch, where he ‘playfully’ puts a knife to Lito’s jugular and instructs him on the proper way to cut a man’s throat. Then he asks Lito if Daniela is happy. Lito puts his not-at-all-foreshadowed lying skills to good use and tells him that she’s never been happier. Joaquin looks heartbroken but promises never to bother Lito again. I’m sure that’s the last we’ve seen of this murderous drug dealer. Lito is definitely, absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, safe.


In San Francisco, Nomi is force fed some drugs and taken to perform the lobotomy “medical procedure,” but it has to get cut short when one of the hospital waiting rooms goes down in flames. Then we’re treated to this flashback:


Guys, help! I’m in love with too many characters. I don’t even know how to handle it. If Nomi is to be believed, Amanita literally burned the hospital down before letting anyone touch Nomi’s brain. I just…I can’t deal with this guys. Too much awesomeness wrapped in one beautiful Freema Agyeman-shaped package.

Moving on to Mumbai, Kala goes to a meeting in her pharmaceutical company where she completely ignores the very important subject-matter of counterfeit medicine being sold and instead focuses on how uncomfortable Rajan’s perfection is making her. Because priorities.

Over in Nairobi, Capheus is coincidentally having trouble with his mother’s AIDS medicine. It turns out that he’s been unwittingly buying counterfeit medicine that is only making his mother feel worse. Huh. Interesting. Is there a connection between Kala’s company issues and Capheus’ dilemma? All signs point to yes, but it’s still too early to tell.

Capheus’ friend Jela manages to get him some genuine medicine before they set out on their daily route.

Meanwhile, in Seoul, Sun is very pointedly ignoring a banker’s phone calls. She angrily storms into her father’s office and demands to speak with him, but the very smug looking secretary (I don’t like her) says he’s unavailable. When asked if she wants to leave him a message, Sun responds by literally punching a hole in the secretary’s desk. And also earning herself one of these:


It turns out that Sun, who has been neglected by her father her whole life, has a certain need to vent. It just so happens that the way she vents her frustrations is through underground kickboxing tournaments. As in, she actively participates in them. And she kicks ass. So, so much ass. And I love her.

This fight also gives us the episode’s title drop, as Sun’s opponent refuses to fight her on account of her being a woman. The referee taunts him by saying that “Smart money is on the skinny bitch.” At this point, I knew that some serious awesome was about to happen, but I could never anticipate the sheer volume of it.

Meanwhile, Capheus tries to pick up more passengers for his business, only to get attacked by a gang calling itself Superpower. They aptly say, “We are the Superpower. We take the fuck we want.” Okay. It’s good that they have a clear mission statement. The last thing you want is to be part of a gang that just blunders about with no goal in mind.

Anyway, the gang steals everything, including an elderly woman’s wedding ring. They strip Capheus’ pants down, steal his mother’s medicine, and leave him humiliated on the street. I was about to start crying, but then I saw Sun’s pent up rage feed into Capheus. I saw him get up from the ground and decide to go after the thieves and, again, I knew that much awesomeness was about to happen.

What I did not expect, was that the elderly woman refused to get off the bus. She said that the ring they took from her was the only memento she had left of her husband, and she would see it returned.


With that one speech alone, she officially became my favorite character in all of television ever. Can we get more of her please? Can she become a sensate? Can she get her own spinoff? Five seasons, a movie, a comic book deal, and a novel series, at least. She deserves all of it and more! Come on people, let’s make it happen. This lady deserves it!

Anyway, what follows is an unbelievably epic chase sequence in which Capheus literally runs the Van Damn into the gangsters, gets off the bus and smacks one across the face with a lead pipe, and when it looks like they’re about to get the best of him, motherfuckin’ SUN BAK takes over his body and proceeds to give the beat down to end all beat downs while at the same time winning her own tournament fight. As it’s all going down, my face is just literally like:


It’s so amazing that I do not think words alone can describe it. So here it is in it’s full, amazing glory:


And again, because it needs to be shown twice:

I know it's been a while since you posted this, but I REALLY enjoy them and hope you keep going!

I also adored the lady in the van and started tearing up just reading your recap of her

"The last thing you want is to be part of a gang that just blunders about with no goal in mind."
So snarky
I know right ? The LEAST you can do is always have a mission statement ready for when you rob people. :b