With just one week to go until the premiere episode’s release, Netflix has unveiled the first Sense8 season 2 trailer.

Netflix is rolling out Sense8 season 2 untraditionally: The first episode, a two-hour (!) Christmas special, will be released on Friday, December 23. The rest of the season won’t be out until May.

In the Sense8 season 2 Christmas special, “The journey continues as these eight singular hearts and minds weave in and out of each other’s lives finding deeper connections, learning darker, more desperate secrets about one another and struggling to identify with more than just oneself,” according to Netflix.

Watch the ‘Sense8’ Christmas special trailer:

As for why this special episode exists? In another just-released video from the show’s co-creator, we learn that Lana Wachowski always loved Christmas specials from her favorite shows as a child. We can relate to watching the characters celebrating holidays that we celebrate in the real world, she says.

Lana asked Netflix if she could shoot the holiday special, and they said yes, because in her words, they’re cool like that.

The rest of the season arrives May 5. From Netflix: “Picking up where season one left off, Capheus, Kala, Lito, Nomi, Riley, Sun, Will and Wolfgang come together both physically and mentally, plunged into the middle of each other’s tragedies and triumphs. On the run from Whispers, and forced to question their very identity, it’s a matter of survival as the Sensates must find a way to live with, understand and protect one another against all odds.”