The Netflix series The OA is one of the most intriguing, thoughtful and psychologically challenging shows that the streaming service has ever released on its platform, which is really saying a lot. Sadly The OA was just canceled after its season two release, and the show left off with way more questions than answers. But now we’re officially left with what we already have, so we might as well enjoy what we got and be grateful that we got any of The OA at all.
The writing for the series was so richly layered and detailed that someone could probably watch it ten times through and still miss a little something. It’s clear from the storytelling and the way that characters and plot lines seem to connect when you’d never expect them to that a lot of thought and planning went into every scene of the series. There are a lot of things that are easy to miss, so here are ten things that you probably missed from The OA’s season two.
They Jumped Into Another Dimension, Not Our Dimension
The very end of The OA’s second season was concluded on a cliffhanger twist that absolutely no one could have seen coming. OA and Hap jump to another dimension. But the versions of OA and Hap that exist in this dimension are actually the show’s actors, Brit Marling and Jason Isaacs, and they appear to be working on The OA at that very moment. On that basis alone it’s easy to assume that the show has transitioned to the “real world” dimension, however Hap states that Brit is his wife, which clearly isn’t true. So they’ve gotten closer to our dimension in theory, but they’re not there yet.
Season 2 Homer And Season 1 Homer Almost Came Face To Face
Season two of The OA did a good job of pulling some disparate plot threads from season one together into something that actually made sense. When it comes to Homer, in season one he has an NDE that takes him to another place, a place that looks like a generic hospital where he’s being chased by the hospital staff before coming back to his home dimension. Then in season two while Homer is in the mental hospital one of the other employees mentions that there is a man running around the hospital that the staff members can’t catch. And if those hints aren’t enough, OA says this to Homer directly when she believes she hears the other Homer moving around in the ceiling.
Scott May Have Already Seen The Third Dimension
Another interesting tidbit about these characters and their inter-dimensional travel is one of Scott’s NDE’s. It looks like the dimension that OA and the rest of the group travel to is the dimension that Homer has already visited, but the next dimension that they all travel to may have been one that has already been visited by Scott Brown as well.
When Scott is describing his NDE he talks about being in a place with a lot of bright light where they called Prairie by a name that started with B, which sounds exceptionally similar to the dimension that the characters wind up in at the end of the season.
So Scott May Be In The Third Dimension
So Hap’s entire group of captives along with Hap himself traveled to the second dimension, which is the setting for the bulk of the second season. But the NDE that Scott has doesn’t appear to be a visit to this dimension, but to the dimension that many of the characters wind up in at the end of the season. And since Scott died in the second dimension it’s fair to guess that he may already be in the third dimension as well. It’s also intriguing to think about whether or not this is a running theme, that characters may see glimpses of the particular dimensions they’ll travel to before they actually go there.
What Was Mental Became Reality
One of the more interesting breaks with the mythology of The OA’s season one is that from what we see in the first season, trans-dimensional travel is metaphysical, not physical. Yes, the characters die and wake up in different dimensions as different versions of themselves, but it’s their consciousness that moves, they’re not necessarily breaking a physical barrier to enter another world.
However the rose window seems to indicate that there are literal, physical ways of moving from one dimension to another. Or at the very least there are portals or windows that allow people to see across dimensions without having to die first.
Homer’s Amnesia Has Already Been Explained
Homer’s amnesia was probably the most convenient thing that could have happened for Hap and the least convenient thing that could have happened for everyone else, but it wasn’t just some random plot contrivance. Yes, Homer not remembering who he is definitely facilitated the bulk of the drama for season two, but in season one both Prairie and Hap discuss the possibility that once someone’s consciousness enters another version of themselves they may forget their former life, or their current version may repress those memories. It is curious however, that Homer is the only one out of everyone who forgets his past life.
Prairie’s Doves
This little Easter egg may have just been a fun call back to catch the attention of more eagle-eyed viewers, but considering how layered The OA is it’s a safe bet that there is some meaning or symbolism behind it. One of the stranger elements of traveling through dimensions is that eating something alive in another dimension gives you some kind of unexplained connection to that place. Homer eats some kind of sea creature in his NDE, and Prairie eats a dove. It’s quite strange then that at the end of season two when OA/Brit has a nasty fall on the set of her show it appears that a dove was the cause of it.
Azrael Is The Angel Of Death
The OA is no stranger to getting weird, but they took things to a whole other level with the whole Nina Azarova medium show with some giant psychic octopus. Nina telepathically communicates with this octopus as a part of a show at some underground club, and during the performance that OA takes part in this octopus tells her that he can show her something if she only allows him to kill her for a few seconds.
The octopus is called Old Night, but the octopus tells OA that his name is actually Azrael. Curiously, Azrael is literally the name for the angel of death.
Is There An FBI Conspiracy?
Rogue One star Riz Ahmed had a recurring guest role on The OA in seasons one and two, and although he initially just seemed like an FBI agent who was trying to counsel Prairie through her disappearance and reappearance it seems like there may have been more to him than what we first saw. He provides OA with some helpful and beneficial advice in season one, but he generally seems clueless about OA’s real experiences. But after being mostly absent in season two, he abruptly appears to assist the remaining members of OA’s squad in the original dimension, and he explains that he’s aware of the multiple dimensions and he was sent to assist OA. So it’s plausible that the FBI itself has some awareness about these dimensions too.
Parallel Puzzle Masters
One of the more intriguing elements of The OA season two (that obviously will never get any resolution now that the show has been canceled) is the strange parallels of Hap and Nina’s apparent boyfriend in the secondary dimension, Pierre Ruskin. They’re clearly going about it in different ways, but they’re both men who are using others as an experimental project in finding the answers about other dimensions and how to get there. It’s also interesting to see how separate dimensions can still mirror each other or seem like they’re only a few twists and turns away from another dimension.
