"The OA" on Netflix, with spoilers

#DEEPTHOUGHTS

my fave part was just the credits rolling in the first episode. i don't know why i thought that was so cool. it was very dramatic!

i just wish that they would let science fiction writers write t.v. it's so sad that they don't. there are so many amazing writers out there who would write scripts for a dollar. they are very used to not getting paid much. t.v. SF is rarely as compelling as good written SF by professionals. i said this somewhere else but one of the reasons why people still remember old star trek episodes is due to the writing talent they had on that corny two dollar show.

Working backwards thru eephus!'s concerns:

Hap abandoned Prairie for the reasons he explicitly stated: she has no idea how to find him, and he's planning on moving the other subjects anyway. And I'm fairly certain he wasn't using his real name. So he figured he wasn't in much danger. Plus he clearly had feelings of some sort for her and didn't want to have to put her down.

Apparently you need at least five people to open the gateway, and at least two to revive the dead. The latter is why Hap attempted to make a deal with Prairie. But ultimately I think they were trying to beat him because if he figured out the entire sequence before they did, he didn't need them anymore and clearly wasn't above disposing of them once they'd outlived their usefulness. Rachel...who knows. There may be an actual reason why she was never shown a movement but that we haven't seen yet.

The box of books didn't strike me as anything but a ham-handed attempt by an outside party to discredit Prairie in a way that would only work on a short-sighted high school kid. And which clearly didn't take.

I feel like it's very significant that we haven't seen the shooter's face. I don't feel like it was a random act.

Steve being back in school...I'll give you that one. Not really sure how to explain that except that some time had clearly passed at that point. Possibly his parents had second thoughts about sending their kid to a school staffed by people who have no qualms about selling their charges to random strangers?

it's definitively true that Prairie used to be blind and now suddenly isn't blind?

they sort of explained the away as a result of her getting hit in the head.

The more time goes on the more I'm convinced OA's stories were fake or re-interpreted. I mean, how could she tell a story about what Hap is doing in Cuba in one scene without actually being there? If that's creative license, sure, but it's not feasible at all. I like the theory that the OA disappeared for seven years and the prisoners were all patients in a psych ward.

As Britt has stated in interviews, it's up to the viewer to decide whether they think the stories are real or not. I've expressed before that seems like a cop-out, but maybe it's more about how we create our own narratives despite the facts/lack of facts.

Addendum: Even if the stories are fake, the sharing of trauma with others can be a beautiful release.

Regardless of the veracity of Prairie's story, the element I responded to the most is the level of profound empathy she seems to have tapped into as a result of whatever she went through. Her ability to shut down her ego and bring out the humanity in a character that was initially presented as fairly loathsome and to consistently bring these disparate people together in spite of their differences was really affecting. And the extent to which that ability can easily be faked and abused (my initial assumption about the direction of the show was that she was basically starting or perpetuating a cult) lends some ambiguity to the proceedings and her ultimate objectives.

Related to that, another element that really hit home was when French forced Prairie to confront the fact that she shares so much of herself and is able to form these deep connections with pretty much everyone but her parents.

^ OTM Old Lunch. I was really moved by the banding together of the group.

Regarding her parents, perhaps she resented them for putting her on meds? Her parents always had her best interest in mind, despite that maybe forcing Prairie to want to run away.

the guy who plays Happ was really good imo, made him believable/human without necessarily going all the way to sympathetic/antihero

Oh, for sure. I often have no idea what people are talking about when they complain about bad acting (particularly when there's such a surfeit of inarguable examples of bad acting out there to use as a metric) but I really don't get the complaints with this show. Homer was maybe a little weirdly intense at times but overall I thought the cast was great. Particularly given the fact that this was material that could've easily fallen to pieces in less skilled hands.

I think this is one of the most beautifully realized series I've ever seen.

I may be a sap but I found the ending incredibly, profoundly touching, to the point where I almost cried.

Yeah, this show got to me a couple of times.

I've been reflecting on my initial reactions as I was watching the first episode, and Steve's douchebaggery was so off-putting and it seemed like such an 'edgy' choice that I really doubted that I'd want to continue but mine was clearly the intended reaction and his arc ultimately played out so beautifully.

My gf was desperate for another Net-fix after finishing this so, despite my misgivings, we started Sense8. I'd seen some reviews comparing the two shows, but man, they aren't even in the same ballpark. I was completely absorbed in something else entirely by about fifteen minutes in.

To expand on my Steve thoughts: I appreciate that he wasn't ultimately redeemed or reformed (he's still engaged in assholery by the end) but that he's more engaged in self-reflection and willing to accept responsibility for the way he lashes out. Compare/contrast to the much less convincing change in the asshole Steve of Stranger Things.

the season of Sense 8 was ok but that recent two hour special episode they put out was hot garbage, don't even waste your time.

the only real contemporary comparison I have for this show is the Leftovers

in fact I think they both have 'bathroom afterlife' scenes

it reminded me a lot of the leftovers, that's not a good thing imo. it had a sort of unearned spirituality to it - like it demanded you just gave up your inhibitions just because here's some music and some emotional scripting. didn't really do the work to get you there in the first place.

people coming back is the weirdest fad. so many people coming back shows.

i'm pretty open to any form of supernatural plotline but i dunno, i resent when things go for profundity without having done the necessary grunt work to make me care. profundity is like the end point of every other good thing in a show, imo.

It felt to me like faith and what you do with faith when you're on the receiving and the question of how much credulity you're willing to extend for the sake of faith are underlying themes of the show. In a way, Prairie's motives are as ambiguous as Hap's. They both gained the confidence of followers without providing much evidence to back up their stated motives. The audience is being taken on the same ride as the OA's new crew, and there's always that question of how reliable a narrator she is. It's less about whether or not it's earned than it is whether you're willing to take the leap and trust that it's worth it.

'when you're on the receiving end'

Old Lunch, that's a good read of it. I found this show profoundly touching. Without going into specifics, I went through a period of trauma and rehabilitation and OA's sharing and transformation of her pain via the group sessions was deeply affecting.

people coming back is the weirdest fad. so many people coming back shows.

this reminds me that les revenants is way better than any show discussed in this thread

it is very good but the second season is deadly slow

Just finished. I liked this a lot. I really admired its boldness. It felt really uncompromised, for better or worse. The movements were just the uncoolest loveliest thing.

I felt kind of vindicated when they dropped the blatant "garden of forking paths" reference about halfway through the series because I had already been thinking about borges with this show and even more about bioy-casares.

Amazing acting across the board, really the thing that made it stay aloft, but Hap, Prairie, Homer and Steve were particularly awesome.

I thought I was going to open this thread to find ppl tearing it to shreds. <3

her parents really started bugging the hell out of me and i was kinda hoping they would be abducted. all those sad wet-eyed looks....ugh. so glad they aren't my parents. this was true of dad on walking dead too. just got so tired of his sighing disapproving ass.

that's the only shreds i'm gonna rip though.

borg queen alice krige would be AWESOME in horroe movies though. a la carrie's mom. does she do any? i could totally see her with a big knife in her hand creeping down a bloody staircase.

She was the evil woman spirit in Ghost Story!

"horror" movies...

see i barely remember that movie. i haven't seen ghost story since the 80's.

ah, she was in silent hill. she should only be allowed to make horror.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oq-UCIJPSHw/UWTrsiPECaI/AAAAAAAAB1s/SaER9YA_OWU/s1600/silenthill31.jpg

nice...

http://s0.cinema.com/image_lib/3779_cap01-21.jpg

Oh also, I liked les revenants quite a bit but this was way more toothsome for me.

when he could tell that someone had died by hearing faint music on a subway platform i kinda figured this was a fairy tale she was telling. unless he is magic. maybe he's a magic mad scientist.

if you're worried about an answer about whether prairie's story is true or not, it seems like the only good answer is that some of it happened and some of it didn't, because there's pretty solid evidence for some of it being true (she got those scars somewhere and they seem almost impossible to self-inflict) and some of it being untrue (her narration of scenes she wasn't involved in at all)

"when he could tell that someone had died by hearing faint music on a subway platform"

? I missed this

she got those scars somewhere and they seem almost impossible to self-inflict

wait i thought she DID self-inflict them. how else?

xpost I think scott was referring to the leap in logic required for Hap to have made the assumption that Prairie was a near-death experiencer based solely on her buskery.

oh yeah i guess she did the scars herself. sorry i am dumb.

xpost I think scott was referring to the leap in logic required for Hap to have made the assumption that Prairie was a near-death experiencer based solely on her buskery.

― Dr. Shitfuck (Old Lunch), vrijdag 6 januari 2017 15:33 (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Didn't Hap have a gift to 'hear' someone had had a NDE in the way they played music? Same with the Cuban woman iirc.

Yeah, but that's a thing I didn't quite understand wrt Hap's discovery of Prairie. The suggestion is that Rachel and Renata are tapping into some new style of singing that resonates with fellow NDE survivors, so it makes sense that Hap might know what to listen for in those cases, but Prairie was just playing a song from her childhood. IDGI.

i think it was meant to be the manner of her playing it, not the tune

which is why i think you just have to go with the whole "once upon a time..." fairy tale thing with this show. whether anything really happened to her or not.

maybe she was actually on another planet! that's what i'm hoping. that grand canyon he lived next to looked pretty alien....

Yeah and there's the sound of saturns rings thing

Michigan has never looked so mountainous.

has anyone seen Another Earth? or anything else Brit Marling and this collection of people have done? I remember when Another Earth came out that the trailers looked intriguing; but then I never watched it. They also did a film about a cult which sounds similarly open ended.

I posted about "Another Earth" on a different thread where I compared it to a more mainstream Melancholia. The comparison may be surface or slight, as the biggest similarity here is a planet looming over the earth while a tale of grief goes on down below. It's a beautiful film though.

Watched the first episode last night and thought it was wanky bollocks of the first order, but I was very tired/jetlagged, maybe I was wrong?

i watched the whole thing, but would not argue with anyone who felt that way.

last scene was very Holy Mountain

and still no clue why young nina has hazel eyes, while adult nina has blue eyes. it's def not just 'we can't find a russian speaking blue eyed blonde girl', since they make such a point of her eye color. nancy looks directly in her hazel eyes and refers to them as 'blue as the prairie skies'.

i just go with the stuff that doesn't make sense (octopus, tree). I think this show is seond only to twin peaks in making its preposterous assertions and set pieces somehow believable...at least, you want to believe them.

Yeah! We just rewatched the first season in preparation for the second and I was also thinking that it reminded me of Twin Peaks while being somehow completely unlike Twin Peaks and not something that I would necessarily recommend to fans of Twin Peaks.

It damn well holds up, though. Nuts to the haters, this thing is gold.

I ended up enjoying Season 2 a lot, with the exception of Episode 5 shenanigans, which felt like the writers moving pieces on a chessboard. I love that she went for such a WTF ending. If there is a Season 3, it’s got to be very warped.

who tf is the fbi counsellor?? why did he suddenly understand what was going on??

I think he's supposed to be similar to Elodie? Someone with at least familiarity with the whole traveling concept.

The twin peaks comparison is apt I think- at times it reminded me of a more literal-minded take on The Return

Just finished and, yeah, think this is still safely in my top three of the decade (along with Enlightened and The Return, so clearly Marling just needs to go ahead and recruit Laura Dern ASAP).

So Homer jumped into Patrick 'actor who plays Steve in the Real World' Gibson's body, right?

not reading the previous posts as I'm only partway through but I love how earnestly batshit this show is.
was thinking of quitting after ep 3 (the kids and the mirror with the too-close-to-the-bone Stranger Things reference) but the next episode with 'old night' was just beautiful.

I couldn't remember what happened in s1 so I read a recap and it sounded like the biggest load of old bollocks ever but I remembered enjoying it so pressed on.

I'm very, very glad that I rewatched s1 before s2. Not a commitment I generally make but it was worth it in this case.

ep5 was pretty nonsense until the teeny robots doing the moves omg!

haha wow "I'm Jason Isaacs"
Inland Empire vibes there although with Inland Empire I predicted that part.

This whole series leaned waaay too much on characters remembering/being told by mysterious strangers/ being told by fckn octopi/ having a feeling that someone is nearby but can't quite tell who or why but let's just go over there/ having a dream that they need to go somewhere but they don't really know why - JUST ENOUGH to get them to the next bit then into the "The Cell starring J-Lo" house. Homer remembering important pieces at exactly the right time (or wrong time I suppose) really pissed me off, nothing really made it happen other than Nina being convincing?

Why did eating a bit of the brain flower make Perd Hapley /Hap Percy hear the first few moments of the next dimension and why did he think that 'omg call an ambulance' sounded like a good place to go and could he even choose to go to someplace else? How did he get all the kids into the pool in that dimension? Also wtf at the start of ep6 or whatever with his dream of licking ye olden days back for the price of a bunch of sticks?

also excited to see who's president in this dimension

:(
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/oa-canceled-two-seasons-at-netflix-1229215

Bull. Shit.

NOOOOOOO

THR's chief TV critic Daniel Fienberg called the mysterious drama a "failed, but not wholly worthless, experiment in TV autoerotism.

For all of its goofiness, I really loved this show, and if they truly had it all plotted out, I'm bummed that we won't get to see where it was going.

we should do the movements and see what happens

ugh terrible news, I loved this show, both seasons of it.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B0ykCdLJYD5/?igshid=i1eh6h5w4d7q

I thought this show was very special even if most people would probably be inclined to ensconce that sentiment in scare quotes.

You know, I would have been OK with this after the first season, but now that they've proven that (to my surprise) they can pull off "just set up some new weird thing which will be weird in a similarly OA way but different" once, I feel like maybe they could pull it off several more times, and I'm sad they won't get to.

This sounds like some major wishful thinking, but who knows?

https://www.insider.com/the-oa-cancellation-fake-netflix-fan-theory-2019-8

Paddy Gibson as Steve as "Paddy Gibson" on the final scene of "Part II."

Aces.

that would be fucking awesome and it makes sense. I'll hold out hope.

Can anyone else imagine some sort of 'we want sauce' Rick and Morty bullshit from OA fans?

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheOA/comments/cmmhrr/what_if_it_is_our_responsibility_to_save_the_oa/

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2019 season is nominated in the 2019 ILX TV poll:

ILX's Best Television of 2019 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends January 31

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (4 minimum, 25 maximum, organized by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail by end of day today. It'll take five minutes; get to it!