Anyone else watching this? Amazing show. Very Stranger Things / Lost / West World type of feel.

I have two episodes left.

1/8/2017 3:19:53 PM

Yeah we're on episode 5. Crazy stuff. We've really enjoyed it so far.

1/8/2017 11:27:28 PM

i watched the first episode and wasn't sucked in. should i stick with it?

1/8/2017 11:40:56 PM

It's fine until the last episode

1/8/2017 11:44:58 PM

^

1/9/2017 12:11:26 AM

Finished it on Saturday. The last episode kind of fell apart. Didn't quite make sense to me but that is probably because there was a deeper meaning somewhere that I didn't quite follow. Still a decent show though.

1/9/2017 8:44:30 AM

i loved it. The final episode was really good, even if it did leave a lot to be desired. I was so entrenched with both timelines.

Spoilers:




There is no way those books under the bed were hers. Planted by the FBI is more likely, especially with the therapist being in the house and catching Alfonso. I also thought it was really strange that Rachel was never given a movement, even after years of trying. Makes you wonder if she was truly an NDE survivor or there in the cage to monitor the other 4.

1/9/2017 8:59:10 AM

I was wondering why the FBI guy was in the house. Yes it seemed like they were planted... they looked completely unread and new, and the timeline wouldn't quite match up from when she returned home to having ordered/read 5 books to when she started telling them her story. Also, why did Alfonso sneak into her house to begin with?

What is the reasoning for planting the books though? We know she was definitely held captive -- she had the scars on her back. The FBI guy said that when she was examined she had a Vitamin D deficiency. When she was a kid she was speaking Russian. The two guys found that youtube video of her playing violin at the subway station. So at least those parts of the story had to be true and the people around her knew it.

[Edited on January 9, 2017 at 9:17 AM. Reason : ]

1/9/2017 9:11:39 AM

Damnit, because of you people, it's 2:30 in the morning, and I'm still watching this stuff.

1/10/2017 2:33:10 AM

Great time-killer this weekend. I agree the show gets better as it goes on, even if the finale is frustrating as hell.


SPOILERS:

1. Here's the thing about the ending -- if all this was some elaborate lie made up by Prairie, then why did she look for (and FIND) the clip of Homer on YouTube earlier in the season? I think the idea of someone planting the books is pretty solid. Guess we'll have to wait for Season 2. (Assuming there's a season 2)

2. The one thing I really don't get is French briefly "turning" into Homer while looking in the mirror. I just can't make any connection there, except that they both helped and trusted Prairie.

2. I know it was supposed to be serious, but the group doing their movements during the gunmen scene made me LOL ... especially Phyllis from the office.

1/10/2017 12:35:00 PM

I felt silly whenever they were doing the movements - I kinda wish the writers would have used a different vehicle to the other dimensions, maybe an elaborate language or something. But I guess spoken word to invoke another dimension is a pretty hackneyed idea.

The FBI guys knows more than he's letting on, I think. I think he's studying her for the government, and trying to plant doubts in everyone else's head about her story. Maybe he's even in on it. Anesthesiologists make a lot of money, but come on, how much do we think Hap's setup cost? Could he be getting funding from a different source?

1/10/2017 1:06:42 PM

^^I thought for a minute that the French/Homer mirror thing was maybe somehow Homer reaching out to French. Perhaps after French had started to learn the different movements, Homer could "sense" him somehow, maybe he was the most similar to Homer or something, and he was maybe trying to communicate with him?

And I can't shake Phyllis from the office being a silly character in general so unfortunately every scene with her seemed a little out of place for me. The whole movements in general, especially the little sounds they made when they did them seemed a little weird. But its a weird show so who knows.

In terms of Hap having the funding -- its possible that he had funding from somewhere else, but what about his doctor friend that he killed? They were both clearly studying the same thing (Hap told the nurse about the people that needed help in the abandoned wing of the hospital). If they were both getting funding from the same place, his friend wouldn't be so pissed off that Hap was as close as he was. If only Hap were getting funding, it is odd that he would have a friend studying the exact same thing. I guess maybe his friend could want to be the one that gets the credit for the discovery of an afterlife, but at the same time, would you want to be the person associated with the immoral imprisonment/murder of tons of people over however many years? If they were getting funding, you'd think the funding entity would be big enough to provide inmates on death row or something. Still unethical, but less questions asked about missing people.

1/10/2017 5:43:54 PM

Yeah Phyllis was poorly casted. She's just too much of a joke to be in a show like this. At least Hershel from Walking Dead is somewhat believable.

On the other hand, I think Hap was perfectly casted. Jason Issacs is great at being charming as hell, creepy as hell, and a cold-hearted badass when need be. You almost feel sorry for him in some scenes, despite how monstrous he's being.

French and Steve's characters are great also. And Brit Marling is obviously great in the lead role

The only character I really don't like is Prairie's mom. There is something incredibly off-putting about that woman

1/10/2017 5:51:28 PM

I think this series did a lot of things really well but the ending was so fucking stupid. I just don't see how somebody didn't watch that scene and just nope out. It was so cringy to watch and completely unnecessary. This also premiered right around the anniversary of Sandy Hook, which was controversial in its own right. Stopping the school shooting would have gotten the point across. Like, that wasn't even the point of the dance. Why were they doing that? They should have had the bad kid try to stop it and get shot and then they revive him privately (in a classroom) or something.

Also, why did he stab OA in the fucking kidney or whatever?

And why didn't Hap have any kind of audio monitoring if he was so obsessive?

Good points about him being able to afford that, or to make enough money to sustain that plus hangar an airplane, be able to fly it all around, etc.

tl;dr - it was such an amazing show until they just shit out the last episode like it was season 8 of Dexter

1/10/2017 5:57:08 PM

I never watched The Office; from that angle, I felt Phyllis was brilliantly cast. She was definitely one of the strongest characters in the show and brought a lot of real emotion.

The show was clearly created with Sci-Fi mystery at the start, gradually translating into "wait, is she crazy"? The hints are sprinkled into the early episodes, but you don't recognize these issues until later; some might only be noticed if you watch again. Some examples:

-Both her father and Hap happened to work in a quarry? And how did she, a blind person at the time, know that Hap's location was a quarry? All she found was a large, empty cliff-side which she couldn't see.

-How did OA know what happened with Hap and his competitor? Also that purple liquid that was both in the competitor's drawer and the bathtub in which OA found Summer. OA is clearly making up details, whether purposeful or not.

-Rachael's NDE story involves a car crash with a red backpack lying on the side of the road. A few episodes before this story was given, one of the character's passes by a very similar scene. OA is clearly blending the past and present and getting memories mixed up; or she is flat out lying.

---

I tend to lean towards the theory that she went through a traumatic experience and went crazy in captivity in order to survive. There is very little in her story as told which you can trust. Even the video of "her" playing the violin in NYC doesn't show her face, so you cannot be sure that is even her. The show is less about explaining crazy extra-dimensional phenomenon and more about character development. Unfortunately, if they do a second season, I feel they will likely have to push more towards Sci-Fi.

That being said, there are a lot of other unexplained details they still need to address. Two of my favorite points:

-The writers clearly have some greater plan for Phyllis's brother. First, there is the very tenuously link to him and Hap as they both listened to metal music (the only two such instances of this in the show in which every director decision is supposed to have meaning . . . or so they say). Perhaps they are the same person. Also, his given name is "Theo". Phyllis has a hyphenated last name, presumably from a previous marriage. The important part is that her maiden name may have started with an 'A', making her brother "Theo A" or "The OA".

-Rachael is a very unused character but there are a lot of very specific details around her. She didn't get a movement. All of her cell plants are dead. There is braille in the FBI office that inexplicably translates to "Rachael".

---

If they push the Sci-Fi angle in a future season, I hope they still keep the "she's crazy" angle. The two angles are not mutually exclusive, and we already know she is somewhat crazy.

1/16/2017 10:56:09 AM

i fucking lost it when they started dancing

lol, this show is terrible

1/16/2017 11:14:39 AM

I almost noped out when she met Khatun. HolyCrapHippyWetDream

I think its more interesting as a series to break down and figure out the clues as mentioned above to see what you believe.

And them acting together to try to stop the shooter was powerful but undercut because it looked so weird.

1/16/2017 1:58:37 PM

i guess i was into the show much that the final school scene did not bother me at all. Yeah, it was hokey but it in no way bothered me like it did most of you.

1/16/2017 2:14:42 PM

Quote :

"Yeah, it was hokey but it in no way bothered me like it did most of you."

1/17/2017 11:25:37 AM

Question I just thought of for some reason: Why did they have to leave their front doors open when going to meet at the house? It showed Buck's dad find/close the door at one point but nothing came of it.

1/18/2017 4:36:15 PM

Shes crazy, thats why.

And its a metaphor for an open mind.

1/18/2017 4:46:21 PM

Got sucked in on episode 3. Great series

1/23/2017 12:57:19 AM

They never explained the door thing. I was hoping they would.

If she turns out to be crazy, I will stop watching this show. I don't mind the cliffhanger leaving it up to the audience to decide but if she is, the show will turn out to suck MNightShamalalalallayn style.

1/26/2017 9:49:58 AM

Well, she is definitely crazy; they established that pretty solidly in the first season. We are now left to question how much of what she said is truth.

Personally, I feel the series would feel boring and forced if they confirmed truth in the ideas of dimensional travel, the movements successfully healing, or Khatun being a real entity who meets people experiencing NDEs.

[Edited on January 26, 2017 at 12:18 PM. Reason : ]

1/26/2017 12:18:12 PM

She's crazy, there's no mysticism. I bet if I rewatched it there's signs of the big twist at the end.

Also remember the FBI talking about how people's "intuition" or subconscious picks up on subtle cues which manifests as ESP?

The only mystical thing that def happened is OA knowing something was going down at the end, but that scene explains this.

The 1 weird thing i saw is that there's clearly news reports and such about what actually happened to her (scene in restaurant where the person knows her and asks for signature confirms this), why don't the other people in the group seem to know this too?

[Edited on January 30, 2017 at 11:04 PM. Reason : ]

1/30/2017 11:04:08 PM

She has the scars on her back and the FBI counselor said she was deprived of vitamin D from sunlight so she was held captive somewhere...

1/31/2017 9:39:44 AM

I bet parents-basement-dwelling gamers have a Vitamin D deficiency too but that doesn't mean they were held captive anywhere.

1/31/2017 11:21:57 AM

^^ yeah she was definitely held captive, probably beaten and raped, and did suffer some traumatic brain injury which is how she got her sight back too.

1/31/2017 3:26:16 PM

Made it episode 3 or 4 into this and stopped. Had a Stranger Things vibe, but wanted to be taken way more seriously.

1/31/2017 7:46:14 PM

Quote :

"Well, she is definitely crazy"

I do not agree with this. Just because of 1 scene (with the books)? How did she predict the events? How did she get her sight back? The director of this show is purposely playing with the direction to throw a twist at the audience. To make people take a side. There is no definitive way to say she is crazy or she is telling the truth (yet).

http://time.com/4605895/the-oa-explained-netflix/

Good comparison of evidence supporting both.

2/2/2017 11:59:19 AM

The thing with the books has to be a plant. There is no way she could have gotten home, gone to Amazon, found/ordered/received the books, and read all of them all before she started telling them her story.

2/2/2017 12:02:13 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiP42KKZrj0

Some cool easter eggs I didn't catch.

A thorough look at the season and the Many Worlds Theory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1ewCq7e1Qw

Brit Marling discussing 5 theories
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQhXABX60ok

[Edited on February 2, 2017 at 12:32 PM. Reason : The last one she makes a reference to is crazy IMO]



[Edited on February 2, 2017 at 12:44 PM. Reason : .]

2/2/2017 12:28:36 PM

^^not to mention learning to read.

2/2/2017 4:20:31 PM

^lol good point, but it showed her using the internet to look up youtube clips of Homer and stuff, so it did establish that she knew how to read. She was like 6 when she lost her sight though, so at that point she was only reading kids books in the Russian alphabet. Clearly she learned braille to live a normal life, but physically seeing the [English] characters and being able to read from that is farfetched. I guess it is plausible that she learned to read when being held captive, but I figured Hap wouldn't allow that as it would be one more thing to keep her under his thumb.

2/2/2017 6:11:31 PM

^^^ the 2nd video is compelling there, that's interesting

2/3/2017 12:38:20 PM

agreed, I think that really is the direction it is going.

2/6/2017 12:37:08 PM

I vaguely remember the other captives being allowed to read, so she would have been given the same courtesy. That being said, she used Youtube to search for Homer, and she was clearly looking through papers in her room for the WiFi password. She can read.

And I do not see how you can say "There is no definitive way to say she is crazy or she is telling the truth (yet)". This is not an either/or. She can simultaneously be telling the truth (as she sees it) and crazy. We know parts of her story have to be made up because she was not there to witness the events nor would the events have been of something which she would have been informed. There are also too many coincidences in her story, too many instances where she clearly borrowed for present and past knowledge to fill in the gaps for her story, whether she recognizes it or not.

She went through *something*; it had a profound impact on her. She's a bit off; she's not remembering everything perfectly, and/or she made up a narrative while with the other captives to survive all those years. Sure, there could still be mystical weird sci-fi stuff going; that said, that doesn't change the fact that events are not exactly as she describes (at best).

2/7/2017 5:36:39 PM

Season 2 is crazy, better than season 1 IMO

I almost wasn’t going to watch season 2 but it’s worth it.

3/25/2019 5:25:18 PM

I started the first episode last night, didn't get through it.

You're saying I should stick with it?

3/26/2019 9:31:40 AM

What didn’t you like about the first episode? The first episode does a good job of capturing the tone for the whole season except it gets a lot weirder.

3/26/2019 11:29:13 AM

Quote :

"Season 2 is crazy, better than season 1 IMO"

totally agree

4/3/2019 1:36:00 PM

I really enjoyed season 1 but I'm only halfway through season 2 and it's already far and away better.

4/3/2019 1:36:55 PM

finished it last night and wow, the last episode is WTF

4/4/2019 12:40:25 PM

Certainly not the finale I expected...."WTF" is probably the only way to actually describe it.

Read they have the next 3 seasons planned out but waiting to see if it they get greenlit for a season 3. Really hope they do another.

4/5/2019 10:17:54 AM

Cancelled

8/5/2019 10:58:58 PM