Tag: Brit Marling

The OA Part 2 Episode 8: Overview Recap

~ Metacrone

The OA P2Ep8 Nina & Roberts

Episode 8 brings us to the season finale for Part 2 of The OA and finally brings much of the cast to the same place, at the same time, albeit in two different dimensions. Karim makes it all the way through the puzzle house and finds Michelle’s soul in the process. As Nina, OA convinces Hap to show her what’s inside the super secret lab.

The missing are found, but they are transformed, and it’s not clear whether they can be brought back. Steve rejoins the Crestwood gang at D1 Treasure Island and Betty acts as an oracle. The gang follows OA through the clinic in D2, with Betty using her new ability to pinpoint OA’s movements. Buck helps Betty translate her experiences to the others, proving again that he’s also a psychic medium.

Recap

The episode opens with the wind blowing through the palm trees on Treasure Island and lightning flashing in the sky. The spirits are restless tonight.

Through the surveillances cameras, Hap sits in his office and watches Nina smoking in the front lobby while she waits to be sent up to his office. Hap and Roberts try to decide what to do about her. They’re confused that she broke out as OA but has returned as Nina. Hap is a little scared of Nina.

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The OA Part 2 Episode 7: Nina Azarova Recap

~ Metacrone

The OA P2Ep7 OA & Elodie

The OA returns to San Francisco and follows the journeys of OA and Karim in this episode, picking up with the aftermath of their trip through the puzzle house. Both Karim and OA build toward discovering their true natures. Karim goes through the house in daylight with the police, visits Fola in the hospital and finally meets the crowd-sourcing wizard, Pierre Ruskin. OA wakes up with the trees, meets Elodie, and finally gets to know Nina Azarova.

Recap

Episode 7 begins the morning after the end of episode 5 (and maybe episode 6), with Karim returning to the puzzle house, this time busting through the front door with the police in tow. The stairs allow him to follow his previous route, but, since he started from the front door, instead of the secret tunnel, the magic is gone, and so is the model house. The cops prepare for battle when Karim gets ready to open the door to the room with the dirt floor and lost players, but now, all that’s behind the door is a cement wall. All three men are confused. The spiritual realm has closed to Karim.

He must have forgotten how the house works.

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The OA Part 2 Episode 6: Mirror Mirror Recap

~ Metacrone

mv5bntdjztgxzjqtngq0yy00nzy2ltgzztytyjgzmgzlowy3mzy0xkeyxkfqcgdeqxvyndg4mjkzndk40._v1_sx1777_cr001777999_al_The OA part 2, episode 6, Mirror Mirror, brings us back to the original dimension and OA’s Crestwood gang, as they travel across the country so that BBA can say goodbye to her dying uncle before she jumps to a new dimension. It’s one of those epic road trips that changes your life, opening your eyes to how big the world is, how many possibilities there are, and how much you’re capable of that you’ve never imagined. At least until they reach BBA’s uncle’s house, and things begin to go terribly, terribly wrong. Then the trip begins to look a lot like the lives they’re trying to escape.

Which brings us to the title. Episode 3, which was the first time we focused on the Crestwood group this season, is titled Magic Mirror. In that episode, Rachel lived in Buck’s mirror, until it broke and she was set free to live in the world. She learned to communicate through TV rather than an old-fashioned photographic plate. Even ghosts need to change with the times.

The mirrors reflect the dimensions and the characters while also serving as a way to travel through the looking glass. Multiple reflections equal multiple dimensions and multiple points of view. Breaking the mirror means breaking free but it also means losing those perspectives. If you’ve gone through the glass into a new dimension, breaking the glass could mean that you’ve lost the way home.

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The OA Part 2 Episode 5: The Medium & The Engineer Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 4 Comments

The OA P2Ep5 Homer Looks for OA's Skin in Dream

Episode 5, The Medium and the Engineer, is another action packed episode of The OA, from Homer’s dream to the time OA spends communing with tree roots to the trippy path that leads Karim to reunite with Fola. OA and Karim enter the house through the secret door and follow the labyrinth, which takes them each on a different journey. If I’m reading the signs right, both Homer’s dream and the house’s imagery are connected to Dante’s Divine Comedy, specifically the 7th Circle of H-ll. In retrospect, there have been connections to Dante all along.

The mysticism in this episode is intense. I feel like I’m Fola in the hall of mirrors and need Karim to carry me out, or I’ll never stop analyzing it.

Recap

We start this epic episode with a very different Homer stumbling down a dusty dirt road, carrying a bundle of wood on his back. He knocks on the door of a stone house, which is answered by an old woman, who tells him, “I have skin, all textures, all shades, for a price.”

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The OA Part 2 Episode 4: SYZYGY Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 3 Comments

The OA P2Ep4 OA & Tentacles

In episode 4, SYZYGY, Karim and OA finally meet and the series finds a way to incorporate the telepathic octopus that the entire fandom has been clamoring for into the show. Or maybe that was just the tentacle fiction fans. 😘 At any rate, we get some almost naughty tentacle on OA action, an escape from Treasure Island in an orange car driven by a woman who can’t drive, a couple of bad dates, and references to Snow White and the Phantom of the Opera.

Only one of these things happens in a dream, and it’s not the octopus.

This is a pretty wild episode.

Plus, three wise, man.

Shall we get started?

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The OA Part 2 Episode 3: Magic Mirror Recap

~ Metacrone

The OA P2Ep3 Message from Rachel

The OA takes a break from…the OA in this episode, in order to revisit the home dimension and check in with Betty and the boys. Rachel leads the way on a transformative road trip whose purpose hasn’t become fully clear yet, but with this show, it’s best not to rush things.

Distorted images of the OA’s drawings of Betty and the boys decorate the opening credits. They fade to show Prairie’s body in her coffin, ready for her funeral. When OA jumped to another dimension, the body she left behind, now without its soul and gravely wounded, died.

Steve drives Jesse down a country road, as fast as he can manage without losing control, way over the speed limit. A cop pulls them over, but lets them go when he realizes that they’re the kids who stopped the school shooting and that they’re coming from Prairie’s funeral. He even tells them they’re brave and to get home safely. They don’t know what to do with authority figures who are nice to them.

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The OA Part 2 Episode 2: Treasure Island Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 8 Comments

The OA P2Ep3 Rachel, OA & Scott

With episode 2, we move from the Angel of Death to Treasure Island, which makes it sound like the OA is staying on a pirate ship instead of in a mental health facility. I suppose, with Hap in charge, that’s basically true. Will there be buried treasure in this episode?

Homer’s alarm wakes him up in the early morning by saying, “Good morning, Dr Roberts, you’ve had 56 minutes of REM sleep.” Alarm lady repeats the message until Homer turns her off.  Interesting that Homer likes to be called Dr Roberts when he’s off duty, too, and he keeps track of how much time he spends in a dream state. Maybe the Homer from the other dimension visits him in his dreams, and he’s trying to maintain the separation by using his formal title.

Homer Dr Roberts gets up, does some pull ups, then eats breakfast while watching a video on shared psychotic disorder. When he’s done, he rides his bike to work.

Prairie, who is now in a straight jacket, is taken to see Hap again. She has to climb a spiral staircase to get to his office, which looks like a room at the top of an old tower or a ship’s captain’s office. It has 360 degree windows with a view of the bay. Hap apologizes that Prairie has to wear the jacket.

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The OA Part 2 Episode 1: Angel of Death Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

 

The OA P2Ep1 OA & HR

Recaps of The OA Part 1 can be found HERE.

Welcome back, kids! Are we all ready to ride along with The OA as she questions the nature of reality and causes chaos in the world around her? Part 2 continues where Part 1 left off, with no time jump, though the extended opening segment introduces viewers to the new character Karim Washington, so it takes a while to find out what happened to the OA. Most of the rest of the original cast returns in some capacity.

While part 1 explored the interior of the mind, with themes of reality vs fantasy, the darkness inside, free will, captivity and willing sacrifice, Part 2 expands those themes, taking the dreams, visions and stories of Part 1 and turning them into an interdimensional reality where the boundaries between the dream world, the real world, and other worlds barely exist. It’s not quite as mind-bending as Part 1, but it’s still fun, with new ideas to ponder.

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The OA Part 2: Spoiler-Free Review

~ Metacrone

the-oa-season-2-complete-poster

If The OA Part 1 was about Near Death Experiences (NDEs), then Part 2 is about dreams. The NDEs become another kind of dream, of which there are many, all of which can be examined for important information about ourselves, our culture, the future and reality itself. Part 2 takes the concepts introduced in the first part and deepens them, turning dichotomies into continuums and turning movement into quests.

The OA remains a mysterious show that needs to be approached with an open mind and a willingness to follow the spiritual metaphor, not the need for logic and continuity. Metaphorically, this is a world of magic and spirit, and our rules don’t apply. We learn the rules of the universe with the characters, and they are applied logically once introduced, but they are complex. I’m not sure that any one character has all of the information in Part 2.

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The OA Season 1 Analysis and Speculation

~ Metacrone

TOAPrairie&Violin

This show is a meta writer’s dream. So many layers, twists and turns, fantastic complex characters, and questions of sanity.

To start with the broadest layer, one way to look at the story is as a metaphor for science and practicality vs art and religion. Hap, Elias, the psychiatrists, the adults of Crestwood, and the weapons represent science and the practical world. Prairie, Russia, her biological father Roman, and the other captives represent art and religion. Prairie’s present day team represents the battle between the two in our communities and schools. At Alfonso’s scholarship dinner, one of the businessmen even brings up the idea after listening to Buck sing. What good is art, since it’s not practical? Elias gives Alfonso an unsatisfying, roundabout answer in episode 8, by implying that Prairie turned whatever really happened to her into a mythological hero’s journey as a way for her and for them to be able to cope with it more easily. The problem is that Alfonso, like many in our culture, can only see that maybe there was some poetic framing in the way Prairie told the story, and thinks that makes the whole thing a lie, thus useless. He forgets the changes the group’s time with Prairie has made in all of them, and the easily verifiable parts of her story. The therapist forgets to mention those to Alfonso, too. She was gone for seven years. She has the physical hallmarks of captivity, like vitamin D deficiency. She did regain her sight. She has strange scars on her back. Something did happen to her, the science shows that. But it can’t tell us what. It can only give us theories. For the rest, we have to rely on Prairie’s memories and interpretations, even if we think she’s using poetic license or is an unreliable narrator because of mental illness or for other reasons (maybe Hap kept them on mild hallucinogens the entire time). Art and religion are the ways we express things when science and practicality fail us, because not everything can be put into those terms. It doesn’t make the metaphor less true, it’s just another way of expressing the truth. Not everything needs to be expressed in literal, factual terms to be true. Some truths can only be approached by circling them, slowly and metaphorically.

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