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× Talk abut Movies & TV here. Just tell us what you have been watching. Have hyper-academic discussions on visual semiotics. Whatever, it's all good.

The OA (Spoilers for whole series)

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17 Jan 2017 08:59 #242538 by charlest
Anyone finish this and want to talk about it?

I'm a big fan of the ending. I think it makes sense and the foreshadowing that occurs throughout the series shows they at least were driving towards it consciously.

So, do you think she made it all up? I'm not sure it's important actually whether she did or not. It's kind of incidental to the main elements of the story and how she was affecting those five people and positively impacting their lives, saving them.

What I don't get is why the FBI guy was in her house, and I also don't get the point of the books besides to stir the pot. It feels kind of cheap and doesn't even make sense as when would she have placed an amazon order and read those? She started telling the story within a day or two of getting back home.

I'm actually kind of disappointed there will be a season 2 as I think the arc and conclusion were mostly perfect.

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17 Jan 2017 09:57 - 17 Jan 2017 09:58 #242540 by JEM
First of all, hello to Jason Isaacs.

I'm not sure how much of the OA's narrated experience was "real", though I guess you can delve into the rabbit hole of subjective realities. I had thought the books were from her childhood/adolescence, not recent purchases, implying that whatever had happened to her, she had been contextualizing her experiences through the filter of fantasy fed by those books. Still, she had been somewhere for those 10 years or however long it was, and something happened to her.

Maybe the point is that it's alright to believe in something, even something that might not be true, if it helps you to find clarity and purpose in your own life. When you allow yourself to imagine new possibilities, you can lower your self-created barriers to progress (in whatever manner that manifests).

As far as the show itself, I did feel that it perhaps could have been done in a mini-series or a movie format, though I feel the same way about a lot of these new shows that seem to require 10+ episodes to fill time (Westword was another recent example). I think The OA was fascinating and if they're making a second season it could well destroy the whole thing, or make it amazing.
Last edit: 17 Jan 2017 09:58 by JEM.

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17 Jan 2017 09:58 #242541 by jpat
My wife was telling me there's some thinking that the FBI guy planted the books. I guess maybe? I otherwise agree that it's hard to understand why he's there, but other than asking a lot of questions of her and building trust--inherently suspicious!--I'm not recalling a lot that suggests that he's anything but what he claimed to be.

I agree on the made-up-or-not part. Her story does have a fairytale aspect to it, but I think the creative team did a pretty good job of making the series "work" either way (as either entirely in her head or objectively real), and you're right that it basically doesn't matter in terms of her impact on the other characters, which is really kind of the point.

I feel about a second season for this like I did about The Man in the High Castle, Stranger Things, and the Leftovers. Let's just have the courage to tell a story and be done with it. Don't cater to people's desire for the familiar over and over again.

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17 Jan 2017 10:08 #242543 by charlest
JEM - I don't believe the books were in braille though, which doesn't make sense for her owning them when she was blind. I guess you could say her parents read them to her, but that seems a bit of a stretch and odd that they were all in the same amazon.com box with their recent look (i.e. not a 10 year old box).

The FBI agent seems odd. You could remove him and those scenes entirely from the story and it wouldn't make much of a difference, really. If he planted them (I've seen this theory online) it would only make sense if he was somehow evil, perhaps supernaturally so. Like a demon, maybe.

Besides the books, I think there's too much evidence of her story being real and of her having some sort of supernatural connection (whether she's an angel or not). These things all point to her story having some truth or there being some sort of supernatural element:

1. Recovering her eyesight
2. The tattoos on her back are strange. How would she reach her own back and be able to carve them legibly?
3. Her finding Homer's video on youtube
4. The audible "woosh" heard when she's placed inside the ambulance (referencing Hap's comment early in the series about hearing a noise when someone passes)
5. The fact that there's going to be a season 2 lends more credibility to her story/experiences

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17 Jan 2017 10:13 #242544 by barrowdown
I thought the series was well shot with a some decent if unremarkable acting from most of the cast (outside of Jason Isaacs, who was excellent). From my reading about the show, the style and topic of it is very similar to most other works by the writer and director so it is basically their thing. My read is that the story was likely made up, but the production intentionally through bizarre things into the finale (books and FBI agent) to muddy it up without feeling actually justified.

It was an enjoyable watch, but overall I think it boils down to beautiful entertaining garbage that pretends at being more.

I am sure that my opinion of the first series/season will probably retroactively be decreased if a second season actually gets made. They will have to throw out the ambiguity (which will mess with the feel) or double down on it (which will require insane levels of convoluted plotting to justify).

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17 Jan 2017 11:33 #242557 by JEM
Charlest, you're right about the books and I completely forgot about that. About the youtube video- I forget if anyone else saw it or if it was only her, ditto with the whoosh. It might be a case of the unreliable narrator in a story about an unreliable narrator (so meta).

I never felt comfortable with the FBI guy's shtick. Now it may or may not be that he's some supernatural entity, or that there is some wider governmental conspiracy that he is enrolled in protecting (such as planting evidence, and discrediting- albeit very kindly, victims' testimony), but his whole approach seems like a trap: to be nice, and sit back, and listen. Without going off topic too much, I remember a comment about the use of torture and someone (military/intelligence, I forget who) saying he would get more useful information out of someone with a six pack of beer and a packet of cigarettes.
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17 Jan 2017 12:45 #242561 by stoic
Finished it. But, it's nothing more than Lost renamed as The OA. I'm not expecting any answers or resolutions. In fact, I really want my time back after watching both because there won't be any answers.

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19 Jan 2017 13:22 #242685 by hotseatgames
I just finished it. I'm not sure I can say it was good or bad, but it was different. I never saw Lost, so maybe it's not that different.

I agree that the FBI guy being in the house doesn't make much sense unless he was staking out the house, and why would he do that?

Her story couldn't be complete nonsense, otherwise how did she know to run to the school at that moment?

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19 Jan 2017 15:08 #242691 by JEM
I've been conditioned by bad TV/movie plotting to assume there can be no actual reason for protagonists to converge at pivotal story moments.

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19 Jan 2017 18:31 #242709 by hotseatgames
I can see the headline now:

SCHOOL SHOOTING STOPPED BY INTERPRETIVE DANCE
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