Despite the fact that the show's creators, Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij, stated that they had a full five seasons planned out for The OA, Netflix tragically decided to cut the show's run short after only two seasons. But boy, were those two seasons a wild ride. The genre-bending and mind-melting show was one of Netflix's most unusual offerings yet, and when it came to challenging it's audience mentally and philosophically The OA was never shy about trying to push the boundaries as far as they could go.
But The OA's willingness to go where most shows wouldn't dare also had its obvious downsides. The science fiction and magical elements of the show were the most compelling parts of it, but it's storytelling and background mythology sometimes bit off more than it could chew. And it's possible that explanations would have been forthcoming had there been more seasons, however its abrupt end left the series with quite a few things that will just never make sense.
How The Characters Became The Actors
The OA is a series that is riddled with twists and turns, but it ended on what was arguably it's biggest twist of all. The final scenes of the show went about as meta as you can go, with OA, Hap, Steve, and Buck jumping dimensions and going into the bodies of the actors that portray them.
The scenes we see are clearly meant to be a different version of a world that is closer to our reality but not the same, however there is zero indication as to how exactly these characters, who were supposed to be able to jump into different versions of themselves, suddenly became completely different people.
Was That Really Rachel?
The mythology of The OA was seemingly pretty solid at the start, but it seemed to get more flexible, and more confusing, as time went on. One of the most confusing twists of the show was the voice of Rachel suddenly manifesting itself in Buck Vu's vanity mirror after Rachel died.
However, that doesn't really square up too well with everything we have been told about jumping dimensions. When a traveler moves to another dimension their body dies and they transfer into the body of one of their alternate universe selves, so Rachel's consciousness traveling back to her original dimension really doesn't make sense. Why wouldn't she have just traveled to a dimension where her alternate version was still alive?
BBA's Powers
So Betty Broderick-Allen, one of OA's squad members who remains in the original dimension, appears to have some kind of special abilities that enable her to sense things across dimensions. The idea itself isn't too wild considering the fact that many characters have interacted with other dimensions in a variety of different ways, but this particular instance doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
First of all, if BBA has these powers then why have they never manifested before season two? Plus, why is it that she can only sense the dimension that OA is in? If she can communicate through different dimensions then why isn't she doing it with all dimensions?
Nina Azarova And Her Octopus
The OA was always a completely wild ride, but absolutely no one could have predicted that season two would include the apparent psychic medium Nina Azarova having some kind of telepathic conversation with, and briefly being killed by, a giant octopus in a nightclub. And no one could have predicted that because it was completely insane.
It's actually interesting to see that despite not having OA's early life NDE Nina Azarova still managed to get a glimpse into the multiverse, but like, what the hell. How did this situation even come about? Who captured this octopus. How did Nina discover she could telepathically communicate with octopuses. How did this become a club show? What is the show even supposed to be?
Khatun
Traveling to different worlds obviously isn't any easy task, so having a spirit guide is obviously very helpful. However, Khatun is a character that is still a totally confounding mystery. It's unclear what she even is, and more importantly, why she's doing what she does.
The art of dimensional travel actually seems wildly dangerous and bound to upset the natural order of things, so what's her stake in making that happen? And yes, she appears to help OA at times, but let's not forget that she quite literally took Nina's sight away, which she claimed was a way of protecting her from seeing the horrors to follow but seemed to be a direct cause of those horrors.
Eating Animals
The OA was always a science fiction show with a heavy dose of mysticism thrown into the mix, and honestly the fact that there were elements of mystery and magic made the show all the more interesting.
But sometimes those mysteries seemed to lead to dead ends. In season one an essential part of being able to travel through dimensions seemed to be eating something that was alive in a different dimension. It not only was never explained why that seemed to be such an imperative for dimensional travel but in season two it's completely abandoned as a plot point.
What Travelers Leave Behind
The idea that there are infinite worlds with different versions of ourselves in each of these worlds and the notion that we could actually travel through these worlds into our other versions is an intriguing premise for The OA, however the sacrifices required make the reality of this concept kind of ridiculous.
Because yes, a person can travel from one version of themselves to the other, but in order to leave their old self behind that old self has to die. And followed through to its logical conclusion, anyone who is a seasoned traveler is essentially a serial killer of themselves.
Hap's Garden
Every character came into season two with their own personal motivations, and although Hap's purpose was a secret he was willing to kill for it was eventually revealed that he was pulling literal seeds out people's heads in order to create a "garden" that was some kind of map for the multiverse.
It made for a cool visual and was an interesting concept, but that's really all it wound up being. There was never any explanation as to the whole seed thing or how Hap was even growing this crazy map garden, and by the end of the season the entire plot thread seemed to be irrelevant anyway.
Elodie's Robots
In season two of the show we finally meet another dimensional traveler, a mysterious woman named Elodie who seems to be pretty seasoned in the art of jumping worlds.
And it's reasonable to wonder how exactly she does that traveling, since it supposedly requires at least five people doing the movements in order to travel, and finding people who are willing to die and jump to another dimension over and over probably isn't that easy. But Elodie solved this problem... with robots that do the movements. Where in the world did she get these robots, and how does she find them in every dimension?
The Rose Window
One of the recurring elements of The OA's second season it the rose window in a mysterious house in San Francisco, and from the outset it seems clear that there is some sort of mystical power that exists within this window that has drastic effects on anyone who finds it. Eventually, OA comes to realize that this rose window is essentially a window into other dimensions.
Now, suspension of disbelief is obviously a huge aspect of watching The OA, however everything that the show presented beforehand about dimensional travel was mental, not physical, and having a literal portal into infinite dimensions seems a little dangerous, not to mention something that should be hard to hide.