Hope this isn't pretentious or whatever, but this is one of those shows where it either feels like it was made for you, or you think it's absolutely ridiculous and a complete waste of time. It's constantly going into some bizarre places. The first season now feels like it was testing the audience - and season 2 is for those who still believe in the show. If you can buy into an absurd season-long payoff, then you can buy into this new complete off-the-wall season.
Yeah, this show isn't "perfect" like The Leftovers in how it controls its tone and story. It's a bit all over the place, and vacillates between incredibly strong execution and heavyhanded symbolism that's catapulted into your face. And there are these silly moments that constantly undercut the symbolism, where half the time you can't tell if they're doing it intentionally or not. But you can tell that the people who made it have a loving sentimentality toward the world they're building, and the characters in it. There's something so wholesomely authentic about it all - about the connections between all the characters, built up by the OA (and also built up by Brit Marling, too!).
There are so many moments that make my emotions swell up. If you buy into this story, if you have faith and believe in what it's trying to say, the show gives you these insanely beautiful moments. From Michelle's texts at the start: I am strong. I am your hope., to Prairie "ascending", to basically any time the kids are doing the dance. They sell the conviction of the characters so well. In the writing, and in each character's acting, too.
I've watched a lot of shows and movies that feel like they're saying something important. I don't think this show really nails any message. But it captures this... spiritual aesthetic like nothing else I've seen. It oozes faith and connectedness in everything - writing, acting, music, the way it's shot. And those moments come when all of those are working together, in perfect sync.
I thought the editing of the last episode was really really neat. Lots of abrupt door cuts between each of the 3 stories (Nina+HAP, BBA+kids, Karim+house). They show Nina pause at the door handle (and that also seems to be the exact moment where BBA "syncs up" with Nina, which I'm just realising now). And from there on out, you see these 3 stories bleed into one another, building and building and coming to a wonderful crescendo.
Yeah, the whole meta thing has been done before, but I adore the way they did it in the final episode. The entire show is built around faith and belief. So why is it so absurd that it bleeds into the "real world"? We believe in the stories they're telling, and the stories are real as long as we believe in them - just like the kids believed in OA's story in season 1. I haven't thought this through enough so I have no idea how coherent any of this is - I just love this idea that the world's alive (and that these characters are alive) because we believe in them. The creators believed in their vision of the story, and they believe in the characters, so we should too - a shared narrative, a connected experience. As the audience, we're contributing to the art, just by watching it, thinking about it, discussing it.
Who cares if it's made up? Who cares if it's stupid? It's as real as we want it to be.
P.S. those little dancing robots actually made me laugh out loud. It's the best example imo of the show undercutting its seriousness with absurdity. Those robots were adorable, and hey, if it works it works.
Oh, I also liked how the tech jargon was handled. They at least put effort into not making any major missteps. It could've been a lot worse.
There's so many other details in the entire series that are entire discussions by themselves. The dance movements (opening your third eye and all that), everything related to the dreams (Jesse saying "pull me out" to BBA will stick with me for a while), and little things like Rachel learning how to non-verbally community right before needing to communicate with BBA+the kids. I really really enjoy this show.
Submitted April 04, 2019 at 02:23PM by elephantnut https://ift.tt/2G0b8co
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