The OA is the kind of show that people either fall completely in love with or abandon in confused frustration. There’s almost no middle ground, and that polarization is by design. Created by Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij, the Netflix series tells the story of Prairie Johnson, a blind woman who reappears after seven years of captivity, now able to see and calling herself “The OA.” She gathers a group of strangers in an abandoned house and tells them a story that’s either an incredible truth or an elaborate delusion. The show never makes it easy to know which.
Prairie/The OA claims she was kidnapped by a scientist studying near-death experiences, held captive with other subjects who’ve died and returned, and discovered that specific physical movements performed together can open portals between dimensions. She needs the group she’s assembled to learn these movements and help her return to save the friends she left behind. The show presents all of this with absolute sincerity, and your willingness to meet that sincerity determines everything about your experience.
The Beautiful Strangeness of Genuine Ambition
The OA’s greatest strength is its total commitment to its own vision. In an era of focus-grouped, algorithm-driven content, the show feels genuinely authored. Every creative choice, from the interpretive movement sequences to the non-linear storytelling to the casting of amateurs alongside professionals, serves a coherent artistic vision. Marling and Batmanglij created something that feels like no other show on television, and that distinctiveness is valuable regardless of whether every element works.
Brit Marling’s performance as Prairie/The OA is hypnotic. She plays the character with a gentle intensity that makes you want to believe her even when the story she’s telling sounds impossible. The ambiguity of whether Prairie is telling the truth or constructing a narrative to process her trauma is baked into Marling’s performance, and she maintains that tension with remarkable skill across both seasons.
The group of strangers Prairie gathers, a collection of suburban outcasts including a troubled teenager, a teacher, and several students, provide the show with its emotional grounding. Their gradual investment in Prairie’s story mirrors the audience’s own journey, and the relationships that develop within the group feel authentic and earned. The show understands that even if the metaphysics are uncertain, the human connections formed through shared belief are real.
Season two expands the show’s mythology dramatically, moving into parallel dimension territory and introducing a meta-fictional layer that’s either brilliant or maddening depending on your disposition. The second season is substantially different from the first in tone and structure, demonstrating a creative team willing to reinvent their show rather than repeat their successes.
The Leap of Faith That Not Everyone Will Take
The interpretive movement sequences are the show’s most divisive element. Characters performing coordinated, dance-like movements as a means of dimensional travel is, on paper, absurd. The show plays it straight, which means viewers either accept the premise and find the sequences powerful, or they don’t and find them unintentionally comedic. There’s no halfway point, and the show offers no safety net of ironic distance for viewers who can’t get on board.
The show was cancelled after two seasons, ending on a cliffhanger that will never be resolved. For a show built on mystery and gradual revelation, the premature ending is particularly damaging. The second season ends at a point that recontextualizes everything that came before, and the planned continuation, which would presumably have explored those implications, will never exist. Viewers investing in the show need to accept upfront that they won’t get answers.
The pacing in both seasons can be challenging. The show takes its time with scenes and sequences that are contemplative rather than plot-driven, and some viewers will find the deliberate pace indulgent rather than immersive. Not every atmospheric scene earns its runtime, and the show’s refusal to rush occasionally tips into reluctance to move.
The show’s relationship with ambiguity, while central to its identity, can feel like evasion. The question of whether Prairie’s story is true or a coping mechanism for trauma is compelling, but the show sometimes seems to avoid committing to either interpretation not for artistic reasons but because commitment would expose the limitations of the narrative. It’s a fine line between productive ambiguity and having your cake and eating it too.
Belief Is the Movement Itself
The OA’s deepest theme is that belief creates community, and community creates meaning. Whether Prairie’s story is literally true matters less than the fact that believing it brings isolated, broken people together and gives them purpose. The show treats faith, not religious faith specifically but the general act of believing in something bigger than yourself, as a transformative force. That’s a genuinely moving idea, and it’s what separates The OA from mere mystery box storytelling.
Should You Watch The OA?
If you’re drawn to television that takes creative risks and asks you to meet it on its own terms, The OA is a fascinating, frustrating, sometimes transcendent experience. Go in knowing it’s unfinished, that the interpretive movements will either move you or alienate you, and that the show values atmosphere and emotion over explanation. Fans of shows like Twin Peaks, Sense8, or Undone will find a kindred spirit. Skip it if you need concrete answers, if deliberate pacing exhausts you, or if the premise sounds too strange to take seriously. The OA requires a leap of faith, and not everyone can make it.
The Verdict on The OA
The OA is beautiful, bewildering, and permanently incomplete. It’s the kind of show that provokes genuine arguments between people who watched it, which is itself a testament to its power. Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij created something that operates on its own frequency, and finding that frequency is a deeply personal experience. The cancellation robs the show of its planned conclusion, and that loss diminishes the experience in real ways. But what exists is unlike anything else, and in a television landscape increasingly dominated by sameness, The OA’s stubborn originality is worth encountering even in its unfinished state.