I like that N/P/OA’s story starts in Russia, as this show feels like a Russian nesting doll, stories within stories, and I wonder how far down we must go to get to the core.

The actor who plays Hap reminds me of both Daniel Craig and Don Franks. He tends to play morally ambiguous characters and based on my familiarity with his usual casting, I didn’t trust his character when he appeared onscreen.

I wondered what N/P/OA was thinking when, ESPECIALLY as a blind girl, she went off with an absolute stranger and GOT IN A PLANE WITH HIM and when she reached his sound-proof lair, went down to his dungeon and didn’t think twice about it? That’s more than stranger danger – it’s, well, blindness on her part. What emotional blindness is her Achilles’ Heel? Or will meeting Homer be her Achilles’ Heel?

I didn’t give enough thought upon initial viewing to her Russian family’s circumstance, but now I’m curious. Her mother died in childbirth – is her mother Khatun? (Or is Khatun God?) Did her Russian mother or father possess premonitions, the ability to come back to life, or is it unique to her in her family? Being persecuted and hunted from such a young age is another common motif. Perhaps Hiding is more accurate. She must hide her self, her identity, her language, her abilities, and beneath more than a decade of drugs, her reality. Later she talks about the invisible self vs. the visible self. What do we all hide and why?

As we know from N/P/OA’s many names, and from Homer, names are important. Khatun struck me as an unusual name so I looked it up. It is an equivalent to queen – the female counterpart to Khan. To whom is she a queen? It can also be used to mean simply ‘woman.’ Is she an everywoman? Is she Eve? Is she God?

And then there’s Hap. Hunter Hap. Literally a hunter. He is a Mengele. EVIL. I looked up Hap and got this:
(noun) 1. one’s luck or lot. 2. an occurrence, happening, or accident. What happens to the dungeoneers is no accident and certainly not good luck. But it most definitely was an occurrence. Was it one’s lot? Was it their destiny to go to the dungeon?

Passing thought: Is The OA going to turn the 5 new recruits into replacements for her dungeoneers? I thought a swap might be in their future. Has she become the new hunter or is she trustworthy? Thus far, I trust her, but that is the exact type of trust that let each dungeoneer to the dungeon.

I want to know more about the 5 recruits and what thing they are missing from their lives that they think adding this experience will address.