Alright, I have yet to watch episode 8 of The OA – but I’m about to. In the past couple posts I have tried to guess at where this show is going to go and now here we are. So in this post, I plan to write about the episode as it happens. Alright so let’s kick it off!
The OA Episode 8 Overview
The episode kicks off back where we were with the Sheriff of the town holding a gun to Dr. Hap’s head – and Hap starts by trying to talk his way out of what is obviously a very very bad situation. I mean, think about it. You’ve abducted a pile of people for the past 7 years. And in walks a police officer? Yeah. That’s not going to go very well for you. Except? Maybe? He can talk him into thinking that he can heal his wife Evelyn.
“You know well enough that there is no good and evil, there is only grey, there is only what a man can stand. These people can heal your wife. Let them try and if they succeed you walk away and let me do my research. If they fail you can lock me up.”
“You have a silver tongue, shut up I don’t make deals” says Sheriff Stan Markham.
But the next thing we know, the Sheriff and Dr. Hap are driving to go and get Evelyn to bring her to Homer and Prairie. And then the two of them have a fantastic conversation about the dilemma they find themselves in. Homer knows that if they choose to not heal her then the cop will put Dr. Hap in jail. Right? They’d be free. If they heal her though, then they will be trapped there forever. The glitch though? Prairie can’t not do it, “If we don’t help this woman, then we aren’t who we say we are.” And so they decide to heal her by performing the first two movements.
And then Evelyn, once she is healed, tells them that when she was a little girl, she drowned in the ocean. And when she died, she watched as the light faded out. And then she met a woman who told her that she had to carry a message inside of her, that it would be hard, and difficult and painful. And like that, Evelyn taught Homer and Prairie the fifth movement. But simultaneously Dr. Hap has memorized the fifth movement as well. Which, is critical to the rest of the show, and I bet even the next season as well.
After memorizing the move Homer and Prairie embrace – which is an enormous deal seeing as though they’ve always been separated by glass the last seven years. And then Dr. Hap shoots Evelyn and Stan while they are embracing. Which, as an aside, I have to say, is hardcore. But seemed sort of obvious that Hap would kill them because of the enormous liability to his work if he allowed them to live. Right? Then Dr. Hap drugs Prairie and takes her on a drive until daylight. Far away? And then tells her that she isn’t indispensable. That he is leaving her like he found her. And if she comes back, then all five of them will be gone, through the portal, and she is being left all alone.
“COME BACK! COME BACK!”
— PAUSE —
Alright, so after conjecturing for the last week as to exactly how Prairie would be separated from Homer I now know. I will say that it seems strange that after killing Stan and Evelyn because of their liability to him he would allow the Original Angel to live. And yet, she didn’t know where the mine was. She couldn’t ever get back to them all again. And Dr. Hap was extraordinarily clear that even if she did find the mine that they would all be gone, that they will use the movements and cross over to the other side.
The OA the Five and The Parents
Cut back to Prairie, showing how he used the knife on her. Her dress top is down. Sports bra. High school teacher there. Kids there. And that is when everyone arrives at the house. And by everyone I mean everyone. All the parents. Teachers. School superintendent. President of the United States. Everyone. This isn’t going to go well for anyone. And Mrs. Johnson, Prairie’s mother, takes Prairie and hightails it out of there. And soon after the Johnsons leave the house and the media circus and head to a hotel. And it is then that Prairie starts telling her parents about the details of her abduction. How she didn’t touch another person for 7 years. How small her cell was, and how she sometimes slept underneath her bed. Such a good turn of events. I’m sure her parents were relieved to finally learn anything. And then while Prairie is still sleeping, her mother gets the note out that Prairie had left for them originally. Basically it said that she was going to go and try and find her father and show them that she was right all along. That he was still alive.
Meanwhile, Alfonzo and Steve are trying to track down Dr. Hap and eventually find a Japanese video of The OA I think? Then Alfonzo breaks into Prairie’s bedroom and finds several books about NDEs and Homer’s Iliad, which he takes to mean she made the stories up. And the FBI Psychologist shows up at the house tells Alfonzo that he was proud of him for supporting Prairie. “Do you know what second hand trauma is? It’s when you take someone else’s pain so that they can survive.”
“But she told us a story and it wasn’t true. “
And like that time jumps, how far? A couple months maybe? Weeks? Can’t tell. But it’s obvious that many things have changed. Betty has been fired and she is packing up her things. Steve is back at the school again. The OA is now on drugs again and is wearing a tracking device on her ankle? Her dad tells her that he is proud of her for signing up for taking creative writing courses. And then Prairie goes up and has a bath. And while she is in the bath she falls asleep and has another premonition. She knew what was about to happen.
Cut to the cafeteria of the high school. And there is a man, dressed in black, with an M-16? Maybe an A-4? Anyway, he is walking across the grass heading towards the cafeteria. The doors have been chained closed. The kids can’t get away. And Steve looks at the others on the floor of the Caf and then jump up and begin performing the five movements. And I have to say that if handled even remotely differently – if not as passionately danced, if not as beautifully shot and edited – it would have looked really lame. But it worked. And while they are dancing someone jumps the shooter and takes the gun.
And then we learn that The Original Angel was shot in the chest as they were all finishing the final movement.
Final Moments of The OA Season 1
First, did you guys notice the shirt that Prairie was wearing? It was the one with the wolf on it that she held to her chest early on in the season in sort of a foreshadowing of the end? Also, did you see that there were five cracks in the glass representing the Five? I thought that was pretty cool. So cool in fact I zoomed in in Photoshop to see if they were really cracks or if they were drawn on the glass. (I mean, how does one get glass to crack perfectly like that? (They appeared to be drawn.)) And also, as the ambulance was speeding away it was reminiscent of Prairie running after Dr. Hap’s car that was speeding away which was symbolic of Homer’s and Dr. Hap’s multi-dimensional travel? And so it is foreshadowing Prairie’s slipping off into the void through the gateway.
(Or she just died – and Dr. Hap killed all the abductees and himself.)
And then at the very very end – there is a shot of The Original Angel crying, staring off screen. Then cut to black and… “Homer?”
Such goodness.
Current Theories and Explanations for The OA
I will do one more post walking through the season from beginning to end with a full understanding of where the show was going and how it got there. It will be the only way to review the entirety of the season. But for now – the theories I started at the beginning still head through to the end. At least two of them did anyway. I’ll review my theories I posted during episode one in the final review of the entire season. I definitely should hold myself accountable! Hahah. So I don’t plan to delve into the theories discussion in this post. But I promise you the two that will standout will be the Flatliners Portal Theory and the Stark Raving Insane Theory. Hahah. Either Prairie is the real deal. Or she’s completely nuts. And the shows creators delicately walked that line from beginning to end.
Overall thoughts of the Entire The OA season
This show was thought out to the nth degree. It was well planned and well thought out and extraordinarily well executed. I adored the abductee strain of the story, but I loved the flatliner portion even more. Such a great twist to add Dr. Hap, the “rational” evil overlord. And I thought that all the characters from the Five to the Abductees were all well acted and well drawn. I probably do wish that they had made it 16 shows and had taken off shoots into various characters like how Lost did it? (Says the guy sitting on his couch doing nothing at all! Hahah.) Definitely could have bolstered the characters a ton and could have also given a ton of pathos to the ending. (Not that it needed more than it had.) But otherwise, it was a fantastic little show. In my follow-up post I will also conjecture about where I think the show’s season two will go. (Or is that a separate post entirely? Worried a bit that I am turning this into an AO fan site instead of a movie site! Hahaha.
Alright – I’m going to leave this post at that. Great season. Fantastic show. Check in tomorrow or soon for more info on Season 2, the theories, and other insights. Until next time.
Edited by, CY
| Interested in reading all of my OA episode recaps so far? |
| Episode 1 – The Homecoming |
| Episode 2 – New Colossus |
| Episode 3 – Champion |
| Episode 4 – Away |
| Episode 5 – Paradise |
| Episode 6 – Forking Paths |
| Episode 7 – Empire of Light |
| Episode 8 – Invisible Self |
| OA Season 1 Theories & Season 2 Conjecture |