‘The OA’ Ending: Five Burning Questions For Season 2

If The OA gets a second season, it will have a lot of questions to answer. On the topic of The OA, the possibilities around Season 2, and the series providing answers, The OA‘s co-creator and star, Brit Marling, told The Hollywood Reporter this.

“So there is an end and there is an answer to every riddle and nothing is done to just be sound and fury going nowhere. It all goes somewhere.”

With so many questions having accumulated throughout Season 1, it is hard to keep track of them all. Just as the Inquisitr discussed the various clues hidden throughout The OA, it is time to track down and analyze the biggest questions elicited by The OA. Listed below are five burning questions from its ending.

Warning: Massive spoilers for The OA ahead.

Question #1: Did Prairie die again?

One of the final scenes of The OA involves a gunman tearing into the high school. In a stunning moment, “the five” perform the “five movements” Prairie (Brit Marling) has taught them. The ones she claims, when performed with perfect feeling, will transport them to another dimension. When a cafeteria worker tackles the gunman, the gun goes off. As “the five” turn to look out the window they see a peaceful-appearing Prairie looking in from the outside.

When the gunman’s final bullet fired through the glass, it struck her. She is hit in the center of the chest and suffered what might be a mortal wound. The next scene is of her being given emergency medical attention. That is when it happens. While Prairie is on the stretcher being loaded into the ambulance, a sort of “swish” sound can be heard, much like the one Hap (Jason Isaacs) describes when a person dies.

Question #2: Did Prairie suffer another NDA?

The only way Prairie can keep dying and coming back is if she is only declared “clinically dead;” the death that occurs when the heart stops beating. Hence, she is able to keep coming back to life because her brain never dies. If Prairie had another NDA (near-death experience) during The OA‘s ending, then she should have traveled to the other plane of existence where Khatun is.

Only, when we see Prairie again, she is not with Khatun as she had been every other time she had an NDA. She is instead immersed in a brilliant white light. The OA‘s ending scene is a close-up of Prairie as her face lights up, and she calls out “Homer?”

Question #3: Where did Prairie go when she woke up?

The bright light could mean that Prairie is in the afterlife since she was not shown making her usual stop to see Khatun. Alternative explanations are that she arrived in another dimension, or is hallucinating the incident altogether, while she is hovering between life and death. If she traveled to another dimension, why didn’t “the five” travel with her? The last time Prairie is seen, she appears to be physically present, so if she traveled to another dimension, she might not have had to physically leave to go there.

Question #4: Was there a delay between the time “the five” completed the movements and when they traveled to the other dimension?

Is it possible there was a delayed reaction between when the movements were performed and when they took effect? Similar to how Scott does not immediately come back to life when Prairie and Homer (Emory Cohen) perform the movements that eventually resuscitate him. Since Prairie is shown somewhere other than the existing reality she was in during The OA’s ending moments, is it possible “the five” have traveled too?

Question #5: How does Prairie know if Homer and the others have escaped to another dimension?

Throughout The OA, Prairie insists she can reunite with Homer (Emory Cohen) and the others by traveling to another dimension. Based on her story, there is no way she could know if the others have successfully traveled to another dimension, and if they had, which one they were transported to. Hap released her after they learned the fifth movement, and she had not been in contact with the group since.

It will be interesting to see how these questions are resolved should Netflix give The OA a green light for Season 2. The OA Season 1 is currently streaming on Netflix.

[Featured Image by Jason Merritt/Getty Images]