‘The OA’ Season 2: The Top Clues And Theories On What They Mean

It has been a little over a year since The OA quietly premiered on Netflix and subsequently took the internet by storm. For fans wondering when and if Season 2, which was given the go-ahead all the way back in February 2017, would ever come to fruition, there has finally been some major news.

Actress and series co-writer, Brit Marling, gave fans a look at her sitting with the finished scripts in a post published on her personal Twitter account. Who knew so much information could be contained in a single tweet? So what clues does it reveal for Season 2? Let’s dig into it.

Episode Count

Given that Marling cites the completion of “8 scripts,” we can probably conclude that the second season of The OA will include the same amount of episodes as Season 1.

Release Date

Marling states that filming for Season 2 will commence in January 2018. Considering the success of Season 1 and its release date, fans can probably expect Netflix to release Season 2 during the winter. The question is; will it be the winter of 2018 or 2019?

Episode Titles

The first episode of Season 2 will be entitled “Angel of Death.” The fourth episode will be “Syzygy” and the fifth episode appears to have “engineer” in its title.

Excited and terrified by the road map of these 8 scripts, which took us all summer and fall to write. Shooting Part II of @The_OA starts Jan 2018. Here goes something… @z_al @BARFH pic.twitter.com/1xWKdrtXjQ

— brit marling (@britmarling) December 16, 2017

Since it appears towards the end of the script’s cover, some words probably come before it. None of the other episode titles are clearly visible, which leads one to wonder why these were more exposed.

Theories on what the titles reveal

“Angel of Death” is a compelling title for the Season 2 premiere. The name “OA” means “original angel” and that is what Prairie (Brit Marling) refers to herself as throughout Season 1. In the season finale, Prairie was shot in the chest by a school shooter, after she performed the movements outside of the cafeteria alongside “the five.”

Prairie clung to life as an ambulance took her away. As the doors to it closed, a whoosh sound could be heard, both by the audience and Steve (Patrick Gibson). Earlier in the season, it was revealed that particular sound was the sound of death. As Steve runs after the ambulance, begging “OA” to take him with her, Prairie’s voice can be heard narrating.

In the final moments of Season 1, she says “They said it would be…invisible. Like jumping into an invisible current that just…carries you away.” The sound of what the captions describe as water rushing can then be heard.

The final scene shows an emotional Prairie opening her eyes in a bright, white room with a window behind her. After the screen turns to black she says “Homer?”

Did Prairie experience another near-death experience? Did this one succeed in transporting her to another dimension? Is she being greeted by Homer?

What Episode 1’s title could mean

The title “Angel of Death” could be an allusion to Prairie, who identifies as an angel and a survivor of several near-death experiences. This is a play on a term that is traditionally associated with an entity that brings death upon others. Since Prairie is an “angel” who has survived death, she could be considered an “angel of death.”

As for the script’s imagery, the series opens with Prairie jumping off a bridge, which we later learn was probably her attempt to induce a near-death experience so she would be transported to another dimension. It is a move that failed to do anything, although Prairie appears to attribute that to her heart not stopping.

Cover art

The script for the Season 2 premiere features the Golden Gate Bridge and is one of the only graphics clearly visible in the picture Marling published of her and the scripts. Will one of “the five” jump off of it to bring about their own near-death experience?

Steve was very desperate to remain with Prairie in the Season 1 finale. If she has somehow disappeared, could he jump to try to get to her? It is a theory.

In a different take, IndieWire believes the picture, “more or less confirms the rumor that new episodes will be set in San Francisco.” They do not indicate how many Season 2 episodes would be set there.

Episode 4

A quick Google search and Merriam-Webster‘s online dictionary reveal the word “syzygy” is an astronomical term meaning “the nearly straight-line configuration of three celestial bodies (such as the sun, moon, and earth during a solar or lunar eclipse) in a gravitational system.”

Given that The OA focuses on celestial planes and alternate dimensions, it makes sense that a related term would appear as one of the series’ episode titles. What does it being one actually mean for the series and that specific episode? Interestingly, the number three plays a large role in the meaning of the word and yet, “syzygy” is the name of Episode 4.

Episode 5

If the word “engineer” is a part of the title, it is an interesting clue. Hap (Jason Isaacs) was a scientist, so it would not be a reference to him or necessarily one of his colleagues. What role could an engineer play in all of this and did they play one in the past, or do they play one in the present?

It stands to reason an engineer would have had some involvement in building the elaborate bunker that Hap held Prairie and her fellow captives in. Maybe the new “five” track them down in Season 2.

In Summation

Fans of The OA have a lot to look forward to. With filming beginning in January, Season 2 is closer than it has ever been, and with the episode titles giving fans some crucial hints of what’s to come, there are even more reasons to be excited. To refresh your memory on the clues The OA has provided so far, you can watch Season 1 on Netflix.