The OA Season 2: What Does The Ending Really Mean?

The OA is a mystery drama with elements of science fiction and fantasy. Created by Brit Marling and ‎Zal Batmanglij, the series first premiered in December 2016 on Netflix and has been praised for its creative and experimental storytelling.

In Season 1, we were introduced to Prairie Johnson (Marling), a young woman who returns home seven years after she disappeared. She was also blind when she went missing, but now has her sight back.

She recruits five strangers to tell them the mystifying story of her disappearance and prepare them for a secret mission that involves dimension jumping. She also goes by the name OA, which means Original Angel.

Ending on an intense and emotional cliffhanger, it has been over a two-year wait for Season 2 which arrived on Netflix on March 22nd.

What follows is even more bewildering than Season 1 as the mystery expands and into something even more perplexing. Not to mention, this season's cliffhanger managed to outdo last season's. But what does it all mean?

Contains spoilers for The OA Season 2.

Prairie has finally integrated with Nina Azarova, her dimension two counterpart, and heads back to Treasure Island (the clinic) to confront Hap. Dr. Roberts takes her to see him via the glass elevator. As Nina steps out, the power goes out which leaves Dr. Roberts trapped inside. The glass enclosure causes him to have enough flashbacks to his dimension one captivity, causing him to remember that he is Homer.

Back in dimension one, Steve, Buck, Angie, French and BBA/Betty head to Treasure Island which is abandoned in their dimension. BBA can now sense people across dimensions and knows that Prairie is here. They follow her movements around the building as she moves along with Hap in dimension two. They eventually start performing the five movements to help Prairie.

Hap explains his research to Prairie, revealing his map of the multi-verse – a pool inside his office featuring a number of bodies (including Scott and Steve) all serving as fertiliser for the flower garden growing from their brains.

Hap takes Prairie outside where he says he’s going to teleport them into a new multi-verse using five robots that can perform the movements. In protest, Prairie tells him she’ll teleport them back to dimension one where they’re both dead.

After been freed from the elevator by Rachel, Homer knocks Hap out of the circle. Prairie and Homer embrace for a short amount of time before Hap shoots him. Prairie tells Homer as he’s dying that she’ll take them somewhere safe and they can find each other again.

During all of this, Karim, the private investigator, has gone back to the mysterious House on Nob Hill where he figures out the puzzle and reaches the rose window. He opens it to see Prairie preparing to travel into another dimension – she rises up, glowing like an angel in her white pantsuit.

It’s a beautiful sight, but a dove flies out of the attic and breaks Prairie’s concentration, causing her to fall to the ground and land in a new dimension along with Hap. We zoom out to see a television set – the set of The OA.