We return again through season two, which offers a wide range of dramatic events. The season begins as OA tracks dramatic shifts and is reflected in her life after a childhood accident, as there appear to be new confrontations away from home. On the other hand, there is a new journalist starting to make a new offer to the family where things change. Meanwhile, there seems to be a painful dilemma that gives OA a new perspective on a new plight for the group.
The only thing I'm sure of when it comes to The OA is that the process of watching and experiencing an episode is unlike the viewing of any other show on TV and, good or bad, there's value in that.
It's compelling -- or at least it is once it gets going -- but it's a very different beast to season one, swapping out ambiguity for hard sci-fi fantasy.
Ben-Adir is great here, with his seen-it-all shrug and effortless cool, and his presence gives us a viewer surrogate who's just as confused and exasperated by all this pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo as we are.
There are moments in Part II that are so visually and conceptually bold... There are other moments that skirt so close to the pretentious and ridiculous that they made me think I might actually transform into the eye-roll emoji.
This time it feels worth it. And it turns out, if you were one of the viewers who believed, who left that door open for The OA all these years, you might have welcomed some bonafide, baffling magic into your home.
It's hard not to appreciate the grand scale of what Marling and Batmanglij are attempting to do, even if it's difficult at times to discern what, exactly, that's supposed to be.
Events, characters and half-formed ideas are thrown at the screen then abandoned in favour of fresh mysteries, the show infinitely rolling out a carpet of kookiness.
