At the end of the second season of The OA, the series' protagonist falls from a great height.
Then the lights go up. We see that she's in a film studio. Concerned crew members rush around the lead actress, calling her by her actual, real-life name — Brit. She is pulled into an ambulance.
Just before this event, the protagonist — named Nina in this dimension, played by Brit Marling — tells a group of her friends, "Hold on. We're gonna jump. Together. It may take us to a place where I don't know myself, where we don't know each other. You come find me."
Those are her last words to her friends before she falls out of a window and crash-lands on the concrete.
Shortly after Season 2 aired, Netflix and the show's creators announced that The OA had been canceled. Creator and star Brit Marling confirmed this in an Instagram post.
The announcement sent fans into disarray. Many believed that the show's cancellation was an elaborate hoax, and since then, fans have been picking apart the show's every frame, looking for clues as to what might be coming next. The #SavetheOA movement launched everything from protests to hunger strikes.
For a long time, there was nothing. Some fans tried to distance themselves from the show. Others clung to its existence, clinging to hope like a sort of faith. Conspiracy theories flourished. Hundreds gathered to perform the show's seminal five movements, which allow characters to jump through worlds. (Just before her fall, Nina/Brit performed these movements).
And now, for the first time in years, we have hope that the show might not actually be over after all.
On May 23rd, show creator Zal Batmanglij posted four cryptic colored squares on his Instagram. The colors were yellow, cyan, white (with a tiny "f" in the center of the square), and magenta. Fans quickly cracked the code, taking it to mean "You Come Find Me."
Adding fuel to the fire: If you search the letters "YCFM" on Netflix, The OA is the first thing to come up.
May 23rd is already a significant date for eagle-eyed OA fans, who noticed that in one Season 2 episode the camera rests on a shot of a tape on May 23; in another episode, the numbers 5 and 23 are directly highlighted.
If The OA's cancellation was an elaborate ruse and part of the story the whole time, then certainly the show is quite literally taking storytelling to new heights. Looking back over the show's trajectory and release, the pieces start to come together.
The OA's release has always been unusual. It was released on Netflix with no marketing and no fanfare. When the show was canceled, a Netflix representative said, "We look forward to working with them again, in this and perhaps many other dimensions." Fans noted that Netflix had never officially announced that the show was canceled.
There are many other cryptic clues. A 2019 tweet from the OA's Twitter account reads, "The best place to hide something is in plain sight."
The best place to hide something is in plain sight.
So if the OA is actually returning, what might Season 3 look like? Most likely it will take place in our world, or in a world very similar to ours, where the show's actors go by their real names and believe they are part of a TV show called The OA.
Perhaps Season 3 will be a TV show, but some fans think the show will play out in real life. Others think that the creators have laid out a puzzle or game that will lead fans towards Season 3. This wouldn't be the first time The OA toyed with the idea of immersive, real-life puzzles: Season 2 largely revolves around a strange game that, when you reach a certain level, jumps off of the phone screen and becomes real-life and multidimensional.
If the show is actually pulling such a stunt on all of us, this would probably be one of the most ingenious storytelling endeavors ever committed. It would also make perfect sense. A lot of The OA, particularly the first season, is about the ordinary people who gather around Brit Marling (named Prairie in that first dimension) as she tells a story about the impossible and marvelous things that have happened to her. "I asked you to believe in impossible things," she tells them. Doubtful, unsure, and feeling crazy (like many OA fans), Prairie's followers ultimately never gave up on her, and wound up helping her jump dimensions.
Perhaps now, the show is asking OA fans all over the world to help their story jump dimensions and emerge into our reality.
Personally, I've had some very strange experiences with The OA. Shortly after rewatching the series for the second time, I randomly found a sticker that literally read "OA" on my dresser — and to this day I have no idea where it came from. This year, I moved to San Francisco...not because of The OA, but perhaps The OA was a factor, and it feels like a synchronicity that I'd move here (to the place where the second season takes place) just as the show seems about to jump into Season 3.
Obviously, the show has gotten into my head, and I know I'm not alone — there are legions of fans on the Internet having similar experiences, dancing between faith and realism and choosing to believe in impossible things.
All in all one thing is clear. However we get to Season 3, it's sure to be an absolutely wild ride.
me every time zal batmanglij postspic.twitter.com/Kt0MeA0PkG
With her breakout Netflix series The OA, Brit Marling captivated viewers with her storytelling abilities and resistance to stereotypical hero's journey narratives.
Since The OA was canceled, she's shared wise observations about her experience in Hollywood and the inspiration behind the kind of storytelling she used in the series.
Marling began her career as an intern at Goldman Sachs, but she eventually left the corporate life and moved to LA to become an actress. At 24, after being rejected from a series of objectifying bit parts and trapped in an abusive relationship, she fell into depression.
But she took her frustration in an unexpected direction. She decided to write her own stories.
After she starred in two successful self-made indie films, the offers began to pour in, and she was even given the chance to play that most coveted of roles: the Strong Female Lead, the CEO, the badass female villain, or stuntwoman. But soon she began to understand that there were issues with this archetype, too.
"The more I acted the Strong Female Lead, the more I became aware of the narrow specificity of the characters' strengths — physical prowess, linear ambition, focused rationality. Masculine modalities of power," she wrote in a new op-ed for The New York Times.
The OA was meant to be an interrogation of the Strong Female Lead persona. It became an interrogation of the stories that underlie American culture. These stories praise success, aggression, independence, and monetary gain—but, Marling writes, "It's difficult for us to imagine femininity itself — empathy, vulnerability, listening — as strong."
In an era where films like Birds of Prey—which center female-led violence and provide catharsis to women who have been abused or are frustrated with the patriarchy—are still undeniably feminist triumphs and exceptions to the cinematic rule, Marling's vision of the future is a powerful alternative. Birds of Prey might be a feminist triumph, but it's still a response to abuse that glorifies masculine superhero narratives. Marling's ideas imagine a different sort of future, one where these kinds of violent reactions don't need to be made in the first place.
Instead of valuing one gender over the other, Marling concludes that we need to question binary structures in the first place. "How do we restore balance? Or how do we evolve beyond the limitations that binaries like feminine/masculine present?" she asks.
"I imagine new structures and mythologies born from the choreography of female bodies, non-gendered bodies, bodies of color, disabled bodies. I imagine excavating my own desires, wants and needs, which I have buried so deeply to meet the desires, wants and needs of men around me that I'm not yet sure how my own desire would power the protagonist of a narrative. These are not yet solutions. But they are places to dig.
Excavating, teaching and celebrating the feminine through stories is, inside our climate emergency, a matter of human survival. The moment we start imagining a new world and sharing it with one another through story is the moment that new world may actually come."
Marling was nervous about posting the op-ed. "2 days ago I woke up in the middle of the night and thought: I'm too scared to publish this," she wrote on Twitter. "I then rememberedAudre Lorde's 'The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action'—it gave me courage."
— (@)
In the essay, she also interrogates silence. "But even in the silence I dream of answers," she concludes. Maybe the silence—listening, asking questions—can provide hints about the kinds of of stories we really need.
Thanks to streaming platforms like Netflix and Hulu, it was suddenly possible to watch multiple episodes of a single TV series in one sitting without the interruptions of commercials. As the way we watched TV changed, so too did the kind of shows we watched. Gone was the overabundance of vapid, sugary-sweet sitcoms, and in came the era of political satire, dramatic comedies, and searing commentaries on everything from abortion to Hollywood. Summarily, the 2010s saw a golden age of television. Here are our 50 favorites, with the top 25 and bottom 25 listed in alphabetical order.
The Top 25 TV Shows of the 2010s
Atlanta
Atlanta first aired in 2016, with Donald Glover's Earn learning that his cousin Alfred has released a hit song under the stage name Paper Boi. Since then, the show has followed Earn's struggle to navigate different worlds as he takes over managing his cousin's burgeoning music career while also trying to be a good father to his daughter, Lottie, and to prove himself to Van, his ex-girlfriend and Lottie's mother. The show uses varying perspectives to flesh out the city of Atlanta and the complexities of being black in America with surreal touches that highlight the real-world absurdity. Yet despite the heaviness of much of its subject matter, it frequently manages to be among the funniest shows on TV.
Barry
For anyone who ever wondered whether or not SNL-alum Bill Hader could carry a serious TV show, Barry answers with an overwhelming "yes." To be clear, Barry is technically a dark comedy, or perhaps a crime comedy-drama, but Bill Hader brings a level of unprecedented seriousness to his titular character that oftentimes makes the show feel like a straight tragedy.
Playing a hitman who wants to leave his life of crime behind in order to pursue a career in acting, Bill Hader imbues Barry with an earnestness that makes us as an audience truly want him to succeed. This likability serves to make Barry's violent acts all the more disturbing. Barry's greatest success is its ability to effortlessly fluctuate between the quirks of life as a struggling actor in LA and the violent inclinations of a man who murders for a living and can never really escape that truth. It's one of the best character studies currently on TV and is sure to cement Bill Hader as an extremely versatile A-list talent.
Baskets
Baskets premiered on FX in 2016, telling the story of Chip Baskets, an aspiring clown played by Zach Galifianakis, who is moving back to Bakersfield, California to live with his mother after a failed stint at clown school in Paris. Galfianakis' talent for melancholy slapstick makes the show by turns hilarious and touching, but it's his mother Christine Baskets—artfully portrayed by Louie Anderson—whose simple enthusiasm for small-town life makes the show one of the best of the decade. Watching Christine, Chip, and his twin brother Dale (also Galifianakis) heighten relatable family drama to exquisite absurdity never gets old.
Black Mirror
Nothing would be the same without Black Mirror. Though its later seasons have been inconsistent in quality, its earliest contributions were digital horror at its finest, with some of the episodes being downright visionary in terms of how accurately they predicted the near future. From the nostalgic visions of virtual afterlife in "San Junipero" to the eerie foresight of "Nosedive" and its digital ranking systems, Black Mirror made an indelible impact.
Bob's Burgers
Whatever you've heard about Family Guy or South Park, Bob's Burgers is the true successor to the golden age of The Simpsons. The Belcher family offers an update to The Simpsons' satirical view on middle class family life that reflects how America has changed since the 90s—slightly more urban, with less overt child abuse and a lot more economic precarity. And just as with the best seasons of The Simpsons, Bob's Burgers maintains a touching core of familial love and solidarity amid the absurd hijinks and veiled political commentary. Throw in the added value of the frequently hilarious, occasionally moving musical numbers, and Bob's Burgers easily secures a spot as one of the best shows of the decade.
Bojack Horseman
In terms of the quality of its writing, BoJack Horseman outdid itself season after season. What began as a parody of Hollywood's excesses quickly turned into a searing, and boundary-pushing meditation on depression, addiction, and what it means to change (or to be unable to). Increasingly self-aware and conscious of its hypocritical tendency to obsess over the misadventures of an evil but sympathetic celebrity, thereby glorifying them while criticizing them, BoJack Horseman is the political, devastating, timely, often hilarious show about an animated horse that none of us knew we needed. It's buoyed by the strength of its secondary characters, from the workaholic Princess Carolyn to asexual Todd to self-loathing Diane, and altogether the show takes deep-rooted fears that many share and refracts them in a funhouse mirror that's impossible to look away from.
Broad City
Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson began producing an independent web series about their struggles to "make it" in New York City in 2009. Soon, Amy Poehler took interest in the series, and it moved to Comedy Central in 2014. The smash hit comedy was not only laugh-out-loud funny, but a beautiful portrait of a genuinely healthy, supportive female friendship—something TV has historically seen little of. Broad City can be credited for helping to usher in a new generation of female comedy creators and has become a cultural touchstone for millenials.
Catastrophe
Catastrophe, created and written by the show's stars, Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan, is one of the realest, grossest, and funniest takes on love and the mess of life. Two people entering middle age meet and hit it off, they spend a reckless night together, and when she gets pregnant, they decide to make things work—not realizing how complicated that will be. It's a simple enough premise, but the cutting dialogue and the absurd comedy that plays out as two near-strangers build a life together make Catastrophe one of a kind.
Fargo
Anthology series like True Detective and American Horror Story can be really hit or miss, but in the three seasons that have aired on FX since 2014, Fargo has been consistently great. Maybe it has to do with the leisurely production schedule, the all-star cast, or the near-perfect movie that forms the basis for its tone, but whatever the cause, Fargo delivers murderous midwestern tragicomedy better than any show on TV—and nearly as well as the original. Season three, which followed the rivalry of the Stussy brothers—as played by Ewan McGregor—deserves a particular call-out, with season four due next year and featuring Chris Rock, Timothy Olyphant, and Jason Schwartzman.
Fleabag
Phoebe Waller-Bridge's stage-play-turned-two-season-TV masterpiece took the world by storm at the end of the 2010s. In the series, the viewer is made into the protagonist's (an unnamed woman played by Bridge) confidante as she uses sex to cope with grief and complicated family dynamics. As the show progresses, the closely protected inner life of the protagonist begins to reveal itself. Many consider the second season to be an essentially perfect season of television, in large part because of the hot priest (played by Andrew Scott). Fleabag is a funny, searing commentary on what it means to exist as a sexual, complicated being in a world with ever-changing expectations of women.
Grace and Frankie
70 is the new 30, or 20, or whatever arbitrary year of life we as a culture are deciding to glorify for no reason, because age is just a number. If you weren't aware that Jane Fonda glowed with money or that Lily Tomlin is our collective spiritual mother, then Grace and Frankie enlightened you. When two septuagenarian women are told that their husbands are gay and in love with each other, the best phase of their lives begins.
Haikyu!!
It's almost 2020, the world is upside down, and yes, an anime about high school volleyball is genuinely one of the best shows of the decade. Haikyu!!, literally "Volleyball" in Japanese, is about the trials and tribulations of the Karasuno High School Boys Volleyball Team. Unlike pretty much every other high school sports anime out there, Haikyu!! takes a relatively realistic approach to...well...high schoolers playing sports. In doing so, Haikyu!! translates the genuine passion that goes into high school sports and the real dynamics of teamwork, better than any other show I've ever seen.
The protagonist, Hinata, isn't a superpowered Volleyball God; he's an extremely short boy who can't reach the top of the net, but works his butt off because he loves the game. Likewise, all the other boys in Haikyu!! have realistic strengths and weaknesses (both on and off the court) that they work to overcome with help from their teammates. Haikyu!! is an exercise in wholesomeness––there are no villains, just other kids at other schools who love the same sport our boys do––and in a decade full of so much bitterness, it's a much needed dose of medicine.
Hunter x Hunter
For anyone who likes long-running shonen anime, Hunter x Hunter is, without a doubt, the pinnacle of the genre. While the original manga began publication in 1998, and a previous anime adaptation ran from 1999-2001, the 2011 adaptation re-started the series from scratch and, most importantly, covered the Chimaera Ant arc (or season––kind of––for you non-anime watchers).
The entirety of Hunter x Hunter is fantastic, featuring likeable protagonists, dastardly villains, and a brilliantly creative power system called "Nen." But there's a reason the Chimaera Ant arc is often considered the greatest shonen arc ever, and that's because it's a total deconstruction of the genre's tropes and conventions. Everything from the "always optimistic protagonist" to "the ultimate evil villain" is turned completely inside-out. The Chimaera Ant arc is intensely brutal and ultimately poignant, making us question the very nature of what makes us human.
Killing Eve
Phoebe Waller-Bridge can do no wrong, and even if she could and did, I'd probably still clap. The combination of Waller-Bridge's cutting wit and Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer's flawless performances makes for a TV show that never quite lets you find your balance before sending you spinning again. It's dark and surreal, while managing to still be deeply human.
Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Being a professional stand-up comedienne is hard, but being Midge Maisel is wrapping chaos in a designer dress. Created by the fast-talking husband and wife behind Gilmore Girls, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel created a stage for Rachel Brosnahan to showcase her comedic timing and Alex Borstein to be a solid, deadpan pillar within Mrs. Maisel's world of quippy, fast-talking, energy. Also Michael Zegen (Joel) is dead cute.
Mob Psycho 100
While One Punch Man might be manga artist One's best known series (and is fantastic in its own right), his other series, Mob Psycho 100,is profound in a way quite unlike anything else I've seen. The show revolves around Mob, an awkward, unconfident middle school boy with god-like psychic powers. Any other shonen anime would use this premise as a gateway to epic battles (and there are a few, and their animation is absolutely incredible), but Mob Psycho 100 focuses far more on the coming-of-age angle instead.
See, Mob doesn't like his psychic powers because they make him feel weird. So instead of focusing on the one thing he's innately talented at but doesn't like, Mob tries to improve himself in the ways he actually cares about improving––making friends, talking to girls, working out with his school's Body Improvement Club. If anything, Mob's incredible psychic powers are a backdrop for the show's larger message––that no person, no matter what natural abilities they may have, is better than anyone else. Mob Psycho 100 shows that everyone has their own struggles, and that the only person you should ever hold yourself up in comparison to is the person you were yesterday.
The OA
Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij's labyrinthine show only ran for two seasons, but it managed to earn a cult following during that time. Deeply weird, profoundly earnest, and full to the brim with observations on the connections between the environment, parallel universes, and technology, the two seasons that we do have are irreplaceable and paradigm-shifting examples of what TV could become, if we let ourselves believe.
Orange Is the New Black
Piper Kerman's post-grad rebellious stage went from a felony to a cultural touchstone. As Netflix's most-watched original series, OITNB boasted a female-led cast and cutting commentary on race, class, and the industrial prison complex.
PEN15
Those who didn't have a gruelingly awkward middle school experience are, by scientific evidence, simply inhuman. Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle tell it best in Hulu original PEN15, which co-stars the real-life BFFs (who also wrote and executive produced together) as 13-year-olds. Here, there's no sugarcoating the calamities of tweenhood, whether they're as trivial as thongs and AIM messaging or as weighty as race identity. All delivered with Erskine and Konkle's razor-sharp wit, it's absolutely hysterical to anyone who's lived past the seventh grade.
Rick and Morty
"To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty. The humour is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical physics most of the jokes will go over a typical viewer's head."
Okay, so first things first, we need to separate Rick and Morty from the Rick and Morty fandom. The Rick and Morty fandom is so annoying that memes making fun of them are barely distinguishable from the things they actually say. But, to be fair, Rick and Morty really is a great show full of smart writing, surprisingly deep characterization, and the exact kind of bizarre, abstract humor that lends itself perfectly to endless memes. No doubt, Rick and Morty will be the defining animated comedy of the 2010s.
Russian Doll
This tightly-wound and big-hearted thriller stars Natasha Lyonne as a jaded New Yorker who gets caught in a loop in time and has to relive the night of her 36th birthday party over and over again. A perfect blend of humor and seriousness, and riddled with quantum leaps and profound connections, it's as satisfying as it is provocative.
Shameless
We fell in love with the trainwreck family the Gallaghers when it debuted on Showtime in 2011. William H. Macy brought so much toxic charm to the abusive and neglectful father Frank Gallagher that we actually found him, if not likable, then good television. Emmy Rossum managed to cause tears and laughter within the same scene, and the entire cast was as impressive as their characters were appalling.
Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan)
After the first season of Attack on Titan premiered in 2013, it received so much hype that even people outside of the anime community were raving about it. The show featured an incredibly high-concept premise, following the last surviving humans as they tried to fight back against giant, man-eating monsters called Titans. Had Attack on Titan stuck to that premise, it would have been top-notch action-horror, albeit not necessarily one of the best shows of the decade.
But Attack on Titan turned out to be so much bigger than its initial premise. As the seasons progressed, Attack on Titan reshaped itself time and time again, leading viewers through an increasingly complex, expertly plotted narrative featuring some of the most compelling characters and intensely emotional moments that I've ever experienced in fiction. At its core, Attack on Titan is a deeply thematic contemplation on war, othering, and humanity's will to survive against impossible odds, alongside the moral sacrifices they oftentimes make to do so.
Shrill
It shouldn't be revolutionary for a show to feature a fat female lead, but it is. Shrill, the brilliant Hulu adaptation of Lindy West's memoir, Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman, gave audiences a badly needed narrative about a woman who is actively seeking to change her life for the better, in ways that have nothing to do with her body. It's funny, it's heartfelt, and it shows a woman getting an abortion and finding it empowering. Woah. Hell yes.
Steven Universe
When Steven Universe first aired on Cartoon Network in 2013, it was a light-hearted and silly children's show with some super-powered action from the Crystal Gems and a lot of silly jokes from their sidekick—the childish titular character. Since then an entire galaxy has been fleshed out around the boardwalk of Beach City where much of the show takes place. Along with the alien gem creatures and their elaborate history, the show has introduced us to a cast of characters that have grown and changed—overcoming insecurities and facing complex questions of love and identity. While Steven matured and developed into a hero worthy of his last name, the show evolved to become one of the best of the decade.
Reigning weird white women Lana Del Rey, Grimes, and Brit Marling sat down to have a conversation for Interview Magazine, and the result was as futuristic and multidimensional as you might expect.
Grimes, who's in the midst of promoting her forthcoming album Miss_Anthropocene, spoke to Del Rey about everything from ancient religions to artificial intelligence and beyond. Their conversation revolved around artmaking, womanhood, and fame in the Internet age; and like their art, it was characteristically inscrutable. When Del Rey asked if Grimes' work was inspired by personal experience or "the overculture," Grimes launched into a discussion of ancient Egyptian gods and anthropomorphization. "If you think about it, god-making or god-designing just seems so fun. The idea of making the Goddess of Plastic seems so fun to me," she said.
Lana Del Rey and Grimes: Variations on Femininity, Faith, and Critics
Though they're both creative spirits who play with religious symbols and cultural iconography, Grimes and Del Rey are known for representing femininity in different ways (and for dating problematic men). While Del Rey has been linked to classic archetypes of femininity, Grimes' early work seemed to present a futuristic, androgynous image. "On my last record, I was in this gender-neutral mindset," Grimes told Del Rey. "I was an asexual person. F*ck my sexuality. F*ck femininity. F*ck being a girl. I was having this weird reaction to society where I just hated my femaleness. It was like, to be a producer, I felt like I had to be a man."
But Grimes' next album seems like it will lean deeper into feminine and goddess archetypes, while Del Rey's latest, Norman F**king Rockwell, found her comparing herself to great male artists and challenging those who labeled her work as artificial.
Both were full of surprises and were critical of the press, which have always viciously criticized each of them in turn. "In terms of what I'm writing, in my personal life I have to be really, really happy," said Del Rey, contradicting thousands of critics in one fell swoop. They also lamented outrage culture, with its tendency to pluck headlines from interviews and its preference for catchy misinformation at the price of nuance.
Grimes and Brit Marling: On Politics, Artificial Intelligence's Impending World Domination, Capitalism, and Hyperobjects
In the second part of the interview, Grimes spoke to Brit Marling, another futurist whose recently-canceled show, The OA, presented an alternative mode of storytelling and connected technology to environmentalism to the multiverse theory. Together, the two lamented how their work and visions sometimes wind up being incompatible with reality.
Like their work, their conversations spiraled through various dimensions, though one could only imagine what they'd speak about off the record. "We're always negotiating the cost versus the craziness, which is why we always end up editing ourselves," said Marling, hinting at dimensions left unseen.
Both expressed appreciation for the mind-bending nature of each other's work, and Grimes quickly dove back into history and archetypes. "In the medieval times, when literacy was at its lowest, everything got really symbolic, like the cross. Nuance got lost," said Grimes. "I feel like we're going back to a time like that, where everything is symbolic. No one reads past a headline because our attention spans are so short. The same symbols are being fed to people, and they're gathering completely opposite meanings from them, and it's creating chaos."
Marling pulled things towards the politics of the present. "The American flag means one thing to one group of people, and one thing to another," she said. "To one, it's a metaphor for freedom. To another, it's an image of oppression. That duality of symbolism applies to so many things. But we live in an increasingly complex time where it's hard to grasp things in symbols. We're having to deal with all of these hyperobjects. Climate change is a hyperobject that people cannot wrap their minds around, because, among other things, it involves a contemplation of time that is off the scope of the human body. We're at a moment when we need nuanced, layered thinking more than ever, and somehow the moment is being met with a real shrinking away from context or depth."
They also discussed artificial intelligence and its impending world domination, a favorite topic of Grimes'. "There will eventually be a sentient technology that is smart enough and strong enough and has access to take everyone's sh*t, and then can make anyone do whatever it wants," said Grimes. "I might be wrong, and I might be aggrandizing here, but I feel like this might be one of the most important times in history. Especially in the last two years, it feels like we've walked right up to the edge between the old world and the new world. It's like before the pyramids and after the pyramids. We're at a 'pyramids got built' moment. We're going to be digitizing reality and colonizing space simultaneously, which may be two of the craziest things that will have occurred in the history of humanity. It's going to happen while we're alive and while we're young, which is nuts."
Marling has previously written about the need for a better story, one that unifies the scattered threads of our era and critiques hero worship, but the idea that artificial intelligence might write this story is definitely a threat to all of this. She replied, "If the objective of art has often been to be a lighthouse in the dark, to say, 'Hey, come this way,' or to expose fraudulent things for what they actually are, what does it mean if something other than human beings is authoring that force of rebellion?" A valid point—though on the other hand, what if artificial intelligence could improve upon some of the flaws that define the human condition, such as our general inability to understand what asexuality actually is?
Grimes returned to a topic she'd addressed with Del Rey. "We're always looking for our maker: 'Who is our god? Who created us?' What's interesting is, for AI, we are their god," she said. "That will be the first intelligent being that knows its creator, and knows everything about us."
Marling proposed that maybe AI isn't our worst fear—maybe something else is already controlling us. "Capitalism, even if there wasn't corruption, is a model that doesn't work for most people, because its only goal is the increase of profit, which means that there's somebody at the top of the pyramid and most people at the bottom who get paid less than their work is worth for profit to be extracted," she said. "I think part of the reason there's been so much climate change denial is that if you acknowledge that this economic system leads to ecological ruin, you have to acknowledge in the same breath that it's broken. Right now, we put value in growth, and everything is just endless, ridiculous growth, even though we're on a finite planet with dwindling resources and more people every day. Let's say, just for a moment, you put the value on caregiving."
"I was just thinking the other day how much I didn't appreciate my mom growing up," said Grimes. "I remember thinking, 'Why did you wake me up for school? This b*tch. F*ck.'"
There's only one conclusion to be drawn here. Lana Del Rey, Grimes, and Brit Marling should collaborate on a visual concept album with an interactive artificial intelligence component that crafts a new story outside the bounds of capitalism and neoliberalism and that motivates everyone to fight climate change, promote ethics in Silicon Valley, and call their mom.
Since August 19, the 35-year-old has been striking outside the Netflix headquarters in protest of The OA's cancelation. Her actions are spurred on by a combination of love for the TV show ("It's helped people process their trauma," she said)—and her disdain for late capitalism.
"This hunger strike is...not just about the TV show but also about the iniquities of capitalism and the inadequate social support structures in our country," she said. "There kind of isn't anything more important." Young is an unemployed writer who had been sending out job applications to no avail for several months. Her hunger strike may seem extreme, but so are the involuntary hunger strikes people across America are forced to undergo as they look for jobs or, even if they have work, still struggle to support their families while being underpaid and slammed with massive health insurance bills and the like.
Even so, Young's actions are drastic and rather roundabout—perhaps she'd be better off engaging with politics or other forms of activism that directly engage with the issues at hand. But art has always been a reflection of societal discontent, as well as a way of presenting visions of better worlds, largely by tapping into humans' universal desire for connection.
The OA certainly did this, too, telling its story by forming deep bonds with its viewers. It's been hard for some fans to let go.
This Is a Movement: Fans Rally Around Their Angel
Young is far from alone in her desire to see the TV show renewed. A petition to save the show has garnered 80,000 signatures on Change.org, and fans recently raised $5,582 in order to purchase a billboard in Times Square and LA. Hundreds have posted videos of themselves performing the show's seminal "five movements," a shamanic dance sequence that enables characters to leap between dimensions in the show.
Why is the show so important to people, important enough that they'd put their own lives on the line to save it? For some fans, it's probably just because they love the show.
For others, it may be because they feel like they're being called to action by a higher power.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: Why Fans Think The OA's Ending Is a Call to Action
The show tells the story of a blind woman named Prairie (Brit Marling), also known as The OA (aka The Original Angel), who regains her sight after being kidnapped by a scientist (Jason Isaacs) who studies near death experiences. At the end of the first season, she escapes the scientist's prison and winds up in an alternate reality, where the second season takes place.
Fans' feverish protests may have been encouraged by the way this last season ended. In the show's final episode, "Overview," Prairie travels into a third dimension. After leaping through a rose-colored glass window at the top of a San Francisco mansion, she and the scientist wind up in a different dimension—and some fans think that dimension is our own.
In the last frames, the two characters appear to be on a film set. In this world, they're both actors who go by their real names, Brit and Jason. At the end of the episode, Marling's character is fighting for her life inside an ambulance and is unable to remember her previous identity.
Some fans believe that the show's cancelation is a continuation of its meta-narrative, a purposeful development in the storyline meant to move the show into our reality. Considering the show's penchant for interactive technologies, that wouldn't be such a stretch.
Others have insinuated that the show's meta-ending and subsequent cancelation indicate that people in this world need to rally in order to save The OA, who really has come to our dimension.
After all, some of the characters in the show are told over and over again that they need to band together in order to help Marling's character survive her interdimensional struggles. They're asked to rely on faith in The OA's message, despite being unsure if she's real.
Most fans haven't taken things quite this far, but the fact that the show is capable of rallying so many people together is a testament to its ability to transmit its messages through the screen. Really, it's a testament to all art and to everything that requires improbable faith.
The End of the Hero's Journey
For her part, Marling (also one of the co-creators and writers) has seemingly resigned herself to the show's demise. A recent Variety article clarified that there will be no wrap-up film for the series, and said that Marling has encouraged fans to stop protesting. However, some fans believe that the article is falsified and misleading.
Last week, Marling posted an essay on Instagram thanking fans for believing in her show and expressing some of her feelings about its cancelation.
In it, she wrote that the show's "unexpected cancelation begs larger questions about the role of storytelling and its fate inside late capitalism's push toward consolidation and economies of scale."
In the post, she also spent a long time discussing the idea of the "hero's journey," the main story arc underlying most narratives since the origins of human culture. In this story, a hero goes on a quest or adventure, wins a dramatic victory, and comes home changed, endowed with newfound powers.
According to Marling, this story is understandably appealing. "Sometimes I feel paralyzed by the forces we are up against—greed, fear, vanity," she wrote. "And I can't help but long for someone to rescue us from ourselves—a politician, an outlaw, a tech baron, an angel."
However, she continued, this story might hint at the core of what's slowly dooming human civilization to an unpleasant heat death. At the heart of the hero's journey is the idea of progress and ascension to greatness at any cost. It's the idea that one person will save us, and that we can overpower the world around us by grand actions, like, say, nuking a hurricane.
In reality, though, "No one is coming to the rescue," Marling wrote. She ended the post with a call for more stories that disrupt the hero's narrative and propose different futures and alternate forms of redemption. "So perhaps, at this late hour inside the dire circumstances of climate change and an ever-widening gap between the Haves and the Have-Nots, we are hundreds of years overdue new mythologies that reflect this," she concluded. "Stories with modes of power outside violence and domination. Stories with goals for human agency outside conquest and colonization. Stories that illustrate the power of collective protagonism, or do away with protagonism entirely."
Say what you want about how weird The OA was, but you have to admit that Marling has some good ideas. We do need alternate stories, stories that tell us not only what's wrong with this world, but also what a better world might look like—and we need road maps to show us how to get there.
In its abstract, confounding way, The OA hinted at these kinds of paths, presenting a narrative that emphasizes how deeply connected humans are—not only to each other but to the world around them. It told this through queer narratives that highlighted the importance of chosen families and through posthuman storylines that placed the voices of trees and animals on equal footing with human ones.
If this sounds absurd, it is—when you view it from the perspective of the humanist messages we've been indoctrinated with since birth, which claim that we're more powerful than the natural world (when in fact it's the exact opposite), and which fill us with the kind of fear and insecurities that lead us to harm other people so we can succeed.
According to Vulture's article on The OA's queerness, to believe in the show and its seminal dance movements "requires a leap of faith, a belief that art has a higher purpose and a function beyond aesthetics, that it could be used in the face of sheer, unthinkable violence. The Movements allowed Prairie and her fellow prisoners to reclaim their bodies and create a space that their captor could never control."
All this being said, the show itself is far from perfect. It doesn't present a clear vision of change, it does in fact rely on a hero's narrative, and it's just too weird and uncomfortable at times to fully resonate. But it does present brief glimpses of the aforementioned ideas, brief hints of the sublime interconnectedness that underlies all things, and sometimes that's all we can ask for.
What's Next for The OA?
There are much bigger problems in the world than the fact that The OA is being canceled, and none of this is meant to advise more people to donate their savings to the show or to go on a hunger strike.
Still, in a world where it's become nearly impossible for writers and creative people to find work without the support of massive corporations, and where shows as beloved as The OA wind up on the cutting-room floor due to a purported lack of funds, it's a tale worth rallying around.
Some fans are finding ways to weave their love for the show into acts of protest that incorporate greater issues. A campaign called #GreenOA has inspired fans to gather together to clean up highways and parks, and fans have also organized a fundraiser for the anti-trafficking organization A21. Many fans have also expressed gratitude for the people they've met through their efforts.
In The OA's final episode, one of the characters stumbles on a quote from a T.S. Eliot poem, carved into the walls of the strange house that contains the rose window. "At the end of all our exploring," it reads, "We will arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." Maybe that's the real gift of The OA: not the story it told, but the fact that it offers a different way of looking at the same world we've always known and the living things (both human and not) that have always been quietly existing alongside us.
(This article contains major spoilers for both Black Mirror's Bandersnatch and The OA Season II.)
For a moment, the camera remains focused on the protagonist's bewildered face.
Then it pans out to reveal that the entire world of the show we've just been watching was nothing more than a TV set. Cameramen and directors scurry around; the actors fix their costumes. The main character stares, open-mouthed.
If you make a particular series of choices, you'll arrive at this scene in Black Mirror's
Bandersnatch. You can also see it in Season II of The OA, when—extreme spoiler alert—detective Karim Washington finally peers out the mysterious Rose Window, and sees a dimension in which everyone he knows is only an actor in a movie set.
In
Bandersnatch, this revelation occurs in a therapist's office, and in The OA it happens on the top floor of a San Francisco mansion, but despite these immediate differences, the two scenes are uncannily similar.
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch -- Neflix Fight Scenewww.youtube.com
The OA: Part II - 2x08 - Ending Scene (1080p)www.youtube.com
This is only one of the many major parallels between two of Netflix's most mysterious, mind-bending shows. Initially, they start with very different premises. Charlie Brooker's
Bandersnatch is a two-hour-long roller coaster, notable for its "choose your own adventure" feature, which allows viewers to design their own plot by making various decisions at different points. (Choices range from which kind of cereal to choose to whether the protagonist should kill his father). The protagonist in question is a young computer game coder named Stefan, and the show follows him as he descends into madness while designing an ever-more complex computer game.
The OA is Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij's ambitious, fourteen-episode brainchild. Its first season follows Marling's character, Prairie, as she tells the story of her near-death experience and subsequent abduction by the show's villain, Hap, a scientist who has become obsessed with studying the brains of people who have brushed close with death. The first season ended on a major cliffhanger; the second begins in a new dimension, when Prairie awakens to find herself inside the body of Nina Azarova, a Russian socialite and medium living the life she would have if not for her NDE.
Objectively, the shows aren't that similar—after all,
Bandersnatch takes place in the '80s and mostly focuses on an isolated Stefan as he descends into homicidal madness. On the other hand, the ultra-modern cast of The OA includes everyone from Zendaya to a massive, talking octopus named Old Night.
Still, upon closer inspection, the similarities are undeniable. Here are some of the most notable places where the two shows' universes meet.
A Computer Game as a Portal to Multiple Realities
In
The OA's second season, children lose their minds as they attempt to win money by playing a computer game, which leads them into a mansion that's actually a portal to other universes. The mansion itself is designed to work as a continuation of the game, which allows winners to reach the Rose Window and its mind-bending, reality-altering view.
Similarly, in
Bandersnatch, Stefan loses his mind while designing a game that leads him to question every aspect of his reality. While attempting to understand these games, both the kids in The OA and Stefan draw cryptic illustrations on their bedroom walls, isolate themselves, and wind up harming themselves and everyone around them. In each show, the central game lures characters in by promising greatness and wealth—but instead leads them towards either a state of enlightened understanding or paralyzing madness.
Ultimately, both shows use games and technology as vessels that can be used to leap between worlds. Both identify alternate realities that run alongside each other and that intersect at certain points; and both claim that—through deep science, communion with nature, or a few well-placed dance movements—it might be possible to cross from this world to the next.
— (@)
A Charismatic Tech Guru with Dangerous Theories
One of the most memorable moments in
Bandersnatch is the scene where Stefan drops acid with Colin, the Steve Jobs-esque brains behind the tech company Tuckersoft. As soon as the drug kicks in, Colin delivers one of the trippiest monologues in modern television history.
Colin is a prophetic source of wisdom throughout the show—just like
The OA's leading tech guru, Silicon Valley 'prophet' Pierre Ruskin, orchestrator of the game that leads children to the house. Ultimately, both gurus are firmly convinced that there is more than one reality, and both are dedicated to reaching it, no matter the cost.
Childhood Trauma as a Point of Divergence
At the heart of
The OA and Bandersnatch—amidst all their static and science—are specific instances of childhood trauma, which are identified as the points where the characters' lives began to diverge into multiple pathways. In The OA, that moment is Nina/Prairie's NDE, an experience she's forced to revisit when trying to re-access Nina Azarova's memories. In Bandersnatch, that moment is when the young Stefan spent too long searching for his toy, causing his mother to miss her train and catch a later one, which derailed.
Prairie lost her father and her vision in her traumatic event, and Stefan lost his mother, but both shows give their protagonists the ability to revisit these traumas and, effectively, to undo them, to experience lives in which these moments had never happened. Prairie's moment of recollection and reversal is in a bathtub, where she relives her own drowning; Stefan's is in the reality in which he has the choice to accompany his mother on the fatal train ride.
An Extremely Meta Ending
Bandersnatch not only breaks the fourth wall—it shatters it. In one scene, viewers are literally able to choose whether or not to tell Stefan that his actions are being controlled by something from the future called Netflix.
Then, of course, there's that television set-scene, the moment where the whole illusion collapses and we're faced with the reality of what's happening: all that we're seeing has been filmed in some Hollywood studio. Stefan's therapist is an actor. Stefan himself is an actor. Nothing is real. That same exact idea is at the crux of
The OA's finale; in its final scene, Brit Marling and Jason Isaacs call themselves by their real names, effectively annihilating the line between our reality and the one(s) onscreen.
So, Is Netflix Using the Same Algorithmic Plot for Many Shows On Purpose?
Though
The OA and Bandersnatch might be particularly alike, they aren't the only shows on Netflix that revolve around the concept of other realities and alternate, interconnected universes.
Recently, Netflix's
Russian Doll made use of a nonlinear view of time, giving its protagonist the ability to transcend death in order to correct her mistakes and—you guessed it—make peace with a childhood trauma, which had to do with blaming herself for her mother's death. The show also uses concepts based on quantum physics to explain its multiple timelines.
— (@)
Another hit —
Stranger Things—also relies on quantum physics-based ideas to explain its Upside Down, a parallel universe that operates similarly to the alternate dimensions in The OA.
Millie Bobby Brown's character Eleven is also a startlingly similar figure to Brit Marling's Prairie/Nina; both were trapped by scientists for many years, and both emerged from their imprisonment endowed with the ability to create portals between dimensions (and sometimes, to levitate). The list goes on.
— (@)
It's not that these shows are copies of each other. They all seem to utilize similar plotlines, ones that revolve around suppressed childhood traumas and a quantum-physics-inspired tangle of dimensions. In a way, the shows themselves seem to be parallel universes to each other. In each, the traumas and the multiple realities both unveil themselves about three-quarters of the way through, sparking climactic endings that, ultimately, imply that the bonds between humans are strong enough to transcend time and death.
So what's the draw to the multiverse idea? Is our era of catfishing, fake news, and mediated simulacra making us feel like we're living in many realities once? Are we all just seeking ways to escape our linear lives, to escape the passage of time, or to change the past? Can we all sense that this isn't the only world, that we're not the only ones here (after all, what's religion other than a poetic promise that other worlds and greater forces exist)? Does this subject just make for great television?
Regardless, people are into it.
YouTube just announced that it will be creating interactive content like Bandersnatch; Season 3 of Stranger Things will officially drop on July 4, 2019; and Black Mirror's fifth season will also be released this year. It seems like TV's journey through interconnected parallel universes has just begun. (Though of course, it's probably already finished in the universes next to this one).
Eden Arielle Gordon is a writer and musician from New York City. Tweet your best conspiracy theories to her @edenarielmusic.
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