The OA - 'Homecoming' and 'New Colossus'

For identification purposes, I am not a Scottish nature reserve(1).

The OA is another in a long string of critically lauded, Netflix produced science fiction series, and I admit, I feel bad that this review of the first two episodes has taken so long to get written that I'm going to have to gloss on details.

A young woman, played by the series' sickeningly multitalented co-creator Brit Marlin(2), appears in New York and jumps off a bridge, leading to her reunion with her parents after a seven year disappearance, during which she appears to have regained her sight. She struggles to settle back into her home, not least because she prefers to be called 'the OA' rather than Prairie Johnson(3). In search of an internet connection to let her go beyond her parents' controlling influence, she forms an unlikely alliance with bully and drug dealer Steve (played by Patrick Gibson, who is a sort of Irish Jesse Eisenberg,) pretending to be his stepmother in a school meeting in order to keep him out of a behaviour modification unit, in exchange for him finding four other people to come to the abandoned house where he deals and hear her story. He brings three other kids from school and the teacher from the school meeting also turns up, having been powerfully impressed by the OA.

For identification purposes, I am not a California-set teen drama(5).

In the second half of 'Homecoming' and all of 'New Colossus'(4), the OA tells her story, beginning as the child of a powerful oligarch in Russia, where she had nightmares of drowning which came true when the Bratva tried to murder a bus load of rich men's children as an object lesson. The other children died, but she survived after a near-death experience which left her blind. She was sent to the US for her protection, and after her father's death cut off the money, was adopted by the Johnsons. Believing that she would reunite with her father at the Statue of Liberty, she ran away to New York, but instead met a scientist named Hap who offered to help her understand her near-death experience, then locked her in a perspex box where she was able to speak to a young man named Homer.

In the present, the OA displays uncanny abilities, asserting dominance over Steve's attack dog as well as evoking a powerful fascination in her listeners, although none of them can be sure she is telling the truth. Steve is still faced with being sent away after his parents discover his deception and cast allegations of improper influence at Prairie, while one of the other kids, French, is keen not to lose his scholarship on behavioural grounds, leading another, Buck, to lay down terms that Steve can't deal from the house anymore.

So far, The OA is definitely intriguing, although I'm not certain how it will hold up when we move from flashback to things actually happening. Still, with Westworld wrapped up, it's on the list along with The Expanse.

(1) The Oa.

(2) The other half of the team is the wonderfully named Zal Batmanglij.

(3) You might do the same if you had a name that made you sound like a porn star from Dakota.

(4) While many non-American viewers might not, I knew what 'New Colossus' refers to because it's used at the end of Wolfenstein: The New Order. Who says video games don't teach you anything.

(5) The O.C.