‘The OA: Part II’ Ending Explained (Except For the Giant Octopus)

Warning: Extreme spoilers for The OA Season 2 finale. Seriously, I cannot emphasize enough how spoiled you will be if you read this article.

I did not record myself watching The OA: Part II—all eight episodes of which are now streaming on Netflix—but if I had, here are some of the things you would have heard:

• “Wait, what’s going on?
• “Oh my god, it all makes sense now!”
• “Wait, what’s going on?”
• “Sure, I guess?”
• “HOLY SHIT, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD.”

To quickly recap: In The OA: Part II, protagonist Prairie (Brit Marling), aka The OA, aka the “Original Angel” jumps to a new dimension. For the sake of being able to discuss, uh, anything that went on, let’s call that Dimension 2. (Dimension 1 being the dimension from the first season, where Prairie is kidnapped by Hap.) In Dimension 2, Prairie is in the body of Nina, the daughter of a Russian mobster, which is the person she would have been if she had never been in a bus crash, gone blind and been adopted. The evil scientist Hap (Jason Isaacs) also traveled to Dimension 2, now in the body of a celebrity psychiatrist named Dr. Percy, the person he would have been if he’d never gotten obsessed with near-death experiences. Also in Dimension 2 is a private detective named Karim (Kingsley Ben-Adir), a missing girl, a talking octopus, and a haunted house. And it’s all leading up to one of the most meta TV twists of all time (see below).

We’re guessing you have questions, and while I can’t promise that my interpretation is what creators Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij intended, I’ll do my best to address the big ones.

Hap is Jason Isaacs? Jason Isaacs is Jason Isaacs? WHAT?

Let’s start by discussing that twist, shall we? At the end of the eighth and final episode of The OA: Part II, Praire and Hap jump to yet another new dimension, where they are [insert gasp here] actors on TV set that looks just like the set of The OA. Prairie, who people call Brit, has just fallen from a great height and cracked her head. An ambulance pulls up to the studio and Hap hops in the back. “Who are you?” asks the medic. “I’m Jason Isaacs,” replies Hap, in a voice much like the real Isaacs. “And she’s my wife.”

In other words, they are now in a dimension—which we will call Dimension 3—where Hap is in the body a British actor named Jason Isaacs, and Prairie is an actor named Brit (Marling, we assume). Can you get any more meta than that?

Does this mean Hap and Praire are now in our dimension, as in, the one where Jason Isaacs and Brit Marling are actors on a Netflix show called The OA?

Well, maybe. Consider the facts: Hap says that he, Jason Isaacs, is married to Prairie/Brit Marling. But in real life, Isaacs is married to documentary filmmaker Emma Hewitt. Perhaps Hap was lying to get in the ambulance, but we know from Scott’s NDE that in Dimension 3, “Jason Isaacs” and “Brit” are a couple. That implies a reality slightly different from our own.

But that was the set of The OA that we saw. Private investigator Karim, who solved the puzzle in Dimension 2, even looks through the mysterious Rose Window and sees the wooden set of his houseboat. (Apparently, the Rose Window is a portal of sorts to Dimension 3—more on that later.)

Remember that Scott said that in his NDE, which we assume is Dimension 3, everyone calls Prairie “the OA” but she herself does not. That must be fans of the TV show, calling out to Brit Marling on the street by her character name. At this rate, don’t be surprised if Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos makes a cameo as himself in Season 3. (If he decides to renew the show, that is.) Are you with me so far?

What happened to Karim?

Karim, who turns out to be a pretty special dude himself, realizes he is destined to solve the house/puzzle after Pierre Ruskin tells him that the subjects in a dream study have been dreaming of Karim’s face. Karim rushes to the green haunted house in San Francisco, which is built atop ancient Native American burial grounds (I know) and also a dangerous mercury gas leak that causes anyone in it to hallucinate. Karim solves the puzzle and makes it to the Rose Window, just as Prairie is making her jump to Dimension 3. Through the window, he witnesses her fall onto the television set and then spots a person that looks exactly like Michelle. Making sense?

What happened to Buck/Michelle?

While Hap/Jason Isaacs is calling an ambulance for Prairie/Brit, Karim spots someone else walking around on the set: the person who, in Dimension 1 is a trans teen boy named Buck, and in Dimension 2, is a missing girl named Michelle. In this dimension—Dimension 3—it’s reasonable to assume he goes by Ian Alexander, the trans actor who plays Buck on The OA.

So why, when Karim calls out the name “Michelle,” does the person who looks like Ian Alexander respond immediately? And why does the girl named Michelle, who is in a coma in Dimension 2, wake up when that person reaches for Karim’s hands?

The prevailing theory, with a little help from Reddit, is this: Michelle jumped from Dimension 2 to Dimension 3 when she looked into the rose window after solving the puzzle. Ever since, she has been trapped in the body of Ian Alexander, the way Prairie was trapped in Nina’s body. With no soul to occupy Michelle’s body in Dimension 2, the body slips into a coma. Now that she’s returned to her rightful dimension, she can finally wake up. Got it?

What happened to Steve?

In the very last moments of the episode, guess who shows up in the ambulance with Prairie and Hap? It’s Steve, the troubled teen who’s obsessed with the OA in Dimension 1! We assume that this really is Steve, and not actor Patrick Gibson, because he says, with hatred in his eyes, “Hello, Hap.” Again, we don’t know for sure, but the theory is that Steve, who had the “will” to follow OA/Prairie just as Prairie had the “will” to follow Homer, jumped to Dimension 3 when Steve, BBA, Buck, French and Angie did the movements back in Dimension 1. Keeping up?

Where are BBA, Homer and Buck?

So far, we only know that Steve, Hap and Michelle are (or were) have traveled to Dimension 3. We know that BBA was supposed to jump, and we know that Homer is supposedly tethered to Prairie as a traveler, but we don’t yet know if they made it. As for Buck, we assume he is still in Dimension 1, given that Michelle seems to be occupying his body in Dimension 3. Confused yet?

What’s up with that giant octopus?

I truly and honestly have no idea.

That’s all for now. Netflix has not yet renewed the show, but Isaacs has said the creators have five seasons mapped out. (Five NDEs, five dimensions, five seasons). Here’s to more dimensions and less tentacles!

Stream The OA: Part II on Netflix