The OA

It’s earnest, self-serious, steeped in spiritual mythology and sci-fi-ish notions about time-jumping and dimension hopping, and heavily focused on the sort of puzzle-solving mystery that lights up Reddit message boards. While watching, I was entranced at times. At others, I thought I was watching the most ridiculous show on TV. Occasionally, I felt both of these feelings simultaneously.

The OA has always been a show that asks you to surrender, to leave the door open, and Season 2 makes even bigger, bolder asks of its audience. But 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.

Season two of The OA is both overstuffed and undercooked, a victim of its own commitment to expanding its universe in multifarious ways. Yet the performances are so solid, the commitment to its kooky worldview so earnest, and the smorgasbord of sci-fi curlicues so endearing, sacrificing your expectations of plausibility feels like a worthwhile price of admission to this odd little dimension of the TV universe.

The first seven and a half hours of Season 2 are really striking, both grief drama and haunted-house mystery. But when the story finally gets where it’s been going the whole time, you realize that not much of what just happened really mattered; all anyone on The OA needs to do to change the scenery is jump dimensions. Which gives the whole show a dismaying weightlessness.

While cracking the puzzles can be fun, some clues drop out of nowhere It’s also not a thoroughly profound drama; there’s too much stagnant time in Season 2, and too many leaps of logic. Ultimately, those leaps are what make it stand out, what keep you intrigued, and ultimately what makes The OA a drama to root for.

Remains willfully confounding at every turn and is still capable of conceptual fits so head-scratchingly audacious that I'm able to admire and laugh at them at the same time.