The OA season 2 on Netflix. Episode 2 Treasure Island

watched episode 2 earlier. watching again as we speak.

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treasure island? is it talk like a pirate day?

hmmm. the opening is radically different from the previous episode which was more like last season. this episode there's some sort of silver kaleidoscope imagery that reminds me the virtual game on people's phones. and of course the episode title. then we find ourselves at the port of San Francisco sign. and the clock is chiming. maybe an important image and sound. maybe not. i think with this show you never know what's in the details.

In a dark bedroom a verbal alarm announces: Dr. Roberts you've had 56 minutes of rem sleep. and the alarm repeats until Dr. Roberts wakes up. He starts his work out regimen. He has breakfast with his roommates i guess (San Francisco is expensive!) and listens to a podcast or report about the possibility of shared delusions. That's an alarm call if i ever heard one. If coincidental. Or maybe Roberts sought it out after yesterday's time with Nina/Prairie. ???. Regardless, he soon hops on his bike and rides to work.

We switch to Nina/Prairie being escorted by two thugs to a meeting with Dr. Percy. She's wearing a straight-jacket. She ascends the weird brief spiral staircase that leads up to Percy's office. He greets her cordially. She's not impressed. But during this meeting we get what I wasn't expecting: a thorough explanation of jumping. This is what Prairie did after her school friends performed their wonderful dance, causing her to be shot and later to die (as we learned in the first episode). She jumped into Nina's body and apparently supplanted Nina's identity to where Nina is just the vessel and Prairie is the identity but not entirely I guess because Prairie exhibits all sort of disorientation and disruption that lead her to the Treasure Island facility. Meanwhile, Hap has done the same thing. He has jumped (somehow) from where he was into this Dr. Hunter Percy and has ostensibly become him without all of Prairie adjustment difficulties. And we know all this now because, well, Dr. Percy is telling Prairie and us that he did. So how does this explain Homer and Prairie's insistence that he should recognize her? A puzzlement to be sure. Anyway Percy uses the example of Russian Dolls to illustrate the jumping process. The mind in people with the skill or the gift or the technique can make their minds jump from bodies in one dimension into bodies in another dimension and if I understand this correctly the act of jumping makes the jumper occupy the life of the person jumped into. (???????????). So why did Homer not become Homer within the body of this dimension's Dr. Roberts? Well the visual of Hap's story suggests that when Homer ran away before engaging in the dimension-jumping dance, he may have short-circuited his proper arrival and transition. He didn't really want to go. Hap of course. He coerced the other three prisoners who naturally wanted to live. Prairie definitely wanted to jump or travel or transcend in order to find Homer who she intuited (?) in season one was elsewhere. Because he was in the mirror once or was communicating to her somehow? I really can't remember. Anyway Homer reluctantly returns. All five do the dance. And all five I guess jump to a therapy session in the Treasure Island facility where everyone except Homer takes over their respective bodies fully because the one dude starts strangling the new Dr. Percy and almost kills him until Dr. Roberts (and not specifically the old Homer) physically intervenes. Hap also insists that Prairie knew that Homer would specifically be where she was jumping to, which on second viewing sounds right to me. What of course didn't work was that Homer won't recognize her. This dilemma and Hap's continued arrogance and insistence that Prairie help him access this "godlike" ability further leads Prairie to overstate her opposition to Hap. He counters with faking an injury that he blames on Prairie's excellent straight-jacketed headbutting technique and she is seized by the thugs and is the process of being taken back to her cell and kept in solitary. Dr. Roberts however intervenes, rescues her from the physical manhandling by the thugs. He tries to calm her down with words instead. But strangely this is merely a prelude to his drugging with a sedative so that she can be returned to her cell with out any further commotion. Homer, ever the lackey!

Anyway, a good place to stop. More later.  

meanwhile...

karim hangs out outside the dreaming place and then follows two young women to a bar. one of them leaves while the other stays. the other while mentioning that she and all the others are awakened after each rem sleep cycle after which they narrate their dreams leads karim out of the bar. she mentions a woman who used to work there. dr. marla rhodes. she was interested in certain dreams more than in others. however she left Ruskin's employment 2 weeks ago. ruskin got a little angry over her sudden departure. karim calls mo to get rhodes' address. they chat. then karim goes to the sf police for his ten o'clock. he looks at video that shows that karim and that kid from episode 1 are the only people seen entering and leaving. however the one crazy dude is seen leaping out the window. so asks karim how did he get there?

I binged it, I couldn't resist, so good!

I know what you mean.

I know what you mean.

i don't know why I end up with so many duplications. some kind of doppelganger syndrome...


anyway the story continues. Ruskin's on the phone with Dr. Percy. He's worried about Nina. Dr. Percy convinces him it's best that Nina stay in the hospital. Here Ruskin says something interesting: I'm sending you a new subject. With that Percy cuts him off being Dr. Roberts shows up with a complaint about himself. In terms of medicating Nina. Dr. Roberts not realizing he's Homer irks me a little I must admit.

We now switch to Karim's houseboat. Mo shows up with info. Dr. Rhodes who left Ruskin was with MI5. Mo ended up hacking the IRS to get even more info. Mo says a funny line and hands Karim the address of a bookstore Rhodes frequents. Her actual address is hidden in the mists.

Now we switch to a therapy session for Nina/Praiire conducted by Dr. Roberts/Homer. Nina/Prairie tries to convince him/him about dimensions and his hidden identity but to no avail. Plumbing issues created by an out of control patient interrupts the session. There is definitely a theme of water in this series. I think of Karim living on a house boat. Roberts leaves. We see Dr. Percy/HAP watching the session from the comfort of his office.

Back to Karim. He drives to the Calendula Bookstore. He feigns a friendship with Dr. Rhodes and buys her a book which the bookstore will send to her.

more later.

I like Karim