The OA “Away”

The OA as a series is interested in the lives of the various characters that have come out to listen to The OA/Prairie tell her story.  We still don’t know why she needs to tell the story or why they feel the need to listen.  So, we get insights into how pothead Jesse basically lives with an older sister who knows where he goes at night and doesn’t seem to care, or how Ms. Broderick-Allen turned her twin brother in for a crime, he killed himself, and she was still his sole beneficiary in his will.

I have no idea what to do with any of that for the write-ups.  It’s very low key stuff.

But what else is going on?  Well, after Prairie got clocked in the head by Dr. Hap, she went back to that place where the woman (apparently named Khatun) exists, and she’s given a choice:  she can stay dead and be with her father, or she can go back and take up some awesome responsibility.  If she chooses the latter, she has to swallow a live bird Khatun gives her and it will give her insights.

She chooses the bird option, and soon wakes up where Dr. Hap is tending to her while being the nicest kidnapper possible.  But there’s something Hap doesn’t know.

For one, Prairie knows that if the others can get to that place where Khatun exists and maybe swallow a living thing there, they can gain some nifty powers or insight or something.

For another, she can see again.  Hap doesn’t know that.

Wait, I thought Khatun took Prairie’s sight so she’d be spared seeing some awful stuff?  I don’t think that awful stuff has happened yet.

Point is, Prairie now refers to herself, Homer, Rachel, and Scott as angels, and they concoct a plan:  if Homer and Scott can inhale and divert the gas from Prairie’s cell the next time it comes to knock everyone out, she’ll spy on the upstairs and see what she can find out.  Scott, the cynic, refuses since he seems to be HIV positive and his health isn’t that great.  Rachel doesn’t mind, so instead Homer will be the one who sees what the actual experiments Dr. Hap is conducting happen to be.

Executing this plan takes time.  The first time they try, the women pass out before they can syphon off enough gas from Homer’s cell.  Scott’s still awake, and yelling at Prairie allows him to see the gas actually makes people highly suggestible.  A year later they finally manage to keep Homer conscious enough to see Hap’s lab.  He’s doing…something…but he doses Homer with the gas again before he gets too far.  Eventually, after three more years, Homer manages to learn what the experiment is:  Hap keeps killing and reviving the group to try and get some concrete scientific proof that there’s an afterlife.  Hap learned people who’ve had Near Death Experiences are just better at having more of them.

Homer does eventually get through to the other side while conscious, and he doesn’t see Khatun anywhere.  His afterlife looks like it takes place in an empty hospital as guards try to catch him.  He eventually finds an aquarium and swallows some sort of sea anemone, and by episode’s end, he’s having something weird happen to him, so he may have gotten that awareness after all.

What does all this mean?  Beats the hell out of me.