I'm not really challenging your observations, I'll try to add more information to them :)
WARNING: Huge spoilers ahead.
1. OA was blind before her disappearance and could see when she returned.
When OA encounters Khatun the second time, she tells her
"Khatun... I can see". Khatun replies
"You could always see, my child". Cortical blindness is the total or partial loss of vision in a normal-appearing eye caused by damage to the brain's occipital cortex (located in the back of the head, exactly where Hap hits OA with his rifle). I first thought OA might have suffered a head trauma in the bus accident, but she is able to see that the front window is broken and swims through it. It's just after exiting the wreckage that she has the NDE. If she was, in fact, dead for a while, a general decrease in blood supply (e.g., when in shock) can cause an ischemic stroke damaging the occipital cortex. When OA is rescued by her (russian) father you can see she has bloodshot eyes, a sign of Asphyxiation.
It might sound a bit foolish, but OA might have just suffered from cortical blindness for years and the blow to the back of the head (exactly where the cause of the illness is usually located) just made her able to see again. Just like Scott says,
"I think she got brain damage"... Yeah, in some way...
3. There was a bus crash in Russia at the time she described her first NDE.
However, the fractured bridge from the picture sent to Alfonso's mobile is very different from the bridge shown when she tells her story:
http://i.imgur.com/l5xrhYk.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/njFIZMs.png7. OA found the article about Homer online before she told anyone about her own NDE or Homer's story.
It was actually a Youtube video (a news report). On one hand, she watches it
before she starts telling her story to the rest of the group, so one could think she used it (like she used the books bought on Amazon) to build her fantasy. At the end of the Youtube video Homer looks directly into camera and says
"I'm leaving with that ring" (we know the ring was an important part of her story when held captive). This works both ways: it makes her story true because we know how important the ring was for Homer from what she tells to the group in the abandoned house, but she could have used that small bit of information to build the part of the captivity involving Homer leaving the ring in the bathroom and wanting it back.
On the other hand, she seems genuinely sad while watching the video. Another user commented that she asks for Homer when she wakes up at the hospital but I've watched the first episode again and she doesn't. A nurse does tell her parents that she tried to access the computers in the ICU (I guess she was trying to access the Internet to search Homer). We first know of Homer's existence when she says his name before waking up from bed in the middle of the night and tries to search for him on the Internet without success.
8. She left a note before she left her parents' home.
The note also proves that she planned to return home, eventually. She wouldn't have been hiding voluntarily for seven years:
http://i.imgur.com/3e3TG8i.png1. If Homer (or any of the other captives) was a real person she actually met.
The same applies to Hap.We don't know if he's real, or if he was a mad scientist, etc. In fact, another user recently started a thread stating that the worker at the cafeteria who brings down the shooter is Hap. I've watched that sequence a few times and I can't really tell if it's really the same actor, I couldn't catch a single frame where it was clear enough:
http://i.imgur.com/udpZ13K.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/IWEpWtj.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/ciCvwwp.png2. If she got her ideas from the books or got those books because of her experiences.
Good point, I thought the same thing when that twist was introduced. I don't see how The Iliad fits in her story, either. Homer is the author, not a character in the book. And while containing the return of a daughter (Chryseis), lots of deaths, Gods and communication through dreams, there's not much that OA could have used on her storytelling. "The Odyssey" would have been a better fit. I find more intriguing the dialogue between OA and his father near the end, when she's working in the garden and Abel asks her:
"Mom says you got both classes you want, including the creative writing one?".
3. If OA concocted the story about Homer and everyone's NDE's because she found the story about Homer's NDE online.
Not likely, because she searches "Homer Roberts" on her computer. If she knows his full name, she must also know his story, including the NDE.
5. If she was a prisoner or if she voluntarily hid indoors during that time.
When she has the first nightmare/premonition of the shooting and Abel goes to her room she says to him
"I thought you'd understand the note. I thought I'd be back in a few days", so it wasn't in her plans to hide indoors for seven years. Plus the note she left when she ran away said she would come back.
Please add more! If you can challenge any of mine, please do! I want to think about what conclusions we can draw and what is still 100% mystery.
I have a few questions myself.
1. Where does Homer go when he experiences his first
conscious NDE? He doesn't end in a strange world, surrounded by stars and galaxies, with an old woman with some gibberish braille marks on her face (did somebody else notice that he scars on her face looked like braille writing?):
http://i.imgur.com/MxqRZCV.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/9ZLhIdE.pngNo. Homer ends in a very earthly place, nightmarish even. Some kind of ventilation duct, where an arm suddenly tries to grab you and you have to follow a spider until you fall in a restroom with piss flowing out of the toilets. Oh, and people chasing you. It surely looked like a mental institution, with long, white hallways and lots of closed doors with numbers probably leading to cells:
http://i.imgur.com/Ftvrq6j.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/msq5BNh.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/izGQwEr.pngA place in San Francisco (is that the Golden Gate bridge?):
http://i.imgur.com/SuwR1Qv.png2. Did OA end there after she is shooted? Did she finally made
the jump and she is now in that same intriguing place where she might eventually meet Homer? In her last shot she definitely seems to be in the same white-ish place, in what appears to be a cell (from what we can tell from the walls and the window behind her):
http://i.imgur.com/q0B02ji.pngI think this hints the direction of the second season, and where it might take place (the location Homer visited during his conscious NDE).
I'm sure there's a few other details I'm missing right now and I might watch the whole season again in order to catch those hidden details. Some quick ideas that come to mind:
- The fact that they can't seem to find any information to back up her story... They did find a picture of a collapsed bridge, but it is very different from the one we see when OA tells her story. in the second picture, the one with russian officers around the scene, the wreckage doesn't look like the van that took the russian kids to school. Jesse can't find anything on the Voi, or the Azarov family. Steve and Alfonso aren't able to find any information on Stan's wife (Evelyn) through the ALS society, or Hap, or Scott Brown. They do find the Youtube video of OA playing violin in the NYC subway, but that's just her (no proof that the other people from her story exist). I wonder why they didn't find anything on Homer, though. It should have been fairly easy since OA is able to locate the Youtube video without much effort. Funny thing is that this situation is mirrored in the scene just before we see Steve and Alfonso searching on their laptops, where OA is in the hotel room and tries to reach the group by phone, but she is unable to do so because she doesn't know enough details about them.
- Elias Rahim, the FBI therapist, is really creepy. When he meets OA's parents, Mr. and Ms. Johnson, the mother tells him
"I'm sure you heard what happened last night" and he tells her that he doesn't know, despite he was just discussing the nightmare with OA a moment ago. It's fine, since he is not supposed to discuss or reveal what his patient tells him when they're doing therapy. He even seems protective with OA when her mother brings the subject of medication, redirecting the conversation somewhere else. But his encounter with Alfonso at OA's house is strange. We don't know what he is doing there, or why he denies OA told him her story (
"She tell you about the brave Homer? And the mine? And Hap's near-death studies?" /
"No. She told me about you"). And that hug... Everything from that scene felt off.
- We never get a good look at the cafeteria shooter, there's only a brief moment when we see his eyes. I don't know if it's done on purpose, and why they would not show him with more detail:
http://i.imgur.com/IYKp2a4.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/YZVRQab.pngI'm wondering if he could be seen on other scenes from the school.
Oh well... As I said I'm sure that watching the episodes a second time will reveal more details that were unnoticed before. I'll post again if I find more interesting stuff to share!
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kyatttv
7 years ago
" The fact that they can't seem to find any information to back up her story"
Just finished the first season, amazing show. Anyways, about her story, you questioned the backstory about her russian parents etc. Her mom actually confirms that its "her fault she chose the blind girl over the boy" right? I know this is a bit of a stretch, but doesn't that confirm the aunt and her family at least?
Altho I'm kinda inclined to the "its all on her head" theory, I'll be really sad if that facility on san francisco is a menthal one. That will mean the season 2 will be very different from the first and take another route.
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HereItIsYourMomentOfZen
7 years ago
I don't normally re watch shows straight away, if I do it's always much later.
So I'm wondering if you already know if the same aquarium in Homers NDE, was identical to the one in the dream OA had when she was a little girl in Russia? The one where she says she's trapped in an aquarium & her father is pinching her nose (?).
Also I don't remember if OA ever actually discussed Hap or her situation in any detail with the FBI therapist?
I blame the media-blamers
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devotee-2
7 years ago
Wow! Very, very nice catch!! It is indeed the same aquarium:
http://i.imgur.com/SuwR1Qv.png
http://i.imgur.com/b9SKNz0.png
Note the black corners of the aquarium and the same windows in the background, with the Golden Gate bridge shape on the left.
This somehow ties the movements' source and why she is "The Original", she always had the five movements. Evelyn received the fifth movement from a little girl in a NDE and Homer got the second movement swallowing a fish from the same aquarium OA dreamt she was drowning in when she was a kid.
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decarus427
7 years ago
Was the bridge that OA jumped off at the beginning the golden gate bridge? I don't think so. It reminded me more of a bridge in New York. Do they ever say where her home is at or where she was found? Maybe the OA was in a mental hospital for the seven years.
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mjwm44
7 years ago
The bridge in the first picture isn't the Golden Gate. The tower shape is nothing like it, and much, much too short.
It's probably one of the bridges around Manhattan, as several of them can look reddish around sunrise, and they had been there to film the journey to Liberty Island to find her father. The screenshot is too blurry for me to figure out which bridge it might be.
(Meanwhile, I thought her trapped in aquarium dream represented a premonition of the bus plunge, with it's very large windows.)
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Guybrush_Lechuck
7 years ago
No, it actually is the Golden Gate. You're just seeing the very top of the tower, and the shape is a perfect match. The buildings in the cityscape you can see the famous Transamerica Pyramid.
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chinaski2323
7 years ago
It's not the GG bridge. I live in San Francisco and can tell you based on the number of lanes, style of railing, curve of the suspension arch, and lack of pedestrian walkway that it's not the GG bridge. Also the very first shot of the show is from the bottom deck of a bridge -- GG has no bottom deck. Take a screenshot of you can see the TA building, it's nowhere in the version I see -- just fog (and no that isn't proof that this is in San Francisco!)
Also, her parents are able to quickly visit her which strongly implies this is on the east coast somewhere (she walked much of the way). He's either in the mountains of North/South Carolina, or somewhere upstate NY / New Hampshire/ Vermont (these are my guesses without giving much thought. Could also be Tennessee or anywhere in the Appalachians). There's probably a thread with speculation on where the lab/mine could have been given the evidence on screen, I guess I should take a look for that. But it's definitely not the GG bridge, coming from someone who rides it every day.
Not that it really matters *what* bridge she jumps off of! That really isn't the point. But it is a piece of evidence about where she might have been held captive. HAP flies a single propeller aircraft to Cuba. That would be a multiple day trip from anywhere on the west coast. It would take a while from anywhere on the Northeast also -- so Carolinas seem plausible.
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nffreak
7 years ago
Did anyone else think the aquarium kinda looked like the cages in Hap's basement?
Like, the ones they were kept in?
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sara-34
7 years ago
Thank you! This is awesome!
My responses:
She wouldn't have been hiding voluntarily for seven years:
That's not something we
know, it's something we are assuming based on her intentions. If the delusion/mentally ill theory is the correct one, then it's possible her delusions drove her underground into hiding.
Homer is the author, not a character in the book.
Homer was also a blind poet. I'm not saying that backs up the "made up" theory, but rather that it operates symbolically in the story - OA was blind, and now she's telling an epic story.
an old woman with some gibberish braille marks on her face (did somebody else notice that he scars on her face looked like braille writing?)
Yes! I did notice that! I'm going to try to figure out what the braille on her face translates to. Thank you for the screen shots!
Funny thing is that this situation is mirrored in the scene just before we see Steve and Alfonso searching on their laptops, where OA is in the hotel room and tries to reach the group by phone, but she is unable to do so because she doesn't know enough details about them.
That's a great point. She never told the group what Homer's last name was, and that's what she used to find him online. I also think about that scene and what it says about her relationship with the 5 others. She has been engaging with them daily, but she knows very little about them. Still, within minutes she was able to speak to both Steve's and BBA's inner feelings and values. It's like she knows them on a completely different level than the superficial one we're used to.
When he meets OA's parents, Mr. and Ms. Johnson, the mother tells him "I'm sure you heard what happened last night" and he tells her that he doesn't know, despite he was just discussing the nightmare with OA a moment ago. It's fine, since he is not supposed to discuss or reveal what his patient tells him when they're doing therapy. He even seems protective with OA when her mother brings the subject of medication, redirecting the conversation somewhere else.
Actually, that scene made me so happy because it's rare for movies or TV shows to portray therapists accurately, and he did exactly what he ethically was supposed to in that scene. First, we know she told him she had premonitions, but why would he assume that's what the mother is referring to "last night?" He respected his client's privacy, her autonomy, and his own professional limitations (he can't prescribe drugs or advise people about them, and in fact, if he's operating from the POV that this is trauma-induced, it would take a long time for her to re-acclimate to normal life, and during that time, weird behavior would be expected and not something that needs to be medicated).
We don't know what he is doing there, or why he denies OA told him her story ("She tell you about the brave Homer? And the mine? And Hap's near-death studies?" / "No. She told me about you").
We never hear OA tell the therapist anything about the other prisoners. She lets him know there were others, but we don't know if she tells him any details about them. She's clearly guarded with him and seems to believe that if the FBI tried to help they would make things worse. I took What the FBI guy said to Alfonso as true - it makes sense that OA would hide the "important" details from the FBI, but still be willing (maybe even proud) to talk about the friends she's made since being home.
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surfingjessie
7 years ago
I'm going to try to figure out what the braille on her face translates to. Thank you for the screen shots!
Someone else said elsewhere they translate to "Rachel". As does the Braille at the "FBI" offices. I can't confirm this as I know nothing about reading Braille.
Still, within minutes she was able to speak to both Steve's and BBA's inner feelings and values. It's like she knows them on a completely different level than the superficial one we're used to.
It doesn't take a genius or psychic to figure Steve out within seconds. He's a walking cliche. And at no point in the series was he ever NOT a cliche. They were all fairly stock characters, especially the ones she created (IMO) in HAP's basement.
BBA is a bit tougher but Prairie was on a giant fishing expedition in that conversation, much like any hack psychic or armchair psychologist would do. There was nothing supernatural or gifted about either of those profiles she tapped into. Prairie made no amazing leaps with BBA. All the things she guessed at where regular things you'd assume about teachers especially in American public high school systems (burn out, caring deep down, etc). The lost a loved one thing is a lucky guess. I remember reading about these "mind readers" and psychics who do this sort of thing for money, and it's all down to statistics and knowing the right leading questions to ask. Much like when we read horoscopes and think they're actually accurate. It's all math and chance.
Her only gift may be she's very perceptive/attentive to details that others gloss over, and she's like a heat-seeking missile for vulnerability and potential manipulation. Which is hardly supernatural in any way, but perhaps somewhat explained by her previously being blind and thus necessarily had to be more attentive to tone of voice, sounds, smells, body movements, and other non-visual cues and since regaining sight she would likely notice small visual cues more than someone who is accustomed to ignoring them since they've seen them all their lives. The only issue with this theory is she wouldn't have the life experience to translate novel visual cues to known emotional states as well since that is social learning which takes many years of experience to even get half-right. But who knows. Some people are just naturally adept at that sort of thing, some aren't. She could be the former. Again, still not supernatural though.
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sara-34
7 years ago
Someone else said elsewhere they translate to "Rachel". As does the Braille at the "FBI" offices. I can't confirm this as I know nothing about reading Braille.
Thank you for the tip! I tried to work it out, but what I could see didn't fit together - it seemed to be random letters.
There was nothing supernatural or gifted about either of those profiles she tapped into.
I wasn't trying to suggest that there was something supernatural about the way she relates to other people - merely that it's completely different from most people. She doesn't think last names or addresses are important, but she thinks values and internal concepts are very valuable.
It seems from your post that you disliked the character of the OA. Is that accurate?
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decarus427
7 years ago
I wondered if the shooter was Steve. Then i wondered if we saw the shooter in other shots from the school also, like if we had payed a bit more attention, we might have noticed it. That school was definitely not right.
I definitely agree about the white place at the end being some mental hospital. Homer had that dream in the white place and then it reminded me a lot of when he ran away from Hap when they were in Cuba. There felt like there were similarities about those two moments.
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