Totally Uncontroversial: The Best Thing from The OA

The OA, the latest (way to date yourself) series on Netflix is riddled with problems. I know, I know, people like it. I like it. The sometimes spotty plotting and sparse characterization don't detract from one thing though: it's honest exploration of nearly every realm of spiritualism.

Now, to be fair, that's a bit of a misnomer. The concept of taking every single religious philosophy and merging them into a monogamous marriage of humankind's best and brightest ideas is something that's been done multiple times. And honestly, most of the time writer's use a short cut. It's a fictional God, or it's about humans versus a Devil figure. Instead, The OA takes the hard route. It crafts together symbolism stitched from a variety of viewpoints into a whole. Christian, Islamic, Norse, Roman, and Judaism all serve as sources of lessons, morals, philosophies, and explorations in The OA and without spoiling a late-game twist, paints a picture of the centre of all of them by means of a medium.

That is to say, the one best thing from the OA is the dance.

The dance.

Laugh, but understand that laughing is the first in a long line of human reactions to this... okay, is that a Kamehameha?

I'm kind of amazed how split people are on this. If nothing else, I would think the thematic blindness of the popular perspective of shows and writing and films exposes itself in those that don't realize the dance absolutely epitomizes the entire crux of the show. One could even argue the show writes in a reason for it to seem made up on the spot and advance only in broken pieces the way it does. We're supposed to look at the unexplained gaps as the elements of a spiritual story, where gaps and holes exist, reason to question exist, and reason to doubt are pertinent.

But the dance is the doing away of all that. Whether you believe OA's backstory or whether you buy into the show telling you that it was all made up, the idea of prisoners doing a nonsensical dance, filled with the metaphor of swallowing a dove, spreading yourself out, reaching out to those on either side, these are the messages of the entire show.

Even the climax ends it on the crux of the dance. Spiritualism is a weapon against the biggest craziest tragedies of the world. Without talking about the problem of plotting in light of the climax, it can be safely said that them dancing is one of the strangest most satisfying climaxes I've seen in a show this year (that is, 2016). It's the rule that storytelling works on, but dance... how cinematic is dance? How can you accomplish this story by a means other than television? You can't. Not really.

Basically, when something hugely thematic or important to a story and can only be accomplished in that medium, that's when you've found out exactly how something has transcended its artform.

And that is the best thing from The OA.

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