*SPOILERS AHEAD for those who haven’t watched The OA.
Jason Isaacs plays one of the most fascinating villains I’ve witnessed in a while. Hunter Aloysius Percy (a.k.a. ‘HAP’) and his relentless scientific breakthrough that breaks minds and bends dimensions.
A brief synopsis
The OA is a strange, esoteric American mystic drama series that debuted in December 2016.
The story follows a young Russian girl named Nina Azarova, whose father is a target of an assassination attempt.
Having gone blind and orphaned, Nina is adopted and given the name Prairie.
The OA’s first episode centers on Prairie resurfacing after having gone missing for seven years.
The series opens with a cold open of her trying to commit suicide, which we later learn was actually an attempt to jump dimensions in search of her soul mate.
She assembles a team of five locals from her town, Steve, Jesse, Buck, Alfonso, and Betty Broderick-Allen (BBA). She explains the story of how she came to go missing, which is she ran from home and subsequently was kidnapped by HAP, trying to discover a way to prove the afterlife exists.
Her and four other kidnapped individuals, Homer, Scott, Rachel, and Renata, are subject to a series of tests that force them to undergo near-death experiences (NDEs) over and over again.
That’s the gist of the series, but to describe the plot does such a disservice to the real meat of what makes The OA just a mysterious but chilling series. I can go on about the production, how unique the shot selection is, how visually dazzling it can be, the incredible acting, as well as the strength of the writing.
It is really difficult to write shows about diverging universes, but The OA keeps these discoveries a mystery throughout most of the series, and while not a ton of closure is ever given, there is pay-off in the breakthroughs that are made.
Jason Isaacs is an underrated actor
Now, Jason Isaacs’s acting is remarkable, the small microexpressions he makes when he’s bothered, surprised, intrigued, or even angered are very subtle ways that show the audience a sprinkle of his personality and a bit of complexity to it.
His chemistry with Brit Marling, who plays Prairie, is also top notch. I love every moment HAP and Prairie are on screen together because it is so hard to predict what will happen, which made the finale of season 2 so compelling to watch.
Even as characters, their dynamic was perfect. I loved how HAP and Prairie make their discoveries little by little, and how Prairie, our protagonist, always seems to have the edge and upperhand on something she doesn’t even really understand herself.
Introducing a villain: Our first glance at HAP
While HAP is the square peg that fits into the ‘mad scientist’ trope, he’s a lot more subtle and calculating than a lot of the wild and eccentric characters that trope is often filled with (think Doctor Frankenstein, Dr. Bernard Adrian, Doc Brown, Dr. Doofenshmirtz, the real life Nikola Tesla, you get the picture).
The OA Netflix | Hap meets Prairie for the first time – YouTube
His introduction is amazing, the camera follows him off a train and we only see a medium shot of the back of his head and shoulders, his observation skills and how he immediately pauses at the sound of prairie’s violin and proceeds to follow it recognizing the gifted talent given to one whose brain has gone through a severe trauma, an NDE.
That’s when he meets our beloved protagonist, Prairie, the OA.
The science of HAP
In her NDEs, Prairie encounters a strange woman dressed as an Arab emissary (I say that because the language she speaks is Arabic) and she is referred to as Khatun.
A Khatun in Central Asian etymology was that the title given to a queen, or rather it’s the female counterpart to a Khan, yes like the Mongols Genghis or Kublai.
The scene nearly reminds of when Aang gets Azula’d by Azula in Avatar: The Last Airbender and you watch his avatar state dissipate. It’s later revealed in the series that the avatar state is actually based off astral projection, and that concept isn’t too far off from The OA.
In Season 2, Prairie discovers Homer in the ventilation of the mental ward she’s placed in where an alternate dimension Homer is, and realized in their NDE’s in HAP’s lab, they were able to project themselves slightly into the future and into alternate dimensions. An explanation for Déjà vu or the visions people receive in real life after their own NDEs.
In The OA’s version of astral projection, Prairie is given guidance by this Khatun who shows her these ‘movement’s that are meant to help her navigate the dimensions she is in. These movements became the foundation of the scientific discovery HAP had been searching for all this time.
What the OA does right, that other series which dive into alternate dimensions don’t do, is recognize that the body is a vessel and what’s really alive is our consciousness.
From a religious point of a view, it actually helps contextualize and understand alternate universes better, as instead of, let’s say, in the MCU, traveling to an alternate dimensions involve running into alternate versions of you while you persist in your physical body, the OA has its characters travel dimensions and end up in the same body as their alternate double, which results in some very complex situations. Two consciousnesses fighting within the same body.
“You Crushed Me”- The OA Part 2 Episode 8 – YouTube
Prairie struggles with Nina Azarova because of how caught up she was in stopping HAP and saving Homer that she never once considered the past and circumstances that brought her there in the first place, suppressing her ‘other self’, which can have its own metaphorical implications, but it also reveals the dangers of traveling to other dimensions, especially the more often you do it, which is why season 2’s cliffhanger makes season 3 its potentially most confusing yet curious season yet.
What will happen to Prairie? She likely has THREE consciousnesses suppressed within her already, as well as a severe head trauma that (if it doesn’t result in death) will certainly result in some loss of memory. To think she is trapped there with HAP is harrowing as well, but Steve also being there gives hope to the viewer.
HAP’s moral dilemma
What I love about HAP is how much he understands the moral consequence of the things he does. It’s not like he’s a heartless monster. He may cross the moral threshold more than once for the sake of science, but fairly often we do see him show remorse, regret, and guilt for what he’s done, and sees his own actions from the view that everything he does is for a greater scientific reasoning, that will ultimately better the world.
That isn’t to say HAP is blameless, but it does make him a more fascinating character and it also makes his decision making a bit unpredictable. Why leave Prairie on the side of the road instead of just killing her? Why work with Ruskin to lure children to the house? Why offer to work together with Prairie after all the times she tried to stop him?
There is clear depth and motivation behind HAP’s actions and I’m interested to see if we get a glance at his past the same way we did with Prairie in a potential season 3, but from what we know of HAP, he is already obsessed with the afterlife and will do anything to uncover the mystery of life beyond, even if he must do unethical things.
He is driven by determination. He is curious, not bloodthirsty. He’s not sadistic and he gets no enjoyment out of treating his subjects the way he does, if anything he’s bonded to them in a way and even considers Prairie as a partner.
Unfortunately, due to Netflix’s cancellation of the series, we may never get to see how this excellent climax unfolds between HAP and Prairie, which is truly a shame, as it’s one of the most intriguing antagonist-protagonist dynamics I’ve seen on TV in quite a while. However, if The OA’s taught me anything, it’s to never stop believing in miracles.
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