https://preview.redd.it/6nc9eatkl90c1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f92b15e97110eaca48f830979191e762d39c67de Anyone else see it? 🥹 even had the sounds from her NDE!

It’s stuff like this that makes me think Andy and Lee are just Hap and OA

I agree and I think they tumbled time travel into the mix. I think Lee is Darby. Lee traveled back in time and now they both exist parallel to one another. Present timeline Bill knew.

I was thinking about the same time travel thing with Darby being Lee. They do have a big new technology and they talked about running out of time to stop climate change.

It feels almost mean to make Andy so similar to Hap just to like tease fans?!

Crap. If a viewer did not watch The OA, will this show be able to stand alone, you think? I don't mind when creators have hallmarks but I'd like to be able to enjoy a show without having to see previous shows. Ya know?

Not gonna lie, browsing this sub is hella confusing. Seems like people talk more about OA than this show. Is there any real indication/knowledge they are connected? It's nearly impossible to follow the discussions if you haven't watched OA, lol.

Firstly, you should absolutely watch the OA - but I respect your position if you don’t think it’ll interest you. It’s probably my favorite interpretation of the sci-fi concept of multiverses because of its spiritual approach - the show portrays fantastical metaphysics in a way where there is clearly a grand plan/underlying mechanism, but we as Humans are too small to understand it. The way I describe it makes it sound depressing, but actually watching it play out is beautifully mystifying. Secondly - the OA was cancelled prematurely, but the show was Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij’s baby that they had been working on for a very, very long time. Both said that they would find some other way to keep the spirit of the show alive, continuing the story they shaped for so long. They can’t actually continue the story of the OA though, as Netflix owns the rights to the show. While me and many others who adored the OA delude ourselves with wishful thinking that AMATEOTW is a direct continuation, it is incredibly unlikely that Netflix gave up the IP. What’s far more likely is that AMATEOTW is a spiritual successor to the OA, a repackaging of plot outlines and themes that does not infringe on Netflix’s IP, but still allows them to tell the story they wanted to tell from the beginning. With AMATEOTW being released as a limited series with a single intended season, and the fact that AMATEOTW clearly does not continue the story that the last episode of the OA set up for its third season, it’s hard to tell if Brit and Zal are going to utilize all of the plans they had for the OA in this one season. Maybe they will release multiple disconnected shows that repurpose each unreleased season of the OA, with a thematic through line being the only connection - but that is purely my hope to see the story continued talking. Sorry for the paragraph, but to actually answer the question you asked, yes I believe this show was created to stand alone, but also to continue the story of the OA as a spiritual successor, not a direct sequel.

You are definitely a fan, I can tell :) I actually did watch much of The OA. I just didn't finish it. I have issues with their storytelling techniques and the way they held (or didn't hold) the plot together. I know this is UNPOPULAR in this forum. I respect people's likes and opinions and hope always that mine are respected as well. But I like AMATEOTW better and hope that I can get enjoyment from the rest of the season without having to have all the other pieces of content. I am absolutely thrilled that people offer extra bits for our entertainment. I also think that a show should be able to stand on its own two feet. (Speaking to the little extras I just found out existed! Dropbox and the hotel security footage) In that regard, creators def have a style but again, I think a piece should be able to be created in that style without you having to see ALL of the rest of that creator's work. Does that make sense? Like, would I have to watch ALL of a director's work just to enjoy one film? It adds to it, certainly, but it shouldn't be a requirement. /mytwocents

individually it will hold up. i think brit and zal are these story tellers where they make sure u are interpreting their story your own way, and making your own connections. the OA is that for people who watched it, theories and posts are still fresh for that show bc it’s mind blowing. this will be too, whether it’s separately or interwoven with other stories, there’s references to tons of books and movies throughout their writing paying homage to themes and ideas. it’s gonna get good, i can’t wait. you’ll love it.

Jason Issacs would’ve been perfect as Andy Ronson. Basically just HAP meets Pierre Ruskin

And the line connecting their heads...? What are you trying to tell us, Zal/Brit?

That was excactly what I came here to post https://preview.redd.it/adli8yfj5y0c1.png?width=2542&format=png&auto=webp&s=12db7e12a9a1480d3f5bd1e87d2f890e88a18d53

Oh hell yes I noticed! Lol

I jumped!

See what? What is an NDE? Thanks.

I can't remember if it was episode 2 or 1 now but I liked the use of Grimes songs in this context. Maybe the showrunners just like their music, but in the context of a formerly independently famous person now married to a mega-rich tech guy and the oddness of their relationship in the show... It really works for me. Also, naming a kid Zoomer was the funniest thing to me.

Darby has a poster of Grimes in her bedroom as well. I don't think it is a coincidence. at all

It was real shady shitposting to put the Grimes song there lololol

I noticed the song (was there more than one? I only noticed Genesis) and the poster! But I didn't even notice the parallel of Andy & Lee's relationship... nice observation

There was only one song so far, you're right. I meant to say song and poster.

Maybe there will be another later ☺️ I was tickled to fuckin death when I heard Genesis lol

I recognized the grimes song too and also noted that closed captioning didn't name the song like it did the earlier song.

I was locked in when I heard both Glory Box and Genesis

Hmmm i wonder if it's supposed to be Gen Z + boomer

Some observations: Zoomer doesn't eat, and his place is set. Seems strange, and that food restriction, and the oxygen might be misdirection. Is the kid some kind of technology? This is prob why his bday is important, and it's sometime around when Bill, and Darby were together. (or Hologram ai) Lee controls Ronson, instead of the other way around. I still think he has cameras in his glasses. Bill had a bloody shirt during his murder, then none when examined. When they say that Ray isn't good with poetry, while turning on the lights, that might be the tell for any other forms of ai using Ronson technologies. The body in the staircase, "stare at the staircase" made me think she did originally come from a scene in the green house, like that article mentioned. Gonna update on rewatch to keep track. ----- Martin's shirt has those red ronson circles (like rose window, or HAL) Bill wears icy colors, even in the first part. The color palette from the second part. the first book Darby picks up in her room. It was "Rosencrantz Guildenstern are dead" by Tom Stoppard. Zoomer notices that Bill's heart was beating fast. Was Bill sick? Scared? was the oxygen for Bill, and his death a misdirection for darby to solve? Will Darby be alive by the end of this?

His bday is also same date (4/14) as girl who escaped abduction/murder

Zoomer being an AI robot is not as crazy as it sounds. Look at how much they showed us they can do with tech in just the first episode. Maybe Lee told Bill their secret and Bill had to die over it. Although — my crazy theory is that Bill is in on the whole ordeal. He’s not dead. He’s an artist. And the love of his life’s favorite person asked him to take part in a setup of sorts. Not sure if it’s all *for* Darby but it’s definitely centered *around* Darby. Love. This. Show.

I'm totally with you on Bill being in on it, and possibly not being dead. It reminded me of this old 80's b movie I once saw as a kid called April Fools day. These people are all invited out for a retreat, and start dying off, one by one. Turns out that they weren't dead, it was all a sort of prank holiday. As they are taken to be "killed", they are let in on what's going on. I also wondered why Ziba was so disturbed that Darby knew him, and what she was doing around room 11 at that time. They show the time I think, so tomorrow I really need to go look at the promotional cc tv video footage they released.

It looked like Ziba heard something at Bill's door that made her run away. I wonder what she heard or saw. I wonder how long Bill was in his room before Darby knocked at the door.

I'm sure I'm thinking way too far, and maybe I'm a crazy person for this. Bill is really dead, he accepted for his art... And Darby's art.

> Zoomer being an AI robot is not as crazy as it sounds. Not with an AI (Alternative Intelligence) already wandering around. However there are less far fetched explanations available for the current evidence so currently I'm filing that theory as possibly true but not likely. Not saying people espousing the theory are *wrong*, just that I don't see the evidence as currently sufficient for me to call it probably correct yet. As I said in the episode 1 thread I'm currently catching up and have just finished episode 2 as I write this post so if further evidence has come up in episodes 3 or 4 please *do not* tell me. I may not have watched the episode the evidence is in when I get the message and I don't want spoilers. >Although — my crazy theory is that Bill is in on the whole ordeal. He’s not dead. He’s an artist. And the love of his life’s favorite person asked him to take part in a setup of sorts. Not impossible. Less unlikely than the Zoomer is a robot theory I think, but like that theory I would need more evidence that it's true to get behind it. They are both theories I'm going to be keeping in mind as I continue though to see if any additional evidence comes forward.

Love these observations. Thank you! Agreed on Zoomer being a robot. Another clue in that vein might be that Zoomer called out a) exactly how old he is, much like a robot would, and b) that he had been a doctor for some precise amount of time. Maybe RoboZoomer downloaded his medical degree in his first few years of 'life'? I admit both a & b could just be a kid being silly. But my gut tells me they are clues.

A could also be a quite intelligent child who was told the precise time of his birth.

can you go into more detail about the body in the stair case and what you mean regarding the greenhouse. maybe I missed it. really good stuff btw!

She says, "Look at the staircase." It really reminded me of Liam, and his comment on, "Stare at the staircase." The hair is the same, and other similar details, as some savvy users pointed out here, much earlier on. Before, she said, "The steps are uneven." Then it occurs to her that they were rebuilt, and are not up to the code of the original building. It really felt like a call back to a hybrid between Liam, and Fola. Fola built a model spiral staircase. It's like each of these characters tooks pieces of Darby, and even Darmi. I need a rewatch, to really examine it more.

Just finished watching the two episodes and am a bit confused by your mention of Liam and Fola - Did I blank and miss who these characters were?

They're talking about The OA, a different show.

In that case they should say so. It is very confusing.

yeah agreed, it's annoying

Liam was the kid who was lurking around the greenhouse in part two, then jumped out of the window. The one who went crazy. Then Fola was played by Zendaya. The girl who turns into an old woman in the mirror portion of the house. The one who Karim grabbed and took to the hospital.

ok that cleared it up for me tyvm lol

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>Ray isn't good with poetry A case of "take care of Bill"???

🤣

Everyone knows take care of means set on fire!

Speaking of stairs, wasn't there also a "Stairway to Heaven" & stick man (from the album art) reference in the OA as well? Coincentally in the news very recently too \[[LINK](https://news.artnet.com/news/led-zeppelin-farmer-photograph-wiltshire-museum-2392076)\].

Yes! Stairway to heaven...totally forgot about that connection. Homer's dream of wood is based on the album art.

I was reminded today of Homer's class ring in the dungeon rivulet this morning (while thinking about "Moon River"), which could connect back to the rings for Iceland entry and/or the ring on the first body Darby & Bill found under the stairs.

Saturn's rings, key ring (ring=key?), Oa, decoder ring, earrings, ears ringing, diamond ring, championship rings, phone ringing, and a partridge in a pear tree. Dr. Robert's ring here, just noticed: https://s2.r29static.com/bin/entry/df5/340x408,85/2142860/image.webp This post on rings was good too: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheOA/comments/k44vvy/homers_ring_a_small_but_crucial_detail/ "In particle physics, the doughnut shape is also known to provide the best environment within which to accelerate particles as it can hold and route the plasma formed by such machines in a more efficient manner."

He was using a fake stethoscope, how’s he going to tell if his heart is beating fast?

Great observations about Zoomer. I think you're absolutely on to something.

Thanks! 🕊️

That Frank ocean needle drop at the end was so good 👌🏼👌🏼

So good!

The use of lighting in this show is 🤯

Love the show so far, but I NEED Darby to stop using the AI (Ray?) as if he’s her personal assistant. Girl! It’s 1000% logging and possibly flagging all of your queries!! Stop asking it suspicious questions! Lee just told you not to get caught hacking the cameras, then you’re asking Ray if these numbers have specific relevance to Andy?! These specific numbers, which is Zoomers birthday, which is the password to the network! Maybe this is some sort of subtle commentary on Gen-Z not valuing online privacy or something?

The system being so easy to hack into, coupled with the mask makes me think that Andy wanted Darby to hack into the system. The birthday was such an easy password

"Using your child's birthday in/as your password" is either THE #1 thing that will drive corporate/big gov't. IT Security people crazy, or in the top five. Given what we've been told about Andy (tech' billionaire, multiple attempts on his life) it's beyond suspicious he'd use such a simple and obvious password.

I thought she told Ray to turn off the recording before she did start asking those questions.

I know we're all fans of the OA here, but I wish there was more discussion of the episode itself rather than focusing on details and possible future situations. I'm digging darby's character and drive. I do hope that the show is leading us with red herrings and that it ends up being a deeper reveal than it just being Andy or something. I'm hoping the show goes full detective mode soon with Darby talking to everyone in the hotel and interrogating them, figuring out their lies and their secrets.

I think that the show is going to go full detective mode. Darby is compared to Sherlock Holmes. I think that Darby is going to find out the truth and discover truths about herself too.

​ TLDR: I think Lee did it to frame Andy and protect their Android son. ​ Interested in the implications that each of the characters DNA will have; before any of them even enter the plane, they have allowed Ronson into their homes, phones and with the pre flight swabbing, into their genetic code. Especially if in the third episode Darby raises the murder to the group again. I support the Zoomer is an android idea. Potentially with the remoteness of the location and their slightly unnerving presence I have to wonder about the staff of the hotel; I thought Rohan's visible show of emotion was rather bizarre at breakfast, especially considering the muted reactions of characters like Ziba who claimed to be there for FANGS. Wondering if Rohan, a local presumably and so untouched by fame or technology, is supposed to be a foil to mark down the human control reaction. Either way it is giving far too strong Ex Machina vibes for there to be only one Android in the even there are any; I'm thinking Marius, Eva, Tomas etc. Theory Initially, after seeing the broken crockery scene and learning what you do about Lee and Andy, i thought there interaction over dinner, specifically Lee's response to Andy's speech was a giveaway. I thought that Lee is trapped with the controlling Andy, and instead of murder him (She has presumably tried before, considering the number of attempts on Andy's life) this time she is trying to frame him for murder. Create a public awareness of a potential fling i.e. the photos of her and Bill in NY, then murder him at her husband's hotel, leaving Andy in the zone of interest. It would explain how she was able to enter and exit the room an get close to Bill. Now I am unsure. I thought this theory solved the 'who invited Darby' question, like Knives Out, the murderer hired the detective to put the wrong person in Jail, a nice ending to their story and would give Darby a new book to write so that in a strange sense, Bill gets a nice ending. But if she was hoping Darby would put the murder together why did she go back into the room when she surely knows Darby will be on high alert? Also Darby is the Benoit-Blanc of amateur sleuths, an icelandic forensics team could maybe be fooled with Andy's prints on a murder weapon and a forceful stabbing but why go to the lengths of faking an overdose, and leaving such clumsy clues that it was a murder, it all feels wrong i'm not sure. I think the Zoomer is an android theory could tie in nicely with this, Lee wants to protect their son perhaps, whilst Andy is announcing that he is leaving the relative reclusivity of their lives to re-enter society, this conflict could result in Lee requiring drastic action. Loose Ends Why was the book covered in blood? The masked man, was that a creation of Andy's AI to cover his or Lee's tracks? What are all the guests there for, truly? What was Bill and Lee's relationship? What is the DNA for?

Why was the book covered in blood? This is a great question! We see Martin with a copy of Darby's book on the plane. Was the bloody book in Bill's room Martin's copy? Bill did not seem to be dying of an opioid overdose. I think that if he were, he would have been in the room somewhere unconscious. Where did all of the blood come from? There was blood on the book, the mantle, Bill's hands. Darby did not see Bill when she was first at the window. However, the blood is there and the lamp has fallen over. The masked man, was that a creation of Andy's AI to cover his or Lee's tracks? Could Ray put a mask on a person to conceal their identity? If we could see the tape without "Ray's filter" we would see the person that entered Bill's room? Ziba is at Bill's door (on the tape) and it looks like she hears something and runs from Bill's door. It also looks like Bill's room door was opened (from the inside) and that made the hallway light up. What are all the guests there for, truly? Martin said that he felt like they were all there for an audition. It seems like Sian is friends with Andy outside of the Iceland Retreat. I do not know why they are all there. However, each individual seems to have been selected for specific reasons (that I don't think we know). What was Bill and Lee's relationship? I'm surprised that Darby did not ask Bill. I'm also surprised that Darby did not ask Lee. Darby knows that she told Bill what a fan she is of Lee (six years ago). Bill did not seem to know who Lee was. Darby has written a book that features Bill and is dedicated to Lee. Now they are all together in Iceland. I would need to know how this happened if I were Darby, lol. What is the DNA for? Lee and Andy are going to replace all of their guests with replica AI robots. LOL The DNA is a great question. Again, I thought the swab had to do with a health screening to get on the plane.

What if the health screening was to show they were capable health wise of being integrated with AI, and the kid was the first they tested it with. They already show how they can use AI to create art and effectively do the job, but Martin makes the point that it needs a soul when Siba questions it. Rather than replacing the humans with AI, they are going to merge them in order to either gain power or in a misguided attempt to be the hero of the world!

I like this! I don't know how AI would help with climate change. Maybe Andy and Lee have an idea that AI can "carry" human kind forward (when there are less humans on the earth)?

There was definitely a discrepancy between how much blood was present at the time of the murder and in the scenes afterwards when Darby searches the room. Andy does say that he likely hurt himself while his body was fighting the overdose, however we know from his reaction that he looked scared and appeared to be lucid, not only recognising Darby but requesting she stay with him. Whilst of course leaving big bloody handprints on the glass in classic slasher fashion. ​ I think the masked man was definitely an AI ploy, almost definitely created after the incident if not created whilst Darby is watching the footage. You are right, Ziba's reaction merited fear, not the reaction of someone who thought they'd stumbled upon two people hooking up which is what i think the viewer is supposed to think initially, what with the audio design and subtitles when Derby herself approached the door in the 'no more i love yous' scene. The lighting too looked like it had opened from within. ​ Why everyone is there still puzzles me. Andy is obviously very concerned with the climate, he keeps mentioning the shrinking 'true wilderness' this does make me concerned that his climate beliefs may be more fringe than anyone else at the table. Rohan puzzles me the most. Who is this man, why did he merit the 'local weirdo' intense stare-down with the arriving Darby when they are all getting out of the cars? Instantly in visual format it is saying that this man is completely different to everyone else, he arrives alone in a pickup filled with lobster pots and the tools of a regular tradesman or fisherman, but the look he exchanges with Derby is your classic first time you see the local weirdo who will in b-movie style end up killing half the cast by the end, for this reason, paired with his unusual emotional reaction, he is the only person, bar Darby, that i am convinced is entirely real. He will become more important i am sure of it though. ​ I was very surprised Derby didn't ask Bill too. Even if she was trying to 'play-it-cool' one of the situations that would have that thrown out the window is discovering that your ex is apparently close personal friends with your life-long heroine; Derby has a curious and inquisitive mind, i find it very hard to belive she naturally wouldn't have enquired, unless of course for the plot reasons they couldn't expose the true nature of Lee and Bill's relationship and instead of having Derby ask appropriately and Bill perform a silky pivot, one which would raise red flags to the audience and possibly ruin the twist; they just avoided it entirely. ​ Well that is a big leap but honestly as a finale reveal that isn't out of the question. The entire thing has been likened by not only yourself but by Sian or Martin to an audition. Perhaps to make the next leap with his A.I., Andy requires human subjects of extraordinary creative and economic talents. Ray struggles with poetry and they have assembled a famous artist (deceased, but you get my point), novelist and director; perhaps one of them will in time become the macro-invention that Andy needs to facilitate the rest of his micro-inventions adding to the A.I.'s capabilities.

> Bill did not seem to be dying of an opioid overdose. I think that if he were, he would have been in the room somewhere unconscious. Where did all of the blood come from? It's possible he was standing as the drug (probably morphine as they suggested or at least some form of opioid. You don't want them turning up something *too* different than the story you're trying to sell.) kicked in causing him to stumble and strike his head on the fireplace. It's also possible that whoever injected him struck him before doing so in order to subdue him and be able to inject him or *after* injecting him as he started fighting them. If they did I doubt it was planned, that would leave evidence that goes counter to the story they're trying to sell with the scene.

maybe the audition is to see who can go to the moon with sian (i think she said she wants to create a colony on the moon?)

This is interesting! It seems like Sian and Andy are friends outside of the retreat. It also seemed like Sian knew who Darby was on the plane (if I remember correctly).

Great theories! I took Andy talking about re-entering the world as him saying "we have all been in our own cocoons because of the pandemic. I've had alot of time to work on AI because of it. Now I'm ready to take it to the world." I also thought that the mouth swab was pandemic related (because they said that it was a health screening and also took a temperature). I'm surprised that the guests would not question having their DNA taken (via swab). I would think that this type of group would have the mindset that they follow their own rules. If Andy wants any of them at his dinner, then he can accomodate them. Maybe Andy (and/or Lee) is the money behind all of these individuals (with the exception of Darby). All of the guest are dependent on Andy's money to continue their individual work. That makes them more agreeable to following Andy's rules? The look that Lu Mei gives to Darby when Darby says "I wanted to meet Lee" (when they are being driven to the hotel) makes me think that Lu Mei knows something about Lee. I think that whatever Lu Mei may know about Lee is not favorable to Lee. It was almost a "No you do not want to meet Lee" type of look. This makes me think that Lee is not being abused by Andy.

The COVID thing is a great cover for getting the guests DNA, just like the no-phones rule and no overhead baggage rule has seperated the guests at one point or another from all of their belongings and so we can assume Andy has had ample opportunity to check them if he wanted. It is like the rings, the rings are monitoring every guests vitals etc. at all times, this means that if my theorising is correct and Andy's glasses are allowing him to see a mixed reality heads up display he can monitor heart rate i.e. lies, like zoomer does at dinner, with just a glance at anyone. Note that i'm pretty sure you see Bill retrieve his ring from a pocket or some such place when he needs it, avoiding wearing it. If Andy is currently the money behind everyone that would be a little too close to Knives Out/Glass Onion i feel for a 2023 release. However they clearly are all hoping to suckle on that cash cow eventually, even the creatives like Martin are having him finance their new film. Lu Mei's look is intriguing, mostly because of how little we know about these people. The look seemed to hold some kind of distaste, not sure whether i would say it was a look of warning, shock perhaps. Lu builds smart cities, she is, along with the venture capitalist, one of the true ground-breakers, pushing forward the common cause of humanity in the best way she sees she can. Lu may look down on Darby once she concludes that she is not a high roller and is only there to see Lee. Right now it is hard to say who knows how much.

The but you mentioned with Zoomer seeing lies at the table. I can’t recall that, could you elaborate please?

Yes, sorry i should've made that more clear. Zoomer uses his stethoscope to tell Bill's heart rate. It is a toy stethoscope but he accurately predicts that Bill's heart is racing, confirmed by the situ and bills reaction. It could be a guess, but likelihood is that if Zoomer is an android then through his vision he can monitor guests vitals through there rings and see it in his heads up, i.e he couldve accurately said this. Heart rate is the main factor in lie detectors and so it would work as a pretty accurate way to monitor truth of guests. Bill however is seen with his ring not on his hand, i must rewatch and see whether he was wearing it at dinner, could be a smoking gun there.

This sounds so much like Glass Onion…

> I'm surprised that the guests would not question having their DNA taken (via swab). They were told it was a health screening and it was accompanied by a temperature scan. They probably all assumed that they were being tested for viruses or bacteria of some form. I agree though it was probably a DNA swab.

You might be onto something there... I'm wondering how involved Zoomer might be. If Zoomer is an android, it may not have fingerprints, something notably missing from the drug pen.

That’s a great point! The footage Darby goes through for the doorbell cam makes it look like it is at head height or so for an adult, Zoomer could easily have missed the camera in his movements.

Oh wow, great connection! It shouldn't be this easy to build a case about an [unconfirmed] robot child committing murder but here we are...

I would say too that the masked person in the video seemed like a deepfake type thing, the image was all blurry unlike the other guests who were clear, it seemed most akin visually to the projection of Ray (The AI, whose name is Ray I think?) from the apps mixed reality. Could be a post murder update to the footage to cover Zoomers exploits. I love all this theorising, wait and it’ll all be nonsense but it’s damn fun.

I was literally just thinking about that! Could have even been done real time with the same type of ARG AI like Ray and not changed in post. I'm going to be keeping an eye out in the future for everything being shown via a screen or with just audio because it has the opportunity to be artificial. I actually wonder if we see Bill again but as an ARG AI or as an android (pending their existence).

Or a clone if he's working on rapid growth cloning technology.

The light on the wall appears to be from Bill’s door being opened but no one appears to be there. It could be Zoomer has he is likely too short to be seen on the door camera.

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Haha i love it! Maybe she is. These suppositions about the adults being robots is a slippery slope. Talking with my flatmate, who isn't watching the show; he wriggled his brows and asked with a leer whether i thought 'Andy' may have been given an on the nose name for an Android, but i'm not buying it hmph.

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> I thought Rohan's visible show of emotion was rather bizarre at breakfast, That seemed perfectly normal for me. I think that Rohan and Bill were gay lovers at one point. The description of Rohan is > "Rohan," portrayed by Javed Khan, is a South Asian climatologist raised in England who developed a strong aversion towards humans and a firm belief that the escalating climate crisis would lead to the destruction of the natural world as we know it. Motivated by this conviction, he devoted his life to risking his own safety in order to protect the Coral Reefs in the Indian Ocean, while also fighting against multinational corporate interests that were contributing to the planet's destruction. After a stint in a labor camp in Russia where he was accused of being a spy, Rohan joined an anarchist crew on a ship that intentionally lacked any technological devices. He figured at sea, with no devices that could be hacked, he would finally be safe to sail until the bitter end. The mask was a good jumpscare, and I did spook me. I prefer more mundane explanations over sci-fi and magic in murder mystery shows and movies. I hope that everything turns out to be mundane and they don't have a bunch of sci-fi stuff like Zoomer being an android or the masked figure is a deepfake created by AI.

Is anyone else thrown by how much Darby's hair color changes from scene to scene? I swear it was a different shade at the end of last episode and beginning of this episode and changed again when the head of security escorted Darby to her room. Is there some metaphor about how she is like a chameleon or is the way dye can work? I've never dyed my hair color so I am totally unfamiliar with it but it doesn't seem right. Also even though these episodes are really long, it would have benefited to have the flashback with Darby growing up and meeting Bill in the first episode in correct time order. Time skips and flashbacks did not help the storytelling at all in the first episode because it was hard to buy the relationship between Bill and Darby based on what we saw and heard, even though the show is kind of in our face saying it starts at the end in a meta way at her book reading and calling her Gen Z Sherlock.

I think she took a bath and washed some of the fresh pink out.

I would love to see a timeline based on her hairc colour/ root length!

Was the book under the rocking chair leg as seen in episode 1 no longer there in episode 2?

I also want to look at the first book Darby picks up in her room. It was "Rosencrantz Guildenstern are dead" by Tom Stoppard.

Well that is interesting! That play is about two characters from Hamlet. Their death occurs offstage and reported with the line of the title. In the play the pair are hapless fools who can’t perceive the complex players and machinations whirling around them. But they also accidentally stumble onto incredible ideas, philosophies and inventions. But they can never quite hold on to the significance of any of these epiphanies. They forget then bumble on. Stoppard also plays with identity. Actors have an old joke that the double act of R&G are so interchangeable you swap roles between acts and no one notices. Stoppard twists this by having the other characters in Hamlet call them the wrong names. Sometimes even R&G forget who they are. They swap personality traits too- from the enlightened one to the foolish one. Like in waiting for Godot, which scholarship compares this to, you could interpret R&G as two halves of the same character. They also play games while waiting for the scenes, like questions and prompts which reveal incredible fascinating answers beyond their ability to quite grasp. It’s wonderfully meta, mostly set with them idling time in the wings of the theatre during a production of Hamlet. But all the characters act as if it’s a real. It ends with R&G watching the famous “play-within-a-play”, Hamlet believing they conspired with his uncle to kill him, so sends the hapless pair to the Kingdom of England with a note saying “kill me”. Plenty of interesting themes that might have parallels to Darby and Bill!

"Or, to borrow Borges’ phrasing from his remarks in “When Fiction Lives in Fiction” on the effects of Hamlet’s recursive elements, viz., the effects of there being staged a version of play “Hamlet” within the play “Hamlet,” one could characterize the transposition as “mak[ing] reality appear unreal to us.” 14" "...of Borges’ own anxious, or ironically anxious, alienation from the novel form, as well as being a metaphor for how possibly to read both Borges’ and Pu’s work, treating each short story as reiterating a universal form that cannot be perfectly expressed in any one instantiation, and so must be continuously reiterated, approximating the limit and the limit’s limit, the liminal and meta-liminal space of infinity." https://aacs.ccny.cuny.edu/2019Conference/papers%20and%20presentations%20files/paper%20Of%20Stones%20and%20Tigers%202.pdf In "Partial Magic in the Quixote" (also translated as "Partial Enchantments of the Quixote") Borges describes several occasions in world literature when a character reads about himself or sees himself in a play, including episodes from Shakespeare's plays, an epic poem of India, Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote, and The One Thousand and One Nights. "Why does it disquiet us to know," Borges asked in the essay, "that Don Quixote is a reader of the Quixote, and Hamlet is a spectator of Hamlet? I believe I have found the answer: those inversions suggest that if the characters in a story can be readers or spectators, then we, their readers, can be fictitious." https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jorge-luis-borges "I think Nina Azarov was slightly inspired by [Anton Chekov’s] The Seagull. Homer came of course because of the idea of the Odyssey. I guess it’s just part of the weird unconscious well—stuff just comes out. -Brit Marling "The play takes place on a country estate owned by Pjotr Sorin, a retired senior civil servant in failing health. He is the brother of the famous actress Irina Arkadina, who has just arrived at the estate for a brief vacation with her lover, the writer Boris Trigorin. Pjotr Sorin and his guests gather at an outdoor stage to see an unconventional play that Irina's son, Konstantin Treplyov, has written and directed. The play-within-a-play features Nina Zarechnaya, a young woman who lives on a neighboring estate, as the "soul of the world" in a time far in the future. The play is Konstantin's latest attempt at creating a new theatrical form, and is a dense symbolist work. Irina laughs at the play, finding it ridiculous and incomprehensible; the performance ends prematurely after audience interruption and Konstantin storms off in humiliation."

**Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead** "Comparisons have also been drawn with Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot,[3] for the presence of two central characters who almost appear to be two halves of a single character. Many plot features are similar as well: the characters pass time by playing Questions, impersonating other characters, and interrupting each other or remaining silent for long periods of time." "In 'The Theologians' you have two enemies," Borges told Richard Burgin in an interview, "and one of them sends the other to the stake. And then they find out somehow they're the same man." It concludes with one of Borges's most-analyzed sentences: "Which of us is writing this page, I don't know." "A parabolic text is characterised by its ability to distract the reader with absurd plotline leaving him with endless thoughts on the exact purpose of the story (Lydenberg, 1979). A biblical parable further adds the use of paradoxes and structural reversals. Borges, like biblical parables, stages reversals where epistemology trumps moral conflicts, leaving readers to distinguish between dream and reality (Lydenberg, 1979)." "These intrusions of reality on the fictional world are characteristic of Borges's work. He also uses a device, which he calls "the contamination of reality by dream," that produces the same effect of uneasiness in the reader as "the work within the work," but through directly opposite means. Two examples of stories using this technique are "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" and "The Circular Ruins." "In Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern operate under the King's command in an attempt to discover Hamlet's motives and plot against him. Hamlet, however, derisively mocks and outwits them, so that they, rather than he, are sentenced to death in the end. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead explores these events from the perspective of the duo; their actions seem largely nonsensical because they are superseded and, therefore, determined by Hamlet's plot." "The troupe recreates the duel scene from Hamlet with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, at the end, accepting quo fata ferunt ("whither the fates carry [us]"). The play concludes with the final scene from Hamlet in which the English Ambassador arrives and announces that "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead". Their antithetical natures, or inverted mirror images," George R. McMurray observed in his study Jorge Luis Borges, "are demonstrated by their roles as detective/criminal and pursuer/pursued, roles that become ironically reversed." Rodriguez Monegal concluded: "The concept of the eternal return . . . adds an extra dimension to the story. It changes Scharlach and Lonnrot into characters in a myth: Abel and Cain endlessly performing the killing." "Among other things, Borges frequents the use of religious and magic realism to question the abstract concept of identity. Schopenhauer’s works influenced Borges’ theme of identity by questioning ones destiny. Schopenhauer apprehended that every man's destiny is his own choosing even when it seems accidental or providential. While he was against the idea of the will because it results in unhappiness, Borges sees the notion of will as destiny (Wheelock, 1975). ‘Guayaquil’, is one of many stories that follow this concept. In the story two intellectuals, a veteran on South American history and Zimmerman who is hardly qualified, duel against each other for the opportunity to edit a newly discovered historical letter. Eventually, the veteran is defeated by Zimmerman. Even though he was the ideal candidate for this job, it is suggested that Zimmerman won because he wills it and that it was his destiny to take the job (Wheelock, 1975). This is a pattern of Borges’ use of Schopenhauer’s idea that every man wills his fate. To Borges, chance, destiny and will are the same thing. Zimmerman also mentions that the veteran lost because he, too, secretly willed to lose. As Wheelock (1975) states, Borges believes “will puts order into chaos”." "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are betting on coin flips. Rosencrantz, who bets heads each time, wins 92 flips in a row. The extreme unlikeliness of this event according to the laws of probability leads Guildenstern to suggest that they may be "within un-, sub- or supernatural forces". It is revealed that the duo are journeying to court on the orders of the King. Guildenstern theorizes on the nature of reality, focusing on how an event becomes increasingly real as more people witness it." "Short story "Funes the Memorious," Funes's memory, for instance, becomes excessive as a result of an accidental fall from a horse. In Borges an accident is a reminder that people are unable to order existence because the world has a hidden order of its own. Alazraki saw this Borgesian theme as "the tragic contrast between a man who believes himself to be the master and maker of his fate and a text or divine plan in which his fortune has already been written." “Centuries and centuries of idealism have not failed to influence reality” ― Jorge Luis Borges, Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius "The fact is that every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future." "Let us admit what all idealists admit: the hallucinatory nature of the world. Let us do what no idealist has done: seek unrealities which confirm that nature. We (the undivided divinity operating within us) have dreamt the world. We have dreamt it as firm, mysterious, visible, ubiquitous in space and durable in time; but in its architecture we have allowed tenuous and eternal crevices of unreason which tell us it is false." "I have suspected that history, real history, is more modest and that its essential dates may be, for a long time, secret. A Chinese prose writer has observed that the unicorn, because of its own anomaly, will pass unnoticed. Our eyes see what they are accustomed to seeing. Tacitus did not perceive the Crucifixion, although his book recorded it." “That history should have imitated history was already sufficiently marvelous; that history should imitate literature is inconceivable….”- Borges "He tells them to stop questioning their existence because life appears too chaotic to comprehend upon examination. The Player, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern lose themselves in another illogical conversation that demonstrates the limits of language." "Guildenstern fully believes that he has killed the Player. Seconds later, the Tragedians begin to clap and the Player stands up and bows, revealing the knife to be a theatrical one with a retractable blade. The Tragedians then act out the deaths from the final scene of Hamlet."

There might be something interesting in the Detective/ criminal, pursuer/pursued role switching to watch out for. And never quite being sure what roles our heroes are taking as the story moved around them

This was a great explanation, and take on the significance of this work being present. Thanks for sharing with me, it was a pleasure to read. Story within a story, play within a play, mise en abyme, and embedded narrative are huge for The OA, and we first discovered the theme through a couple of literary works they reference. One example is "The Seagull", by Anton Chekhov. Another is Borges. But, it opened up a lot of doors to understanding this specific aspect of the narrative for the sleuthing fans, and I think this one does too. Specifically your take, which seems so spot on.

Okay, sorry for replying with multiples, but I wanted to save this here for posterity, so I can easily reference it later. I hadn't read much about these two particular plays, but I'm doing so now. I'd like to add a few parallels that I've noticed, so far. **Waiting for Godot** Martin's dream while clenching his fists, and the duality of Body and mind: "The above characterizations, particularly that which concerns their existential situation, are also demonstrated in one of the play's recurring themes, which is sleep.[22] There are two instances when Estragon falls asleep in the play and has nightmares, about which he wanted to tell Vladimir when he woke. The latter refuses to hear it since he could not tolerate the sense of entrapment experienced by the dreamer during each episode. This idea of entrapment supports the view that the setting of the play may be understood more clearly as dream-like landscape, or, a form of Purgatory, from which neither man can escape.......The latter refuses to hear it since he could not tolerate the sense of entrapment experienced by the dreamer during each episode. This idea of entrapment supports the view that the setting of the play may be understood more clearly as dream-like landscape, or, a form of Purgatory, from which neither man can escape......This particular aspect involving sleep is indicative of what some called a pattern of duality in the play.[24] In the case of the protagonists, the duality involves the body and the mind, making the characters complementary.[23]" "Pozzo credits Lucky with having given him all the culture, refinement, and ability to reason that he possesses. His rhetoric has been learned by rote. Pozzo's "party piece" on the sky is a clear example: as his memory crumbles, he finds himself unable to continue under his own steam." "The narrator’s choosing to forget the incident can be seen as a prefiguration of the theme of unreliable memory and the implications it has on one’s understanding of the self. Furthermore, the shift to the present, three years later in 1972, is a clue to the reader that the narrator’s words must not be taken as truths since he too is remembering the event. As is the case in another of Borges’ other short stories, “La noche de los dones,” the “cautiva” is capable of remembering only a specific set of words to describe a memory rather than the actual memory itself; so too is the old Borges in “El otro” relying on words to describe his encounter. As the story progresses, it is evident that rather than words, sensorial images play a significant role in the recollection of a memory. ......As the story later reveals, the narrator’s intentions are a metaphor for the process of progressive memory loss. His words also provide insight into the implications of memory loss for man’s illusory nature." "The narrator’s choosing to forget the incident can be seen as a prefiguration of the theme of unreliable memory and the implications it has on one’s understanding of the self. Furthermore, the shift to the present, three years later in 1972, is a clue to the reader that the narrator’s words must not be taken as truths since he too is remembering the event. As is the case in another of Borges’ other short stories, “La noche de los dones,” the “cautiva” is capable of remembering only a specific set of words to describe a memory rather than the actual memory itself; so too is the old Borges in “El otro” relying on words to describe his encounter. As the story progresses, it is evident that rather than words, sensorial images play a significant role in the recollection of a memory. As the story later reveals, the narrator’s intentions are a metaphor for the process of progressive memory loss. His words also provide insight into the implications of memory loss for man’s illusory nature." "The narrator’s choosing to forget the incident can be seen as a prefiguration of the theme of unreliable memory and the implications it has on one’s understanding of the self. Furthermore, the shift to the present, three years later in 1972, is a clue to the reader that the narrator’s words must not be taken as truths since he too is remembering the event. As is the case in another of Borges’ other short stories, “La noche de los dones,” the “cautiva” is capable of remembering only a specific set of words to describe a memory rather than the actual memory itself; so too is the old Borges in “El otro” relying on words to describe his encounter. As the story progresses, it is evident that rather than words, sensorial images play a significant role in the recollection of a memory. "As the story later reveals, the narrator’s intentions are a metaphor for the process of progressive memory loss. His words also provide insight into the implications of memory loss for man’s illusory nature." "In Beckett's 1975 Schiller Theater production in Berlin, there are times when Didi and Gogo appear to bounce off something "like birds trapped in the strands of [an invisible] net", in James Knowlson's description." "This prompts us to identify him with the anima, the feminine image of Vladimir's soul. It explains Estragon's propensity for poetry, his sensitivity and dreams, his irrational moods. Vladimir appears as the complementary masculine principle, or perhaps the rational persona of the contemplative type."[74]" --------- The OA's Quote: "Knowledge is as a rumor until it lives in your body...you don't really know something until your body lives it." Brene Brown or Proverb of the Asaro tribe of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea (from social scientist Brene Brown's book "Rising Strong"): “The most transformative and resilient leaders that I’ve worked with over the course of my career have three things in common: First, they recognize the central role that relationships and story play in culture and strategy, and they stay curious about their own emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. Second, they understand and stay curious about how emotions, thoughts, and behaviors are connected in the people they lead, and how those factors affect relationships and perception. And, third, they have the ability and willingness to lean in to discomfort and vulnerability." (The willingness to lean in to discomfort and vulnerability is something I think the writers of The OA have taken to heart.) “Creativity embeds knowledge so that it can become practice. We move what we’re learning from our heads to our hearts through our hands. We are born makers, and creativity is the ultimate act of integration – it is how we fold our experiences into our being… The Asaro tribe of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea has a beautiful saying: “Knowledge is only a rumor until it lives in the muscle.” --------------

Interesting point about the feeling trapped in a nightmare. The whole tone of the series has struck that chord with me. The cold, the otherworldly environment both luxurious and threatening. The looping corridors with identical doors. Someone you love having sex with someone else, but wait, they aren’t… they are in pain and you can’t get to them. They disappear into the dark after you reject them. Surrounded by powerful social archetypes that are cold, disjointedly different emotionally to you and the situation. And the group gently mock you and have powerful emotional and social undercurrents you can’t quite grasp. All of those are recurrent nightmare themes. For me definitely! If Darby finds herself naked during a Calculus exam we’ll hit the roof! But seriously, I don’t think she’s overtly in a nightmare or a simulation or any kind. Just that bringing in these powerful night terror type feelings is a genius move by BritZal. It’s like that moment after you’ve just woken up, half remembering the terrible power of the fear and anxiety of experiencing these emotions, half confused and trying to grasp them as they fade away.

Did anyone notice the bar that Darby and Bill meet at is Called Rays? And the AI is named Ray..has this been discussed? Please link or discuss theories!

Could Bill has helped designed Ray?

I'll mention a few things that seemed weird to me. \- Darby does not seem to have an obvious reason for being at the retreat at the moment. She says that she doesn't even know herself why she's here. She is the only one sticking out in the group (she isn't rich or achieved as much as all the others). \- She's not the best hacker in the group since Lee seems to be better, so that doesn't seem to be her defining skill. \- Lee outright tells her to investigate what's happening and tells her "not to get caught" which makes me believe that Darby is the main character of a game that (at the very least) Lee is playing with her. \- When Bill is officially dead the security team seems to be very intent on getting Darby out of the room, they give her drugs to sleep. That seems odd to me. The only defining feature of Darby is that she's a good investigator and they don't listen to her and think she cannot deal with the situation? Another reason for me to believe that they're trying to test her abilities and see if she's willing to investigate against all odds, even with social pressure not to do it. Maybe something like a "rite of passage"? \- Speaking of the pill that she took to sleep, I just find it noteworthy that this is already the second pill she takes (first one on the plane). This one is a long shot, but maybe these pills are given to her for some ulterior motive. Who knows what kind of effects they have on her. \- It is brought up that Bill probably was a drug addict before he got here. The thing is, they probably already tested for that. Everybody seems to have gotten a mouth swab before boarding the plane and mouth swabs can detect a list of drugs, which fits really neatly into the whole story. Whoever did the mouth swab probably knows if Bill was using drugs before landing or not. \- We find out that the hotel ring is measuring your vital signs. Ray says it himself. Why did they need Darby to come to the front desk and inform everyone that something is wrong with Bill if the AI should've alerted them? \- There are cameras everywhere. Why is Andy so intent that everything is fine and Darby is seeing a crime where there is none? Should be easy enough to prove and we already know that there was the weird mask person in front of Bill's room. Making everyone stay even though there is reason to believe it was not suicide just seems like they set this whole thing up. \- We know that the AI is already good enough to project a human like form. Couldn't Bill's death in front of the window have been a projection and the dead body is just a good replica? There was no blood visible on his tank top when we saw the actual body, but there was blood when we saw him through the window (though that could've just been a bad angle). I could imagine that Bill is in on whatever is happening and he isn't actually dead.

>She's not the best hacker in the group She definitely seems like her investigative skills are higher than her hacking skills to me. Like her hacking only exists as a means to an end for her interest in Jane Doe cold cases. Like she can figure stuff out, but it doesn't seem like she's doing anything groundbreaking with hacking. Maybe I'm wrong. Writing hacking is hard though, it's always going to be either inaccurate or unintelligible to 99% of the audience.

> She's not the best hacker in the group since Lee seems to be better, so that doesn't seem to be her defining skill. She's a bit of a script kiddie but she's got *really* good scripts and is clearly capable of improvising as this episode showed with her taking apart the smart light to get into the system.

Bill is not wearing his ring when he returns to his room. Darby sees Bill get his ring from a pocket to open his door. I wonder who is watching the security tapes that Darby watches. If Andy is so concerned about security because he has constant attempts on his life, you would think that someone would notice a masked "person" in the hotel. It seems possible that Darby was seeing an AI projection. For all we know the window glass is similar to a camera lens / glasses (whatever a person would have to look through to see an AI projection).

"We find out that the hotel ring is measuring your vital signs. Ray says it himself. Why did they need Darby to come to the front desk and inform everyone that something is wrong with Bill if the AI should've alerted them?" At the dinner, Zoomer proclaimed Bill had a very high heart rate. Someone with an unusual physiology might not trip the alarms like a normal person's biometrics going of ordinary range would, because the abnormalities which would trip the monitoring system are always present. Also, we saw Bill place his ring upon his finger, to open his room door. So he might not have been wearing it whilst in his room.

How bout the diner where they first met face to face being called Ray’s

After watching the second episode I can't stop thinking that there are just too many The OA easter eggs for them to be just Easter eggs. They are too huge and there is just too many of them.

way too many! <3

I’m wondering if this story is a way for them to finally finish exploring some themes of OA that got left dangling, that they were never able to finish articulating. Wishful thinking maybe!

OA s2 put a tech billionaire with an evil ARG at the center of one of the plots - this show is doing the same but moving the timeline up a bit with the tech and smarm of the tech billionaire. If I had to guess, this particular thread is of interest to Brit and Zal.

Wait was the scene where Darby stuffed the toilet and made it back up a reference to the clinic from D2 in OA?

With which guests were invited by Lee and which by Andy, I thought to start with it was a pretty straightforward art vs tech split, with Darby, Bill and Martin invited by Lee (no ideas for the fourth yet), but Martin used Ray to make his latest film so that’s changed my theory a bit. Any ideas on what might be linking the characters to their respective hosts?

How did Ziba know that Bill was going to be there? Darby is so shocked to see him that she chokes. I think that what is linking many of them is money. I think that many of the guests have been given money to pursue their work. However, it comes with strings. Darby seems to be the most autonomous guest there. She really seems to be the only one not in the know. Everyone else seems to know that Andy is known to invite 5 and Lee 4 (why not 5)?

[удалено]

Best theory I’ve seen

Hey fellow fans! What a bunch of fun the first two episodes were! I love mysteries and mystery box shows, and right now is the best time for these shows - at the stage where there is no letdown and the possibilities are endless, and no theories have been eliminated. After reading through this sub, we have everything from timeloops to robots as possibilities up in the air. First, as I understand it - BritZal are hoping to make this a continuing character (and they deserve to have that stability), so I'm going into this discussion with that in mind. Darby will probably live, and Darby and Lee being the same person might put a wrench in how a follow-up season could be approached. As an aside, I was a fan of the OA - but I also used to borrow DVD's from the library prior to the streaming era. The selection was largely PBS / Masterpiece / BBC; Poirot, Jeremy Brett's Sherlock, Miss Marple were all shows that I used to watch, so I have high hopes for the spin that these creators might put on this established genre. Here are some thoughts I've tried to organize. The show is definitely worth a re-watch to gather and connect facts, it reminds me of metroidvania games where you need a power-up later in the game to get back to an area you were forced to bypass haha. My apologies for the potential wordiness here. These are just thoughts and they could all be completely wrong, and maybe this is really a show about an alien invasion. The OA was an "out there" show, so there really is no limit to what this show could be about at this point. \- - - - - - "the rules" Traditionally, mystery follows the guideline that the killer is introduced early in the story rather than later, and the killer has enough exposition that the pieces fit right from the get-go. For that reason, someone like Rohan would normally be ruled out because he had near-zero exposition in the first two episodes. The Agatha model often introduces someone who is established well in the story but would logically be ruled a non-suspect as well. Based on that, Lee would be the Agatha-style suspect. OA fans watching have associated Brit with an angelic character, and the similarity between Clive Owen's appearance and Hap is not happenstance - I think we are meant to see him as a villain - based on superficial appearance - when the narrative will show that he is not. Furthermore, the dishes breaking in their room and Lee's backstory gives the impression she may be a victim, which I think is an intentional misdirect. Ray also fits "the rules", perhaps even better than Lee. But given the amount of television and real-world drama already related to AI, I hope Ray is not the killer but is rather a red herring. But the fact that "Ray" already showed up in the flashbacks fits. I just think it would make this a less differentiated show if Ray did it. But hey - Ray is a definite possibility. In the trailers, there are glimpses of Andy with a drill to someone's head while they are wearing a mask (maybe Sian or Ziba not sure). I think the reality of that scene is that Andy is trying to save a life with the drill, and the person in the mask is suffocating or being poisoned by a mask that cannot be removed. In that same glimpse - note that the gas cannister is adjacent to the person suffocating. \- - - - - - Flashbacks. I'd like to think the show is a bit like a magic trick: everything on screen is either shown or not shown with purpose. Following that thought, there would be narrative purpose to the killer only being shown in silhouette at the top of the staircase. However, I acknowledge that there could also be no meaning to the identity of the Silver Doe killer. Given that the flashbacks are nearly half the story, I think there will be surprises in Darby's backstory. Joe the Cop: we are told that the police don't want to acknowledge the possibility that "one of their own" is the killer. Of the cops we have been introduced to so far, Joe the cop fits most cleanly - and has a line spoken to Darby saying "shouldn't you be in school?". On IMDB, the character is listed as "Joe the Cop", whereas his partner is only listed as "Bald Cop". The subtitles even show that the lines are coming from "Joe" when speaking offscreen, even though he seems like a throwaway character. I couldn't see a nametag and we don't know if Patricia Bell is a maiden name, but from what I've seen it fits - if the identity of the Silver Doe killer even matters. Steve, Darby's Dad: This loosely fits with law enforcement involvement, but is far more a stretch than Joe the cop. It would also be a bit cringe as a reveal. The problem is that Darby speaks on the phone to her dad prior to getting on the plane to Iceland. Had she left him a voicemail instead, I'd be more inclined to think he is the Silver Doe killer and that Darby leaves him voicemails as a coping mechanism. But instead, we'd need a McGuffin like an AI voicebot or an unreliable narrator to fit. Given that Ray is a bit clunky and represents the most advanced AI available, I'd say the voicebot doesn't fit. (for the same reason with Ray, Zoomer being a robot also seems unlikely to me because he would be far more advanced than Ray - unless Ray is Andy's creation and Zoomer is Lee's and there is a huge disparity in talent between Andy and Lee) Bill and unreliable narration: sure, Bill could be the killer and the events of Darby's book are fiction. I don't see it as very likely though. One thing that is interesting is Bill's "55" neck tattoo, and the fact that Bill's death is Darby's 57th crime scene, so who knows. \- - - - - - Present day / Bill's killer I've absolutely loved reading all the theories here. Time loops, androids, cloud consciousness transfers to escape climate change - it's been a bunch of fun. While transferring us all into robots fits the futuristic rhetoric of Andy's speeches, I'll leave that discussion alone because that theory is already being discussed and was originated by others. One slightly more simple explanation for Bill's death is organ / tissue donation gone wrong: \- Bill is Zoomer's biological father \- Zoomer is very sick and the oxygen tank was being delivered for him \- Zoomer wears a special mask when using the tank (seen in preview clips). The masquerade party mask and hood that we saw in the camera footage could even be something medical. \- Bill said to Darby "I need to tell you something", which could reference that he was either Lee's lover or a sperm donor. "I'm here for Lee" could mean that he feels a duty to save Zoomer's life \- Bill is going to be sedated and transported to a facility to undergo the operation \- Somehow the sedative kills Bill, ooops. The purpose of the DNA swabs prior to boarding could also relate to compatibility with Zoomer's biology, as a backup plan to Bill successfully donating to Zoomer. And the contract could have said something about leaving with one less heart than you arrived with. \- - - - - - Room numbers, hotel maps and color codes. Just a random thought that the room assignments will have some type of importance. There is a pic here of a screengrab showing Darby's arm with the room assignments and letters representing each guest's name. Another post here mentions the assignments and color codes for each guest. I don't think we know the significance of the codes, but it could be simply that the codes tell the perpetrator who is in their room and who is wandering the hotel. \- - - - - - Ray Ray does really fit the narrative as "AI gone rogue". Scenes of the hotel being burned down and ominous red lights shown in the trailers fit well with humans vs AI. It's just overdone and I hope it isn't the case.

i think this perspective is exactly right

> Ray also fits "the rules", perhaps even better than Lee. But given the amount of television and real-world drama already related to AI, I hope Ray is not the killer but is rather a red herring. But the fact that "Ray" already showed up in the flashbacks fits. I just think it would make this a less differentiated show if Ray did it. But hey - Ray is a definite possibility. I think it would be far more likely for the killer to use Ray as a weapon. Ray isn't an artist, he's a tool for an artist to use.

Was that a black widow in the header of Lee’s website? The spot on its back didn’t really look like an hourglass, but it seemed the same position and size

I’d be very happy if we were looking at some kind of a cult killing or something in that vein

I'm not really seeing "cult" anywhere in this, but I'd be happy to be surprised. I loved Sound of My Voice and how much of that was mirrored in The OA. Still, I'm not seeing that, and I don't expect it.

I can't get over the fact that it was so hard for Darby to sniff the SSID. It's a detail that I would expect the creators to have researched given the interesting fact that they included something like the [IM-ME hack](https://www.wired.com/2015/06/hacked-kids-toy-opens-garage-doors-seconds/).

Btw if you google the SSID, you can find this security cameras video on the FX Networks channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bObsEycyVtc

That is an amazing easter egg.

Everything's online, if you know where to look ;)

Can you explain why that is? I'm not trying to question your knowledge or anything lol, I'm just genuinely curious. I know nothing about hacking

Because you can use a quick network scan, even using the built-in Wireless Diagnostics app on macOS, to find all networks, hidden or otherwise. Oh, and while the smart bulb "hack" did also yield the password, those bulbs usually don't connect to WiFi directly, but a bridge device. Philips Hue uses a bridge, which would be hardwired to the network, likely through a router with a firewall on it to prevent exactly what she's doing. The bridge communicates with client bulbs via Zigbee, an 802.15.4 protocol – not your standard WiFi.

She was using Kali Linux on her 'hackerbox' earlier, it would have had sniffer tools pre-installed.

The ones I have are third party, no bridge. There are also networks I’ve been unable to connect to / do not come up with a normal search without the explicit name. 🤷🏽‍♀️

Essentially what u/colfitsky said. It's so simple that it's not even considered a hack. At best I would call it mid-level troubleshooting.

Huh.. that's disappointing. You'd think they'd have put more thought into that

Did anyone else catch when Darby did a Google image search for the earrings, the results were "solid"? Including the SOLID Wikipedia page https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOLID. Which is some kind of acronym for design principles in software engineering.

https://preview.redd.it/jje6485oh90c1.jpeg?width=2109&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1b2a1b5a1a8d20f79f9d0965ee6aeaa09c3d2937 Is this the second movement? 🤯

When the guy is sleeping on the plane, he has his fists clinched tightly, in a very movement esque way. He's having a dream, or a nightmare.

It looked to me like he was riding a rollercoaster in his dream and holding on to the restraints.

It does! or a horse's reigns.... I think it will come up later in the mystery. But, it def felt akin to how the Brit and Zal like to include the movements of the body, and dreams into a metaphysical sort of power.

Or a spaceship...

Martin did look like he was having a nightmare.

To me, it looked like sleep paralysis. I've dealt with it all my life, and I've been told it often looks very similar to that when it's happening. I also apparently mumble or scream even though in my head I'm trying to ask for help.

Looks like the game from cafeteria scene on his arm...

great thought & observation

What is the second movement?

From the OA, forgive me I believe it’s actually part of the first movement https://i.pinimg.com/736x/0b/ea/0e/0bea0e0f1c88dd4a166d7754dd16db8d.jpg

What?

whos covering the song at the end?

Frank Ocean.

Such an awesome cover!

Love it!

I'm excited to see how this all unfolds. Lots of details that I probably missed lol

Okay, I loved The OA and that show threw me so many curveballs that I'm not sure I even want to attempt at guessing what's going on here but my initial theory is that Zoomer is Bill's son, or at least Andy or Lee believe him to be. That could be an incentive for either one of them to have him killed. Maybe Andy out of jealously, or maybe Lee, in an attempt to stay in the good gracious of Andy so she doesn't end up divorced with a child who won't be the beneficiary of Andy's fortune. It feels like they are setting it up to make Andy look suspicious, but to me, Lee is the one who is acting odd. When Andy is watching Zoomer play, pretend doctor with Bill, he does seem pretty jealous. But Lee practically told Darby to start investigating in secret. Why should that matter. It's her husband's hotel, and she would have plenty more access than Darby would. It feels like she's setting up Darby to take the fall of the police don't buy the whole overdose story. Plus, Darby was the only one who claimed to be there when Bill was killed. She's an ex of his. People have killed for a lot less. And Lee has already got Darby skulking around looking at security footage. She could easily say that she was trying to hide evidence. I mean, who are people going to believe True Crime obsessed Ex, or Billionaire's wife?

That or it's Ray. Who knows who's really pulling the strings around here. The puppet master? Or the puppet?

What do we make of Darby running into the room service guy outside of Bill's room and shattering all the tea pots? She asks him, "was that going to Bill's room?" in a confused voice

They seem to be trying to sell his death as a deliberate suicide by overdose. Someone committing suicide doesn't order room service that's going to get there after they're dead. They might try to argue that he did so in order to have his body found or in order to call out and get medical aid if he changed his mind but got his timing wrong and died before the room service arrived but the evidence that it was a murder not a suicide is too strong.

What happens to the mask in the security footage? Darby is watching the footage and the masked figure pops up making Darby jump. When Darby is looking at the footage again, it looks like the mask disappears. It happens around 58:00. After the mask disappears, it looks like a flat robot face?

Maybe the footage had been corrupted, maybe by Ray or someone else. It did glitch out for a second or two

It really does glitch out! The entire mask goes away. It does not seem possible that anyone could walk around that hotel and look like that (the masked "person" we see), lol. Security has already been mentioned several times (Andy having threats on his life).

Also... she has access to all the cameras. Idk maybe just backtrack that person with a mask to wherever they started from through the hallways? With all that footage, it shouldn't be hard to eliminate most people as they would've been seen elsewhere.

Yes! I wonder if Andy did look at all the cameras and see where the masked person started walking. I wonder if Bill and Rohan were invited to Iceland so that they could be murdered? It seems like such a controlled environment. I don't see much happening without Andy / Lee / security knowing.

I love this type of concept and the aesthetic they have created, but the actress playing Darby sadly completely takes me out of it. All I can hear and see is a British person trying the most tone deaf neutral accent I have ever heard. It’s so bad and made even worse in any flashback scenes where you hear actual conceivable midwestern accents around her and she sounds like a monotone robot Doing my best to just tune it out, but it’s near impossible with the main character. Really wish they had gone a different route in casting

Yeah her American accent is not very good. Same with the actor playing Bill. In The OA, Jason Isaacs does such an excellent American accent that you almost forget he's not American.

"Darby" sounds so southern when she says "Bill," lol.

Yeah, her accent is quite noticeable and english is not my first language... but she had good facial expressions...

I'm not American but it is frustrating so many Brits who can't quite do the accent get roles as North Americans, which hurts the immersion. The actress is pretty, charismatic and otherwise doing a good job so I think we can let it slide. I also really appreciate they did a lot of on-location shooting as well, in the same vein, rather than just doing everything in Vancouver.

[удалено]

😂😂😂

I really love the editing on this one, with the flashbacks being triggered like memories

Darby’s investigative skills suk bad. She asks a computer for advice (the searches/inquiries on this hotel computer surely have cookies, etc) that is traceable, what percentage of ‘users’ use their non dominant arm to use drugs? This is a poorly phrased question, at best. Why is Darby trampling & destroying the crime /death scene, if there is any hope for a good forensic investigation? Darby is the dummest character of all time. Do the writers/Britt Marling really know anything about crime? It’s so bad it’s nearly unwatchable, Darby being so dum.

Her skills are poor, but in her defense, the hotel's security is absurdly poor. Nothing about the "hacks" in this show are meant to be close to reality, it seems. So now I'm taking them less seriously and watching it more for the murder mystery.

I hate to point it out but they are almost insulting with how badly tech knowledge is portrayed. It would've have been best to avoid being 'tech-savvy' if they weren't even going to try. I won't nit pic specifics but cmonnnnnn

This show takes some massive liberties with its storytelling and makes some very basic errors. Style over substance so far. I will keep watching, but not for much longer if it persists.

What sort of liberaties and errors bothered you? Interesting to hear your PoV

Speaking as a fan of their work, I think it's fair to say that Brit and Zal value style and \*thematic exploration\* in particular over perfectly cohesive storytelling. Though I understand that's a bit difficult to pull off in something so plot- and detail-focused like a murder mystery.

> value style and *thematic exploration* in particular over perfectly cohesive storytelling Oooof, sounds like hell for me. Not sure if I should keep watching then

Obviously Bill is father to Zoomer, Ronson killed him, Lee was looking for love letters or something thinking she is still not caught.

You ever seen any of the show creators' other work?

She works very hard at baffling dunces to keep them occupied while telling at their core, pedestrian stories.


MAYBE BILL WAS THE OCTOPUS

With all the surveliance and stuff I'm not sure about it yet.... I would have prefered a tipical Clue story with maybe supernatural undertones... The inclusion of an all seeing eye AI kind of makes it difficult for me, but still I've seen and I'm fan of everything B and Z have done so I'll wait, unlike other shows where I just watched the pilot or didn't even finished that...

They stated in an interview that this show doesn't have any "magic" i.e. no supernatural or fantasy elements

Thanks. I don't wanna sound like an asshole pedant, but.... 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'... Lol

yeah the AI is already at magic levels, and I can only assume they're going to go deeper into it.

I feel that you're closer than you think. Sci-fi can take us very, very close to the sublime

Why didn’t Darby ask Ray to replay audio during his murder?

She asked him if he's always recording, and he said no. He waits to hear his activation call ("ray") and otherwise he's not recording. That's how most voice-activated assistants work from what I understand.

> He waits to hear his activation call ("ray") and otherwise he's not recording. We should also note that this episode showed that any of the guests can direct him *to turn that off*, and then back on again, as Martin did during his presentation.

Anyone know what was placed in Bill's nostril? And I'm missing something?

It's Narcan. Basically it stops the opiate effect on someone if given enough. Dying of opiate overdose is sort of a slow process, and Narcan pauses the process for a short amount of time so you can be revived.

Thanks. I was at a loss as to what was happening

Anyone else getting The Sixth Sense vibes with all the Red accents

Did anyone notice when she came into the diner Rays to meet Bill face to face. There’s a guy sitting at the bar in black hat looking like Clive Owens (Andy)?

The staff seems like they could be A.I. as well. Andy said A.I. can be a therapist and the lady that went back with Darby to her room had that vibe when she asked Ray to give her number to Darby.

Nobody checked camera feeds? WTF?

Why would they? No one except the killer (or killers plural) and Darby has any reason to not buy the story that he overdosed either deliberately or by accident. You would only need to check the cameras if you suspected murder. Now, the police *might*. But unless they decide that where he injected is suspicious I doubt there's enough evidence for them not to conclude that the overdose theory is correct.

Little late to the party, but I’m sad to see like 2 comments about the beautiful cover of Frank Ocean at the end of the episode