Note: contains major spoilers for The OA season one.
The OA was a bit of a surprise treat for binge-addicts when it suddenly appeared on Netflix back in December 2016. It came without any pre-promotional fanfare, but immediately captivated an audience of Stranger Things fans and Twin Peaks geeks by setting up its own (very, very odd) supernatural mystery for people to lose themselves in.
The show followed Prairie (Brit Marling, who also created the series), who had gone missing years previously, before suddenly returning as the series started. Prairie was blind when she disappeared, but when we meet her she is able to see.
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How? Don't ask us. It involves modern dance and resurrection, and it was a long, complicated and ambiguous story, so much so that people are still debating what the season (and its ending in particular) actually meant.
But hopefully some of the mystery will be cleared up when the second season lands.
So, here's everything you need to know about The OA: Part II.
The OA season 2 trailer: When can we see it?
The OA season 2 release date: When's it on?
We finally have an official air date. The OA: Part II lands on Netflix on March 22.
Filming began in January last year, with Jason Isaacs announcing in May that he'd wrapped, and Marling confirming that the San Francisco part of the shoot was done.
Taking to Instagram, Marling explained why season two was taking so long in a statement that was pretty much peak-OA. "TV shows are created on a yearly cycle primarily because they function off a pattern narrative," she wrote.
"The show creator acts as a master tailor – she crafts the pattern for the original garment (pilot). Then other great tailors come in and create new garments out of this same pattern.
"This allows for creation with great speed and also familiarity, which is one of the things we all love about great TV," she added, noting that many shows were adaptations and so worked quicker with the source material in tow, while others "leap-frog their production cycle".
However, she explained that The OA "doesn't function this way", adding: "Our chapters vary in length, scope, and even genre. There is no pattern. As a result, at every step along the way nothing can be imitated, it has to be invented."
Marling said that they threw out "pattern budgets" that map out financial costs of a season, as each chapter needed different budgets rather than one episode costing the same as the next.
The OA season 2 cast: who's back?
Marling will be back (even if her character Prairie was shot right in the chest at the end of season one), while Jason Isaacs (evil doctor Hap) is making a comeback.
Netflix have also confirmed that sympathetic FBI guy Rahim, played by Riz Ahmed, is also returning, alongside Patrick Gibson and Emory Cohen.
And there's a brand new cast addition to sink your teeth into. Vera's Kingsley Ben-Adir will play Dr Marcus Summer.
So, lots to look forward to.
The OA season 2 theories: What's it all about?
In the season two teaser, Prairie can be heard saying 'Homer' over and over again (this is why we get paid the big bucks).
Okay, that's obvious. But what you might not know is that the Braille message which briefly appears translates as "survived".
So will the second season be an existential, eight-episode search for the is-he-real-or-isn't-he Homer?
The brand new Part II trailer also seemingly solves the cliffhanger at the end of season one and sets up a whole new mystery in a world where Barack Obama was never president – that suggests an alternate timeline or world, which basically widens out the premise from the first season.
We're also set to get more exploration of the "movements" – the interpretative dance moves that can bring people back from the dead. As Marling previously out it, "The OA is our attempt at writing and making a new human language through movement, this mythology we're inventing."
There's a ton of fan theories about what The OA means – is it a dream, an afterlife, or a different dimension? Is it the new Lost, or a Quantum Leap reboot?
We'll get answers (and more questions) when the show returns.
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Sam is an entertainment writer with NCTJ accreditation and a twenty-year career as a film journalist.
Starting out as a staff writer at Total Film, moving up to Deputy Online Editor, Sam was responsible for Total Film’s YouTube channel, where he revolutionised the magazine’s approach to video junkets, creating influential formats that spread to other outlets.
He’s interviewed a wide range of film icons, including directors such as David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Sofia Coppola, Ridley Scott, Michael Bay and Sam Raimi, as well as actors such as Meryl Streep, Nic Cage, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Anne Hathaway, Margot Robbie, Natalie Portman, Kermit the Frog, all of the Avengers and many more.
Sam has also interviewed several comic creators, including Stan Lee, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, and he has a zombie cameo in The Walking Dead comic.
In 2014, Sam went freelance, working directly for film studios including Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox and Disney, as well as covering red carpet events for film marketing company PMA Productions.
Sam is the co-host, producer and editor of the Arrow Video podcast, which has seen year-on-year growth since its creation in 2017, gaining over half a million listens in that time.
His byline has appeared in outlets such as Yahoo, MTV, Dazed, Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Elle, and Good Housekeeping among others.
In 2012, Sam made it to the final of the Leicester Square Theatre New Comedian of the Year competition, and went on to become a filmmaker himself, directing three features that have all played major festivals, and secured distribution – starring in two of them.
Jim Carrey once mistook Sam for Johnny Cash, and John Carpenter told him to ‘Keep up the good work.’ He promises to try his best.
