[Spoiler] The Discovery, Audio-Description and many world's theory

I've been rewatching the OA and thanks to reddit I've begun to explore ideas I hadn't even considered before.

I want to share my thoughts but I'm worried about unpacking too much stuff. So I thought I'd start with my theory (that we are seeing the OA repeating a timeline again and again in the 'present' world) and how I've found this through clues in the script, the audio description someone suggested using, as well as mind-blowing posts by people on here about inconsistencies or glitches in scenery.

How the Discovery fits in

To start off with I think the OA's experience is actually linked to the Discovery, another Netflix film, something I was unsure of before. [Spoilers!] In the Discovery we find out that death is not the end, that dying allows you to go back into a new life loop where you can change the mistakes of the past. I think this is what's happening to OA when she jumps the bridge. Even though what she is trying to achieve is actually to escape the loop she is constantly put back into it. In the end we see her being shot. This is only the end in one loop, every other loop she returns to Crestwood and fails to unite the five.

So what's going on?

Imagine you were going to tell a story of someone who had the ability to go back and relive their life, again and again, and again. To tell that story you could go linearly like in the discovery, in a sort of accordance with 'time'. You could show the first story, the second the third and so on. But what if the stories were so intertwined, that really the only differences were as subtle as a turn to the left, a glance upwards or a gesture with your hand. Would you tell the story in line? Why not place the stories place by place. I think, like many people on here, that this is what is happening in the present, and possibly in the other stories too.

Essentially, we are being shown or told many stories at once, sandwiched together, and that the storytellers have given us clues as to when the shifts appear. I suppose the other question is why the shifts appear, but I'm guessing that's because of the many worlds theories.Things are infinite, so every movement or gesture that can happen, will.

Going off a bit, but someone mentioned that perhaps the forks appear at moments when the decision can only be down to two options. I.e. Do you stay, or do you go? Do you get in the left door or the right? Do you turn your camera towards the left or right and so on. This makes the logic a bit more manageable. But do we really only ever have two choices in life? I'd be interested to see if someone has any ideas on this.

The conversation

Listen to the conversation she has with the two FBI agents. I wouldn't have thought anything about it but after noticing other posts where reading or flipping things 'backwards' has revealed clues, and similar conversations which reveal more I thought I'd add it in:

• "Do you remember any of the events that led up to the event of your disappearance?" [more chat]
• "maybe it would be better if we tried to work this backwards" (clue)
• "let's start with the bridge. Do you remember how you got there"
• "I walked um... For a long time" (symbolises her time in crestwood and journey to the school)
• "Maybe days from, I don't know where...nowhere" (she's stuck for days in this nowhere place in middle America)
• "until I got to a road" (she found her true meaning in crestwood/ her path)
• "and I tried to get a ride" (training the 5)
• "and finally an old woman in a car picked me up" (Khatun but also bba)
• "she brought me to a place" (crestwood)
• "there were a lot of people there"
• "all - all of them were lost" (Steve is "lost" a mentioned by OA when she talks to bba who she also calls "lost". Steve's messenger name is also "lost_boy". They are not only lost people but they've lost their path and purpose)
• "did you tell them who you were, where you'd been, that you want to go home?" (yes, that's what we see unfold)
• "I told them I needed to leave so they let me go" (crestwood shooting, the 5 make the movements letting her leave)
• "and i just kept walking trying to get back" (the loop repeats again)
• "home"
• "to where you were being held captive?" (These sentences kinds of run into each other. It's almost like the bespectacled fbi agent is revealing the true nature of home. Captive is actually crestwood, her home, which is why she looks so crestfallen. She is trapped and 'captive' in this loop. This is why OA hates her home and parents so much because it is synonymous with the prison world she now lives in. Only when she realises that home is part of the solution does she break out)
• "I knew that they were gone" (I'm guessing this is homer, scott, rachel and renata but it's really ambiguous)

The Audio Description

The other thing I've picked on is the changing of names in the audio description. Normally you use a description until the name has been revealed, but in the OA there are many instances where a name reverts back to it's old description, or with the OA, where there's a shift between her three names and the description.

The other notable thing is that there is a lot of attention on things which concern sight. Things like blonde hair, white hair, glasses and red lights. Understandably characters without names are descirbed using features like hair and glasses, or with traits that help establish their relationship to another (in the presence of BBA OA is described as young) but with OA hair is used repeatedly.

I think the name changes might hint at where different stories of the same 'loop' have been pieced together. In other words where significant choices have been made.

Here are some examples:

• In the hospital we are introduced to Alice the nurse, later on when Alice stands up the narrator says "Alice rises" when she strides to the paitient however, she is referred to as "the nurse". I've always found it strange that we were given alice's name, even outside of signposting the impotrance of changing names.
• Nancy's name constantly changes between "the Mother" "her Mom" and Nancy as well as the older woman before we come to know her,
• When OA is in the bath, the narrator up until this point has referred to her by her given name; Prairie. When she cleans her wound he says "the blonde woman cleans a bite wound on her left arm". He then says shortly after "Prairie sinks neck deep into the water" (somehting btw he notes about nina later in the ice water)
• When OA is shopping with Steve "praire goes into the dressing room" however, "the OA steps out of the dressing room in a striped indigo sweater"
• When OA meets BBA she is a "younger woman" and BBA is "the teacher". This scene is the most changeable and we constantly see a change between calling BBA "the teacher" and "Betty" who both fiddle with their "lips" and "stares". When the OA stops before leaving and saying her name she is "the blonde" when she leaves out the door shes is "the OA".

For me, this is the most noticeable instance where names probably hint at key shifts or choices. If OA hadn't stopped and said her name she would have just walked out (like the OA and not the blond woman) meaning BBA wouldn't have googled her. This is hinted at when "Betty" is in bed, however it is only "the teacher" who closes the laptop. Why would the narrator highlight her proffession again and again to an audience who already know her name? There are less syllables in Betty,

• Buck is then introduced as the "14 year old" in the abandoned house. Once Steve says his name he is Buck. However when the dog attacks we briefly hear the narrator say "steve shoves the 14 year old away", so perhaps in another timeline he manages to intervene, stopping the supernatural element. Later on when Buck is getting ready to leave we hear him being called "Buck" as he puts on his coat, "14 year old" when he sneaks past his Dad, and "transgender-teen" when he's out of the house". I'm assuming this is because his Dad calls him Michelle.
• French is continuously called "the clean-cut teen" and "the lacrosse player" In nina's flashback she is referred to as "the blonde girl" and "the little girl" before being identified as Nina

I'm listening to the other episodes now. I think there are a lot of clues hidden within the description. It also pointed out clues which I think most people don't find without careful observation like the michgican miracles noticeboard post, and the dildo in the house where Nina goes to live, as well as crayons in the drowning scene, bags and so on. I'm keeping this post about dimensions so I won't note them all but definitly have a listen if you can't wait for more posts.

Ultimately there are so many more clues which point to the many dimension and loop theory and of course people have already worked this out but I thought I'd add some more strange things I've noticed. So many layers.