Season 1 Episode 04:
Away
An agonizing dilemma gives OA a new perspective on the group's plight. Homer resolves to find out what Hap's experiments are really about.Tropes present in this episode include:
- Affectionate Nickname: Steve refers to Betty as BBA.
- Background Halo: During her second NDE, the OA stands in front of a small, round window and the bright light shining around her head resembles a Holy Halo.
- Cool Big Sis: Jesse's older sister Ali is extremely laid back and does marijuana with him.
- Disappeared Dad: Jesse's dad walked out on the family years ago.
- Disney Death: The OA was standing on the edge of a cliff when Hap struck her. She naturally then fell down the cliff which is what led to her near death experience.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Steve and Jesse start to bond with Betty while helping her collect her late brother's belongings. Lampshaded when she mentions that she's old enough to be their mother.
- It's All My Fault: It's heavily implied that Betty blames herself for her brother's death. She's the one who turned him in to the police, resulting in him going to rehab, where he died.
- Lie Detector: Hap uses one while interrogating the OA about her second NDE.
- Missing Mom: Jesse's mother took her own life.
- Near-Death Experience:
- The OA experiences a second one after getting hit in the head in the previous episode and meets Khatun again. To return to the world of the living, the OA swallows a bird.
- Homer has another NDE that's different than the OA's. Rather than a cosmic space, he's in a stark white facility. He doesn't meet Khatun, but he does swallow a sea creature like the OA swallowed that bird, then is brought back.
- Playing Sick:
- The OA gets her sight back after coming back from another NDE but pretends to still be blind around Hap.
- After learning that the gas being pumped into their cells is supposed to make them compliant, Homer pretends to be affected by it after the OA and Rachel suck enough of the gas out of his cell that he's not actually affected by it. Unfortunately Hap notices and applies the gas to him directly in the middle of the experiment.
- Refusing Paradise: Khatun gives the OA a chance to stay dead and be with her father in the afterlife, but she goes back to save Homer, Scott, and Rachel.
- The Reveal: The NDE crew finally discovers that Hap has been doing to them: he's been killing them and then bringing them back over and over again to try to map out what comes after death; his research has shown that people who have already experienced an NDE are more likely to be revived.
- Throwing Off the Disability: After her second NDE, the OA regains her sight.
- Title Drop: After her second NDE, OA officially adopts the name "OA". Because it sounds like "Away".
