Sorry ‘OA’ Fans, But the ‘The OA’ Cancellation is Real

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Season 2 of The OA, as well as disappointing news for fans of this beautiful show.

Despite an admirable effort from fans to “#SaveTheOA,” followed by an insistence that “#TheOAisReal,” the show will not be coming back after its cancellation. Though many fans believed the cancellation to be a ruse, a source close to the situation confirmed with Decider the show will not be returning to Netflix.

Last week, co-creator and star Brit Marling and Netflix announced that the sci-fi fantasy series, The OA, was not renewed for a third season. “Zal and I are deeply sad not to finish this story,” Marling said of herself and co-creator Zal Batmanglij in a statement on Instagram last Monday. Netflix VP Original Content Cindy Holland also released a statement, saying, “We are incredibly proud of the 16 mesmerizing chapters of The OA, and are grateful to Brit and Zal for sharing their audacious vision and for realizing it through their incredible artistry. We look forward to working with them again in the future, in this and perhaps many other dimensions.”

However, thanks to a particularly meta-ending to Season 2, which found Marling’s character (the OA) and Jason Isaac’s character (Hap) in a new dimension where they are both actors named Brit Marling and Jason Isaacs filming a TV show at Netflix, many fans were, understandably, convinced that this “cancellation” was all part of the show. A fan theory was born on Reddit that pointed to clues that The OA was still coming back for a third season, including the fact that Isaacs posted a video of himself and co-star Emory Cohen doing “the movements,” aka the dance that resurrects dead people and allows inter-dimensional travel, and encouraged fans to tweet their love of the show to Netflix. The theory also pointed to the “timing” of a movement to renew the show, which, prompted by Isaacs, came a few days before the cancellation.

This all led to several social media campaigns, led by the hashtags “#SaveTheOA” and “#TheOAisReal,” with fans relentlessly tweeting the hashtags at Netflix social media accounts. Some fans even filmed themselves doing the movements, in an effort to resurrect the series.

Unfortunately, it seems Isaacs was genuinely trying to save the show, likely because he’d heard word from Marling that Netflix was considering cancellation. When Decider reached out for comment on the growing social media campaign, a source familiar with the situation declined to comment on the fan theory but confirmed that the show would not be returning.

I’m sorry to bring you this bad news, OA fans. I’m bummed too. But trust me when I say there’s a new, great, beautiful, obsessive-worthy TV show around the corner, just waiting for you to project all your feelings onto it. Hey, maybe you’ll even be the one to write it! And if all else fails, we’ll always have fan-fiction.

Watch The OA on Netflix