This article contains mild spoilers from Season 1.
The OA has put together some pretty far-fetched storylines since its debut season last year; that near-death experiences are the gateway to other dimensions, a mad scientist running traumatic tests on human lab rats for seven years, and even spirit guides offering supernatural powers via the consumption of live animals, but on the third episode of its second season we witness something even our imaginative mind couldn’t fathom: a respectable Grindr hook-up.
Alfonso, the angry Spanish queer closet-case of OA’s gang, is feeling pretty tense: what with having stopped a school shooter with a Sia dance routine and the OA being shot in the chest. Naturally, after that kind of trauma, one turns to dick for solitude.
After scrolling through the app on his busted iPhone 5, Alfonso steps into the car of a silver-fox.
“No pressure”, he tells him, back at his, handing Alfonso a beer. Which almost acts as reverse psychology:
Hold up, so not only has Alfonso found a hot daddy who drives, can accom, and has beer in the fridge – but he’s also not a legitimate weirdo. Obviously, before Alfonso is even awake, Daddy is in the kitchen – naked – making milkshakes. Like he needs them to bring the boys to his yard. What town did you say these misfits live in again?
He then goes on to listen to Alfonso’s problems (not teenage angst, queer confusion, or any mental issues – just that his dead Angel friend is communicating beyond the grave through a mirror), and provide a contact for him. Because all the best Grindr shags have aunt’s who’re psychic mediums.
I mean, people jumping between dimensions, due to a five-person synchrous dance is one thing… but this?! Bitch, please.
While it could be perceived as glamourising hook-up culture, perhaps it should be seen as a lesson in human decency: how to have casual sex without sleaze. But also perhaps as an answer, to what happens when we slow down and get to know the people we’re fucking?