Who Is The Shooter On 'The OA'? Season 1 Ended With A Bang

(Warning: this post contains spoilers from The OA Episode 8.) I'm going to be honest with you — I may have held my breath throughout the final 15 minutes of The OA Season 1 finale. Not only because it's possible that everything Prairie has told us has been a lie (though I hope not), but also due to the fact that there was a school shooting that occurred completely out of nowhere. Seriously, was anyone expecting that? As if my emotions weren't already off the charts at this point. But aside from just the initial shock of it all, many of you may be wondering: who is the shooter on The OA? And as it stands now, I'm not entirely sure we'll ever get an answer to that question.

The insanity kicked off when French stumbled across Prairie's Amazon book collection and realized there was a distinct chance that she had fabricated her entire story. However, just when it looked like life was going back to normal, Prairie experienced another one of her premonitions while she was in the bathtub and realized what horrifying thing was about to happen next. That's when we saw a shooter enter the high school cafeteria, where all of Prairie's new friends were eating lunch.

The sounds of gunfire rang out as Prairie ran as fast as she could to the school to try and save everyone. Thankfully, they decided to work together and perform the movements Prairie had taught them as a way to distract the shooter enough so that he could be brought down and disarmed. But who was this person that decided to attack a school of innocent children? His face is never shown, but I thought I caught a glimpse of short, blonde hair before he went down for the count.

As the shooter approached, all we could see were his shoes, which initially made me think it was someone we've already met. The first thought that came into my head was that it was Hap, trying once more to ruin Prairie's attempt at getting back to her former fellow captives. But unless he recently changed his hair color, I don't think that turned out to be the case. However, if it wasn't Hap, then who was it?

Considering the narrative seemed to shift right to the realization that Prairie had been shot (possibly fatally), the writers may never feel the need to come back and explore details about the shooter. Maybe it was just a randomly terrible person who is unimportant to the rest of the story. Maybe his only purpose was to unite these five friends so they could help Prairie reach a new dimension. Perhaps that's where she ends up in that final scene. Either way, I'm guessing the shooter's identity isn't important, but it was still shocking to witness.