Published Apr 17, 2026, 5:15 PM EDT
Memory Ngulube joined Screen Rant in April 2024 as part of the Movies and TV team. Since then, she has written for the Perennials and Streaming team, covering a wide range of topics from new releases to old movies and TV shows. Memory is currently a Classic TV writer.
Before joining Screen Rant, Memory was a freelance copywriter who specialized in email marketing and social media management. While she enjoyed her job, her true passion was always movies and TV.
When she isn’t writing for Screen Rant, Memory can be found reading, baking (which is one of her passions), or watching her favorite K-drama.
Although Prime Video isn’t a sci-fi powerhouse in the way that Apple TV is, the Amazon streamer is quietly building a reputation for delivering bold and intellectually stimulating science fiction shows. There is no better example than Prime Video’s complete two-part series, which isn’t just good, but demands a second watch, to prove just how far the streaming platform has come with its excellent sci-fi titles.
Not a lot of shows benefit from a second watch, as revisiting them can make their plot holes or inconsistent storytelling obvious. Prime Video’s Undone, however, isn’t in that category. On a first watch, Undone can be a little confusing because there is so much going on, from strange timelines to alternate realities.
However, on a second watch, everything comes together. Moments that didn’t initially make sense hold a deeper meaning, and it's easier to notice the visual clues and emotional beats that were missed on the first watch. Undone uses rotoscope animation to bring a dreamlike world to life, which tallies with its intense story.
At first, Undone’s animation style feels like it's merely there for aesthetic purposes. However, a second watch indicates that the rotoscope animation is an indication of Alma (Rosa Salazar)'s mental state and how she is processing her reality. Perhaps the biggest reason Undone deserves a second watch is that it's such a multilayered series that it's nearly impossible to understand everything in a single viewing.
Undone’s Nonlinear Storytelling Only Fully Clicks The Second Time
One of the core elements of Undone is how it tries to explain what Alma is going through using time, both in the sense of how important it can be and how it sometimes doesn’t matter. Initially, it's difficult to keep up with the show’s time mechanism, mostly because Alma also has no idea what’s going on.
When Alma wakes up from her coma, her present and memories seem to merge, which disorients her and convinces her that she might be going the same way as her grandmother, who had been living with schizophrenia. Later, it becomes clear why time is the beating heart of the show.
In the Prime Video sci-fi series, time is fluid and uncertain, making it harder to decipher what's real or whether it's a figment of Alma’s imagination. At first, the way the show interprets Alma’s world can feel trippy, mostly because she is seeing her dead father, who is acting as her guide as she tries to decipher why her reality turned upside down following her near-death experience.
On a second viewing, Undone’s strange time-bending feels less weird and more like a reflection of reality. The reason Alma experiences time in such a way is that it reflects her mind. She hadn’t dealt with her father’s death, and so when she begins to see him in her present, it's a representation of how memories don’t always stay in the past.
Undone’s Ambiguity Is One Of Its Biggest Strengths
Despite Undone not making sense at first, its ambiguous storyline is what elevates the show to masterpiece status. The sci-fi series’s confusing story isn’t treated as something that ultimately needs to be resolved; it instead acts as a defining element of Alma’s reality. Undone never really confirms if Alma is really able to manipulate time or if what she is experiencing is a psychological breakdown brought on by her family’s history with mental illness.
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Critics' Score |
Audience Score |
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97% |
91% |
Alma’s father explains what she is going through by alluding to the fact that people who experienced what she had were often discarded as living with a mental illness when, in fact, they were actually psychic. Because of this, audiences have to truly think about what they are watching and come up with their own explanations about Alma’s reality and the message the series was trying to convey.
Undone doesn’t give straight answers. There are moments where more questions are raised as things are revealed. Although that might seem like a bad thing, it isn’t. The hallmark of any great story is how it makes audiences feel and how it leaves them with something to think about long after the credits roll.
Release Date 2019 - 2021
Network Amazon Prime Video
English (US) ·