Russian Doll (Netflix) (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

Just in time for Groundhog Day comes this latest take on a time loop story.

Natasha Lyonne co-created the series and stars as Nadia Vulvokov, a hard-drinking, hard-partying software engineer who avoids intimate attachments. She dies on the night of her thirty-sixth birthday. Again, and again, and again.

Nadia approaches the problem like a software engineer, convinced that her regenerations are a bug, and the only way to break the loop is to debug the set of events that triggered it.

Over the course of the eight half-hour episodes, there were a number of interesting differences from the standard tropes associated with this kind of story. To say more would spoil the surprise.

I ended up watching all of them tonight. I recommend the journey.

 

[mattCR]

After Happy Death Day (which I enjoyed) I was figured we'd see more like this genre. I like the actress - did she leave Orange is the New Black? So I'm interested in a watch through

 

[Josh Dial]

Not to mince words, but this show was fucking rad.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Is this a limited series? Seems like the theme would be appropriate for a single season.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Is this a limited series? Seems like the theme would be appropriate for a single season.

It told a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end. Which isn't to say they couldn't make a second season, but certainly nothing in the finale was setting up a second season.

 

[Clinton McClure]

Not trying to poo-poo on the thread but I tried watching it this morning and couldn’t get into it. Halfway through the first episode, I discovered I hadn’t been paying attention, was completely lost, and there was no desire to restart the episode.

Russian Doll was highly recommended to me by several friends and was even recommended on a couple of podcasts I listen to. What is so good about it? I can’t figure it out.

 

[NeilO]

Just watch the series - one episode a day over the past 8 days. I enjoyed it a lot. If you are paying attention to things going on in the first episode you see that there is more than meets the eye and that continues. The surprise at the end of the third episode really changes things up.

There is a second season coming. I've no idea what they have planned. Even though the ending in the 8th episode is a very satisfying wrap-up there is a lot left to be explained and maybe the second season will delve into that.

 

[John Dirk]

I really enjoyed this series and am elated to hear that it will continue. Natasha Lyonne was amazing in Orange Is The New Black and really showed her leading lady chops in Russian Doll.

 

[John Dirk]

Halfway through the first episode, I discovered I hadn’t been paying attention, was completely lost, and there was no desire to restart the episode.

Russian Doll was highly recommended to me by several friends and was even recommended on a couple of podcasts I listen to. What is so good about it? I can’t figure it out.

I think you've answered your own question. This one isn't a comedy like Groundhog Day so you'll have to be patient through at least the first two episodes to appreciate it's brilliance. Not saying it's for everyone, only recommending that you watch the first two episodes before rendering judgement.

 

[John Dirk]

It told a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end. Which isn't to say they couldn't make a second season, but certainly nothing in the finale was setting up a second season.

Agreed and that's what makes me so excited to see what they have come up with.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Date announcement teaser for Season 2, which drops April 20:

Spoiler: Season 2 Synopsis

Set four years after Nadia (Natasha Lyonne) and Alan (Charlie Barnett) escaped mortality's time loop together, season two of Russian Doll will continue to explore existential thematics through an often humorous and sci-fi lens. Discovering a fate even worse than endless death, this season finds Nadia and Alan delving deeper into their pasts through an unexpected time portal located in one of Manhattan's most notorious locations. At first they experience this as an ever-expanding, era-spanning, intergenerational adventure but they soon discover this extraordinary event might be more than they bargained for and, together, must search for a way out.

The Emmy-winning show returns with Lyonne serving as showrunner and executive producer, and is also executive produced by Alex Buono, Amy Poehler (Paper Kite Productions), Leslye Headland, Lilly Burns (Jax Media), Tony Hernandez (Jax Media), Dave Becky (3 Arts), Kate Arend (Paper Kite Productions), Regina Corrado and Allison Silverman.

 

[NeilO]

A longer trailer

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Just watched the first episode of season two. Conceptually, the show seems to have moved from Groundhog Day to "Quantum Leap", with the time travel and the body swapping. Four years after the events of the first season, with Nadia's fortieth birthday imminent, things again begin to get very weird.

Co-creator and star Natasha Lyonne takes over from Leslye Headland as showrunner for the second season, and she wrote and directed the season premiere. The show is permeated with Lyonne's very particular persona and her specific experience of New York City.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Watched through the third episode, which is where I'm going to leave things for tonight. So far, a really interesting exploration of familial trauma, both in the macro sense of having descended from Holocaust survivors and the micro sense of growing up with a mother suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

I never would have thought of Annie Murphy for a young Elizabeth Ashley, especially since we all know what Ashley actually looked like at that age, but it works here.

Only a couple hints so far of the ride Alan is on with his parallel cosmic fuckery.

If you were wondering, as I was, why Rosie O'Donnell is credited as a guest star: She's the voice of the subway announcer.

 

[NeilO]

Only watched the first episode, but I am intrigued. I may try to watch an episode a night.

 

[Josh Dial]

Like I did with season 1, I binged all of season 2 in one sitting (with obvious bathroom/water breaks).

Season 1 was magical. A perfect eight episode run.

Season 2 was far far rougher, less focused, and, well, just not as good. And not in the "sophomore slump" way many second seasons can be. The story was just too meandering and less interesting. Dashing off in service of the generational trauma plot, then turning sharply toward the family and mental health issues. Oddly, the two lines were not synergistic (or barely so), and often clunked against each other.

Alan's story was missing something. It was so thin that it felt tacked on this time. Perhaps his story was reduced along with the episode count.

The final episode wasn't as smart as it thought it was. The "leave your baggage" symbolism was almost insultingly overt.

I still think Chloe Sevigny was a poor casting choice (I don't think she's a great actor so perhaps I'm reinforcing my biases here), and so I didn't welcome her increased role in season 2.

Greta Lee is great (I also really liked her recent performance in The Morning Show season 2), but like a lot of other elements in the season, poorly implemented.

That all said, Natasha Lyonne continued to sparkle. I just love the way she delivers her lines, moves through the frame, and interacts with props. She caried the entire second season on her back.

Season 1 bottled lightning. 10/10.

Season 2 was merely fine. Almost, unfortunately, skippable. 6/10.

 

[Richard Kaufman]

Binged season 2 last night: about 3.5 hours. Definitely not up to season 1, but without having seen season 1 people would be flipping over season 2. Interesting stuff. Natashia Lyonne is a unique presence as actor and writer, less so as director. I spent a lot of time on the lower east side growing up and what you are seeing is EXACTLY what was there. People's accents, the amount and type of foul language ... none of it is an exaggeration in any way.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I agree that the first season was better, but I just finished the second season and I liked it a lot more than @Josh Dial did.

While Alan's story didn't really coalesce in a satisfactory way, everything with Nadia clicked together well for me. To get to the place she got with Ruth by the end of the seventh episode, she needed to go through what she did with her family both personally and historically.

When Nadia does what she does in the sixth episode, and time starts collapsing in on itself, I loved the visuals of the void inside the bowls of the literal/metaphorical subway, and the way it echoed the modernist vision of "the other world" in A Matter of Life and Death, only grimier, as befits a creation of the MTA.

This show is special, in ways that somewhat excuse the loss of focus at time this go-round.

 

[NeilO]

Just finished episode 5. I thought it was one of the better episodes, though a bit more straightforward until the weird train ride at the end.

I'll probably watch the final 2 episodes tomorrow. I am surprised that we have seen very little of Alan overall. Nothing at all this past episode. Only episode 4 had any meat for his story so far.

Oh, and watching one episode a day is binging for me

 

[NeilO]

So, even if I hadn't planned on watching both episodes tonight there was no way in the world that I was going to stop watching after Episode 6. What a wild episode there. Episode 7 was wild again and I'm not sure how I feel about the ending. Overall, it was another good trip. I do think that stretching it out over 6 days probably improved the experience for me. I think it would feel like a hot mess if I saw it all on one day.

Entertainment Weekly's digital cover story is on Russian Doll S2.

Plus there is a page discussing the ending which has a bunch of videos embedded - one of which is a 21-minute Around the Table segment (though apparently that is more of what to expect than what happened). And apparently they'd like to make a season 3.

One thing from the end of episode 2 that has stuck in my mind. I'll put in spoilers. Contrasting both 2 and 5.

Spoiler

In Episode 2, Nadia goes through a lot of work to sell all the stuff Nora bought in order to get the coins back. Then she sees Alan in a train across the way and the bag of coins disappears. We all knew something like that was going to happen especially as she wasn't holding onto the bag for dear life. Now, by selling all those items, Nadia has definitely changed things in her past, since she had memories of some of those items, especially the car.

But everything she does in Episode 5, just brings about her family getting the coins in the first place and the conclusion there is that she is bringing about what happened anyway. So, did the actions in Episode 2 get undone somehow? What happened to the car? I wonder if anyone has talked about that somewhere.