Here I am, slowly making my way through a very long list of shows. What prompted me to watch Russian Doll? Well, for one thing, it’s a comedy/drama, which is right in my wheelhouse, it stars Natasha Lyonne, whose comedy chops I really enjoy, and finally, this first season is only eight episodes! I love something short and quality! And according to the critics, this show is very high quality. I also found out recently that they are finally shooting the promised second season, so I might as well gear up.
Russian Doll opens on Nadia in a very swanky bathroom in a crowded New York apartment. The apartment is crowded of course because her friend is throwing her a birthday party! Her 36th birthday to be exact, which as we learn later on holds some significance, because that’s the year she “killed her mother.” Her mentally ill mother, and she didn’t actually kill her, but you’ll just have to watch the show to get into all of that. Anyways, because of this particular birthday, Nadia is living it by drinking and smoking and sleeping with a random party-goer. Afterwards, she decides she finally needs to and find her cat, Oatmeal. While crossing the street to get to him, she gets hit by a car and dies.
This is the first of many, many deaths. Many of the deaths are comical, my favorite of which happens to be how many times she dies going down a flight of stairs. Her fear of them carries until the finale – genius. After a couple episodes of just trying to get through the day, she ends up meeting a guy named Alan on an elevator that’s going down when she learns he’s been dying every day, too. The rest of the series focuses on the pair trying to figure out why they are the ones that keep dying. On the surface, it looks like Nadia really lucked on the day she’s living repeatedly, because poor Alan keeps reliving the day he gets dumped by his cheating girlfriend…on the day he was going to propose.
Nadia and Alan couldn’t be any more different, as Nadia is sloppy, carefree, and gruff, while Alan is uptight and anxious. While the two bicker a fair amount, they also have pretty amazing chemistry. I can’t figure out if they will end up as love interests, or just the closest of friends. I believe this season ends on the friend note, but we shall see what the second season has in store. Ultimately, Nadia remembers them crossing paths in a deli, where she’s buying cigarettes and Alan is getting more booze. She then asks Alan to remember the first time he died. Turns out he took a walk off the roof of his apartment building. After this realization, the two determine they need to help each other in order to break the loop, but not before Nadia faces off against a lot of personal demons.
Finally, the two wake up one more time, but in separate timelines! They figure out that they need to help each other not die, which is hard when neither counterparts are aware of everything they’ve been through. Both are freaked out at first, but succeed in not dying and ultimately become friends by episode’s end. This first season seemed to have a fairly definitive ending, so the only thing I could think of happening is both Alan and Nadia trying to get to the same timeline and back to each other. I assume these alternate versions will also help them accomplish that, but who knows?!
I will say, Russian Doll grew on me. I’m no stranger to the infinite time loop story, but I’m always intrigued with how they will be unique to everything else that’s already out there. This one was neat in that Nadia died and came back for the first time well before the first half hour was over. I also liked that her story intertwined with someone else’s, but for a very morbid reason. As I said before, I really enjoyed the chemistry between Alan and Nadia, so I hope that they are central to next season’s story. After the finale, I find that I really, really liked this show and I honestly can’t recommend it enough! Here’s to hoping that second season makes its way to us this year!