Time traveler? Russian Doll’s chain-smoking antiheroine, Nadia, goes by a different title. In the Netflix series’ trippy second season (premiering, aptly enough, on 4/20), an exhausted Natasha Lyonne tells a fellow bar patron, “I prefer the term ‘time prisoner.’”
You may struggle to remember exactly how Season 1 ended, since it debuted all the way back in February 2019. So, a brief refresher: Nadia Vulvokov is a software engineer who had to figure out how to stop dying and reawakening in the bathroom at her 36th birthday party. During that journey, she met her more reserved friend Alan (Charlie Barnett), who was trying to escape a (suicidal) time loop of his own.
Season 2 meets up with the characters four years from where we left off—just as they start to realize that there is, in fact, a fate worse than dying over and over again. Ever tried time travel?
Russian Doll debuted with a confidence that can take other series years to build, and Season 2 turns the show’s original high concept on its head. When we first met Nadia, she was struggling to find her lost cat and escape a time loop that transformed her birthday into her personal Groundhog Day. Now, she’s getting on the subway at Astor Place and getting off in the ’80s.
Whatever our favorite red-headed “cock-a-roach” wants to call herself, time traveler or prisoner, Nadia’s time warps take shape as something between an espionage thriller and a heist. Russian Doll Season 2 broadens its gaze across generations as Nadia explores her family trauma—and the story of that gold bullion her mother sold off—in more depth.
Oh, and did I mention that Nadia manages to completely break time? Let’s just say there are plenty more where those two doppelgängers during last season’s finale came from.
The less you know about the specifics of Nadia’s time travel going in, the better. But suffice it to say that the swings are bigger this time around. The results might be less consistent in Season 2, but the finished product is even more stunning than its predecessor.
Nadia’s partner in time crimes, Alan, is on an intergenerational journey of his own. Gone are the days of crying over his ex, Beatrice; nowadays he’s wandering through his own family history with a mustache. At times his story can feel like an afterthought, but Barnett remains impossibly endearing, and his gentle stage presence is the perfect foil for Lyonne’s irrepressible swagger.
Although their layers might appear a little different, the core of Russian Doll’s two seasons remains the same: an existential exploration of grief through sci-fi. And just as the show’s first season felt timely during a year rife with time loop TV, its second season taps into themes that appear to be weighing heavily on many.
As entertaining as the theatrics of Nadia’s subway ride through the decades might be, an insidious tone pervades throughout. Nadia seems a little hazier; the longer she spends away from her own timeline, the more frantic her friends seem to become. If Nadia could only keep herself in that timeline, she might be able to face the fact that her surrogate mother, Ruth, is very ill. At some point, Nadia realizes, she lost her perspective—the ability to appreciate and honor the people sitting right in front of her.
Multiple times while watching Russian Doll, I found myself thinking of the South by Southwest smash Everything Everywhere All at Once—a trippy, existential ride that’s entranced viewers nationwide for weeks. There, too, Michelle Yeoh plays a woman who’s disappointed with her life and can’t help but dwell on the inflection points that landed her there. She finds the power to use the consciousness of her alternate selves but finds herself losing time from the important daily tasks—like fixing her family’s taxes—the more she uses those gifts.
The perils of losing touch with one’s present in favor of dwelling on the past loom large over Russian Doll Season 2, as do the pitfalls of obsessing over futures that might have been. Its final shot feels a little less inventive than the red and black parade that signaled the end of Season 1, but its message rings as loud as the scream of a subway train.
Although, speaking of sounds, it’s probably time to admit I was in the can for this season the whole time. Any show that finds a way to use Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus” not once, but twice, will make a believer out of me.
