Here's A Quick 'Russian Doll' Refresher Before Your Season Two Binge
Sweet birthday babyyy, it's been three years since Russian Doll debuted on Netflix. With a time lag so severe, who could blame you for not remembering what happened—let alone how it ended? Season One of the psychological dramedy, which came from the minds of Amy Poehler, Leslye Headland, and Natasha Lyonne, followed Nadia Vulvokov (Lyonne) in the recurring nightmare that was her 36th birthday. Every iteration of the benchmark ended with Nadia dying in new and inventive ways: electrocution, blunt trauma, gunshot wound, bees. Never a fun time.
Nadia's loop intersected with that of a man named Alan Zaveri (Charlie Barnett), who found himself in the same precarious position: dying, repeatedly. By the end of the season, there were two distinct timelines with a bit of an ambiguous meaning. So while you're excited by the tile touting new episodes on your home screen, before diving into Season Two of Russian Doll, let's piece together how Season One wrapped.
Season One, Quick and Dirty
When we meet Nadia, she is on the precipice of her 36th birthday. She loves the occasional hallucinogen about as much as she loves chain smoking. Which is a lot. Reckless with her life and relationships, she gets into an accident when she's struck by a cab in a New York City street, dying on the night of her birthday. She's shocked when she awakens, only to discover it's her birthday all over again. Spooked by the near-call, she chalks it up to a dream... until she dies again. And again. And again.
Nadia soon discovers that she's not the only person being plagued by the time loop of death. She encounters a man named Alan whose plan to propose to his girlfriend goes awry after she breaks up with him, admitting that she's been cheating on him. Nadia pieces together that Alan is experiencing the same fat as she, but as the two track backward, figuring out how Alan first died, it's revealed that he committed suicide by jumping off the roof of a building. The two work together to figure out where their lives went wrong, and whether or not they can achieve normalcy.
How (and Where) It All Ended
Unsurprisingly, Russian Doll left the end of Season One relatively vague. Nadia and Alan eventually end up on different timelines. In the Nadia-centric timeline, she encounters a version of Alan she has never met before. In Alan's timeline, it's the inverse. They are tasked with saving one another from themselves, which both do successfully. As the season draws to a close, both sets of people run into a parade happening in town, and the two split screens become one. One interpretation of this is that each pair found happiness in their respective timelines. Another is that Nadia and Alan, having finally reached their potential, combined timelines and become the best versions of themselves.
Lyonne has steered viewers towards the latter. "It’s their present," she told Variety. "So you’re actually looking at both the Alpha Nadia and Alan [meaning the most 'aware' versions of themselves], but that doesn’t mean the Beta Nadia and Alan are not there. But I do think people experienced it as an actual split, that you’re looking at Alpha Nadia with Beta Alan.”
The Tie-In To Season Two
Funny enough, there's not much of a tie-in. If anything, it's probably more beneficial to really pay attention to the first couple episodes of Season Two than it is to have a steady grasp on Season One. (So...sorry for making you read this?) Nadia and Alan have moved four years into the future, just a few days before Nadia's 40th birthday. Season Two also takes bit players like Elizabeth Ashley's Ruth and Chlo? Sevigny's Lenora Vulvokov and fleshes them out more fully. Otherwise, Season Two of Russian Doll is a contained story within itself.
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