Russian Doll

'Russian Doll' makes its biggest journey yet: 1944 Budapest. A recap of Netflix's 'Russian Doll,' season two, episode five, “Exquisite Corpse.”

She knows the address of the cousin who offered to take Vera in after the war (his letter was among the things she took from Vera’s apartment in “Brain Drain”), so she knows when and where to send the map that will eventually guide her grandmother to her family’s valuables. Nadia revels in her success: “I think I finally fucking changed what happened, which could change what happened to Vera, which will change what happens to Nora, which will change what happens to me.” It’s the butterfly effect, right? Nadia has resigned herself to the past, but clearly the past isn’t through with her yet. She subtly shakes her head at the sight of all the china and place settings, the art and furniture; she’s at a loss for words for the third time in this episode, which contributes to the pensive tone. After all her efforts and time travel — and there’s no telling what she has neglected in the present — Nadia hasn’t changed anything. With just a hint of resignation, she tells an even younger Nora that she can only do “what was always done.” (This news will bum out Alan, who recently accepted that time travel isn’t just for fun and that Lenny may need saving.) In season one, Nadia had to learn to let go of the past; in season two, she has to dig further into it than she ever expected. But here, she and Vera are still young enough that Delia doesn’t try to talk Nadia-Vera out of looking for the family fortune, which is “stored” in a warehouse (the train will come later) where the belongings of Hungarian Jews are picked over by their former neighbors. But this can’t be right — if Nadia has changed the past, why is this exact scene happening again? Nadia tries to enlist her help in tracking down the Peschauer family valuables, which only upsets the woman, who, like Vera (before Nadia arrived), has been disguising herself as a widow. Her bluster was always a bit of an odd fit when she was in Nora, but as an adolescent Vera walking around in Nazi-occupied Budapest, it’s a potential liability. It was one of Nadia’s greatest fears in 2019, and, as we saw in “Brain Drain,” it’s one she hasn’t completely resolved. At other times, as we’ve seen with Nadia, the train travels even further into the past to a time and place where the person needs to be, even if they don’t realize it.

Russian Doll season 2 fans are trying to understand Brendan Sexton III's character, a homeless man named Horse, who is connected to Nadia's time travel.

Whatever the case, it seems his interest in her hasn't been settled by the events of season 2, as after she emerges in the corrected timeline in the final scene, he races up to her on the pavement and they share an intense glance. It raises the question of whether Horse could be a relative of Nadia, and given how this series plays with the passage of time, he could essentially be anyone to her despite them being roughly the same age. In the second season, not only does he laugh at Nadia as she begins her journey into the past, but he also refuses to help her when time starts unravelling unless she and Alan pay him in whatever they have to hand. In the season 1 finale, Horse is seen again, this time donning a deer-like headdress and leading a bizarre parade that sweeps up Nadia and Alan at the end of their final loops, almost as if to congratulate them on completing their trials. They sleep next to each other that night and freeze to death, prompting the start of another loop, where Nadia ensures he gets into a homeless shelter and stands guard of his shoes, which were stolen in an earlier timeline. In a somewhat surreal scene, Nadia accepts his offer of a haircut and seems comforted as he takes great chunks out of her deep red locks, describing them as "the old you".

It followed the trials and troubles of Nadia (Natasha Lyonne), a video game designer with a self-destructive streak, who kept dying after her 36th birthday ...

But it is so inventive, and creative, and original, that it seems petty to quibble. This is a truly gorgeous series, from its aesthetic to its script, and it feels incredibly rich. Once again, Lyonne takes the spotlight here and, by all accounts, the family-based storyline that runs through this season is personal. It is filled with directorial homages to 1970s cinema, particularly the films of Robert Altman, and there are lots of clever scenes involving mirrors and reflections. This is best enjoyed with no spoilers; even revealing which actors play which characters would dent some of the satisfying surprises that appear along the tracks. Fans will remember that Russian Doll resolved its time-loop crisis in the end, when Nadia and fellow frequent death sufferer Alan (Charlie Barnett) finally came together, which begs the question of what a second season could do.

Netflix's Russian Doll is back for season 2, and Natasha Lyonne's Nadia takes precedence over favorites like Maxine, Nora (Annie Murphy) and more.

In the first season of Russian Doll, Nadia got to cryptically share her existential struggles with her friends, and in turn, we got to learn more about them. Whereas Russian Doll’s first season asked: “Why is this happening to me?,” its second season asks, “Why am I like this?” We are all the products of those before and around us, collapsing inward in love and frustration. In lieu of their dynamic, the second season gives way to plottiness and complexity; at times, it felt appropriate to watch and take meticulous notes. Despite its twists and turns, its unfolding and refolding in season 2, Russian Doll is still the Russian Doll we know and love. It’s the kind of quiet, funny moment that is often lacking in the show’s second season. That Nadia is now capable of traveling back in time get a blink, maybe a double-take, before it’s time to move on. In fact, in the first episode of the second season of Russian Doll, a man on the street asks Nadia, “Do you believe in the future of humanity?” “Define ‘future,’” she snaps. The versions of herself, our Russian doll, unpack and unfold in front of the viewer. It’s true: for Nadia, the future is not of the utmost importance, and it’s true: in a life that becomes repetitive and routine, our minds give way to nostalgia. They are a distinctly Eastern European traditional artifact dating back to the 19th century, coming in all shapes and colors and clothing and expressions. A glitch in the Matrix? Is this a moral quandary? It is often easy to latch onto the central hook of Russian Doll’s first season: that Nadia is doomed — or maybe blessed — to die and wake up at her 36th birthday party over and over again.

After a nearly three year hiatus, Russian Doll is back, and things aren't looking much better for Nadia Vulvokov. But Season Two can't match the peaks of ...

And the last thing you want in a story about grief is the added grief of trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Nadia bops in and out of the past and present, considering (and attempting to rectify) the perceived mistakes of the women of her family—inter-family theft! The lingering message at the end about grief and how we process it is poignant, and Lyonne continues to prove herself as one of television's most versatile, comedic performers. What worked so beautifully in Season One was the contained chaos of Nadia and Alan's perpetual death. But where Season One meandered purposeful, Season Two is so convoluted and full of unnecessary red herrings that getting to the end doesn't feel worth the rigmarole. When we left Russian Doll's Nadia Vulvokov, she had died 26 times—electrocuted, shot, frozen to death, swarmed by bees (twice). You name it, it happened to her, all in the name of becoming better.

A woman with red hair leans out of a subway car and looks down the platform. Natasha Lyonne in “Russian Doll” Season 2. (Netflix).

Having already lived through a major disruption of reality, Nadia is hard to rattle — “Inexplicable things happening is my entire modus operandi,” she says — and as if to match her determination, the new season throws abrupt changes of scene and even weirder dislocations of reality in her way. She’s a comedian too — every other line of dialogue is a wisecrack — a bit like Hamlet, punning his way through tragedy, collaborating with ghosts, with the difference that she tends to plunge ahead instead of dithering. (“I prefer the term ‘time prisoner,’” says Nadia.) The expanded canvas enlarges the field of investigation — as before, this is a sort of detective story — which grows geographically as well, to encompass Berlin and Budapest, Hungary. Although the Netflix spoiler police have a bug about reviewers mentioning just what years Nadia and Alan travel to, the official trailer gives you a glimpse of a “Sophie’s Choice” poster — not incidentally, a Holocaust film — a man with a mohawk and Nazis. (One perfectly pointless identified spoiler is what character Annie Murphy plays; that will be known soon enough, and the exciting part, anyway, is that Annie Murphy’s in it.) Season 2, which begins 10 days shy of Nadia’s 40th birthday — as the first season repeatedly began on the night of her (repeating) 36th — moves on by digging in, focusing on a few undeveloped points from Season 1 and fleshing out a backstory. But nothing succeeds a success like a stab at another success, and a second season is here, with Lyonne taking over as showrunner (previous showrunner Leslye Headland and Amy Poehler are her co-creators), and it does the job ably and elegantly. In that fairy tale of New York, described by Natasha Lyonne’s main character, Nadia, as “the one about the broken man and the lady with a death wish that got stuck in a loop,” Nadia and her spookily entangled metaphysical twin, Alan (Charlie Barnett), keep dying until life looks better.

The next seven days also feature the finale of one of the season's breakout shows, CBS' Ghosts, the second season debut of The Flight Attendant on HBO Max and ...

Horror comedy The Baby follows Barry at 10:30 p.m. Sunday on HBO. On Monday, HBO debuts limited series We Own This City (9 p.m.), from The Wire’s David Simon and George Pelecanos, and season two of Gentleman Jack (10 p.m.). The comedy ends its first season at 9 p.m. Thursday as Sam (Rose McIver) and Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) ready the house for their first official bed and breakfast guests — a situation complicated by having an ancient Norse curse placed on them. Nothing in this season is quite as compulsively entertaining as the first season’s recurring fatalities,” writes THR critic Daniel Fienberg. “But coming as close as this season does to recapturing, without shamelessly reproducing, the satisfying difficulty of the first season is achievement enough.” Season two premieres Wednesday on Netflix. True crime docuseries Captive Audience (Thursday, Hulu) tracks the abduction of Steven Stayner and the fallout for his family. Season two, which comes three years and two months later, still plays with time — but more in the time travel sense as Nadia slips in and out of the past. Or, as THR critic Daniel Fienberg notes, maybe it won’t matter that much: “I’m not sure that various potential assassinations and discoveries matter all that much to me,” he writes. Returning: It’s been a long time since Barry last ran on HBO, which means viewers may not have full recall of the varied characters who move through the hitman/aspiring actor’s (recent THR cover subject Bill Hader) life. Season two of The Flight Attendant (Thursday, HBO Max) features Sharon Stone in a recurring role and Kaley Cuoco playing multiple versions of her title character. Two critical favorites that have had looong hiatuses return to screens this week as Netflix’s Russian Doll (which has been away for more than three years) and HBO’s Barry (just under three years) begin new seasons. It would be next to impossible to watch everything, but let THR point the way to worthy options for the coming week. Magic Johnson retraces his basketball career and life in They Call Me Magic (Friday, Apple TV+). Unscripted favorite Selling Sunset opens a new season Friday on Netflix. A Very British Scandal (Friday, Prime Video) — not to be confused with Netflix’s Anatomy of a Scandal — stars Claire Foy and Paul Bettany and dramatizes a well-known divorce case from the 1960s. Below is The Hollywood Reporter‘s rundown of premieres, returns and specials from April 20-26.

Russian Doll is accustomed to dismantling reality in its season finales, but there are lessons to be learned when things are put right.

As Alan’s wise grandmother says, “We can’t spend our lives so scared of making the wrong move that we never live at all.” The two Russian Doll protagonists learn not to pursue what Nadia calls their “Coney Island,” the thing that would make everything better if only it had happened or didn’t happen — an “if only.” One could speculate that even without her meddling in the past, the family fortune would only have been lost sooner, and the resulting life for Nadia, from her mentally ill mother to the caring Ruthie, would have been exactly the same. “The closer you are to the center of the Earth, the closer you are to the truth.” Therefore when Alan and Nadia find themselves between two colliding trains, they are sent down, down, down to learn their final lesson in a water-logged tunnel that leads to the one fact that they must accept. But it’s not that simple, and as usual, the transient sage Horse speaks the central truth as he leads Nadia and Alan to their awakening. Implying that there’s an explanation to be gleaned goes against every lesson Nadia and Alan learn in the course of the seven episodes. This is akin to the grandfather paradox, in which the time traveler goes back and kills their own progenitor, undoing their own existence but also negating their ability to travel back in the first place.

The whole Nadia-Nora sharing-a-body thing has a tinge of David Cronenberg body horror in this nail-bitter of an episode. A recap of Netflix's Russian Doll, ...

She tells Nora, “I think if we can just get back far enough, we can circumnavigate this whole future hellscape, and then you’ll never have to go through any of this.” “Get back far enough” suggests venturing further into Nora’s past to head off the looming tragedy somehow. At the hospital, it becomes clear that, despite Lyonne and Sevigny’s shared screen time, Nadia is still very much in Nora’s body, and she’s being scrutinized the way her mother has been all her life. At some point, the will of your soul supersedes the needs of daily life and physical needs.” The growing body-horror element could be another manifestation, although we might also view the merging of Nadia and Nora as a tale of possession. But Vera says she has always feared that people will think she’s “insane” if she talks about the “miracle” Delia referred to in the last episode. I’m still feeling this out, though; I only started (slowly) reading about epigenetic research in the past few years, mostly as it pertains to Black Americans. There’s clearly so much that is ripe for discussion about this, not the least of which is how Lyonne and the team use what’s happening to Nadia to understand what Nora and Vera went through. In a recent New Yorker profile, Lyonne said intergenerational trauma and the role it plays in our lives is one of the questions she wanted to wrestle with in the new season. It allows her to tell the story with distinct élan, but it also demonstrates how caught up Nadia is in her mission — she’s starting to see things differently. Here, we see one of season one’s themes reemerge, as characters question whether mental illness is the source of these “inexplicable things” or if it’s something almost mystical. In the previous episode, Vera noticed that Nora was acting differently, and that’s because Nora was Nadia at the time. Now it seems she may be hallucinating — the cop from the train in “Nowhen” appears in the library and toward the end of this episode. As Nadia spends more time in the past, Russian Doll commits to 1980s aesthetics.

A second series of the psychological comedy starring Natasha Lyonne arrives on Netflix.

Natasha Lyonne's mind-bending comedy returns for a trip to eighties New York and Nazi-occupied Budapest.

Anything can happen in Russian Doll and it is completely aware of its own success – the iconic line, “sweet birthday baby”, said to Nadia every time she dies and finds herself back at her birthday party in season one makes its way into the script twice – but it still manages to feel new. To add yet more intrigue to the mix, Nadia – as Nora – is pregnant… Until Nadia hops on a subway and finds herself transported to the eighties, where everyone thinks she is her mother, Nora ( Chloë Sevigny), who has paranoid schizophrenia.

This recap of Netflix's Russian Doll season 2, episode 5, "Exquisite Corpse," does not contain any significant spoilers. Access the archive of recaps,

The whimsy and snide commentary is downplayed more and more with each passing episode, with the filmmakers trying to elicit more of an emotional response in the second season. Vera inspects the items and jumps for joy in celebration. She hides the items in a tunnel, which explains the season’s very opening scene. She heads over to a soldier and asks for the whereabouts of Captain Marton Halasz, whose signature was on the Nazi receipt. A slightly wayward digression, the repetitive narrative style is slowly wearing thin. A slightly wayward digression, the repetitive narrative style is slowly wearing thin.

Natasha Lyonne finds a way to make "Russian Doll" Season 2 feel different from and the same as Season 1 all at once.

But "Doll" is the rare show to come up with two seasons worth of good ideas. Trying to recapture old glory is often a fool's errand, especially in Hollywood where sequels, remakes and remakes of remakes wring every good idea dry. Great shows have been tarnished by ill-thought second seasons like HBO's "Big Little Lies." "Doll" didn't really need to come back, but Lyonne and the writers found a way to advance the story without ruining it. She enlists the younger version of her surrogate mother figure, Ruth (Annie Murphy, "Schitt's Creek") to help in her quest. Nadia sees this as an opportunity to change the past, undo her mother's biggest mistake (losing the family's money) and fix everything that was wrong with her unhappy childhood. But when Netflix announced the "Groundhog Day"-like series – in which Lyonne's Nadia and a man she meets named Alan (Charlie Barnett) live the same night over and over again, dying at the end of each loop – would get a second season, I figured I had to give it a second chance.

Get in, loser, we're confronting decades of generational trauma. A recap of Netflix's Russian Doll, season two, episode two, 'Coney Island Baby.'

So she prepares to take the bag of coins to Vera, but first, she leaves a message for Nora (in Nora’s voice, which is why she tells her to “be cool”) on her answering machine. Is that why she sees Alan? If so, is she unable to take a six train or any train in the past? Nadia gets on a train at the end, thinking she’s traveling in the past, but she ends up traveling back to 2022? • Max and Nadia’s relationship has always been a bit fraught, and the tension is starting to show. At this moment, Nadia’s — yes, Nadia, not Nadia as her mother — head clears, and she comforts the woman who was her mother’s greatest friend and her mother figure. The Ruth of 1982 was reeling from the loss of her husband but thought she at least had Nora to steady her. But when there are no mirrors and Nadia is, say, tailing Chez in 1982 to find out what he did with the gold coins, the line between the two women blurs. Ruth of 1982 barely even blinks before plunking down her engagement ring to help Nora secure the Krugerrands. This, after driving to the Alfa Romeo store to return the Alfa Romeo that the Nadia-less Nora purchased with the cash from the coins. In the four years since she last pondered their value (aloud, anyway), the Krugerrands have increased in value from $152,780.86 to $280,451.21. That’s enough for Nadia’s college tuition … and a racehorse. To be more accurate, she’s reliving her mother’s past as her mother and learning about the circumstances around her own birth for the first time. It’s not that the first eight episodes wrapped up all possible narrative threads (they didn’t) or that further exploration of Nadia’s and Alan’s lives was unwarranted (it most certainly was). It was more a question of how Lyonne & Co. would manage to capture lightning in a bottle all over again. Not to mention, time travel is very different from time looping (I assume; I haven’t read much about quantum immortality since the first season came out). Nadia’s death paradox was tricky enough, but how do you explain taking a train into your mother’s body?

'Russian Doll' is back, and Nadia is still a 'time prisoner' — read our recap of the Season 2 premiere, and grade it in our poll.

She plays along and cuddles him in bed a bit before excusing herself to the bathroom again, giving herself a pep talk to get the money back. Back in 1982, Nadia gets to Chez’s and looks inside the leather bag, finding a stash of gold Krugerrands. She asks Chez where he got them, and he’s confused. She runs out of the apartment and back down to the subway, asking a fellow rider: “Is it 2022 in here?” It is, and she’s back to being Nadia again. Nadia goes back to the subway, and so does Alan — and when he does, the writing inside the car is all in German. Hmmm. Nadia excuses herself to the bathroom, and when she looks in the mirror, she sees… They walk to an apartment, and Chez finds the keys to it in Nadia’s pocket, going inside and finding a leather bag under a couch before hightailing it out of there.

Natasha Lyonne has wowed fans with new episodes of Netflix's time-travel comedy drama Russian Doll, with many now calling for a season 3 release date.

For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the Radio Times podcast with Jane Garvey. Co-creator Leslye Headland told RadioTimes.com back in February 2019: "We initially pitched it as three seasons. Who could be in the cast of a potential Russian Doll season 3?

The consequences of Nadia's tinkering with her timeline are beginning to manifest. A recap of Netflix's 'Russian Doll,' season two, episode six, ...

Is her disorientation a result of her latest (and biggest) time “tweak,” or has she spent weeks traveling to the past? When Nadia leaves the hospital with baby Nadia in search of Alan, it’s because she can’t bear to think of what’s happened to Ruth, so it’s better to let her live in the quantum state hinted at by the episode’s title. We never learned how she and Nora met and became friends or how she spent any of the intervening years between Nadia’s birth and the present day. And this really has been much more of a solo outing for Nadia and series star and multi-hyphenate Natasha Lyonne. Sure, Alan was skeptical of “taking the 6 train into my mom,” but even once he was on board, Nadia pushed him away because he wasn’t as eager to mess with the past as she was. In season one, Nadia’s live-die-repeat cycle was heralded by the extended absence of Oatmeal. All the times she and Alan died and reset affected the world around them — fruit rotted from the outside only, fish and people began to disappear, etc. The increasingly singular focus is likely intentional: Last season, Alan described Nadia as the “most selfish person” he’d ever met, and Maxine said she embraced Nadia’s flaws because they made her feel “superior.” Nadia also spent a huge chunk of her adolescence and some of her adulthood on her own, so it would probably take more than four years to learn to let people help you. Nadia’s tinkering with her timeline (and Nora’s and Vera’s) really begins to manifest in “Schrödinger’s Ruth,” no doubt because of her traveling with her infant self to the present day. She might be telling herself that she can focus on her present-day relationships once she’s sorted through her own “issues,” that she’ll be better equipped for them or just “better.” Isn’t that what so many self-help books and reality-TV host catchphrases push on audiences? Also the first three minutes of this episode see Nadia giving birth to herself as her mother, Nora, while Alan’s grandmother Agnes and a gaggle of subway riders look on — so, you know, it’s probably best if we don’t rush through things. This will probably sound counterintuitive given the hectic opening and mindfuck closing of the penultimate episode of Russian Doll season two, but “Schrödinger’s Ruth” presents an opportunity to catch our breath, to step back and take in the big picture before the finale. But as season two unfolded, Ruth was gradually pushed to the periphery, waiting in the wings as Nadia insisted on going on this journey of self-discovery (mostly) on her own. “Schrödinger’s Ruth” shares the propulsive action of its predecessor, “ The Way Out,” as well as a poignant revelation about the Nadia-Ruth relationship.

However, there are also new faces appearing for this season including Annie Murphy (Schitt's Creek), Carolyn Michelle Smith (Reboot Camp), and Sharlto Copley ( ...

In the new season 2 of Russian Doll, Natasha Lyonne will reprise her role as Nadia again. The second season of Russian Doll hit Netflix on Wednesday (April 20) and is warmly welcomed by fans. The popular Netflix series, Russian Doll, is now available to stream for a second season.

The Netflix hit has already repeated itself, many times over. Should Natasha Lyonne and Co. have kept spinning in circles?

The shagginess can make Russian Doll feel like a less polished retread of its earlier self, revisiting familiar themes while losing track of other elements. As affecting as some of the flashbacks may be, Russian Doll was already a deft dissection of how Nadia still carries Vera’s and Nora’s emotional baggage. The coins represent the wealth Nora’s mother Vera (Irén Bordán) smuggled out of Budapest while fleeing the Holocaust, and Nadia sees in them a way to secure her own future and mend the ruptures in her scarred, fractious matrilineage. When one character introduces themselves as “the assistant editor of a zine about commodity fetishism and Debordian spectacle,” we’re so deep into pop philosophy the viewer doesn’t bat an eye. “Sweet birthday baby,” “what a concept,” and Lyonne’s pronunciation of “cock-a-roach” all became calling cards after Season 1, and each make an appearance in Season 2. It also followed those threads long past the point where they organically came together, a path Russian Doll also seems to be walking. Considering Nadia lives in the shell of a former yeshiva, Russian Doll was already a profoundly Jewish enterprise. In this context, it’s largely a reminder that Russian Doll isn’t the only latest award-winning hit to try and find out if lightning can strike twice. These are the questions that face existential explorer Nadia Vulvokov (Natasha Lyonne) in the second season of Russian Doll. They’re also the questions that face the show itself, with new episodes streaming on Netflix after a three-year hiatus. Russian Doll’s first incarnation felt as sui generis as its cocreator and star, Lyonne; the plot used a time loop to weave together Harry Nilsson, roast chicken, unprocessed grief, and New York’s East Village. By the time Nadia and fellow traveler Alan (Charlie Barnett) brought their vicious cycle to an end, Russian Doll appeared to reach the end of its specific, finite story. This week, The Flight Attendant takes off for a second season on HBO Max. The series, another comedy about a messy, 30-something woman whose extreme circumstances force a look in the mirror, already paired well with Russian Doll even before their proximate premieres. Thrust back into the roots of her own trauma, Nadia fixates on tracking down the MacGuffin she’s convinced will fix her family: a stash of gold, South African Krugerrands her grandmother hoarded and her mother stole, then lost.

Russian Doll season 2 delves into the Volvokov family's past. Here is Nadia's familial history, presented in as linear a fashion as possible.

Ultimately, Nadia and Alan make it out of the Void and back to the “correct” 2022. Through it all, Nadia’s version of 2022 is the “correct” version and similar to our own. Before departing for the future, Nadia gives László a map to the treasure and asks him to mail it to her after the war. This timeless space is an “empty pocket of time left over from the job not completed.” To learn more about the void and the ending of Russian Doll, check out our ending explained feature. With Nadia at the wheel of her mind, Nora then returns that car and furs and gets a sizable percentage of the money back. By the end of the whole experience, both the viewers and Nadia have a rough narrative of the Volvokov family history in place. Nadia/Vera then sneaks into a sewer, chisels out a hole in the side of it and deposits the valuables there. While Nadia is in the past inhabiting Nora, Chez in turn steals the Krugerrands for himself. The end of episode 4 introduces the 1944 timeline, which Nadia is also able to navigate to and from before all of her time traveling interference collapses reality into a ball of mush. Nadia/Vera infiltrates the warehouse as an interested buyer and eventually finds her family’s treasures in the basement. Nadia darts back and forth from 2022 to 1982 in the first few episodes of season 2. Every attempt to make it through the night without dying brings her into death’s clutches and right back to the lavatorial starting point.