Russian Doll is still better than 95 per cent of what’s on streaming

It was always going to be hard to follow a near-perfect first season, but it’s still better than almost everything else out there.

When Russian Doll premiered at the start of 2019, it instantly became one of the best shows of that year. In the 11 months that followed, few could overtake it for originality, ambition or spark.

The story about a prickly New Yorker stuck in a time loop was a perfectly contained miniseries that was riotously funny and profoundly thoughtful. It elicited laughs for its inventive death scenes (each loop ended with Nadia’s demise) while also knocking you over with its insights on life.

The Groundhog Day-esque time loop didn’t just serve as a hook in a sea of streaming options, it propelled Russian Doll’s rhythm. The long-awaited second season doesn’t have that same propulsive tempo but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth watching.

Seven new episodes drop this week and it’s a much looser, less focused instalment, but one which still has something to say and something to add to the world created by Natasha Lyonne and Leslye Headland.

Lyonne returns as Nadia, who, after breaking out of the deathly time loop of her 36th birthday, is now 10 days away from turning 40. But being stuck in a time loop is nothing compared to the cycle of generational trauma.

Natasha Lyonne co-created and stars in Russian Doll.

When Nadia finds herself transported on a subway train back in time to the 1980s, to the moment her mother Nora (Chloe Sevigny) is heavily pregnant with her, she sees an opportunity to change things, to rewrite her past.

Her scheme involves her family’s missing krugerrands fortune – Nadia thinks that if she can restore what was lost then her life, and those of her mother and grandmother Vera (Elizabeth Ashley/Annie Murphy), would’ve turned out for the better.

The fortune is essentially a MacGuffin to work through a different time loop of sorts because while it involves time travel, the loop is more about emotional scarring.

Chloe Sevigny reprises her role as Nadia’s mum. Picture: Vanessa Clifton/Netflix

The final episode of the season is called “Matryoshka”, a type of Russian nesting dolls, and it’s a powerful symbol of how we carry the lives of our forebears, burdened and elevated by their experiences. We inherit their trauma but we also inherit their resilience, and it all sits within us like a matryoshka doll.

Meanwhile, Alan (Charlie Barnett), Nadia’s companion in the time loop, has a journey of his own to go on, and it’s the least satisfying part of the season because the charismatic Barnett gets too little screen time.

It’s as if the writers didn’t quite know what to do with the character or even how his arc ties into Nadia’s this time.

Alan’s arc was short-changed.

Russian Doll worked so well as a miniseries, it really is one of those shows that didn’t need a second season. Of course, “needs” is a loaded word because while the series could’ve easily functioned as a one-and-done, a second season doesn’t detract from it.

Ironically, given Russian Doll’s credo that what came before is intrinsically linked to the now, the two seasons work perfectly fine as they are. Season one doesn’t need the second to build on it and season two barely needs the first as its antecedent.

It was always going to be difficult for any follow-up to have the same impact given that first season was so snappy and smart, but even a dimmed second season is better than 95 per cent of what you find on any streaming platform.

Russian Doll season two is streaming now on Netflix

Originally published as Russian Doll is still better than 95 per cent of what’s on streaming