Trippy, time-travelling comedy Russian Doll returns to Netflix this week for a second season. It has been three years since the critically-acclaimed first season aired - so fans have waited a long time to see what happens next to droll New Yorker Nadia, played by the show’s co-creator Natasha Lyonne.
In season 1, Nadia is trapped in a time loop at her 36th birthday party. To her terror and irritation, she keeps on dying - only to reawaken, again and again, at the beginning of the party.
Eventually, she meets Alan - played by Charlie Barnett - who is himself stuck in a time loop. They realise they are linked by some quirk in the space-time continuum and must help each other to escape.
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Russian Doll season 2 plot
Season 2 picks up the action almost four years later - with Nadia’s 40th birthday approaching. But rather than stick with the premise of being stuck in just one day, the new season sends Nadia and Alan on journeys back in time - starting with the East Village in 1982.
Much of the season then concerns Nadia’s quest for a treasure stolen from her Hungarian Jewish ancestors in World War II. This harks back to the gold krugerrand she wears as a pendant in season 1, which viewers learn is the last of 150 that her Holocaust survivor grandparents bought as a nest egg to keep safe from the fascist regime.
Netflix’s synopsis reads: “Season two of Russian Doll will continue to explore existential thematics through an often humorous and sci-fi lens. Discovering a fate even worse than endless death, this season finds Nadia and Alan delving deeper into their pasts through an unexpected time portal located in one of Manhattan’s most notorious locations. At first they experience this as an ever-expanding, era-spanning, intergenerational adventure but they soon discover this extraordinary event might be more than they bargained for and, together, must search for a way out.
Russian Doll season 2 reviews
The reviews so far have been generally positive. Rolling Stone gave it four out of five stars, with reviewer Alan Sepinwall saying it was not the ‘immaculate experience’ of the first season, but nor was it a ‘lazy rehash’.
He added: “ The tone is similar, even though the story and sci-fi gimmick are different. In many ways, it’s more audacious in scope and themes. And if the end result is a good bit messier than the 2018 edition, the level of ambition, and the pleasure of being back in Nadia’s company, more than makes up for it.”
Vanity Fair, meanwhile, described season 2 as ‘absorbing’. Critic Tara Ariano wrote that some key details, seeded in the first series, flower in the second as it delves into generational trauma.
She added: “The wider scope and deeper questions of Russian Doll’s second season thrillingly build on the first season’s foundation, and bring the viewer along for an extremely satisfying ride. I hope it won’t be another three years before we see the story concluded."
Vulture magazine, however, was not quite as impressed. Reviewer Kathryn VanArendonk said that while season 2 is bigger than its predecessor in terms of time, geography and riddles, its emotional resonance is smaller.
She said: “Season two operates on larger ambition and cannot entirely hold all the ideas and images it’s trying to contain. It is stuffed — overstuffed — with schemes and emotions, hopes and dreams.”
Russian Doll season 2 release date
The series will land on Netflix tomorrow (Wednesday, April 20) at 8am. There will be seven episodes in total.
