IMDb rating:
Rotten Tomatoes rating:In the first season of Russian Doll, which premiered a little more than three years ago, Nadia Vulvokov (Natasha Lyonne, Orange Is The New Black) is at her birthday party, one which, like the Hotel California, she can apparently never leave. Each time she tries, she ends up dead in new and creative ways, always returning alive to the same moment in time, in the bathroom at her party.
As one can imagine, this freaks her out somewhat. Then she meets Alan (Charlie Barnett, Chicago Fire, Ordinary Joe), who is caught in a similar loop. Really, you should have watched this by now so no apologies for this spoiler: they find their way out.
It’s now 2022, in the real world and Nadia’s. She’s about to celebrate her 40th birthday, and life is ticking along fairly uneventfully, all things considered. Until Nadia gets on the 6 train and travels all the way back to … 1982. The year of her birth, if you’re doing the maths. Now, remember in Season 1, Nadia points out the gold Krugerrand that she wears on a chain around her neck. In Season 2, in a very roundabout way, you’re going to find out why there was only that single coin left.
The first rule of time travel is that you cannot, should not, must not change the past. Pfft! Out the window with that. Not only does Nadia totally wreck the time-space continuum, but she does so in different bodies, according to the decade. So wrap your head around this: in 1982 she is pregnant – with herself. Later, she steps into her grandma’s shoes, in World War II. She even gets Alan involved, and he finds out he’s rather happy in his granny’s life in 1960s East Berlin.
It’s all one crazy train, back and forth, as Nadia tries to unravel what happened to the riches that should have stayed with her family, so rather than trying to make sense of it all, just go along for the ride.