Russian Doll: Netflix's fast turning, fast chasing, brain teasing new series you MUST watch!
Is it just me or is it exhausting to see an endless parade of TV mystery shows that have complicated multiple timeline plots that require the viewer- well me , to specifically piece together narratives in order to make sense of things ? The shows are usually menacingly gloomy dramas about heartless men whose life crises are intended to bring awareness to our conflicted humanity, annoying me like no other.
High- concept and high-stakes plots are necessary and intriguing, but it becomes tiring to feel like you have to do the script writer’s job of taking incongruent plots that have been displayed haphazardly and connecting them back together again. It’s essentially making TV arduous labor, often making me think that the people behind those productions have no clue as to what story they're actually trying to convey to the masses.
But alas! Take into consideration the breath of fresh air , which is Netflix's Russian Doll, an intricate jigsaw puzzle that is co-created by Natasha Lyonne, Leslye Headland, and Amy Poehler. The show stars Natasha Lyonne as Nadia Vulvokov, an edgy New York woman condemned to an infinite time loop that begins when she steps foot in her 36th birthday party at her friend’s house.
Russian Doll debuts with the ferocious buoyancy that would make viewers of shows like True Detective and Westworld ,clutch their pearls , catapulting the viewer into the realistic world of Manhattan’s East Village—a real live place that of course, doesn’t need much real world building.
via Refinery 29
Yet, you can't avoid being engulfed in the spine-tingling rush as Lyonne's Nadia navigates through her birthday celebration, crowded with the artistic types and party animals that she, the jazzy-rasped talking computer programmer, keeps in her circle. And the beauty of it all is that it doesn't take long for Russian Doll to set up its theme: As soon as she leaves her birthday party with a charming middle-aged man who will be just fine for uninhibited and pointless birthday sex, she hurried into the night to look for her lost cat named Oatmeal—and while looking for Oatmeal, is fatally hit by a car.
Just like that, she’s back from the dead and thrown into the craziness of her birthday party, again and again . Nadia takes the news as good as one could , first smoking a joint passed to her by her courteous host (a witty Greta Lee) who is the culprit of the joint laced with cocaine or ketamine (no one knows).Naturally, Nadia loses her mind which is seemingly merited thanks to a life full of unresolved trauma that transpired in Nadia's childhood.
Nadia’s first response to this sudden repetition is where the similarities between Russian Doll and other productions differ. Instead of using supposed immortality to better herself in malicious ways , Nadia turns into a staunch detective on a mission to uncover the error in the unfortunate events while hysterically not paying attention to death around the corner in New York City fashion (she often falls into basement openings on a sidewalk or falls down a flight of industrial stairs – the quintessential New York horror scene).
via NBC News
The dangers reach a climax when Nadia meets a guy named Alan (Charlie Barnett), who is also stuck in a cycle— reliving the night he proposed to his long-term girlfriend who rejects the advances, admitting to sleeping with other people. Barnett and Lyonne are enigmatic on the screen: a bunch of hot messes with Lyonne as the robust and alert personality and Barnett the heart-broken simp. As a team, they work to uncover their traumas around the East Village seeking resolutions while avoiding being brought back to the beginning of the loop - induced by gas leaks, speeding cars, and unfortunately accidental killings by those closest to them.
via Wired
At just eight concrete episodes, ( which is a blessing in disguise as most shows have a storyline that is dragged on for no beneficial reason) ,Russian Doll is a mix of comedy and heartbreak, all while continuing a genuine essence. The beautifully gritty East Village holds a sense of mysticism - the apartment that her birthday party is held at is a former yeshiva that the perils of gentrification are unable to rid the spiritual core that is centered there in Tompkins Square Park, the heartbeat of the show.
Outside of the spiritual realm of the show, Russian Doll remains true to what it really means to be human. Death is a sequential part of the cycle of life , we will feel love, loss, and pain for others feel for us as they grieve. Nadia realizes this on her quest, and her independent thought processes are challenged as she is reminded of the bigger picture to the life she’s living and the consequences her actions have on people around her time and time again.
Russian Doll reminds me of free-falling while still being conducive to the plot , accomplishing what most shows dream of pulling off: telling a relatable human story in the particular world we live in. This is a moment that was a long overdue starring venture for Natasha Lyonne, who has a career of raising the bar for the performance of characters, first as a teen with a unique voice and dry humor which was ground-breaking, setting herself apart from other actors and actresses in films like Slums of Beverly Hills and Orange is the New Black in the most recent years. Lyonne’s character is a multifaceted female lead who is less interested in her awakening as she’s trying to set the time back to live the way she feels she deserved and established for herself.
So far, Russian Doll is one of the best series in 2019 as an unconventional narrative that has its own way of theorizing what’s happening to Nadia and the world around her, while still proving a sense of realism. Being in a time where TV show concepts have started to become one in the same, this show is food for thought on the ways in particular we can mess up predisposed outcomes while learning to understand repressed factors of our lives. This is definitely a show you won’t mind binge watching over and over again. I promise!
cover via Vox
