Russian Doll Season 2 operates on larger ambition and cannot entirely hold all the ideas and images it’s trying to contain

Vulture

"It is stuffed — overstuffed — with schemes and emotions, hopes and dreams," says Kathryn VanArendonk. Season 1 "was the kind of small story that felt almost giddy in its secret enormity — the emotional version of peeking into a tiny closet and finding a whole world folded inside," says VanArendonk. "Relatively straightforward central tenets operated inside all the madness. Now it’s like a brainstorm where someone said 'No bad ideas in a brainstorm' then brought every single one of the ideas all the way to the finish line." VanArendonk adds: "What a frustrating literalization of the show’s scope. Season two is bigger, in terms of time, geography, riddles, and mechanisms. But there’s a perverse backward effect to all that new roominess. Russian Doll wants to be more sprawling, leaving its emotional resonance smaller and emptier. Nadia’s frantic attempts to make her life right again start to feel myopic, and meanwhile there is not nearly enough Alan. The series is a hollower version of itself without him; so much of the first season’s grace comes from their strength as an unexpected, appealing pair. With less Alan, there’s no one to balance Nadia’s zany self-commentary, so she’s left out there on her own, caught in her circling mind."

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• Season 2 is more personal and takes bigger intellectual risks: "Fortunately, the second season of Russian Doll, despite featuring trains and subway cars in a central role, doesn’t go off the rails at all," says Daniel Fienberg. "It’s still hard to say that the continuation of Russian Doll is 'necessary,' because the first season is such a perfectly contained gem. But stepping to the forefront of the show’s creative team, Natasha Lyonne has delivered seven episodes that are more personal and take bigger intellectual risks than anything in the initial run. Though less effectively tidy than the 'Alphabet City Groundhog Day as directed by Fellini' first season, the new season still comes together nicely by the end and that’s probably all I should tell you about it."
• Season 2 is a reminder of Natasha Lyonne's greatness as an actor: "More than anything, Season 2 is a reminder of how terrific Lyonne is as Nadia; it’s really one of the best comedic TV performances in recent years," says Dave Nemetz. "She’s thoroughly entertaining here, fumbling her way through the 1980s with her distinctively raspy Noo Yawk accent while dropping hot stock tips and too-early Cheers references. Nearly every word that comes out of her mouth is funny, and even when there’s no one else in the scene with her, she mumbles funny things to herself. (Just listen to the way she says 'cock-a-roach,' and savor it.) But Lyonne has genuinely poignant moments as well, as Nadia excavates layers of trauma and stares down the barrel of her own dark and twisted family legacy. Attention, Emmy voters: You nominated Lyonne last season, but she really deserves to take it home this year."
• Season 2 amounts to a sophomore slump: "One problem with sophomore seasons is how they tend to drop certain threads to focus on others, dramatically altering the texture of a show," says Cristina Escobar. "I think of the differences between the first and second seasons of Netflix’s Gentefied as a good example, which focused entirely on the central family, losing the capsule episodes that center on other characters in the neighborhood. Its world felt less full because of it. Nadia’s world is comparably more legible in season two of Russian Doll, which does and doesn't work. For one, it takes away some of the deeply enjoyable nuances of the first season; without the reset/death convention, there’s no video-game tie in. To match that change, we don’t see or really hear anything about Nadia’s profession as a game maker (there’s one throwaway line about how she never works anymore ... and by all appearances, she doesn’t) and we don’t watch Alan play anything either. The overall tighter focus in season two removes the initial feeling that Russian Doll is a complex puzzle with multiple solutions."
• Season 2 is The Natasha Lyonne Show, for better and for worse: "The second season of Russian Doll is less of an exploration of death, less a lesson in living and reliving, and more of a journey through a hall of mirrors," says Fran Hoepfner. "This works to the show’s advantage: we don’t need to see the tedium of the same day over and over again, let alone in the midst of an on-going pandemic. But Russian Doll’s second season elides a sense of relatability almost completely, instead indulging in its protagonist’s self-obsessed journey towards healing."
• Season 2 ultimately suffers from a lack of momentum and misguided assembly: "There was a natural urgency created by Nadia’s imminent death, waiting ominously at every set of stairs or open sidewalk hatch, like a video game character who can only get so far before re-spawning," says Ben Travers. "All those fatalities also provided ample fodder for comedy, allowing Russian Doll to quickly establish its initial tone as a sort of jubilant fatalism. Now, Nadia simply hops a train to the past, then, whenever she’s ready, rides the same subway back to the present. A few wrinkles exist, as does a fresh set of rules, but the stakes are considerably lower, and there’s less creative glee to be found in exploring the situation. Nadia’s nonchalance over locating her own private temporal pathway bleeds over into the show’s attitude and makes for an all-too-leisurely pace. Her quest may be obligatory, but it should still be more fun."
• Season 2 is a truly gorgeous season, from its aesthetic to its script: "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," says Rebecca Nicholson. "It is stuffed with Lyonne wisecracking and swaggering around a variety of locations (again, I’m wary of spoilers, though New York City is a key character at this point) in her trenchcoat and sunglasses, to an apt soundtrack of Depeche Mode’s 'Personal Jesus.' She is mesmerising as she lobs out erudite riffs on anything from hospital waiting rooms ('Is the hospital actually treating patients today or are we just putting on a Beckett play?') to her inability to give up smoking: 'I am keenly aware that my lungs are essentially two shrivelled up Nick Caves.' Just wait until she says 'cockroach.'"
• Russian Doll takes bigger swings in Season 2: "Russian Doll debuted with a confidence that can take other series years to build, and Season 2 turns the show’s original high concept on its head. When we first met Nadia, she was struggling to find her lost cat and escape a time loop that transformed her birthday into her personal Groundhog Day," says Laura Bradley. "Now, she’s getting on the subway at Astor Place and getting off in the ’80s...The less you know about the specifics of Nadia’s time travel going in, the better. But suffice it to say that the swings are bigger this time around. The results might be less consistent in Season 2, but the finished product is even more stunning than its predecessor."
• Russian Doll didn't need to return, but it pulls off Season 2 beautifully: Season 1, says Robert Lloyd, was "a Borscht Belt Saṃsāra story, with an ending so beautifully landed one wonders what more could possibly be said. 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. Stylistically and philosophically consistent with its predecessor, it’s different enough to not feel like a calculating retread; as before, it’s admirable in its ingenuity, a little radical and deeply felt in ways that are not radical at all."
• Greta Lee steals the show again in Season 2: "Russian Doll is Natasha Lyonne‘s show, through and through," says Meghan O'Keefe. "She’s the co-creator, head writer, star, and sometimes director of the series, which bends genres as blithely as it twists the laws of physics. Lyonne’s character, Nadia Vulvokov, takes everything that is cool and unique about Lyonne and blows it up like a supernova. Without Lyonne, the Netflix show would simply not exist, nor would it have a defining voice. That said, there is one Russian Doll supporting player who continues to manage to pull attention whenever she enters a scene. In Season 1, Greta Lee‘s Maxine managed to turn the phrase, 'Sweet birthday baby!' into one of Russian Doll’s most iconic hallmarks. In Season 2, however, Maxine gets to steal every scene she’s in."
• With Natasha Lyonne in control, Russian Doll becomes more eccentric: "Balancing Netflix legibility with brainy cool, it plays both sides by invoking classic cinema or quantum theory or philosophy, and poking fun at itself for its highbrow aspirations at the same time," says Philippa Snow. "(Having one’s cake and eating it is, I assume, an easier feat when there are an infinite number of simultaneous time lines.) In a television shop, when an employee proudly informs Nadia that as well as selling televisions he is 'the assistant editor of a zine about commodity fetishism and the Debordian spectacle,' Nadia replies speedily, with a shrug: 'Alright, well, we live and we die, huh?' It’s a funny bit of hand-waving from Lyonne, and it’s also an informative character note for Nadia, who has tasted death over and over and can see no point in philosophizing in the face of its inevitable arrival."
• What's great about Season 2 is it doesn't try to deconstruct time travel: "While Russian Doll’s taking on a slightly different kind of sci-fi / supernatural trope this season, what’s pleasantly surprising is how uninterested the series is in deconstructing said trope outside of a handful of jokes," says Charles Pulliam-Moore. "Russian Doll knows that you’ve probably seen Back to the Future and thought about what sorts of investments you’d want to make if you woke up in the past, which is why it spends so much of its time pushing you and its protagonists to think more deeply about what’s happening to them. The more you settle into the Murakami-like pacing and sensibilities of Russian Doll’s new mystery, the more satisfying this seven-episode-long season ends up being as it begins to increasingly rely on a fuzzy kind of dream logic."
• Russian Doll takes an inventive and tender approach to a well-established plot device: Season 2 consists of "seven bewitching, off-kilter, and visually stunning episodes," says Saloni Gajjar. "Netflix’s enthralling show debuted over three years ago. It seamlessly integrates metaphysical elements with biting humor, ipso facto—heh—it’s labeled a sci-fi dramedy. But categorizing Russian Doll as one thing does it a disservice. It’s a prolific character study at its core. The show takes an inventive and tender approach to a well-established plot device (as seen from Groundhog Day to Palm Springs and in-between). The goal isn’t to improve Nadia or Alan as people with every passing loop, but to help them confront buried trauma so they can eventually assist each other to avoid their dark fate."
• Russian Doll trips over itself, instead of tripping over time: "Russian Doll began as the perfect example of a miniseries," says Kristen Reid. "It uses every moment of its first season expertly without a wasted second, and in just eight episodes, the Natasha Lyonne-led series explored the inevitability of death and love, the strength it takes to be vulnerable, and how hard it can be to move on and forgive the sins of your parents. The conclusion of that season blew me away the first time I watched it, and has brought me to tears every single time since. Truth be told, I’m a closeted sap who relates too much to Nadia and her fear of allowing anyone in, and I absolutely love the content feeling of closure I get from the finale. So ever since Netflix announced it was planning to move forward with a second season, I’ve been extremely wary. Of all the lovely shows the streaming giant cancels before they’ve had a chance to complete their stories (The OA, GLOW, etc.), why push forward with another season of Russian Doll and risk ruining the legacy of such a succinct and beautiful miniseries? As I fell deeper into the rabbit hole that is Season 2, unfortunately, this general question of 'but, why?' never left me."
• Russian Doll loses the plot, literally, in Season 2: "While the first outing found Nadia stuck on a time loop that always ended with her perishing in some traumatic fashion, Season Two draws viewers in by sending Nadia on a time-bending ride through 80 years of history, two countries, and perhaps one alternate universe," says Justin Kirkland. "All of this is done in pursuit of this season's Big Theme: how we process grief. What Russian Doll manages to do so well in both its seasons is identify a defining question for humanity, and Season Two's crescendo is beautifully, painfully familiar—especially considering how brutal the past couple of years have been for all of us. 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."
• It's mostly good that Season 2 is completely different from Season 1: "If Season Two of Russian Doll is willfully more stressful to watch there is pathos gained in exchange," says Dylan Roth. "We get a great deal of added texture to the relationships between Nadia, her mother Nora, and her grandmother Vera (Irén Bordán). Nadia’s heritage as the grandchild of a Holocaust survivor is explored more deeply, as is the way this incomparable trauma is passed down across generations. This season is every bit as thoughtful as the one before it, and has lost none of its visual flair. The scope of the story is broadened in both space and time, and the visits to the grimy New York of 1982 offer a comic contrast to Nadia’s super-hip modern life. It’s mostly a good thing that this season strikes such a different chord from the last; trying to recapture exactly what made the first season so riveting would likely have been a fool’s errand."
• Season 2 is just as dynamic and existentially curious as Season 1: "Even though this second outing can’t quite replicate the hypnotic rhythmicality of the 2019 series, it is testament to the ingenuity of Lyonne (and her co-creators, Amy Poehler and Leslye Headland) that the show does not really try to," says Nick Hilton. "This new season is less a Russian doll than a Fabergé egg. Gilded, ornate, almost ostentatiously clever and beguiling, but with that crucial surprise – a nugget of emotional clarity – that emerges as the egg is cracked."
• Russian Doll music supervisor Brienne Rose and composer Joe Wong explain how they adjusted for the change in Season 2
• Charlie Barnett wishes there were two more episodes to further delve into the complexities of Agnes’ story: "Tasha and Carolyn and I talked about it a lot and it’s really hard when you have a limited amount of episodes,” he says. “You have a limited amount of storytelling and this is a fucking complicated, layered story.”
• How Greta Lee envisions a Maxine spinoff: “Maxine’s spinoff is exactly just this show,” says Lee. “In her mind, this show was always about her. She’s like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, Nadia, you keep dying. I have other stuff going on.’" Lee adds: "I wanna see Maxine in something very rural, very agricultural — something antithetical to her current existence.” 
• Natasha Lyonne clears up any confusion over the ending of Season 1: “There was this idea we were kicking around in the room that, when you see the Nadia with the other two Nadias at the end of Episode 108, were we like, well what happened to those other Nadias?" she says. "You could have done one just about the three Nadias. And there were very hard sci-fi ideas of Nadia emerging from her own grave and ending up in an empty white space, almost like an Under the Skin kind of universe.”
• Lyonne says she's preparing for Russian Doll Season 2 for decades: “Working through the challenges of this show is the happiest I’ve been in my life,” she says. “I’ve had this dream of Russian Doll in my mind for decades. Because I was in the business of the language of movies from six or seven years old, I was always cataloguing scenes or vignettes, then sort of staging them.” 
• Lyonne on Season 2's approach to time travel: "It’s really just asking the question of 'What is this thing that I would go and change?" she says. "What is that butterfly-effect event that I’m looking for?' We (in the writers room) thought a lot about, what would the rules be? Is it just a 'kill Hitler' season? And it’s like, well, of course, we all want to kill Hitler. But assuming we could make that machine, would you actually be able to do things like that? Nadia’s not actually the center of the universe, she’s just another bozo on the bus. For her and (fellow time looper) Alan, it really feels like the most you want to have them be able to do is handle their own case in a way, or at least try and fail to handle their own case but come away with a deeper understanding of what it is to be alive on the other side, having walked through that epigenetic footprint that was mapped onto them in a way where now they see their own trip differently, so that they can possibly be set up to enjoy the ride. It is pretty philosophical — therapeutic by way of quantum physics and high concept and multiverse, and time travel, and death loops and all these things."
• Lyonne never expected Russian Doll to be one-and-done: "That was never the end of the show," she says of Season 1. "As a lover of movies, I do like a sense of some kind of resolution or closure. Season one is the Nights of Cabiria ending. The whole thing is architected around being a little bit of a love letter to a Giulietta Masina kind of ending, or (Frederico) Fellini in general. So that (ending) is not really a deviation from when we originally pitched it to Netflix. We always saw this show as being somewhat anthological. It’s not like we felt like we were out of story to tell. I certainly don’t feel that. I feel like I’m, in general, overwhelmed by information that I’m curious to dig into."