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Russian Doll Season 1 Review

Russian Doll is a science fiction comedy drama show created by and starring Natasha Lyonne. The first season consisting of eight episodes premiered on Netflix in 2019.

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“I was gonna go home and fuck this guy,

but now I just feel so profoundly empty“

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A cynical young woman in New York City keeps dying and returning to the party that’s being thrown in her honor on that same evening. Time loop stories have been popular for some time now. They had been made before, but this one is different as it is much more grounded and intimate in its world and characters.

The tonal diversity of this series is its biggest strength. It starts off pretty much as a full on comedy, but then toward its end it goes into some serious, dramatic, even deep territory, and the result is mesmerizing. The final moment in the finale even moved me as it was such a perfect conclusion that the show could have ended at just one season and it would have been perfectly fine.

Natasha Lyonne on this show emerges as a true star. I was familiar with her before, but this is the project that will hopefully catapult her career to greater heights as she deserves more opportunities. She is amazing. Her Nadia is a complex, believable character who has her irredeemably bad qualities, but it’s still difficult not to root for her due to her immense charm, big personality and great humor. The humor on this show wouldn’t be twice as good had it not been for the actress’ incredible comedic timing.

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Charlie Bennett is pretty good as Alan. The acting from him is inferior to the one from Lyonne, but still the character was very well written and actually rather relatable to me with all of his OCD tendencies. The dynamic that develops between the two was just lovely, though them sleeping together was unnecessary. The show through this character explored the issue of suicide so powerfully. It is a rare modern show that isn’t just cynical, but actually uplifting with a great message about the importance of living and finding things worth living for in this world.

Nadia’s lesbian friends are a lot of fun. They were underdeveloped, but the relationship between the three really worked. The emphasis on Nadia’s troubled relationship with her mother was also emotional and well written and the character arc for the protagonist where she has to make a selfless act, but believably so was superbly realized.

Russian Doll does have the typical elements that make Netflix shows overly timely, such as an overreliance on sex and drugs, excessive diversity in casting and at times too cynical tone, but the latter half of the first season did move into more of a sad and poignant and then moving and life-affirming territory, which appealed to me much more.

The show is also very well filmed, phenomenally scored and the usage of that upbeat, fun 70s tune that gets repeated after each Nadia’s death got quite funny at times. The comedic highlights were the deaths themselves, but eventually those deaths became more tragic and disturbing, again making for a very tonally creative series.

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The time loop itself is handled so well. I liked that it wasn’t overly mythologized and explained, but that it remained mostly mysterious. The emphasis on the importance of healthy interpersonal relationships was the emotional core of the show. The pacing can get too brisk and I wished for longer episodes, but still I’ve had a blast with this first season.