Russian Doll: Season One Review

 

Slight Spoilers? Kinda? The Russian Doll was suggested by my Peanut Gallery backer, Peter Lee. If you want to give him some competition head over to the Patreon and sign up! Thank for reading!

The second to last episode of Russian Doll took my legs out from under me. I did not expect anything like what happened.

Russian Doll is like what happens when you mix Groundhog Day with an angry drunk lady. There's a strange continuity that happens throughout the show, as Nadia dies over and over again. As time goes on there are little cues in the sets and design that make it feel like you are passing through time, even as you are repeating it. The visuals of this show are second to none. Like, Rian Johnson himself would be jealous of the meticulousness of the cinematography. Because episode 7 of 8 happens and I realized the trick and smacked myself for not seeing it, the whole time. 

Russian Doll is a story about the micro/macro-cosmic element of man coming into conflict. Nadia's fault is so basic that even Time stops. Like, I've never seen something that actively tells you why time travel stories exist so blatantly before (yes, including Groundhog Day): man is connected to all things and that includes Time, which he can also screw up. The essence of a time-travel story is that Time is a creature, just like us, and may itself have a breaking point. We take Time for granted, but he is watching, and sometimes he may intervene and force us to re-evaluate what we just did. And that may mean alternate paths so Time can hash out all the issues with each of us in particular, as we have to come to terms with the things that we've done, which Time has been forced to witness.

So, despite my misgivings about the sexual ethic (or the lack thereof) that the show pushes I find that this has been a definitive treatment in the time travel genre. The acting is fantastic, the visuals are eerie in their detail, the ending episodes just hit you right in the gut, and those last five minutes of the first season are the closest thing to a perfect ending I may ever see in a TV show. 

No seriously, I think it's that good.