Russian Doll is a new Netflix original series that showcases a girl reliving the same day over and over.
Similar to Groundhog Day, Bandersnatch, Source Code and Happy Death Day, there is a lot to unpack from the show. Throughout this video, I will be breaking down everything that you need to know about Russian Doll and it’s ending.
There will be heavy spoilers here, so if you don’t want to know anything about Russian Doll or it’s ending then I highly suggest that you turn off now.
With that out the way, I’m deffinition and welcome to the channel where I watch it so you don’t have to.
Russian Doll: Plot Synopsis
We follow Nadia, a chain-smoking Software engineer who is forced to relive her 36th birthday over and over again.
This is a big birthday for Nadia as she has finally reached a point in which she is older than her mother ever was but doesn’t mean that the character has much more time than her deceased parent.
Nadia is repeatedly killed over and over and sent back to square one and similar to the video games that the character creates, she must navigate the right path to make it to the next point in the journey.
Nadia is given the choice to retread the path she’s walked on before with an Ex, go in a different direction with a new flame and fix her mistakes all whilst trying to find her cat Oatmeal.
Russian Doll Analysis
Eventually she bumps into a man named Alan who like her is reliving the exact same day over and over again. Whilst Nadia is spiralling into a pit of despair, Alan is actually rejoicing in the time loop because he knows what to expect.
The two are complete opposites but their shared experience brings them together and makes them both come to the realisation that in order to escape the loop they must first confront their past traumas and use them to empower themselves.
Nadia must confront the psychological damage that was dealt to her by her mother and Alan must Deal with the fact that he actually initially died due to suicide and both characters must right these wrongs in order to progress. The show states that we must break the endless loops of our lives in order to progress outside of our own trappings.
Nadia discovers Alan completely wasted and on the brink of killing himself whereas Alan finds Nadia just about to get hit by a car, similar to how she died in the first episode.
Russian Doll Time Loop Explained
The two must then convince the other versions of themselves to save themselves and this breaks the loop. Though they are in separate timelines the two couples end up going off together with one another and this showcases that others who have been through trauma, though feeling alone can have shared experiences with people in similar situations that will eventually lead to a support system.
In the homeless hair cut scene we see that Nadia has the opportunity to shed the past and start a new and with Alan at her side she will be able to. She even goes back to offer him support and this is mirrored in her and Alan’s experience.
It’s a really touching thing to take from the show and demonstrates that there are other alternatives from spiralling out of control to the point of losing your life because of it. It really showcases that in the end we all need each other.
Russian Doll Ending Explained
We are all capable of making choices both for the better and worse but making the correct ones will eventually lead to stability and happiness.
In an interview with Thrillist, when discussing the ending, Natasha Lyonne, star and show creator, stated:
“I think a joking way to put Russian Doll is that life is the sum of your timelines. There are all these different versions of you because — even if they don’t physically happen in a time-travel, magical-realism way — in your head you’re still living that life where you made the choice to marry that guy, where you made the choice to stop talking to your family. It’s always kind of lingering out there: You could have been a better or worse person.”
Russian Doll Season 2?
There are also other hints that there are multiple versions of Nadia walking around when she passes two people possessing her distinctive red hair.
When addressing this, Lyonne said:
“I’m kind of interested to see what the fan theories are. To me it’s more of an impressionistic ending. Like I said, there’s always a million yous walking around. It just depends on which one you’re going to put on today. It raises the question of how many versions [of the characters] are there altogether? That’s certainly something that was considered, In this video game sense, it presents a question of do they in fact just enter a whole new sort of scenario in that moment, that they kind of completed that round?”
Your Thoughts
Obviously I’d love to hear your thoughts on this and with the show initially being pitched as three seasons what you think could happen down the line. Comment below and let me know and if you’re feeling a bit like Nadia then rewatch this video and click the pop up links to take you on a new path with one of my other videos.
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