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Season 2 is a huge letdown by Mischief Maker 08/23/2022, 9:05am PDT Season 1 of Russian Doll is probably my favorite Netflix original. I was dreading season 2 and my dread was justified, but fortunately it was one of those bad unnecessary sequels that don't ruin the original. Without going into explicit spoilers, it's a disappointment equivalent to Stranger Things season 2. The mystery has already been solved, now here's more of the same leading to an ending you saw coming a mile away with nothing new learned. *SPOILERZ* In general it's not the emotional rollercoaster of season 1, sliding from comedy to melodrama to horror to surreal in the blink of an eye. The tone of s2 is pretty uniformly dreary from start to finish. Nadia's using her new quantum leap powers to try and recover her grandmother's stolen gold and missing the final hours of her adoptive mother's life in the process. Remember how the resolution of s1 hinged on her forming a relationship of mutual support with Alan? Yeah, fuck that relationship. While Alan does go on a quantum leap journey of his own, we barely see any of it on screen, it never intersects with Nadia's, and nothing is accomplished. The whole thing seems to end with a shrug. When he finally reconnects with Nadia in the final episode his own journey is over and he's reduced to nagging her to stop being selfish and restore the status quo. Alan is every bit the same control-freak neurotic he was at the start of s1, Nadia is just as selfish and self-loathing, nothing was learned. Season 1 had lots of interesting characters with unique personalities and it was fun to watch Nadia bounce off them. Season 2's characters are rote and one-note so it's the Nadia show with her constantly dropping quotes and witticisms that get blank stares of confusion from characters too far in the past to get the references. I actually found her schtick downright infuriating when she quantum leapt into the body of her Jewish grandmother in Nazi-occupied Hungary and she can't stop quipping at Nazi soldiers while other Jewish women in hiding panic and cover for her so she doesn't get shipped to Auschwitz. The music isn't as good as Season 1 either. Like I said before, the mystery has already been solved in s1. She has to accept the past to get out of this crazy predicament and it's an increasingly annoying wait until she finally does. The final scene is her arriving at the wake of her adoptive mother who she ghosted on in her final moments. It's a downer ending to a story where the only lesson learned is that the ugly old women in her life were fucking hot in their youth. Season 1 is still highly recommended, but season 2 is not very good and doesn't even feel like it's bringing you back to the same quirky world. Just give s1 a rewatch instead.

Surprised I never mentioned "Russian Doll" here! by Mischief Maker 06/07/2021, 6:59pm PDT     I need to watch that sometime. Here's the reason I love MANIAC: by Fullofkittens 06/08/2021, 8:01am PDT         My problems with MANIAC (spoilerz): by Mischief Maker 06/08/2021, 8:37am PDT     Season 2 is a huge letdown by Mischief Maker 08/23/2022, 9:05am PDT         Russian Doll s1 > MANIAC > Russian Doll s2 NT by Mischief Maker 08/23/2022, 2:58pm PDT