It has been three years since Russian Doll was a Netflix hit, and fans of the show have finally been given their first look at the upcoming second season. With the first season seeming to wrap up its story, there is a lot of speculation about just where the sophomore outing will take Nadia (Natasha Lyonne) and who will be coming along with her for the ride as she finds herself caught in another time-traveling mystery. Charlie Barnett will also be reprising his role of Alan, with the pair discovering a time portal in one of Manhattan’s best known locations that leads them on an adventure into their own pasts.
Russian Doll arrived on Netflix in 2019, bringing to life the intriguing concept of a woman, Nadia, trapped in a time-loop that was seemingly destined to always end with her death. Imagine a brash, foul-mouthed and occasionally violent version of Groundhog Day and you are almost there. Eventually, Nadia discovered that she was not the only one suffering the strange suspension of time when she met Alan, who was caught in his own time hell. Together, they managed to break the loop, and it seemed like all was well with the pair.
For the second season, it looks like everything is going to get even more bizarre, with Lyonne speaking to Entertainment Weekly about the “wild ride” that is coming for fans. "It's definitely a wild ride. It is deep, and deeply off-the-wall," Lyonne, who co-created and showruns the series, said. "I genuinely think the joy of the game is to watch it with fresh eyes as much as you can in order to be taken by the story, like saddling up with a book in the attic and letting that world take you away on a journey. I do have this dream that people get to do that with this show. We all pushed ourselves to the limit of what we thought we could make happen visually and through the storytelling.”
Check out the images below.
Russian Doll Takes A Well-Used Time Loop Trope and Turns It On Its Head
When it comes to time travel, the subject has been covered in every way conceivably possible. Whether it is Back To Future, with someone traveling back in time and altering the future, the aforementioned Groundhog Day, in which Bill Murray was forced to relive the same day over and over until he manages to do things right to break out of the look, or 11/22/63, the Stephen King story about someone finding a portal to the past and using it to save JFK from being assassinated, there are not many more unique ways to deal with the subject. Russian Doll, however, gave it a good go in its first season, with short snappy episodes and a few unexpected twists.
Season 2 has taken a long time to arrive, and that means fans will no doubt want to refresh their memories of the current episodes available on Netflix ahead of the new ones arrive sometime this spring. As well as Lyonne and Barnett reprising their roles, Russian Doll added Schitt's Creek star Annie Murphy to the cast early last year. It certainly looks like the series will be taking a few more unexpected twists and turns in these new episodes, and if it proves to be half as entertaining and intriguing as the premiere season then it is sure to be another big hit for the steaming platform.