Russian Doll Season Two Is a Jewish Acid Trip

The first season of the Netflix hit “Russian Doll” was sublime. The story follows Nadia Volvukov, played by the electric Natasha Lyonne, who finds herself in a “Groundhog Day”-esque nightmare where each day ends with a gruesome death, only to repeat the same day all over again. Nadia’s grandparents were Holocaust survivors and her mother was a paranoid schizophrenic. In season one, we suspect her mother’s mental health struggles are connected to a form of inherited trauma. In order to stop dying and reliving the same day, Nadia must not only investigate her present, but also her past, and how her life is connected to those who came before her. Season two delves even deeper into these themes. Nadia is transported back in time to 1982, 1968, and, finally, to 1944, where she learns how her family’s story impacts her own choices today. “If Season One was about asking, ‘How do I stop dying?’” explained Lyonne on “The Tonight Show,” “Season Two asks, ‘How do I start living?’”

From the beginning, “Russian Doll” has been very Jewish. Nadia’s birthday party in episode one is set in a former yeshiva; one of the first lines of the show is “it’s laced with cocaine like the Israelis do it”; and quite a bit of time is spent in a rabbi’s office trying to make sense of the drama of repeatedly dying. The second season keeps Judaism front and center. Seeing yeshiva boys run out of Nadia’s apartment circa 1982 and watching Nadia dance with her ten-year-old mother to klezmer records are lovely flourishes, but the darker moments are what truly reveal Lyonne’s own upbringing as an Orthodox Jew, and as an individual clearly connected to the history of her people. In 1944 Budapest, Nadia finds herself in a warehouse where the  confiscated valuables of Hungarian Jews are being stored under Nazi supervision. The seemingly civilized citizens of Budapest walk through the aisles as though it were a department store, plucking items to their liking off shelves—furniture, jewelry, clothing—all without a hint of regret. An air of Jewish death and destruction hangs over this season for its entire run.

An air of Jewish death and destruction hangs over this season for its entire run.

Nadia is on a mission in the past. In season one, she explains that her grandparents lost everything in the war, and after reaching America, they elected to transfer their money into gold out of paranoia that banks and cash were untrustworthy. “But my mom,” continues Nadia, “because she’s a piece of work, she spent it all.” In the past, Nadia attempts to prevent her mother from recklessly losing her inheritance, but soon realizes it’s not that simple, as the wealth was already lost when European Jewish communities were looted and liquidated decades earlier. There is trauma attached to the wealth, just as there is trauma attached to the family who has continually lost it. Navigating Nadia’s own family history, Lyonne takes audiences through a psychedelic and philosophical whirlwind that viewers will certainly have to watch more than once to catch all the twists and turns. The concluding message of the season is that try as we might, we cannot change the past and, hard as we wish, we cannot alter its effect on who we are today.

The greatest strength of “Russian Doll” is the character of Nadia herself: a fiery red-headed chain-smoker who swaggers through the streets of New York muttering aphorisms under her breath in a raspy, Joe Pesci-like dialect. Lyonne has no doubt created an iconic Jewish archetype. Nadia is a gritty, cool, beatnik Jew—Nadia the cosmopolitan, the humorist, the punk. Her Judaism is one that doesn’t get quite the modern-day representation it deserves in the media but one that is surprisingly recognizable to viewers. It’s a Judaism of a different time and of a different New York, the tough Jew that has been replaced by the brainy or awkward Jew. It’s a Judaism that combines the sex appeal of Lou Reed, the comedy of Joan Rivers, and the intellect of I.L. Peretz. “Russian Doll” amalgamates all of this, which is why it is a more Jewish program than viewers may realize from focusing only on the plot, which, as a fan of the show, I will say one would be forgiven.

The current season relies on that fast-moving plot rather than on characters and relationships, which makes it less rich, and ultimately less impressive than its predecessor. Not to mention, it loses the cyclical pattern of storytelling after each of Nadia’s deaths, which contributed to the first season’s genius. I was originally skeptical of a sequel to the first season, having thought it ended with a perfect conclusion, but I was pleased to find that the dialogue in the latest rendition remains wickedly smart and packed with delightful pop-culture references. The writing is still an opportunity to look into Natasha Lyonne’s head, which is always a treat, and  makes a second season ultimately worth it. The season is overwhelming at some points in its experimentation with non-linear narratives. It’s downright trippy in others. It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but perhaps this was the goal.

The current season relies on that fast-moving plot rather than on characters and relationships, which makes it less rich, and ultimately less impressive than its predecessor.

“I guess I’ve learned to be increasingly less apologetic about being an intellectual,” said Lyonne during a recent interview with InStyle, in a half-joking manner. “I don’t really care anymore. I don’t care if it makes you uncomfortable. I know who I am.” This is the grain of salt I took in watching season two. Whether I was seeing a zany DMT-hallucination or a casual conversation with a “righteous among the nations” priest in Nazi-occupied Hungary, I knew I was seeing something both authentic and smart — and from one of the most authentic and smartest Jewish minds producing media today.

Blake Flayton is New Media Director and columnist at the Jewish Journal.