The first season of Russian Doll (Netflix) was one of the best comedies of 2019, though to call it a comedy was to grasp at a rigidity that it never really claimed to have. It followed the trials and troubles of Nadia (Natasha Lyonne), a video game designer with a self-destructive streak, who kept dying after her 36th birthday party, only to find herself reincarnated at the same party, doomed to relive her death day in all of its glorious varieties, again and again and again. Its creators – Amy Poehler, Leslye Headland and Lyonne herself – found a morbid wit in Nadia’s predicament, and mined it for comedy, though by the end it had shape-shifted into something philosophical and profound.
Fans will remember that Russian Doll resolved its time-loop crisis in the end, when Nadia and fellow frequent death sufferer Alan (Charlie Barnett) finally came together, which begs the question of what a second season could do. If it condemned Nadia and Alan to forget the lessons they worked so hard to learn in order to stick to the premise, it would have felt cruel, even nihilistic.
