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 Russian Doll is a Netflix comedy-drama series created by Natasha Lyonne, Amy Poehler, and Leslye Headland. It stars Lyonne and Charlie Barnett, and concerns Nadia's birthday party and her death. And then her birthday party. And then her death. And then her birthday party. And then yadda yadda yadda, you get the picture. It's really well-written, acted, and has a killer soundtrack. There's only 8 episodes, and each is about 25 minutes long, so it's entirely bingable in an evening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHcKoAMGGvY Spoilers abound here, and you should probably watch the whole thing before coming in. That said, tag your spoilers in the standard Netflix format like (Ep 2) Oatmeal is a cat.
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Feb 25, 2019 01:32
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Loved it. Interested to see what, if anything, (Ep8) it meant to see the other Nadias pushing past her going the other way in the parade.
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Feb 25, 2019 02:00
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curiousCat posted:Loved it. Interested to see what, if anything, (Ep8) it meant to see the other Nadias pushing past her going the other way in the parade. Yes, that was intriguing, but I'm not sure how much is to be read into that scene at all? It seems like a little too much whimsy and fantasy for the series up to then?
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Feb 25, 2019 02:13
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Honestly, I can’t imagine getting anything from this series by watching the last episode first.
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Feb 25, 2019 02:58
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The_Doctor posted:Honestly, I can’t imagine getting anything from this series by watching the last episode first. it's the superior way to enjoy things 
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Feb 25, 2019 03:12
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This show is one of the best things on Netflix. The subtle changes to Maxine's line delivery of "Sweet birthday, baby!" was one little thing I loved with each reboot.
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Feb 25, 2019 03:33
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I find it interesting (full series) that they heavily implied that the first time we see her isn't the first loop, since she comments that there are fewer fish and there are more fish and more people in the apartment in the last episode. Also, the actors who play the ambulance drivers, coworkers at the code meeting and drunk guys at the convenience store are all the same three actors.
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Feb 25, 2019 03:49
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Emerson Cod posted:I find it interesting (full series) that they heavily implied that the first time we see her isn't the first loop, since she comments that there are fewer fish and there are more fish and more people in the apartment in the last episode. Also, the actors who play the ambulance drivers, coworkers at the code meeting and drunk guys at the convenience store are all the same three actors. There's also her thinking she's met Horse before. In the first episode.
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Feb 25, 2019 04:05
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The_Doctor posted:Yes, that was intriguing, but I'm not sure how much is to be read into that scene at all? It seems like a little too much whimsy and fantasy for the series up to then? I just took it as a visual cue/poetic license thing to indicate the loop finally closing. Both timelines moving in one direction while both "fixed" versions of Nadia (wearing the frilly shirt) and Alan (wearing the scarf) are together moving in the other direction with everyone else. I have no idea how it makes sense or what the magic mechanics are of that, but as a symbolic imagery sense to me that's as good as putting "The End" across the screen.
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Feb 25, 2019 04:37
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While it was a headfake near the end when it looks like Alan jumped off the roof, for a moment I thought that each of them was going to lose the other in their respective timelines. How cruel, to go through all this, only to see the other person die as soon as it’s over, and never know that they live in an alternate timeline, where you died.
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Feb 25, 2019 04:47
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So I saw this a month or so ago and loved it and had some thoughts. I actually assumed due to to Nadia's coding stuff that they were implying some sort of memory leak glitch was happening. The thing where people and objects were disappearing made me think that stuff past a certain threshold of complexity weren't loading due to recursive running of a program, like if you open skyrim like fifteen times and stuff starts stuttering and not working right, or in a game where variables aren't saved properly and loaded saves start having flags tripped that aren't meant to be. Things like fruit rotting is like variables continuing to iterate because the loop is an unexpected resolution of the function. It's all thoroughly technobabbly stuff and I don't think that's ACTUALLY what's happening, but it all sort of made a strange kind of sense. Something similar happened to me playing Morrowind or something years ago where I loaded a corrupt save and there were lots of things missing like doors and people and monsters and sound effects and it creeped me out like the empty world scene in the penultimate episode did!
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Feb 25, 2019 15:23
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I really enjoyed Russian Doll and I especially liked how it went from wacky screwball fuckup comedy to deeply emotional and downright creepy at times. It was a whole-rear end journey. Great soundtrack, too! (Ep 8) I was puzzled by the ending shot where it appeared that Loop Nadia and Loop Alan ditched their 'fixed' timelines to end up together, but I was puzzled in a delighted kind of way. I'd thought it was really smart (buit gutwrenching) how Loop Nadia and Loop Alan got "stuck" back in their own timelines because of course that's how it should work. Those subjective beings are sharing an anomalous reality that they don't share in "real life" (this show is hard to talk about). So, I sort of took the ending shot as a visual metaphor for connection rather than it "really happening". Sort of like a fun tableau to go out on rather than a canonical event.
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Feb 25, 2019 15:42
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There is definitely some symbolic imagery going on in the show (like the literal shard of glass representing ...), in the final scene of episode 8 there's a "blink and you'll miss it" event: (episode 8 spoilers)  which is very poetic and all but also 'wait what??!'. It's nice that a lot of that scene (and really the entire show) is left open to interpretation though double nine fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Feb 25, 2019 |
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Feb 25, 2019 15:49
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Sweet thread, babyyy!
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Feb 25, 2019 22:43
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Gonna mention it in the binge thread, but if you like the Groundhog Day + twist genre you're gonna want to catch an unsung 1 season from ABC circa 2009 called Daybreak. Groundhog day + police murder conspiracy + Taye Diggs.
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Feb 26, 2019 03:11
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It isn’t on Hulu and on Netflix there’s only a 2019 series by that name. Is there anywhere to see it online?
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Feb 26, 2019 03:26
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Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:Gonna mention it in the binge thread, but if you like the Groundhog Day + twist genre you're gonna want to catch an unsung 1 season from ABC circa 2009 called Daybreak. Further related in the Groundhog Day + twist + Birthday is Happy Death Day and it's just released sequel Happy Death Day 2 U. Heavier on the comedy and light horror, but both are awfully fun in their own ways.
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Feb 26, 2019 03:46
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I think it is a bit of a shame that Natasha Lyonne is getting all the attention for the show, sure she is the star, but Charlie Barnett as Alan is the best part of the show. Without it Nadia is just this annoying person with douchy friends.
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Feb 26, 2019 09:18
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Oasx posted:I think it is a bit of a shame that Natasha Lyonne is getting all the attention for the show, sure she is the star, but Charlie Barnett as Alan is the best part of the show. Without it Nadia is just this annoying person with douchy friends. He’s really great as NYC’s most boring black man in the first loop, and his evolution to the final loop version comes so naturally, it’s some really great acting. I noticed that his wardrobe becomes more colourful as he goes on. Initially we see he’s all in whites and greys, but then he chooses something else, and by a later loop he’s got that yellow shirt on. Also he’s got a very nice butt. 
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Feb 26, 2019 12:02
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Great article about Natasha Lyonne’s hair.
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Feb 26, 2019 14:35
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Just finished this and absolutely loved it. I’m surprised there aren’t more posts here. It’s probably my favorite thing I’ve watched on Netflix for awhile. The two leads were absolutely fantastic together. Also, big props to the actress who plays Maxine for finding a way to say “sweet birthday, baby!” 100 different times and keep it interesting.
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Mar 2, 2019 07:33
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Loved it. It's like Groundhog Day meets NYC. Comment on 'Why?': Horse's bit about, "life is a nightmare," made me think some rando cosmic entity helped out some humans like a rando tourist getting a baby elephant out of a ditch.
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Mar 3, 2019 07:39
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Mar 3, 2019 08:00
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What in the actual gently caress
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Mar 3, 2019 11:23
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Show made me laugh since it made me think of those cheesy chose you own adventure books. Like how you randomly pick a the forest path and get killed by some random bandits.
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Mar 3, 2019 17:15
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Easily the best TV of 2019 so far.
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Mar 3, 2019 17:46
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Mike’s last couple scenes are especially poignant, that hole line is great.
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Mar 3, 2019 22:35
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Who's Mike again?
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Mar 4, 2019 01:01
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Gaunab posted:Who's Mike again? He's, "the hole where a choice should be." Alan's fiancee's side-piece.
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Mar 4, 2019 01:08
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Emerson Cod posted:I find it interesting (full series) that they heavily implied that the first time we see her isn't the first loop, since she comments that there are fewer fish and there are more fish and more people in the apartment in the last episode. Also, the actors who play the ambulance drivers, coworkers at the code meeting and drunk guys at the convenience store are all the same three actors. Wow I missed that. Is there any indication of a second season? The scene in the conference room when they are awkwardly trying to talk around her is cast in a different light for me.
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Mar 4, 2019 01:39
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Accretionist posted:He's, "the hole where a choice should be." Alan's fiancee's side-piece. Oh yeah. That guy was too much for me with his constant bullshitting.
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Mar 4, 2019 02:26
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The sheer variety of deaths reminded me of Edge of Tomorrow.
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Mar 4, 2019 04:16
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Gaunab posted:Oh yeah. That guy was too much for me with his constant bullshitting. He's interesting because he's the only person who knows exactly how lovely he is, is completely OK with how lovely he is, doesn't pretend to be anything but lovely, and will calmly tell you how lovely he is if you ask him about it. The "hole where a choice should be" line is a dodge, but it's a self-accepting dodge that comes from self-knowledge. Self-image is a huge part of the show, and he's able to calmly make that brutally accurate statement so flippantly says a lot -- also notice that he has a line where Allan smashes the mirror in his office, and he asks the girl how he looks in an incredibly shallow way. It's a very good show, that so many of the secondary characters are interesting, with well-suggested internal lives and backstories.
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Mar 4, 2019 04:38
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Emerson Cod posted:I find it interesting (full series) that they heavily implied that the first time we see her isn't the first loop, since she comments that there are fewer fish and there are more fish and more people in the apartment in the last episode. I've seen this suggested a lot and I'm not sure if it makes sense to me is the implication that the first loop we see is her second, but the final loop is a replica of the first? In that case, she dies twice the same way (or would have if Alan hadn't pulled her back onto the curb), which seems unlikely*. Or are you saying that the final loop is also a replica of her second loop, in which case why would 'fixing' her second loop reset the timeline? Either way doesn't seem to add up to me. I think we did see her first loop, and the oddness is just foreshadowing - for example, I think her recognising Horse is establishing that his character doesn't exist within the loops/timeline in the same way that all the other recurring characters do. * I know she falls down the steps umpteen times, but she's aware of it - usually this theory assumes that she forgot her first death because it was a suicide like Alan. GetBehindTheMule fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Mar 4, 2019 |
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Mar 4, 2019 05:00
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Test Pattern posted:He's interesting because he's the only person who knows exactly how lovely he is, is completely OK with how lovely he is, doesn't pretend to be anything but lovely, and will calmly tell you how lovely he is if you ask him about it. The "hole where a choice should be" line is a dodge, but it's a self-accepting dodge that comes from self-knowledge. Self-image is a huge part of the show, and he's able to calmly make that brutally accurate statement so flippantly says a lot -- also notice that he has a line where Allan smashes the mirror in his office, and he asks the girl how he looks in an incredibly shallow way. I'm sure he could be seen as interesting but his self acknowledgement of his shittiness is such an obvious dodge and he's so obviously shallow that it made me roll my eyes whenever the show showed his bullshitting working so much. It was probably to show how he picked up emotionally vulnerable women or something but like I said it was too much for me.
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Mar 4, 2019 05:49
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I really loved the show and I just hope that it doesn't turn out to be some kind of simulation to help people cope with depression/childhood trauma because that seems pretty uninspired. I'm personally fine with the mechanics and "reason" to remain completely unexplained because that's ultimately not really important to the morality play that we're watching. But I do have a feeling that this is what is going to happen based on Nadia being a programmer, Maxine's reactions to Nadia telling her multiple times that people are disappearing (no one shows up to a party at 9pm!/I am the whole party!/I can't leave the apartment!), everything with Nadia seeing her childhood self, spitting out a shard of broken mirror, etc Ultimately I am fine with whatever happens because I like the characters and tone of the show, but it's fun to think about. It reminds me of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind a lot. Emerson Cod posted:I find it interesting (full series) that they heavily implied that the first time we see her isn't the first loop, since she comments that there are fewer fish and there are more fish and more people in the apartment in the last episode. Also, the actors who play the ambulance drivers, coworkers at the code meeting and drunk guys at the convenience store are all the same three actors. I disagree because when she first sees the fish tank in episode 1, while talking to Mike for the first time, there are 7-8 fish swimming around. After the first time she's killed by the cab she notices only two fish (and mentions it to Maxine who claims she only ever had two fish), but after Nadia gives the book to Beatrice and starts spitting blood everywhere she sees that the 7-8 fish and everyone at the party is back when she loops again. The whole bathroom to kitchen sequence in the last episode mirrors the same sequence as in the first episode, she says hello to the same people but she's much happier to see them the 'second' time around because it signifies that things are 'fixed'. ONE YEAR LATER fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Mar 4, 2019 |
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Mar 4, 2019 20:47
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The creepiest part of the show for me was the bit in the everything's-gone loop where Maxine told Nadia she couldn't leave with her in a way that seemed like she was aware of whatever narrative was happening and was being forced to still play her part. hosed up, yo.double nine posted:There is definitely some symbolic imagery going on in the show (like the literal shard of glass representing ...), in the final scene of episode 8 there's a "blink and you'll miss it" event: From what I can see, we start in splitscreen with one side showing Loop Nadia and the other showing Other Nadia, Loop Nadia enters the tunnel at one end and Other Nadia at the other end; we cut to Horse, and then when we go back to splitscreen it's actually Other Nadia mirrored in both split screen sides. The split screen merges and the two mirrored Other Nadias pass either side of Loop Nadia going in the opposite direction, which is that shot. It's a weird shot, but I'm not reading into it as that literal. There's a lot of other messing around there too - I think both Nadias actually flip direction, and while they're offscreen Other Alan swaps direction with Loop Alan. The main thing is that the final shot is actually Loop Nadia (with the white scarf) and Loop Alan (with the red scarf) leading the parade together. It could be read into that their timelines fell back together at that moment. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 13:56 on Mar 6, 2019 |
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Mar 6, 2019 13:37
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The penultimate loop reminded me of the TNG episode ‘Remember Me’ where the weird emptiness is seen as normal by the other inhabitants. “We’ve never needed a crew before.”
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Mar 6, 2019 20:11
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It was a good show and I liked it a lot; I'll watch Natasha Lyonne smoke cigarettes and banter any day of the week. I couldn't help thinking that Alan was supposed to be played by Rami Malek, but then he became a mega star and jumped 5 pay grades above the show's budget. Laterite fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Mar 7, 2019 |
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Mar 6, 2019 21:54
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My thing about Nadia is that she already feels very ‘out of time’ when you meet her. She comes across as this sort of 70s/80s New Yorker, of a style that doesn’t really exist any more.
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Mar 7, 2019 01:31
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