Three years ago I reviewed season one of "Russian Doll" and really liked it. I'm not sure that I felt a second season was really required, as it felt like a contained story, but I did say that if there was one, then I'd be back for it. Having watched it, I'm not sure that I really enjoyed it that much as I felt that the story was sacrificed for surface level ideas.
Nadia's (Natasha Lyonne) birthday is approaching again. As she takes the subway she discovers that she has travelled back to the early 80's and is inhabiting her mother Lenora (Chloe Sevigny). Accustomed now to unusual situations, she soon sees the opportunity to improve her lot in life by stopping Lenora from stealing and losing the family heirloom. She encourages Alan (Charlie Barnett) to use the train too, and he ends up inhabiting his own grandmother in segregated Berlin, in 1962.
Lyonne is still great and Nadia is still one of TV's classic characters. Her sardonic non-plussed trip through her family's history is fun to watch. I'm not convinced though that the story holds together as well as it might. The time loop of season one was, admittedly, an easier concept to get your head around than the quirk of this one. The subway train that transports you back into your parents/grandparents depending on which carriage you travel in. Where it gets slightly more confusing is when it then starts transporting people around the world, and not just around New York.
There's then a surface level exploration of a number of themes. Her mum's mental illness, her family's wartime persecution, as well as accepting the past. It's best though in the final couple of episodes, when time starts to cave in on itself. This story also leaves Alan much more of an outsider this time, and truth be told, his storyline could have been dropped entirely, again until the final couple of episodes.
I know they have a three season arc in mind and I'll probably come back for that third season if it's ever forthcoming - but at the moment, I feel like this tarnishes an exemplary first run.