Russian Doll Review: Stop Hitting Yourself.

I’m jealous of groundhog day. I can’t be the only one who is. It's a unique concept executed perfectly. If you try to drink from the fountain of Bill Murray’s best movie (come at me) you best have a damn decent show in mind. Thankfully, Russian Doll does. It is both darker than it wants you to think it is as well as more complicated. Groundhog day was essentially a sardonic morality play. Boiling down to the message of “Hey! Don’t be an asshole.” Russian Doll has a bit more on its mind.

While at its core it remains a relationship drama it also sits a nifty science fiction puzzle in front of your nose and gives you 6 episodes to figure it out. I did not. For once I got a bit more than timey-wimey hand waving and was disappointed I didn’t piece together the rotting fruit bit earlier. That’s just one piece. You get your first real clue after the initial death. You’d have to pause a lot and take notes but you could do it.

That is how you get your cake and eat it too. Do you have a good relationship story? Maybe about how turning your terminal self loathing into a lifestyle is a sh*t idea? Then maybe sprinkle in some time travel shenanigans to prove that it would take divine intervention to get some people to notice. Basically it only uses time travel to tell a better relationship story and that’s what I respect most. You can be as story driven as you want but if your characters and their choices don’t make sense episode to episode (SHERLOCK) I’m not going to be happy enough with you to bother with a write up.

"Sweet birthday baby" is the new "Ned Ryerson"

I’m dancing around the story because I don’t want you to know anything going in. Are you a self loathing introvert or extrovert? This show is gonna say some things that might hit you in the gut. Stuff that’s quite a bit more heady than simply hating yourself is wrong. It’s also the rare netflix show feels exactly as long as it needs to be. The first few were so dense and delicious I wasn’t sure if they were 50 minutes or not. Not a second over 30 it turned out.

The best thing I can say about the writing is that every character has a point. Everyone. The jerks, the homeless, even a philandering jackhole has a point. Except the 3 minute scene where Nadia shows up to her programming day job. That was just a bad scene. A noticeably RARE bad scene, but there it is. It’s just nice to see a show about depression and self destruction where everybody's pain matters. Even the villain’s.

I can’t say you’re going to love Russian Doll. I sure as hell did, but it might get a bit dark for some and if you’ve never dealt seriously with depression it might be too navel gazy. But it’s got a good puzzle worth solving and if you start I’m confident you’ll finish it. You also may not like how it ends but again, I sure as hell did.