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Russian Doll ep. 7

Alright, now we’re FINALLY getting somewhere. 

After more dying, speculating, and a brief, drunken hookup, Nadia and Alan are finally getting to the bottom of the reason for their time loop.  Nadia suspects that them meeting each other on the first night has caused a “bug in the system”, much like a bug in a computer program.  She suspects this because of the fact that some things stay the same, but other things are changing.  And in recent episodes, more and more things are changing.  First, we have the mirror in the bathroom disappear, then people begin to disappear.  

Another tip off is the fruit in the universe.  Despite the same day happening over and over again, the fruit is rotting, as if it’s been sitting in the same spot for days.  See below for a really nasty photo:

However, these fruit are still edible.  Don’t believe me?

...Yeah.  Things are going somewhere.  

In this episode, we are finally introduced to Nadia’s mother, Lenora, through flashbacks.  We’ve already seen that she has mental problems, but they are highlighted in this episode.  We also get to see little Nadia.  So cute!

In 1991, Nadia and Lenora are buying watermelons (for who knows why), and the song playing during this is “The Promise” by When in Rome.  Her mom says, “This is it, Nadia.  This is the day we get free.”  What does this mean?  We’ll find out.  

I think that using this song for this scene explains why the soundtrack to the entire series is typically 80s rock and roll, and electronica.  While this was 1991, pop culture was still predominantly from the 80s, and this seems to be a large part of Nadia’s identity.  Why exactly are we flashing back to 1991?  What is so significant about it?  Let’s summarize the rest of the episode before answering this question.  

Nadia and Alan go back to the deli to recreate when they first met, when...

What.  the.  heck?

Yes, Nadia sees her younger self walking around.  Then young Nadia starts to bleed, and then Nadia dies.  Why is Nadia seeing herself?

Before I go on, one interesting note that I wanted to point out is the lack of music in the form of song in this episode.  We start off with one song, but the rest seems to only have ambient sounds.  The scene above, for example, has a very creepy, scratchy sound with a ringing high note above.  This made me as a viewer very uncomfortable, and I knew that this was super important so Nadia could figure out her time loop.  This is a weird step away from the usual noise I am used to hearing in this series, so I know we must be close to ending Nadia and Alan’s torture.  

Alan connects the dots and realizes that he needs to tell his girlfriend, Beatrice, he is sorry and he forgives her for cheating.  He needs that closure, and he tells Nadia that she needs to find closure too.  This is where things get interesting.  Through flashback, we find out that Nadia ended up being taken from Lenora, and was put under Ruth’s care.  During a mental breakdown, Lenora went through the house and smashed all the mirrors.  A year after Ruth gained custody, Lenora was dead.  Nadia blames herself for her mothers death.

This is why the 80s music is so important.  It was the music that was around when Nadia’s life was changed forever, and her fatal mistake was made.

She remembers one thing she needs to do before she dies again, and that is to meet John (her ex-boyfriends) daughter, Lucy.  She brings the girl a copy of a book she read as a kid.  It’s a touching gesture, and everything seems to go well until Nadia begins to cough.  She then coughs up blood, spattering it all over Lucy (who is eerily unphased by it????)

 Lucy asks if she’s sick, says “She’s still inside you,” and then Nadia pulls out what seems to be a broken piece of glass out of her throat.  turns into young Nadia, and young Nadia says “Are you ready to let her die?” in a distorted voice.  Nadia nods yes, and young Nadia whispers, “This is the day we get free.”  All the while, we hear the same ambient noises that we heard when we saw young Nadia the first time.  This music is significant here, too, because it suggests that Nadia will no longer be in a time loop.  However, we don’t know, because the episode cuts off on Nadia dying.  What a cliffhanger!

One episode left.  What’s gonna happen?

PS.  While Nadia is on this riveting adventure, Alan goes and talks to Beatrice, meets Mike, and all is good.  Why does Alan get such an easy time, and Nadia gets glass down her throat???

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Russian Doll ep. 4

Before we get into episode four, let me quickly summarize what happened in episodes two and three:

1. She dies a lot. She fell down the stairs many times, fell down an open sewer grate twice, and she even froze to death while taking care of a homeless man named Horse. She's having a time...

2. She begins her search for the cause of the time loop. She first suspects ketamine, then a old yeshiva-turned-apartment building she thought maybe was haunted. It had to be anything else except her own mind.

3. We are given a glimpse into Nadia's childhood. Ruth, Nadia's mother figure and a psychiatrist, took care of her after her mom died, and it seems like she might have had a severe mental illness. Nadia doesn't want to turn into her mother, and this time loop doesn't bode well for that.

4. Nadia dies at the end of the 3rd episode, by a failing elevator. In this scene, she discovers a man who is ALSO IN A TIME LOOP! What a great meet-cute.

We're introduced to Alan, a young man who is stuck reliving the day he unsuccessfully proposes to his fiancée. However, unlike Nadia, he likes this routine. He says in the episode that he likes the routine. This is shown through is entrance music, the Rondo from Beethoven's 4th piano concerto. This piece functions the same way that "Gotta Get Up" functions for Nadia. What's interesting about this episode is that classical music is used more than the typical 80s, electronic style that is seen in the first three episodes.

This represents Alan and his personality. Like I said before, he likes his routine. He starts his time loop by brushing his teeth, killing a fly, and then packing for a trip he doesn't go on. Since classical music is considered "high-brow" and for a certain class of people, it kind of represents order. Not to mention, the "Rondo" form in music is known for repeating a motive over and over again (ABACAD etc.). It literally repeats over and over again, just like Alan.

You can imagine Alan's surprise and frustration when he meets Nadia and his routine starts falling apart. This is evident in the entrance music, where we see the concerto with Alan, then the scene changes to Nadia with "Gotta Get Up", and then we switch back to Alan, but "Gotta Get Up" continues to play. The fact that "Gotta Get Up" is bleeding into Alan's time loop shows that Nadia and Alan are connected now: their routines will never be the same now.

Especially for Alan, Nadia's appearance in his life causes him even more turmoil, as he now discovers that his girlfriend was cheating on him with her advisor from college (who, incidentally, Nadia hooked up with in the first episode). This was a fact unknown to him before Nadia appeared, and once him and Nadia discuss this, we hear the last movement of Beethoven's Symphony no. 2 in D. This symphony was written around the time that Beethoven figured out he was deaf, and this is him trying to deal with this fact (Source). This can parallel Alan's discovery that his girlfriend is cheating on him. He isn't quite sure what to do with it, but he is trying to overcome it with Nadia.

My question is: what the heck is happening here? Why are Nadia and Alan, who are completely opposite people, experiencing a time loop together? What, or who, is making them come together? How can they stop the time loop?

At the end of the episode, Alan throws his engagement ring into the ocean, and then he promptly dies. This scene departs from the classical music for Alan that we have heard usually. According to Netflix, this song is called "Irhe" (I'm unable to find the song for this, so check it out on Netflix!). This song marks the return of the 80s style of music that accompanies Nadia. This song shows that Alan is changing. He's trying to overcome his obsessiveness, and he's becoming happier.

When he returns to the beginning of his time loop, he unpacks the box the wedding ring came in and notices that it is still missing. So what does this mean for the next loops? Can this be that the rest of the world can be permanently altered, and how will it affect Nadia and Alan while they try and figure out what's happening to them?

Also still unclear: why is this time loop happening?

Citation:

Gibbs, Christopher H. "Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 21." NPR. June 06, 2006. Accessed March 21, 2019. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5454034

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Russian Doll, ep. 1

I’ll be completely honest:  I went into this show wanting to hate it.  

The whole Groundhog Day trope of being stuck in a time loop has been used and reused often (especially as of late), and I expected this show to be no exception to this.  However, I was hooked from the first episode.  We are introduced to Nadia Vulvokov, a woman celebrating her 36th birthday.  In the very first scene, we see her looking into a mirror, with the song Gotta Get Up by Harry Nilsson.  Don’t worry though if you didn’t quite catch this song the first time: you’ll have a chance to hear it every time Nadia dies.  That’s right, Nadia dies on her birthday.  What a great way to celebrate 36, right?

This is Nadia’s timeloop: every time she dies, she ends up in the bathroom again, staring into the mirror.  This song was chosen by Natasha Lyonne, the actress who plays Nadia (source).  She says Nilsson’s music had “a kind of ending that was unpleasant.”  Well, we can certainly relate that to Nadia.

The lyrics of the song are what strike me.  “There was a time when we could dance until a quarter to ten, we never thought it would end then...we used to carry on and drink and do the rock and roll, we never thought we’d get older...”  These lyrics, along with the rest of the song, characterize Nadia.  She’s a smart but carefree lady.  During the day, she works as a computer programmer for video games, but at night she loves to hook up with strangers, smoke different substances, and drink tons of alcohol.  In this episode, we’re introduced to Nadia’s ex, John, and it seems that Nadia was the one who broke it off, showing that she is pretty non-committal.  Maybe now that she’s getting older, she has to now take life more seriously and start becoming a better person.  I don’t know why dying over and over is a good punishment for doing drugs and having casual sex, but I guess the universe can’t be wrong?

One thing that stood out to me is one of the scenes where Nadia is simply just doing her job: programming.  It’s a very short scene that only lasts around 20 seconds or so, but it shows Nadia programming, as well as trying to smoke.  The song that plays in the background is And the Rain by John Maus.  This song is interesting, because its lyrics are very sparse.  The creators may have chosen it simply because Nadia is programming, and the song has an electrical sound, with synthesizers playing the main notes.  However, I think the lyrics, despite there being very few of them, are important. “Will someone please tell me the truth...and the rain came down...it rains on everyone.”  I think that these lyrics represent Nadia’s feelings about her life, and are foreshadowing later episodes.  She says earlier in the episode that she is having a “midlife crisis”, and she’ll be “shocked if she makes it to her early 70s.”  Usually people who party like Nadia does have something they’re running away from (spoiler alert: she’s running away from a lot of things).  

The last scene that struck me was the very last scene.  Nadia tells herself “Be careful.” (since she can die literally at any time and will have to start over with everyone around her).  She then walks into the streets to try and figure out what is happening to her.  The song that plays is Shallow Tears by Light Asylum.  “Like a storm, lightning striking black and white.  You were born out of this darkness and light, to this world with a thorn stuck in your side”.  This song helps show that Nadia hasn’t gotten the best foot in life.  She’s had to work for everything she’s gotten (SPOILER ALERT) because her childhood wasn’t a happy one.  She’s going to fight this fight by herself, because there’s no one else to help her.  

I’m very excited to talk more about the rest of the series.  The music choices are phenomenal, and the series itself is super compelling.  Question to ponder as the series continues:

(Obviously) why the time loop?  But more specifically, why is she dying and reliving her 36th birthday?  What is the significance?

Citation:

Harris, Aisha. "This Is That Song From 'Russian Doll'." The New York Times. February 02, 2019. Accessed March 03, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/01/arts/television/russian-doll-netflix-harry-nilsson-gotta-get-up.html.