Russian Doll's use of time travel, loops, and glitches makes for a rather confusing show. The strange events that surround Nadia often feel like a fever dream, and leave audiences frequently saying the phrase "what is going on here?" However, the show manages to combine these trippy events with Amy Poehler's phenomenal sense of humor to create a really enjoyable story.
Now that all seven episodes of the long-awaited season 2 are available to stream on Netflix, fans are finishing up their binge and sitting back to think about everything that happened. While Nadia seemed to have found another (somewhat) happy ending, very few questions from the previous season were answered, as well as any additional questions that the plot of season 2 added.
What is Nadia and Alan's Connection?
The start of season 1 sees Nadia dying over and over again, only to each time return to the same spot at her birthday party. As far as she can tell, all the people around her are completely oblivious to the time loop. That is until she meets Alan. Together, the two start one of the best relationships in Russian Doll (though completely platonic.)
In season 2, Alan also has the ability to use the trains to travel back in time and take an ancestor's point of view. What is unclear is why Alan and Nadia are connected to begin with. Season 2 hints that it has something to do with their families, as Alan's grandma seemed to cross Nadia's mother's path a few times in the 80s, but the show has yet to explain where the link is.
Who is Horse?
Horse was suspected by fans to be a more significant character than he appeared in season 1. He is a homeless man with whom Nadia connects to due to his similarity to her mother, who the world viewed as delusional. While he would often say rude things to her, Nadia cared for him and made frequent attempts to save his life.
The trailer for Russian Doll season 2 revealed that Horse would once again appear just before Nadia first boards the train that takes her back in time. But if this further reinforced fans' suspicions, then his appearance down in the subway line while Nadia and Alan were looking for a way back in time again surely confirmed them. However, after he charged Alan and Nadia his fee, Horse disappeared, along with any chance of an explanation.
Is There More Than One Active Timeline?
Every time Nadia died and started her day over, things would go a little differently. She could make different choices, which produced different results for her and the people around her. This led Nadia to wonder if her loved ones continued after each death, creating multiple timelines in which she died hundreds of different ways.
At the end of season 1, multiple Nadias can be seen in the crowd, implying that multiple timelines came together when Nadia and Alan reconnected. In addition, in season 2, multiple points in time, as well as from various periods, come together to a single point until Nadia returns her infant self to the past. So does the show revolve around a single "real" timeline, or is there an infinite number at all times?
Did Alan Find Closure?
Season 2 reveals that Alan never really found happiness after the events of season 1. He was able to get past his breakup with his ex, but he was still under the constant pressure that his anxiety created for him. He found himself surprised to be happy in his grandmother, Agnes', past, but soon enough, another decision plagued him, and his security fell apart.
When Nadia returns baby Nadia to her mother, she finds closure and accepts that she cannot change her past. However, Alan's conversation with Agnes is considerably less telling. It is unclear from the season 2 finale if Alan ever found closure, or really what even happened to him.
Why Did Nadia Lose a Month Of Time?
As Nadia traveled back and forth between the '80s and 2022, she noticed that time continued at the same pace in both timelines while she was away. When she returned to 2022 with baby Nadia, she learns that her friends had been trying to get in contact with her because Ruth had been taken to the hospital in serious condition. This is when time broke, however, and when Nadia arrived at the hospital, she found that she was back several weeks.
Once Nadia corrected time and returned to 2022, she looked at her watch to see that it was April 30th, a month after her birthday. Somehow, she had missed a month of time, and during that period, Ruth had passed away. While it may just be that the time gap was a repercussion of the broken timeline, it is still unclear how the entire month of April had passed Nadia by.
Did Nora And Agnes Miss Time?
Russian Doll never tries to explain its time travel mechanics, which allows the rules to be twisted and bent at will. However, there is still a lot about Nadia and Alan traveling back in time and taking their family members' places that are unclear.
For example, when Nadia takes over Nora's body, where does Nora's consciousness go? Same with Agnes? When they return to their own time, are Nadia and Agnes aware of what went on, or were they losing time? When Agnes talks to Alan about her decisions during that time, she seems aware of everything that happened, but that version of her also seems to be omniscient, and possibly not real. Altogether, there are still many questions unanswered about how Nadia and Alan took up space in the past.
Were The Bodies In The Morgue Significant?
When Nadia brought her infant self back to the 2020s, time broke down around her. At the hospital, she notices paramedics pushing her body to the morgue and follows them. While there, she finds three versions of herself from season 1, dead, including the very first death in which she was hit by a car.
Having every one of Nadia's bodies at the morgue would probably have been too much, especially since the show is never clear exactly how many times she died. However, with so many strange details hidden all over the show, it's hard to think that the number of bodies, or which specific deaths were shown was only a coincidence. One unpopular opinion some fans have about Russian Doll is that Nadia and Alan have been dead the whole time, so the bodies in the morgue may support this.
Why Did Time Return To That Birthday?
After breaking time, Nadia and Alan found themselves right back to the day that they had been forced to repeat for so long. This created an exciting connection to the first season and reiterated the show's theme of Deja Vu, but it is unclear why time went back to this moment that had happened four years ago.
It could be that the sheer number of repeats of this day made it significant within time, or perhaps Nadia and Alan really did die, and they have just been existing in purgatory since that day. Nadia wasn't too bothered by it, which perfectly sums up her personality in Russian Doll, so it's possible that audiences will never know.
Why Is Any Of This Happening?
Two whole seasons of Russian Doll have gone by, and audiences still have no idea what is happening, and why. Nadia herself seems to have given up on really figuring it out, and has instead decided to just roll with the punches, which may mean that audiences will never actually know.
Russian Doll has set itself up in a way that it does not need to explain itself for the show to be successful. The boundaries of reality have been so thoroughly stripped away, that at this point, even season 3 may not have any answers for audiences.