Russian Doll
Feb. 11th, 2019 08:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silversandbeaI accidentally watched all of Russian Doll yesterday. It was the best thing I think I've watched that was created for streaming. Don't go into this spoiled. Know as little as possible. Okay, if you need to know - oatmeal turns out to be okay at the end.
I think the thing that surprises me the most is how much I cared about the characters at the end. We don't have that much time with them, and Nadia and Alan both start out as so unlikable. But by the eighth episode I had my heart broken for them so many times, and was so charmed by Alan's smile when he admits he slept with Nadia to Ferrar . . . and then had my heart break for him again when he meets the day one!Nadia.
There was a moment a few minutes from the end that I thought that it really was going to end with them being unable to help each other, and I was worried it would be too dark.
This was, like The Good Place, all about what we can do for each other. But I liked that they focused on the idea that they had to get themselves a little healthier before they could help each other. Instead of the usual codependent 'we are both broken but can fix each other' stuff that usually means putting someone else's emotional wellbeing above your own to an unhealthy degree.
There's a lot of little things that they seem to get right - Ruth refusing to treat Nadia as a patient (holy shit, a therapist on television enforcing boundaries?). Ruth still being there for Nadia, and Nadia's guilt not being magically fixed by Ruth telling her that Nadia misremembered it. Of all the ways that Nadia dies, none of them are because of drug use or a sexualized murder - breakfast is deadly, sleeping with a dude is not.
And it was funny! I wasn't expecting it to be as funny as it was! The fire escape callbacks. Nadia forgetting that she had done special K.
I care enough about the characters that I want Maxine's chicken to have turned out okay. I want Horse to give Nadia a haircut. I desperately hope that those alternate takes ceased to exist for Ruth's sake (Ruth killing Nadia was fucking heartbreaking, even with the resets).
I think one of the few things that didn't work for me was Nadia seeing her younger self and choking - there wasn't an equivalent for Alan, and it felt a little lazy - like the writers couldn't think of another way to finally get Nadia to admit what she had to deal with.
I think the thing that surprises me the most is how much I cared about the characters at the end. We don't have that much time with them, and Nadia and Alan both start out as so unlikable. But by the eighth episode I had my heart broken for them so many times, and was so charmed by Alan's smile when he admits he slept with Nadia to Ferrar . . . and then had my heart break for him again when he meets the day one!Nadia.
There was a moment a few minutes from the end that I thought that it really was going to end with them being unable to help each other, and I was worried it would be too dark.
This was, like The Good Place, all about what we can do for each other. But I liked that they focused on the idea that they had to get themselves a little healthier before they could help each other. Instead of the usual codependent 'we are both broken but can fix each other' stuff that usually means putting someone else's emotional wellbeing above your own to an unhealthy degree.
There's a lot of little things that they seem to get right - Ruth refusing to treat Nadia as a patient (holy shit, a therapist on television enforcing boundaries?). Ruth still being there for Nadia, and Nadia's guilt not being magically fixed by Ruth telling her that Nadia misremembered it. Of all the ways that Nadia dies, none of them are because of drug use or a sexualized murder - breakfast is deadly, sleeping with a dude is not.
And it was funny! I wasn't expecting it to be as funny as it was! The fire escape callbacks. Nadia forgetting that she had done special K.
I care enough about the characters that I want Maxine's chicken to have turned out okay. I want Horse to give Nadia a haircut. I desperately hope that those alternate takes ceased to exist for Ruth's sake (Ruth killing Nadia was fucking heartbreaking, even with the resets).
I think one of the few things that didn't work for me was Nadia seeing her younger self and choking - there wasn't an equivalent for Alan, and it felt a little lazy - like the writers couldn't think of another way to finally get Nadia to admit what she had to deal with.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-12 04:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-13 01:31 am (UTC)I definitely want to do a rewatch of it, especially of the first few episodes. A friend of mine on facebook mentioned that she thought that the first death we see of Nadia's wasn't her first death - which would explain how she knew Horse and maybe why she's quoting Mike's void-lines back to him (the other possibility is that Mike somehow subconsciously retained knowledge of what Nadia said through the reset, or is violating the laws of the universe to steal a woman's work, also possible).