“Happy Birthday Baby!” Talk about Russian Doll on Netflix

and the majesty that is Natasha Lyonne

https://media.giphy.com/media/kKLoC2AdoTftSgzR0O/giphy.gif

Enjoying so far, will wrap up tonight.

Halfway through it. Will post again when we're done, but absolutely wonderful so far.

Saw that the show was originally pitched with a 3 season arc, but I don't know if they condensed all of that down to eight episodes or if they're planning something I can't even fathom at this point.

certainly the best of the current crop of new 2019 tv so far.

finished it yesterday and yeah it was excellent. adored the actress who played Ruth.

solid acting by basically everyone!

if I had to knock anyone's acting in this it's the guy who played Michael, the unholy offspring of Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jack Nicholson.

but I guess he was supposed to be pretty loathsome so maybe mission accomplished

he's the lack of a choice and i thought he did a great job with that

i liked the russian doll concept for the timeloop, and the way her and Alan hinged upon each other

and Natasha truly made it her own, she was fantastic

I posted this on the Netflix thread, worth a repost because it’s so lovely:

Instagram post from Jake Fogelnest a couple of days before the show went up

https://i.imgur.com/azFB33I.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/MCFMLrZ.jpg

truly i have been thinking about this constantly since I finished it on Saturday night though... lots to digest & ruminate on

oh and can we talk about the music!?
🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻

I liked that one song

gotta go to bed or something like that

Harry Nilsson!

Who did that cold ass Pretenders cover?

that was joeks VG :)

but seriously the only other song I really recall recognizing was the Cults one

Oh wait, I Go To Sleep is Kinks.

Who did that cold ass Kinks cover?

Lol xxp

Spotify says Anika. Nice, I'll be listening to this on repeat now. brb

A pretty thorough song list here
https://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/Russian-Doll-TV-Show-Soundtrack-45747299

netflix has a playlist of course
https://open.spotify.com/user/midniteblaster/playlist/3M7taBzwvoasEqN3ZinZm6

Posts be disappearing like mirrors in here!

I d i e a l l t h e t i m . e

*falls down the stairs*

but i'm a cheerleader fans: jamie babbit directs episodes 4-6

Noticed that, since it is showing on Mubi now.

I've heard John Maus and also Timber Timbre on the soundtrack

i was p delighted to hear john maus "cop killer" and gang gang dance "mind killa" in the same episode of a show i love

It had the Promise by When in Rome and so therefore it is perfect.

I watched the whole thing today and I LOVED IT. Natasha was perfect and it was so well done and, yes, the music was great.

“the unholy offspring of Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jack Nicholson”

Ha!!!! This works though I just kept thinking chubby Jack. The resemblance was disconcerting!

I liked the fact that they shot so many scenes in or in front of 7B which was also used in Jessica Jones and lots of other stuff and always makes me miss NY.

I want to watch it again!

yeah i am thinking abt rewatching too

Can we talk about spoilers yet because I’m consfused about how we got from episode 7 to 8.

Or maybe I will just watch again.

Yeah sure spoil away I say.

Already forgot the details after weekend binge watch but I seem to remember them coming up with the basic idea of a plan in 7 and then executing it in 8.

I hate it when you're watching a show and there's a weird character like Alan in it and you feel like the show runners are intending for his presence to feel alienating but you are watching him feeling like "omg they put me in a show I feel so seen"

I didn't think he was weird, just very guarded! All of the things he was doing to keep his world in order were interfering with his ability to just live and his projection of structure was giving him faulty answers for why his girlfriend was cheating, etc.

a little too relatable, for sure

I'm only a couple episodes in but my friend did the score. Haven't really heard much of it yet, just the licensed songs, but I assume there's more music later.

you feel like the show runners are intending for his presence to feel alienating

i'm not alan but he doesn't come off this way to me at all

I found him v sympathetic

ENBB OTM re 7B, and NYC in general was well portrayed and felt true with a couple of excusable exceptions.

Apart from that I wasn't ever quite able to lose myself in the show because of the dialogue, which always had the clanky ring of lines that are perfect on the page. In one episode there was a brief exchange about how hard it is to write dialogue.

I did love that so many small passing details in the show weren't there to further the plot, and weren't really red herrings either. Just comfy story furniture.

Oh Jordan I heard a cello thing in ep 6 but that was the only cue I've noticed so far lol

The first series feels like a decade ago.

i am def gonna do a S1 rewatch

*jaunty piano music intensifies*

I probably said as much earlier: having a hard time seeing how they extend this into another season. (Can't remember if the end of the first set that up.)

It didn't. That one reason I want to see how they justify it.

When they cast Annie Murphy I figured it would be about her, but I guess it once again stars Natasha Lyonne?

i dearly hope they do not try to build off the prior season and just do something different

Surely they would have to. Maybe a new decade, like they do on For All Mankind.

It's set 4 years later. There's other information out there, but not sure if people want to reveal that stuff here

I have to say I rewatched this recently and, despite really liking it the first time, I found it borderline unbearable until Charlie Barnett shows up

I kinda don’t want to know anything about what’s going to happen, gonna dive in when S2 surfaces

Goddamn. This is gonna be a year of returning TV for me innit

I keep thinking that people are talking about the other Charlie Barnett and getting confused: https://www.vulture.com/2012/03/timing-is-everything-the-story-of-charlie-barnett.html

Two weeks to go...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvEyUOoLehI

So we will see andmoreagain after all.

Haven't played the trailer, but that's the post-Mitch head of news from The Morning Show on the right; she's very good in that.

I'll always think of Greta Lee as the hipster grifter from High Maintenance.

that "when are we" joke was pretty funny

Dropped today?

Maybe I’ll fire up the first episode after work

Pretty sure the rest of the Redds have watched multiple episodes already.

Went into the first episode of the new season with low expectations but it was really excellent.

Have watched 2 episodes so far and really liking it a lot. For some reason the humour element works for me much more this time than it did in series 1.

halfway through, not really feeling this season so far tbh, can't quite put my finger on why

a bit hopeful it'll resolve in a way that redeems the whole season

Just finished this. It is a bit mixed. Although I like the ambition of opening the series beyond NY to Budapest and Berlin, it didn’t work as well as the more contained first series. I also didn’t like some of the rather heavy handed resolution in the final episode.

Still plenty to enjoy in this series though.

Can someone convince me to proceed beyond Episode 3? Just not feeling it.

I know this won’t happen, but wouldn’t it be cool to have a single surprise episode of this show (in whatever season) where nothing weird happens, where the main characters just rub up against each other?

Dunno if I’ve changed or she has, but can’t deal with Nadia’s growly shit-talkin’ schtick this time around.

Noticed something similar when I watched a few minutes. In any case, think I will sit this one out until the dust settles.

There was stuff to enioy but it really wasn't necessary and was definitely resolved hurriedly. Once she takes the baby on the train and we start to see time fall apart at the hospital it didn't work at all, I didn't think.

Too many ideas were introduced and thrown away immediately - Nadia's in a mental asylum! Oh no, wait, she just climbed out of the window. The Hungarian rave warehouse felt like a low point.

can’t deal with Nadia’s growly shit-talkin’ schtick this time around.

It definitely feels like she's a relic of pre-gentrified NYC and this persona is part of it. Weirdly she seemed more at home in the 80s sequences.

The time-space collapse was my favorite part of the series and I really enjoyed watching it but my overarching question at the end was “Why?” It was a fantastic ride but the point did not resonate with me, so I ended up feeling removed from this season whereas I firmly fell in love with the first season. There broad theme seems to be self-acceptance and reconciliation with all of the contradictory forces that lead to your existence, but also tied up in it was a meditation on grief that still managed to get short shrift even though it overwhelmed the end of the season and there was no compelling reason for or payoff to Alan’s story as it was presented.

Not as good as S1 but I really enjoyed S2. First three eps were a bit blah but it gets better imo.

Wow, she really is doing Columbo, isn’t she

Started watching this last night. I said to bf "wasn't the first season set in the 80s? I'm confused". I realized that I'd so internalized Zinoman's theory upthread that I remembered it as being set in the 80s. I'm about to read that Twitter thread again and I'm excited

this was terrible: they forgot to write a story!

DJP completely OTM. As impressed as I was with how this season was handled, and as enjoyable as it was, it felt like there was something missing at the center.

can’t deal with Nadia’s growly shit-talkin’ schtick this time around.

I feel like the fact that she didn't say, "Hey, I'm walkin' here!" was an oversight (or an outtake).

I was really disappointed in this season, but I thought the last episode was beautiful and somewhat redeemed the arc.

I think I loved this as much of the first season, although it fell apart towards the end (also much like the first season?). Some refinance to me as an assimilated Jew with an Eastern European riches to rags to middle-type family story.

Anyway – would definitely watch more, but need more Alan next time.

Oops refinance = resonance

giving up a few episodes in. Just not feeling it.

i both really liked this season and agree with many of the criticisms in the thread lol. i think i just really like watching natasha lyonne do her thing, and the dialogue was really funny. i wish there was more senior ruth, love that actress and her smoker's voice.

feel like this was a v. impressive second season for a show that absolutely shouldn't have had one

i mean i liked it -- give me subway trains running throughout time and i'll watch -- but alan's part was absolutely tacked on (as was his mustache, i hope). only having to hear harry nilsson once or twice is a plus, but literally sending your protagonist to hungary as the axis falls should have somehow been more than a plot point

and if you're gonna go to the trouble of staging a modern-day hungarian rave, at least let greta get laid

Somehow got stuck unable to find an English set of subtitles for episode 5 for my tv. They were there when I looked for them on my computer.
& there is a lot of that episode with Hungarian being spoken. Wound up having to watch on the computer.

I missed how she managed to work out how to become a different generation of her ancestry. Or was that done by moving down the train like she was at the end of the episode.
Or was that covered by her saying well better get to Hungary

i both really liked this season and agree with many of the criticisms in the thread lol.

Same. I watched it when I was slightly feverish with Covid and the series' hallucinatory flavour, especially in the second half, nicely complemented my illness.

But it's a real mess. It's as if they were planning two more series - a third one perhaps focussing on Alan in Berlin- but had to bring all the ideas together suddenly at short notice. There's a lot to enjoy though if you're prepared to overlook its flaws.

I found the flaws only became apparent towards the end when the narrative started sprawling out of control, so it was still kinda five episodes of fun, and two episodes of “wait what”, and even those last two episodes had some good stuff. Alan wuz definitely robbed this season though.

gonna say it - i dug his mustache

100% sexy weird moustache

Disappointing. There were no 'rules' about what she could do, how she could change anything, where she could go, what she could take with her, so it all seemed a bit 'now she is taken here and does this thing and wisecracks to everyone'. Bit like Doctor Who, but at least that sets out 'the rules' for the current goal in each episode. The stakes seemed to get lower and lower in s2 as more and more felt unreal. Looked great though; I would've liked her to hang out in the 80s a bit more.

In s1 the people gradually disappearing and the fruit rotting etc felt genuinely sinister - here it didn't really do that. The bit about Nora's mental illness encroaching into Nadia was quite scary, but then she just became someone else.