‘Russian Doll’: Season 2 ending explained on Netflix

The second season of ‘Russian Doll’ was always going to be strange, there was no doubt about it.. From the moment Nadia Vulvokov (Natasha Lyonne) traveled back in time inside the body of her pregnant mother, Nora (pregnant with Nadia herself, it must be added), we knew she was in for something big.

The show’s creators (Leslye Headland, Amy Poehler, and Lyonne herself) proceeded to shock us further when Nadia (unaware that she had been transformed into her mother) began making out with Nora’s boyfriend, Chez (Sharlto Copley). . We pray to all higher powers that the man in question was not her father, because… YUCK! That would be going too far! Fortunately, our prayers were answered, but, how the hell did we go from bizarre time travel and body swapping to Nadia giving birth to herself? Surely that deserves an explanation. Luckily we want to do it.

‘Russian Doll’, season 2: ending explained

The premise of the second season is crazy and it doesn’t take long for the creators to get to the heart of the matter. Nadia is quickly swept up on another wacky cosmic journey when she boards a subway train that takes her back in time. After learning that she is in her mother’s body during a critical moment in her family’s history, she sets out to right her mother’s wrongs.. These mistakes center around the loss of his family’s fortune in the form of gold Krugerrands.

Nora (Chloë Sevigny) had previously stolen the Krugerrands from her own mother, Vera Peschauer, and squandered them. This act not only strained Nora’s relationship with her mother, but also affected her relationship with Nadia, who should have inherited her money. Nadia gets it into her head that she must do everything possible to recover the lost fortune.. However, she soon learns that some things from the past are impossible to fix, and the loss of the Peschauer/Vulvokov fortune is one of those things.

If only she could have learned that before traveling even further back into the past, this time as the incarnation of her grandmother Vera… She could have saved herself a trip to Germany in 1944, a precarious moment for a Jew like herand they wouldn’t have had to risk their lives to recover the fortune stolen from the Nazis before they traded it back for Krugerrands.

This heartbreaking revelation leads Nadia to the season finale. Having made peace with this truth, Nadia takes the subway (or time machine) to go home. Or at least that was her intention, but the train trip to New York in 2022 sends her back to the 80s.. Time travel apparently has a macabre sense of humor, because it is at this moment that his pregnant mother goes into labor.

After giving birth traumatically on the subway platform, Nadia has the craziest idea of ​​all: she will go back to the future with her baby and raise the girl (which is herself), giving her the life she never had..

Claaaaaaaaro, that will work. *Wink, wink*.

Naturally, none of this has anything to do with the fact that Nadia is trying to avoid reality: her godmother Ruth’s rapidly deteriorating health. *double wink* As hard as he tries, he cannot forever avoid the truth of Ruth’s situation and is immediately confronted with it when he returns to 2022..

A message urges Nadia to go to the hospital. when she walks in, her best friends Maxine (Greta Lee) and Lizzy (Rebecca Henderson) inform her that “it’s not looking good”. In other words, death is imminent and this time there is no kill button. repeat. Nadia turns around and finds them again in the not too distant past (in fact, just a few weeks) telling her that Ruth is fine. Weird, we know.

A tour of the hospital shows that something has gone wrong over time, because although he meets and greets a couple of versions of Ruth, none of them are the Ruth of the present. Due to his manipulation of the delicate balance of time, he is in danger of missing Ruth’s death simply because he cannot find her..

If Nadia needed any more proof of the break in time, discovers the bodies of her and Alan (Charlie Barnett) from four years ago (You know, when they died countless times trapped in a time loop in the first season). The stuntmen are running around everywhere and she looks to Alan for help.

Alan, however, has been on his own time travel adventure.. Like Nadia, she takes the train into the past and enters the body of her grandmother Agnes. Her foray into Cold War Germany in 1962 comes with revelations thanks to the exploration of her sexuality when she falls in love with an activist named Lenny.

Again, like Nadia, Alan learns that he cannot change the events of the past after trying to stop Lenny from tunneling under the Berlin Wall to be with his family..

He tries to look for Nadia in the present day, but (thanks to his disastrous decisions) the two meet again at her dreaded birthday party (the one from the first season), where he finds out what she’s done. He tries to convince her to return the baby to her timeline, but a grieving Nadia is obsessed with raising the child herself so she can have a better life. It is only when he is confronted with one of the many Ruth versions that he realizes the weight of what he has done and how desperately he wants to be there for Ruth in her final moments..

Rewriting this error will not be easy, but as Ruth says, “Nothing in this world is easy except pissing in the shower”. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.

The two locate the stuck train and jump aboard, but are taken to the future instead of the past, where several passengers, including Lizzy and Maxine, are on their way to Ruth’s funeral. The realization that Ruth died alone hits Nadia hard and makes her lose control.. Nadia abandons plans to return the baby and decides to stay on board the train, determined to say a proper goodbye to Ruth. Alan, however, gets Nadia off the train before she can leave.

They end up on a train track and, after some confessions, they are hit simultaneously by what can only be described as cosmic trains coming from opposite sides. The collision sends them through separate portals, where they both learn once again that they never could and were never supposed to change the past. Alan is directed to the present by his grandmother, but Nadia’s journey back is naturally more difficult.

He finds his way to a train where he meets his mother, who asks: “If you could choose your mother, would you choose me again?”. Weird.

Nadia is then faced with her choices: an older and a younger Ruth appear, there is also a younger and an older version of her grandmother, and of course her own mother, Nora. It’s implied that she could give baby Nadia to any of them, but after the hard lesson that’s been drilled into her head throughout this season, Nadia responds the only way she can.. “Hell no!”. We joke, we joke. What it actually says is: “I didn’t choose you the first time, but I guess that’s how the story goes”.

Followed by that bittersweet feeling, Nadia hands over the baby, correcting the events of time. She then says a heartfelt goodbye to young Ruth before exiting the train and returning to her time plane. The series ends at Maxine’s house in the middle of Ruth’s funeral.. Nadia is surrounded by friends and the atmosphere is one of acceptance and healing of wounds. For some hideous reason, Nadia returns to that dreaded bathroom (anywhere but here, please) and gives the viewers a knowing half-smile.

A smile that, we suppose, means: ‘I have it under control, I’m fine’. Well, Until the next time she’s sucked into some strange, supernatural event?