• TV

    Russian Doll: Inside the Mind Behind the Mystery

    Natasha Lyonne Russian Doll

    “What, if some day or night, a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life, as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh… must return to you—all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over again and again—and you with it, speck of dust!’

    Friedrich Nietzsche

    If you’ve ever stumbled on the stairs and thought ‘that’s me dead in a parallel universe’, then Russian Doll is the show for you! Flame haired genius Natasha Lyonne has created one of the most inventive and intelligent Netflix shows of all time. It’s Groundhog Day with a twist – instead of just waking up to the same situation every day, main character Nadia dies (in various ways) and ends up at her 36th birthday party again, and again, and again. Through this deadly samsara she learns something more about her personal trauma each time, and eventually finds a way out of the death loop. A self-confessed commitment-phobe and misanthropist, Nadia realises she can’t solve this problem alone.