It's been over three years netflix has finally given us a second season of russian doll.
Time Travel
Russian doll season 2 is very different from the first season instead of the groundhog day syndrome of repeating the same day over and over.Nadia and alan find themselves traveling through time we won't go too far into the crazy paradoxes and plot holes that come along with time travel. All you really need to know is that there's a magical time traveling subway train in new york.
Family Treasure
During the second world war nadia's grandmother vera lost many of her most valuable possessions to the nazis. She ended up with a number of krugerland gold coins however in 1982 nadia's mother nora ended up trading the gold coins for cash and spending the money on a car fur coats and other lavish and unnecessary items.
When the time train initially takes nadia to the 80s she thinks this is the universe giving her a sign that she can change her life by changing the events of the past. If she can recover the gold coins then they'll be passed down to her and her life will improve.
2022, 1982 and 1944
Throughout most of the season nadia travels between 1982 1944 and 2022 at first nadia picks up clues from the past then goes back to 2022 to use the internet and her godmother ruth to figure things out before heading back to the past again.
This doesn't last long as she eventually just stays in the past through most of the season trying to figure things out as she shifts between 1982 and 1944. There is not a ton of meaning in the time traveling let's look at the important parts one by one.
Nadia in 1944
When nadia is in 1944 she tracks down her family's property that she assumed was stolen by the germans and transported on the nazi gold train. This is a real urban legend that two polish men tried to find as recently as 2018.
But to date the nazi gold train has never actually been found and is still considered just a legend the nazis supposedly moved the treasures via train as the soviet forces approached which would have happened around december of 1944.
Nadia arrives in budapest in 1944 before the russians attacked soviet and romanian forces began the battle of budapest on december 26 1944. which means nadia could find her family's belongings in a warehouse not on a train.
Nadia gets help
Throughout her time traveling nadia is assisted by various friends of the family. In the 80s ruth helps nadia ruth was an old friend of her mothers and godmother to nadia. She played a big role in the first season and in season 2 we get to see a 20-something ruth as she helps nora or should we say nadia and norah's body.
In 1982 ruth had just gone through a divorce and at one point actually uses her engagement ring to help nadia get the gold coins back. In the 1940s nadia is assisted by her grandmother's close friend delia. We see delia in 1944 as well as 1982.
However in the 40s nadia has taken over vera's body her grandmother while in the 1980s she's taken over norah's body instead because of this. she has very different interactions with delia but they always involve alcohol which nadia makes a note of in the 1940s.
Budapest
In present day nadia gets assistance from ruth as well as her friend maxine. Nadia and maxine even go to present-day budapest and track down descendants of the nazis who confiscated her family treasures during this journey. They have a drug-induced encounter with one of these descendants and wake up in a graveyard.
Father Laszlo kiss
they happen upon the grave of father lazlo kiss who has a number of stones on his gravestone. while traditionally people think of laying flowers at a grave site flowers will eventually die. Jewish people play stones on graves as a symbol of permanence. It's basically a way of honoring the memory of someone close to you.
Nadia infers that the more stones placed on a grave the more respected that person was.
when she finds her family valuables in 1944 she seeks out father kiss and trusts him with the location of the valuable she buried in a tunnel as well as was sending the location to her grandmother in new york after the war is over.Nadia buried the valuables in a tunnel so that the location would withstand the test of time.
Nadia, the baby, and the paradox
Eventually nadia ends up back in the 1980s and as her mother has a baby. Nadia then ends up taking the baby into present day. Now some may say this contradicts the rules of the show but that's not actually the case.
In the first episode nadia tries to take a pamphlet from the 80s back to present day but it disappears. Likewise nadia can't take her cellphone into the past. The show establishes that only nadia and alan can travel through time, but the baby is nadia. So even though nadia takes a baby into present day it's still only nadia and alan traveling through time.It's just two nadias instead of one.
Time Breaks down
Anyway as you might have already figured out taking baby nadia into the present with adult nadia causes time to start breaking down. All kinds of crazy things begin happening with things getting weirder and weirder the longer the paradox continues.
Nadia and alan try to get back to the train so they can fix the problem, but even the train is now stuck in a pocket outside of time. Eventually allen ends up in another pocket of time where he meets his grandmother.
A similar pocket outside of time occurs when allen and nadia are separated and enter different rooms filled with water. This represents the end of time where all time converges. Nadia sees the bag of gold coins but has to make a choice. She can leave the baby behind and take the coins or she can leave the coins losing them forever. But saving the baby which means saving herself.
Time Travel Rules
Now since the paradox didn't completely destroy time as we know it. Theoretically if nadia had chosen the gold she would have effectively killed her baby self and we'd be dealing with the avengers end game rules for time travel.
These rules basically state that even if you travel into the past it's no longer the past. So when nadia traveled from 2022 back to 1982 1982 became the present for her and 2022 was now the past, because she just traveled from there.
As an example let's say nadia had just traveled from 1982 back to 2022. 20 minutes ago she was in 2022. Even though 2022 is the future it was still 20 minutes ago which means for nadia it was actually the past.
Hopefully that makes sense. So even if baby nadia were to die it would not impact adult nadia despite the paradox or maybe this is back to the future time travel rules and the encounter could create a time paradox the results of which could cause a chain reaction that would unravel the very fabric of the space-time continuum and destroy the entire universe.
The Lesson of the Season
Anyway nadia chooses herself over the money which means she learned the lesson of this season. The whole season nadia was trying to improve her life by changing the past. Every time she tried to change the past the result was always the same. Her mother would lose the gold coins.
once she realizes she can't change the past she decides to raise baby nadia herself and give the baby a better life than what she had. Choosing the baby over the money signifies that nadia realizes her life is okay as it is.
It doesn't need to change but she can still improve baby nadia's life. Only after time breaks down does she finally realize that she should live in the present and enjoy what she has which are close friends like maxine ruth and allen. All of her time travel shenanigans even caused her to miss ruth's death further causing her to realize where she went wrong with all of this. Ruth was one of her best friends but she died alone, because nadia was too concerned with trying to change her own life by altering the past.
Nadia deeply regrets allowing ruth to die alone which is somewhat signified by the scenes in the time displaced hospital as she's trying to track down the dying ruth but is only able to find ruth at other points in time.
Alan's Season 2 Story
Alan's story in season 2 isn't directly linked to nadia's like it was in the first season.Instead alan's train takes him to 1962 germany as he embodies his grandmother and picks up her relationship with lenny. She helps lenny and a number of other germans dig a tunnel under the berlin wall so they can see their families again.
At first allen is just enjoying the relationship and the time period but he quickly realizes that he's there to understand his grandmother better and realize that she was meant to help those people no matter what happened to them after the fact.
When alan spoke to his grandmother in the pocket out of time she told him that she doesn't know what happened to lenny but that it doesn't matter. She was just happy she could help him in his time of need. After that they all went in whatever direction life took them, allen's story wasn't quite as meaningful as noddy is because season 2 doesn't establish any real problems alan has beyond finding a relationship.
Which still isn't resolved at the end of the season. Allen does have a fleeting relationship with lenny in germany, but it doesn't change his situation in the present. That wraps up russian doll season 2.
If you have a different perspective on the meaning behind the season or just a question about season 2 feel free to leave a comment below.
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