This season wasn't as structurally sound as the first and I'll admit the humour, while some parts very funny, was ultimately lacking overall compared to the first. However I think this season was supposed to have a more emotional, dramatic edge and it succeeded. Season 1 left me tearing up but this season hit right close to home and made me very emotional haha. Apart from Alan being an after thought, I thought it was very good considering the original 'Russian Doll' seemed to be a closed, unbranchable premise.
I just wish there was more of Alan’s plot line, more background on his grandma and a lil more exploration on his sexuality. His crush on Lenny was so cute
Actually you are incorrect about the season 1 ending. The Nadia who knows merges timelines with the Alan who knows. If you pay attention at the end of season 1 you can see them toghter (the clothes they are wearing gives it away).
nobody is mentioning the fact she just left the gold when the bag could've just been pulled through the water by a fingertip, doubt the universe would allow it but she could of tried taking it back to her time at least lmao
This bugged me to NO END. I mean she could've even put the baby in the bag, (open of course) or drag the bag along. But I think it's supposed to just represent that she had a choice to make. Her future, or just gold.
@@sjoauga4561 yeah, I thought the same thing and I agree she could have however that speaks to the pacing of this show... They left so much to be explained at the end that they had to quickly show her making a choice on the future or the past and she chose the future by taking the baby instead of the bag. Could have been done better but since this season was all over the place, they had to leave no doubts about what the moral of the story was before they let us off this crazy ride as to not make us feel like it was all just a waste of time.
She could only choose one or the other (intentional). She could choose the baby/leading to accepting herself for who she is (wounds, scars, past, and all), or the gold which is her still trying to change the past (holding onto the guilt of her mom's death by choosing Ruth).
At the end of the first season when they are both in separate timelines. You can see they both timelines converge into a singular one this was was shown with with the split screen at the end during the parade march
Personally, I think the bag should have ended up 'lost' not because "time won't let things change" but because of something that really did happen. Like her trying to get the pawnbrokers to not give her krügerands.....but it happening anyway because of the other characters.
Season 2 gave me so much existential dread! It was like watching a dream. I have extremely vivid dreams, to the point where it takes me a few minutes after waking up to realize it was a dream and not real. It can be quite terrifying at times. I wasn’t a huge fan of being made to feel like real life could be dream like (since they weren’t in a dream space… it was actually happening, I guess?) Other than that, it was an interesting divergence from season 1 and I’m looking forward to Bryce’s analysis videos. Cheers! 😄
I personally feel like season 1 was experiencing trauma and season 2 was comprehending that trauma - hence it's messiness and scattered focus. It's an exploration of unpacking situations that you cannot understand and the ways in which people cope with unpacking it. That was my personal reading at least.
@@Tao_Tology yep. We already saw how the bodies they’ve been inside (hehe) affected themselves while being in them (Nadia being able to speak Hungarian, going through labor, etc.)
It was a good season with incredible writing, but somehow I wanted the second season to be an extension of the first. When season one ended, I waited for the continuation of that show. This season, to me, felt like a completely different show. I missed the atmosphere and energy of the first season and also who the characters both Alan and Nadia were. I missed Alan’s innocence and very human character who was lost in the loop. This season he was literally his grandma and pretty much excess. Nadia seemed sometimes a parody of who she was in season 1. Anyway, the writing of season 2 did give the story closure. I can let it go now and respect Russian Doll still for being an amazing experience. We have Horse to thank for that I guess, as it seems he was the one who initiated the whole time thing in both season 1 and 2.
I took this to be a cycle that always was. The reason these things happened they way they did with the krug’s was because of Nadia in a time loop from the beginning. Her grandmother clarified that strange things/miracles happened and that’s how she came into the gold. I think the realization was that Nadia was doing what she was always going to do and the result was always what it was because of this time loop.
the season 1 ending showed their timelines merging, also I think ruth is understanding because she is aging/losing her mental clarity. i still enjoyed the season, but I felt like Alan's storyline was extremely weak. not that it wouldn't have been good, but it needed so much more. as far as character development, Nadia devolved a bit this season, and I didn't like that because she grew so much in season 1. a lot of times, the humor and references felt forced, but again this is all compared to the amazing first season. that being said, the portrayal of mental illness in Nadia's mother was very well done. I loved the "Coney Island" analogy, and the season gives us a lot to think about.
@@BryceEdwardBrown if you look at the clothes they are wearing in the opposite timelines it’s very clear that they merge together. In one version Alan is wearing a jacket with Nadia wearing a black shirt, the other Alan has no jacket and Nadia has a white shirt. Then in the end Nadia is wearing a white shirt and Alan is wearing a jacket. They definitely are on the same timeline.
More specifically, it shows the two of them walking together and, just before the split screens merge, the two 'other' (separate) versions of Nadia and Alan walk past them.
I had to pause this video at the beginning... what 3rd timeline? did you miss the part where each pair walk through the tunnel and end up joining back together, in the original timeline. they didn't end the season in separate ones, they returned back to the main one. We start off this season with the original Nadia & Alan.
Your videos are so great! So happy the algorithm listed your Severance Ending Explained video on my homepage. The analysis and so thorough and I really enjoyed your sense of humor. I also thought S2 of RD was “messy” at first. Maybe the first half of the season actually. I didn’t hate it but I was kind of bored and didn’t trust they had a map. Was so happy when that shifted because S1 was so special and I didn’t want the show to be tarnished.
Maybe it's just me but I felt like season 2 took a nosedive from season 1. This almost felt like a updated version of quantum leap in a way but not as well written with alot of holes in the story at the end that I feel like we'll never get an answer to like when she went back in time and was her mom, was that the reason her mom was crazy, going around breaking mirrors and such? Also, they never actually explained how they're able to move through time this way....felt like I was always looking for an explanation to that and never got it...will say it was quite a feat for them to setup a scenario where she gave birth to herself though.... that's the first time I've seen that on TV and the scenario made sense... First season was great but the second one was rough.
We have an answer for the first question. Her mom is schizophrenic, that wasn't because of Nadia. You were probably confused because we saw Nadia break a mirror while in her mom's body and you assumed that it was Nadia who wanted to break the mirror. It's the opposite. Since Nadia was in her mom's body, she was also in her mind. As in Nadia was schizophrenic too in that scene. It wasn't that Nadia broke the mirror because she wanted to all by herself, she broke the mirror because of her mom's influence on her brain
When shows like this happen I always wonder was this an after thought or did they intend this from the start and in this case for me I feel this was an afterthought. It's basically "Lost" all over again, started well but fizzed out when they wrote themselves into a weird corner.
I liked s2, but I was always hoping to see a connection between Alan and Nadia. Maybe their past were connected through the gold train or something like that, which would explain why they are the only two people in the world being able to do all the crazy stuff. To put purpose into the two main characters. But that sadly didnt happen. Still had a good time tho.
Good explanation! Definitely gives me more appreciation for the season. I actually did end up getting into it but I have mixed feelings. I really enjoy the surreal aspects and the emotions. But I feel like it had a lot of flaws as well. Nadia is kind of insufferable for so much of the season. Constantly spouting shtick to a point she barely sounds like a person, even in Nazi occupied Hungary. In season 1 she was like that but also a functional human being. And I think the story could have been told a bit more cohesive and clear. Maybe I'll feel differently on a second watch but after recently watching Everything Everywhere All At Once which is just as surreal and trippy, I know you can make something like this while keeping it somewhat grounded in its own logic and structure. This felt like it was missing a lot of scenes and maybe needed one more rewrite of the script to plug in holes. It kind of felt like things happened and the characters understood but we're not really explained it. But overall definitely one of the better shows I've seen recently if not as good and tight as the first.
Season Two was like going to a chinese restuarant on the corner with the yellow awning and red lettering while season one was a gourmet dinner in the heart of Chinatown. ( I was hungry while typing that but you get what I am saying...)
at the end of season 1, the separate timelines converge at the parade. you can pay attention by their clothes. the two who remember each other end up walking together. so this season takes place in that universe.
Imagine my strugle try to understand this series as english is not my mother tongue...like watch..read and listen...translate in my brain to my native language...then arrange the story... and.again.again.🤣
I really loved S1, but when I finished S2, i wasnt really sure what to think about it. "Messy" was definitely a description. Anyway, after watching your video I was able to appreciate it a lot more! Thanks man for sharing your enlightening thoughts!
I loved the season and the messaging behind it. I found the Ruth storyline very emotional. My mother has lung cancer at the moment and I found myself sobbing at one point.
