Liked: the way Russian Doll approaches families (including found families)

Families can lift you up, but they can also deliver crushing disappointments, especially if they don’t live up to your expectations. Season two of Russian Doll really digs into Nadia’s closest relationships, including her particularly fraught connection with Nora. Though Nora’s not alive in 2022, Nadia’s visits to 1982— during which she literally steps inside her mother’s life—open her eyes as to why her mother, who suffered from mental illness, couldn’t be the caregiver Nadia wished she could be. Amid the chaos, there are also sweet bonding moments, as well as an instance in which Nadia goes to the late 1960s and into her grandmother’s life, and gets to meet her mother as an effervescent young child.

Beyond that, we also get a great sense of the enormous love that draws Nadia’s family together, even when they’re screaming at each other. This includes the gentle influence of Ruth, in both 1982 as a young woman and in 2022 as an elderly woman whose poor health hasn’t hampered her ability to shower Nadia with words of wisdom, including the particularly pertinent observation that “Nothing can absolve us but ourselves.” And when Nadia goes into the past and, as Nora, gives birth to herself (yes, that mindfuck actually happens; yes, it gets complicated), then starts literally carrying her inner child around through time, her family and friends step up unquestioningly to help her take care of the infant.