Russian Doll is a weird, wonderful, and necessary exploration of mental health

At the powerful core of Russian Doll is a deeply-felt primer on how to diagnose and treat mental illness. Caution: Spoilers.

New Netflix series Russian Doll offers up eight slim volumes of delightfully organized chaos that tweak the mind and warm the soul. But if you’ve experienced it, you already know that.

If you haven’t watched, well, all I can say is that you probably want to turn back now. As noted by a whole host of top critics, Russian Doll is best experienced when you go in blind to its curious charms. We’re gonna go deep on the spoilers here, so if you’ve finished the season and you’re ready to process all your feels, you’re in the right place. If not? Buh bye. C’mon back when you’re done.

When Nadia (Natasha Lyonne), a spitfire computer programmer, finds herself living (and dying) her 36th birthday over and over again, she eventually finds that there’s no choice but to cycle right down to the very center of her psyche. She must address the glitch that seems to be perpetuating this tortuous loop of death, or terrible things will happen. And, in order to set herself free, she employs several different therapeutic techniques that basically serve as a primer on modern mental health diagnosis and therapy. (Source: Am therapist.)

More from Netflix

• Bridgerton season 3: All the details to know about Penelope and Colin’s love story
• It’s a slow week on Netflix with only three new releases (Nov. 20)
• Exploding Kittens: From card game to Netflix animated series starring Tom Ellis
• The Crown and more Netflix shows and movies to stream this week (November 13)
• Escaping Twin Flames and more harrowing love-centered documentaries to watch on Netflix

First, there’s an attempt at self-diagnosis. Nadia realizes that true insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.  A morbidly funny sequence illustrates this maxim, putting Nadia through her paces when she faces a particularly murdery stairwell over and over again. It takes a minute for her to get her bearings, finally asking for her friend Lizzy (Rebecca Henderson) to help her down the fire escape instead.

From there, Nadia changes up her approach to solving her problem. She’s an intelligent, fiercely independent woman who would very much like to get her life back on track, so she gets to work diagnosing herself.

Aided by her friends and her aunt Ruth (Elizabeth Ashley), Nadia tries it all. She researches the wacky tobaccky joint that Maxine (Greta Lee) handed her, believing it sent her on a bad trip. Good thinking, but the idea is a non-starter. Then, she starts to believe that her worst fears have come true and her sanity is indeed fraying, just like her mother’s did years ago. She bravely reaches out to Ruth so she can be committed and assessed by professionals. That little adventure ends in death as well. Finally, Nadia turns her eye to the history of the physical building she began experiencing her loop in, heading to a rabbi to ask about the potential haunted qualities of the old yeshiva school.

Nope, nope, nope. Each time she looks for an external solution to her problem, Nadia is unceremoniously bumped off. The universe resets her whenever she takes a path that leads to anything less than what she needs. But the problem is that she can’t find any information on what is happening to her. There’s no link, so everything starts to seem hopeless.

So when she meets Alan (Charlie Barnett), there’s a feeling of instant, palpable relief. As the two strangers plunge to their death in a rickety city elevator, they exchange looks. Nadia turns to her chilled out neighbor and says, “did you get the news? We’re about to die.” Alan doesn’t skip a beat. “Oh, I die all the time.”

Record scratch. What?! Phew. That’s amazing.

As an addictions therapist who has run group therapy sessions for more than twelve years, this reveal felt so revolutionary and cathartic. This is how people feel when they finally get to connect with others who are experiencing a similar type of psychic pain. They feel seen and validated. And Russian Doll gifts viewers the space to feel that stark relief right along with Nadia.

Even though we’ve only been experiencing this loop with Nadia for three short episodes, Alan’s presence is a wonderful, soothing balm. There’s someone else! Someone else that’s experiencing the same thing! Nadia isn’t alone!

Once Alan enters the picture, everything changes. The series turns on a dime as the two become a team, continuing to seek ways to diagnose and treat this incomprehensible malady they both share. In a way, their bond feels like group therapy or even the connections shared by individuals in 12-step meetings like Alcoholics Anonymous.

In fact, much of Nadia’s approach to her conundrum seems cribbed from the central tenets of AA. She’s certainly an alcoholic and addict, but her problematic substance consumption is a symptom, not the cause, of her root dysfunction. She and Alan certainly must admit that their lives have become unmanageable (first step of AA) in order to start setting things back to normal. And, even though they diverge from the whole “God” section of the steps (understandable, given that the show has a relative stance on morality and religion), they slowly work their way to the final few crucial steps. Eventually, both Alan and Nadia must make amends (step nine) and then carry the message on to others (step twelve) in order to free themselves of this cycle.

While AA and 12-step meetings are certainly not a cure-all for people experiencing mental health distress, they are accessible places where people can share their traumas, commiserate over their painful experiences, and even call one another out on unhealthy behaviors if need be. Shared trauma can be a powerful thing, and it can bond people like no other. (See: Every movie ever made about a natural disaster.) In Nadia and Alan’s case, they’re the only two people in the whole world that are stuck in this time loop. But at least they have each other. And having a support system – any support system – is a huge leg up for people struggling to stabilize their mental health.

Because they’ve jump started their relationship with a unique connection, both Alan and Nadia begin to let their respective guards down a bit and help one another process their core traumas. They’re aided by Nadia’s aunt Ruth, who also happens to be a fabulous trauma therapist who runs a boss EMDR practice out of her home.

Ruth is amazing, and as the resident therapist in this story, she is a delightful revelation. She advocates for the use of therapists as mirrors for the self, and vehemently insists that the word “crazy” not be used in her home. As an effective, insightful, and caring therapist, she knows that no one is truly crazy. People are simply a collection of behaviors. Sometimes those behaviors are dysfunctional; sometimes they’re not. But, when the behavior is dysfunctional, it can often be traced to an unprocessed trauma.

In Nadia’s case, this is (mostly) accurate. She’s been living her life on tilt due to repressed guilt about her mother’s death. Nadia engages in a multitude of risky behaviors, but her cavalier attitude about her own health and wellness is telegraphed in the thick smoke signals of her near constant chain smoking. Despite help from Ruth and a close relationship with her friends, she stubbornly continues to carry the crippling weight of her past even though it’s dragging her down and preventing her from living her life to the fullest. The very structure of the series exists to illustrate that she must confront her pain or her life will remain stagnant.

Change is hard, and when all you’ve known is the dark, the light can be a scary thing.

Natasha Lyonne knows this. As the star, writer, director, and co-creator of Russian Doll, Lyonne herself is the wondrous little nugget that rests at the core of this whole endeavor. Having struggled with drug addiction and mental health issues in her past, Lyonne’s intimate understanding of the healing process is baked into every nook and cranny of the show. Along with co-creators Amy Poehler and Leslye Hedland, the result is a unflinching – and refreshingly female-driven – look at the costs and benefits of coping with mental health issues.

Eventually, the broken man and lady with a death wish aren’t so broken anymore. They’ve made it out alive and, more importantly, they’ve made it out together. But, just like in real life, Season 1 of Russian Doll doesn’t resolve all of Nadia and Alan’s problems, nor does it cash in on false assurances, promising that things will be okay forever. It’s too self-aware for all that nonsense. Instead, the final two episodes focus on healing as an ongoing journey, deeply underscoring the fact that trusted traveling companions make the often bumpy road to peace more manageable.

As the finale draws to a conclusion, Alan and Nadia’s timelines merge. They join a motley band of misfits from Tompkins Square Park in a determined march, and an inspirational message of self care settles over the proceedings, almost like an unspoken prescription from the showrunners to viewers. Life is hard, and it’s damn near impossible to do alone. So find the root of your issues, seek out like-minded supports (aka: find your team), talk to a therapist, and don’t be afraid to let go.

Russian Doll is currently available for streaming on Netflix.