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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
49
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
The GuardianApr 20, 2022
Season 2 Review:
It is so inventive, and creative, and original, that it seems petty to quibble. As the story progresses, it gets smarter and weirder, and the surreal twists once again land in an unsentimental yet beautiful place. It dares to ask big questions about trauma, grief and fate.
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Jan 31, 2019
Season 1 Review:
If in the end it's just a long meditation on the idea that people need people, a four-hour metaphorical expression of the fact that you have to abandon old patterns to move forward, it is wonderful all along the way and magnificent in the end. Its last minutes are as deftly handled, wise, unpredictable and rewarding as television ever is. And these ideas are no less powerful for being obvious; the world is choked with people trying to realize them in their own lives. Lyonne, especially, is marvelous, playing Nadia.
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Jan 31, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Unlike so many puzzle-box shows, Russian Doll doesn’t rely on its twists and clues, though there are plenty of those, all expertly deployed across each of its eight exquisite half-hour installments. ... Russian Doll’s investment in its characters makes it a binge-worthy show that demands an immediate rewatch.
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Jan 28, 2019
Season 1 Review:
What Russian Doll has is heart--but heart without cheap sentiment or bosh. ... It is matter-of-fact in acknowledging modern failure and disillusion, without ever trying to nail it down, avoiding the tones of hectoring obviousness that mars recent items-in-vogue like “BlackKkKlansman” and the bratty jabber of Aaron Sorkin scripts. In a soothing, down-to-earth way that doesn’t have all the answers, Lyonne and company show us how to deal with the deaths, literal and figurative, we face every day.
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Jan 22, 2019
Season 1 Review:
The show is so striking and smart that I made a note to include it on my favorite TV shows of 2019 immediately after blowing through the season--which is saying something, since that was back in December of 2018. But part of what makes the series so special is how it’s meticulously constructed, shedding layer after surprising layer until the bittersweet end.
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ColliderApr 13, 2022
Season 2 Review:
With its second season, Russian Doll crafts a narrative that is far more confounding and less structured than the first, and while it might not always work, the result is a season that is far more layered, emotionally satisfying, and engrossing than the pristine nature of the first season.
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IndieWireFeb 1, 2019
Season 1 Review:
There’s much more to appreciate about this quick hit of brilliance, from the leads’ soulful performances to the edgy, adventurous direction, but “Russian Doll” must be treated like its namesake. Unpacking it over and over again will reveal fresh insights. Each piece is worth admiring for different reasons, and each episode offers its own rewards.
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Jan 31, 2019
Jan 29, 2019
Season 1 Review:
It’s a great show, both surprising and affecting, and it neatly dodges the standard tropes of its familiar premise. By the end, Russian Doll builds to a climactic discovery that involves Nadia reconsidering her past, sorting through her childhood and her relationship with her mother without ever collapsing into a simple reductionist takeaway.
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Jan 29, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Much of Nadia’s predicament is hilariously absurd but the show also never loses sight of the fact that she’s dying, again and again, often in front of people who care about her more than she’s comfortable admitting. That blend of tones, and the controlled mania of Lyonne’s brilliant performance, makes Russian Doll feel like something wholly new, even as it cops to its many influences.
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Apr 13, 2022
Season 2 Review:
Nothing in this season is quite as compulsively entertaining as the first season’s recurring fatalities, and there were some subject threads I wish had been carried through more consistently. But coming as close as this season does to recapturing, without shamelessly reproducing, the satisfying difficulty of the first season is achievement enough.
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Jan 22, 2019
Season 1 Review:
As a show with a particular and confrontational attitude, Russian Doll won't stick for all viewers. For those with early doubts, my own nesting doll of reactions went from "This is reasonably clever" to "This is actually good" to "Huh, that was pretty impressive." Go in knowing as little as possible and stick it out for the ride.
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Apr 19, 2022
Season 2 Review:
The season’s plotting isn’t as tight as the first, opting instead for a more expansive historical backdrop that allows ample time for the story to really dig into its characters’ backgrounds. But by increasingly leaning into its sci-fi elements, Russian Doll continues to strike at an emotional core through flights of delirious weirdness.
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Apr 14, 2022
Season 2 Review:
While the growth that Nadia — and, to a less-showcased extent, Alan — undergoes this season is made to feel substantial by the time the final (perfect!) shot longs, it’s easy to argue there’s just not enough meat to the seven episodes that comprise it to convince skeptics the return was worth it.
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The PlaylistApr 13, 2022
Season 2 Review:
Too many threads are left unexplored to make this new season of “Russian Doll” as wholly satisfying as its dazzling debut. However, its exploration of how fruitless “what if” thinking is and the importance of taking agency in your own life despite your generational baggage builds wonderfully on the themes explored in the first season.
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Apr 19, 2022
Season 2 Review:
Ms. Lyonne's presentation is a little Mae West, a little Rodney Dangerfield, with maybe a dash of Leo Gorcey in a Bowery Boys movie. But she's also as consistently funny as anyone on a series, mini- or otherwise. The program also deserves credit for making its convoluted, spoiler-lousy story as clear and accessible as it is. If "Russian Doll" were a place, it would be less like the grid plan of Manhattan and more like the incoherence of Boston. But Ms. Lyonne is certainly an entertaining tour guide.
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Jan 28, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Russian Doll takes a complex premise and boils it down to a simple lesson: We all, like, need each other. [1/8 Feb 2019, p.85]
Apr 22, 2022
Season 2 Review:
While "Russian Doll" didn't fully explain the "Groundhog Day"-like aspects of what was happening in its first go-round, it finally reached a logical conclusion. By contrast, the altered nature of Nadia and Alan's predicament mostly just feels like, "Well, we got picked up for another season, so why not?"
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Apr 18, 2022
Season 2 Review:
Season two is bigger, in terms of time, geography, riddles, and mechanisms. But there’s a perverse backward effect to all that new roominess. Russian Doll wants to be more sprawling, leaving its emotional resonance smaller and emptier. Nadia’s frantic attempts to make her life right again start to feel myopic, and meanwhile there is not nearly enough Alan.
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