- [Narrator] Season two of Russian Doll
sees Natasha Lyonne's character, Nadia
bouncing around through history,
inhabiting the bodies of her mother and her grandmother
in trying to secure her family's lost fortune.
- Time zones, what a concept
- [Narrator] Obviously, there were plenty of references
to specific events that took place
in these different time periods
and though some were pretty blatant,
others ventured into the more obscure.
- Now I don't expect you to get that,
it's a Star 80 reference, very deep cut.
- [Narrator] Here's everything you missed
in Russian Doll season two.
When Nadia first boards the 6 train that takes is in 1982,
the first thing she notices
is the number of smokers on board.
She even tells ones of them that it's a ballsy move.
- Ballsy move, dude.
- [Narrator] Smoking wouldn't be banned
on New York City Subways until 1988.
The second clue that something is off
is a poster for the musical Cats.
- Cats, huh?
Not my thing.
- [Narrator] The Andrew Lloyd Weber musical
had just debuted on Broadway in October, 1982,
but it would soon become the longest running
Broadway show in history.
- Sophie's Choice is funny.
- [Narrator] Nadia sees another poster
that tips her off to the time jump.
Sophie's Choice debuted in New York on December 10th, 1982.
- What is this, some kind of like a eighties flash mob?
Hey Travis Bickle.
- [Narrator] This is a reference
to Robert De Niro's character
in the 1976 Martin Scorsese film, Taxi Driver.
- What year you think it is man?
- Zero.
- [Narrator] Year Zero was a political concept
adopted by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in 1975
as a means of wiping out all previous history
and starting anew.
When Nadia grabs a newspaper to check the date,
the newspaper also features an advertisement for Tab,
Coca-Cola's only diet Cola offering
until they introduced Diet Coke, you guessed it, 1982.
- Hey, hey, hey. - Hey.
- You all right?
- What, who are you?
Why are you wearing red berets?
- Guardian Angels now.
- [Narrator] Upon deboarding the train,
Nadia runs into a member of the Guardian Angels.
This is an actual organization founded in 1979
that makes citizens arrests for crimes committed
on the Subway system in New York and other major cities.
- Hey, hey, do you believe in the future of our humanity?
- Define future,
- We're building thermo nuclear weapons left and right.
- [Narrator] While the Nuclear Disarmament movement
had been around since the destruction of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki in World War II,
the largest protest against nuclear weapons
in American history took place in New York City
in the summer of 1982.
- Crazy Eddies, no fucking way.
- [Narrator] At the bar,
Nadia meets an employee of Crazy Eddie,
a chain of electronic stores run by Eddie Antar
who used the company to embezzle millions of dollars.
- And not to piss in your drink,
but your boss goes away for securities fraud.
- Ludes or beauties?
- [Narrator] Quaaludes were originally marketed
as sleeping pills,
but became a popular party drug in the 1970s.
- All right, fuck it.
- [Narrator] Black Beauties were a form of amphetamines
that today is sold as Adderall.
Nadia eventually finds out that her family's fortune
was originally lost on a gold train
seized by Nazis in Budapest.
There was an actual train that carried numerous valuables
stolen from Jewish people in Hungary to Nazi Germany.
- Holy shit, there it is.
- [Narrator] To this day most of the property
is still unaccounted for
and almost of it has been returned to its rightful owners.
(speaking in German)
- [Narrator] During his own time in the past,
Alan meets a group of East Berliners in 1962,
who planned to tunnel their way under the Berlin Wall
and escape to West Germany.
There were a number of tunnels dug under the Berlin Wall
during its nearly 40 year existence,
including one in 1962 that allowed 29 university students
to escape the communist regime.
- Points at 33.50 ounce comes to
$5,325.
- [Narrator] Once Nadia in a grandmother's body
recovers the lost family fortune in 1968,
she has it converted into Krugerrands,
a South African currency first minted in 1967
that became a wildly popular investment in gold.
Are there any references we missed?
Let us know in the comments.