what's going on it's all my russian doll fans out there and welcome back to my channel movie files
elliott back again with a brand new netflix series review and today we're breaking down the return of
one of my favorite shows on netflix three years ago and that is season two of russian doll which
will be making his return on netflix on april 20th i did get the opportunity to check it out early
and i'm so excited to share my thoughts with you all on this new season and i'm gonna let you know
by this review is it better than season one is it on par with season one or is it some steps down
we're gonna talk about that and so much more all in this spoiler-free review before we get
into it make sure you're checking me out on all my other social media accounts if you're
new to the channel and love early movie reviews tv breakdowns and live streams will come and join the
community today by subscribing and hitting that notification bell and as you all can see on the
screen now if you enjoyed this early spoiler free review of season two of netflix russian
doll would make sure to give the video a thumbs up and also share this review but more importantly in
the comments let's talk all things russian doll from your thoughts on season one did you think
we needed season two and more importantly once you sat down and watched all seven new episodes
of season two what did you all think from your pros your cons favorite moments favorite
episodes what were some things that didn't work for you all in this new season and also
do you wanna season three let's talk about that in the comments section so i can't believe how fast
time flies i can't believe it's been three years since season one and i did a review on season one
which you all can check out but i'll just sum it up i love season one it was such a hit surprise
i love the characters the nuance i am a sucker for sci-fi so taking that existential crisis mixing
in through a sci-fi lens i thought it was just such a great show i'm gonna be honest though i
didn't think we needed season two but here we are talking season two and again spoiler free thoughts
just my thoughts on the story performances if i thought it was better than season one do i want
to see more of this story in the characters that's what we're gonna tackle this review so i'm gonna
leave time codes in the description below again spoiler free review starting now with my positives
so sci-fi big fan of it especially when it comes on the big screen or in this case a small screen
and normally when you get a follow-up to a great season one of a sci-fi show
the i guess the natural progression for things is okay we gotta get bigger we gotta get more
ridiculous we gotta get more characters in the mix i'm happy to say that not only does season two
dive deeper into the characters but it still manages to get bigger but not lose focus of what
made season one so special which is the character study the character arcs the narrative at hand the
sci-fi at hand so getting into my pros with that bigger ambitious story we're not just in new york
this time around in season two and if you all saw the trailer you can kind of get a sense of that
but we're not just in new york we are traveling to different countries in this new season i'll just
say that but not just new countries we know we're diving into time travel in this new season we're
going to different decades and just touching on the production here i want to applaud the
producers and the set designers and the costume department in the makeup department because when
we go to these different countries and we go through these different eras it was just it felt
like we were in that time period wardrobe being the way people talk the way they carried himself
the life and the world that we were in as far as like the time that we're in and some of the
controversial stuff that was going on during those different decades so i really applaud how again it
was bigger it was bolder it was more ambitious but then going back to what i mentioned about
the focus on the characters this i didn't know there was more to nadia's character and we knew
we learned all the stuff with her mom and her relationship with ruth and her best friends and
john's in the world and all this stuff but and also cloris allen but this show and this
season goes back in time and it uses that time travel which again just to give you a little more
perspective of the story we are four years removed from season one so we know at the end of season
one she turned 36 which means four years later she's what 40 years old and if you all remember
season one there's an important number and significance of that 40 year old mark especially
when it comes to her mother so getting back into diving deeper into this character and by the way
natasha leon i've been a fan of hers for a very long time dating back to the american pies of the
world and just seeing her in orange's new black and i've been following her outside of movies
and i know she's tackled some demons she's had some personal issues with addiction and health
issues and it's this character nadia man to me and i might be wrong by all accounts but i think that
natasha leone pours some of that trauma some of that life experiences in this character and just
uses this as like a framing and like a reflection of like this is the stuff i went through and
this is the stuff i learned and how i want to implement it through this amazing character which
again going back to thoughts on season one it took a while to get used to that character she was very
selfish about herself just very just kind of self-indulging and alcoholic and just didn't seem
to have much promise and was kind of annoying at points but again with season one did so
beautifully it lets you know how she got to that point why she's the way she is and just seeing her
development her arc by the end of season one and transitioning into this new season diving deeper
into that trauma and this is a theme that was just so beautifully illustrated in this new season
generational trauma and we see it from her relationship with her mom in this season
and getting more of that backstory and kind of understanding of why her mother had her
mental issues and some of the stuff that her mother did in season one with this time travel
wrinkle maybe there's some things that nadia does that maybe had influenced her mother and
other characters without getting into the minutia of it all but you get that relationship with your
mother in this season and seeing that generational uh relationship we even go back to her mother's
vera's relationship with her grandmother and it's just seeing those three generations displayed so
beautifully from the actresses perspective from a mother perspective from the theme of trying to fix
your past again being a big sci-fi time travel fan that i am which by the way if you all i always try
to find a way to let people know about the show speaking of netflix and time travel the greatest
time travel show of all time is uh dark on netflix but as i digress seeing her using his time travel
as a device to fix the past to help fix the present in the future and how that can affect
the past the president and future was just so fascinating the way that as russian dog
does it has its own spin on time lubes time travel and how if you do something in this
era how can affect people in that era and how can affect your present and your future
was so fascinating but i just want to go back to again natasha leona her performance in the season
is something beautiful it is something that i was just in complete all with she is so complex again
there are moments where i love the character there are moments that i hate the character because
again there are just so many moments where she's just selfish and she's just so about what it can
do to benefit me and but again she has the life lessons she learned in season one that makes her
a little bit more redeemable but again she does some things we just like nadia why are you doing
this again natasha leone she again i feel like this is a personal character this is something
that she has you know shedded all the trauma off from her past implemented in this character
and she does it in such a beautiful way and also there are the supporting characters that i love
from season two that have their own arcs as well such as alan but again i think this is just a true
testament to natasha leone and her performance of season one and this character that she just
seems to love and can really connect with and i just really enjoyed the narrative the lessons
the mistakes the regrets the all the stuff that she learns in this season
and the relationship with her mother the relationship with her surrogate mother and ruth
and all the different dynamics seeing ruth at a different light and seeing the
heart the compassion the love that roof has for her and getting a little bit of her backstory it
was all just so well woven into this new season and i really want to touch on again the focus
and the theme of generational trauma what it means to love someone what it means to care for someone
what it what what you can't go back into the past and fix things because you can might affect
the future and the presence so i just loved all that story all the time travel that we get here
the beautiful set designs being in those different eras and just seeing it through the lens of this
crazy ass awesome character and nadia it was just such a great journey to go on and i just can't
applaud enough the writing was so on par this season but i will say too before i transition
it into my negatives that second half of the season to me like three and up are just great
television it's just such a great way to display how time travel affects this character and when
it affects with the other characters and just the family narrative and the family trauma and again
knowing how important krugerrands which were you know mentioned in season one how important they
are in the season two how important the train is it's just so many things so many easter eggs
so many meticulous things this show does so beautifully that i was just a big fan of but
i do have some criticisms that i want to mention here with this season two number one
we all know how important and how key allen was in season one from episodes four and on when we
see his perspective how he got [ __ ] stuck in his time loop how you know obviously him and
nadia became friends and and all that different stuff for me personally i really enjoyed allen's
what they tried to do with allen in this season too but unfortunately i thought the execution
kind of felt forgotten about um without getting into the minutia as you would imagine because
he is a big character in season one he does get involved with the time travel season two
and his story that he goes through from his perspective of going back in the past and
experiencing the past uh through someone that was uh a part of his family tree
i was so fascinated by that but i felt like the show really kind of wrapped it up really quickly
and really didn't dive deeper into the themes and and all the things that it had to offer
during that perspective of time during the person of time and just it was so much nuanced so much
to just explore in that plot i just feel like it was so underwhelming and just didn't really have
much to say is really the biggest thing which is so disappointing because again i'm a fan of the
allen character i thought that he was so integral to season one and i feel like they really dropped
the ball on that plot what it could have meant to the show and what it could have meant to that
character and also one of the things i loved about season one was the colorful supporting characters
maxine you know her best friend you know ruth is very much involved in this new season but i feel
like this new season didn't have as many colorful new supporting characters as it did in season one
and even those season one supporting characters really didn't have that much things to do in this
season two without giving too much weight i was really kind of disappointed because i love those
supporting characters but a lot of them didn't really wasn't too involved this season again i
this i love that we focus on nadia and her past and her family and all that stuff but i i i missed
the relationship she had in season one and not being able to explore more in a season two which
also another criticism season two takes a bit to really find its footing and found its narrative i
mean we jump right into it after the first episode but i'm like okay this seems a bit repetitive in
a certain extent which i'll talk about here in a second but it took for me into the third fourth
fifth sixth all the way to the seventh episode to really find his footing to find this narrative to
really get into the minutia into the mindset of this themes and the in the tone of this new season
so it did take about two well to the third episode for me to really get invested in this new time
travel story and then again i mentioned just a second ago it felt a bit repetitive and i mean
that by you know we were we dealt with the time loop season one now we're dealing with time travel
and the thing that felt a bit repetitive is i felt like all the stuff that nadia learned in
season one yes she grew from season one but there were still moments so i'm just like wait why is
she repeating some of this same selfish decision same selfish nature that she had in season one
especially after what she went through season one why is she hasn't really fully understood some of
these rules and some of these things that she's affecting by the decision she's making in this new
season so it was very kind of frustrating a sense was i don't feel like the character she kind of
went you know 10 steps forward and then 15 steps backwards at time which was kind of frustrating
in a writing narrative character growth department and then another thing that i will mention to kind
of wrap up this review and my criticisms we all know season one the biggest thing that really sold
me and kept me on out of my seat was the mystery box why is she keep having a time loop why did
she keep dying what does she have to learn to kind of in this time loop and then in this horribleness
season two there's not much of a mystery because they let you know pretty early on
why we're in time travel how we're dealing with time travel what she's trying to accomplish so
there's not much of a mystery box not saying it's not appealing not engaging not entertaining
but it wasn't it missed that sense of mystery that i was missing from season one in this new
season so those are main pros and cons that i have in this new season before we get to my
overall thoughts and give you my thoughts on if it's better if it's worse do we need more if you
haven't already make sure to like the video share the video leave your thoughts in the comments and
so of course subscribe to the channel overall i was thoroughly entertained by this new season
i love how deep we dove into nadia's character her family history the generational trauma from her
mom's perspective from her grumbler's perspective at the same time still having a bigger season a
more ambitious season diving deeper into what time travel looks like in this world and his narrative
so all that stuff to me was really the highlight of the show and just seeing the growth from the
character even though at times going back to my criticisms i feel like there was a regression in
the character not that many life lessons learned from season one and also just not having the same
colorfulness from the supporting characters as well as alan being a bit of an underwhelming
character but at the end of the day this is still one of the best shows that netflix has to offer
i personally don't think we need a season three like i didn't think we needed season two
but i still very much enjoy the season two so if they can find another creative sci-fi element with
uh i don't know we did time travel we did time loops what else can they tackle i have enough
faith in these creators they think that they can do something creative but i don't need a season
three if that answers my own question i don't need it but i would welcome it if they could find
something creative to do so overall i personally think season one is better but season two
is still a great follow-up to what i think is a great series all in all if it's just two seasons
or if they explore more that's my thoughts on season two of russian dolls so let me know again
once you've seen it pros cons favorite moments least favorite moments do you want to season three
let's talk about that in the comments section thank you all for watching this review hope you
enjoyed it hope you're having a great day just a friendly reminder before you leave to like share
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