Space Door
Yana is a Russian woman who is visiting the United States on a tourist visa. She meets her partner, Maksim, at the airport and they start dating. However, their relationship quickly becomes complicated because Yana is in love with another man.
Yana has a dream of being a DJ, but for now it’s just a pipedream. It also doesn’t help that Maksim isn’t exactly enthused to spend time with his girlfriend. In the bathroom, Yana discovers that her cabinet leads through to a strange world, showing Maksim as a DJ, their “Frankie Knuckles” who happens to be an aspiring underground player.
Maksim and Yana’s past is detailed in these segments, including how they met at the club and exchanged numbers on the escalator. However, their love seems to have fizzled out after all this time. Maksim is in a very different place now than when he first met Yana, even though they still maintain a close relationship.
Yana is an office worker who is grilled about her competence and not exceptionalism. As a result, she tries to provide for the pair of them. When she heads home after a hard day, she’s dismayed to find Maksim isn’t exactly helping himself. He’s not enthused to meet Yana’s friends, he’s a bit of a slob and he backtalks them all and ends up sitting on the stairwell alone for an hour. In that time though, Yana talks to the DJ who encourages her to show up at his club.
Maksim and Yana are in a new place, where everything is different from what they thought it would be. They have a problem though, because they are actually married.
Maksim is a struggling artist who Yana believes is wasting his life. She tells him that he needs to start taking things seriously and make something of himself. When Maksim shows up at work, Yana speaks sternly, telling him he needs to start taking things seriously. In fact, Yana has had enough. She makes a big decision and decides they need to break up.
As a result of Yana’s performance, the club is filled with a younger version of herself who has come full circle.
This episode features a breakthrough in Yana’s career as a DJ and filmmaker. However, she also becomes a film director following her artistic dreams.
The Episode Review
This episode shows how far Yana has come since she first worked on Maksim and how much she has changed since then. It is a shame but people change and grow apart over time. Either you embrace it and change along with them, or you get stuck in your old habits and end up in a different place in life.
This chapter does a good job of showing that, and the deeper meaning behind the “space doors” works to give reason and clarity to the flashbacks, which are nicely sprinkled throughout the chapter.
