1. The player character is a young woman named Astrid who is looking for a new place to live.
  2. She’s been living in the same apartment for the past year, and she’s tired of it.
  3. She’s heard about a place called The Gilded Cage, and she wants to check it out.
  4. She’s not sure if she’ll be able to afford it, but she wants to see if it’s the right fit for her.

CHARACTERS

Season 1

Nadia’s Time Loop

Nadia is celebrating her 36th birthday and is hit by a cab. She dies instantly, but she wakes up in the bathroom of her friends’ place, Maxine and Lizzy. They have to relive the 36th birthday celebrations all over again.

Nadia’s life is once again in shambles. She’s been through so much pain and suffering, and now she has to go through it all again. But this time, she doesn’t have anyone to help her. Nadia’s ex John shows up, but he’s not the only one who wants to help her. A friend of Nadia’s tells her that a new spirit has come into her life, and she needs to find out what it is before it destroys her again. Nadia decides to go on a journey with this new spirit, but things start going wrong from the get-go. First, she falls off a ledge and dies again. Then, someone tries to kill her new spirit guide, but she manages to survive. Nadia finally learns what it was that made her fall off the ledge in the first place: she was trying to escape from her abusive relationship with John.

Nadia is determined to find out what happened to her and her friends, after theories range from bad weed to hallucinations. As she starts researching the building Maxine and Lizzy live in, she crosses out the idea of it being cursed.

The show starts to settle into a bit of a predictable pattern, but a big twist throws everything we’ve known up until that point out the window. Nadia is not alone in her time loop. Step forward Alan (Charlie Barnett), who has been living in the future all along. ..

Alan’s Time Loop

Alan is stuck in a time loop because he keeps making the same mistakes. He brush his teeth, gets dressed and heads off to meet his girlfriend Beatrice, but then she breaks up with him. Despite this being the worst day of his life, Alan actually finds some comfort and positivity in this organized time loop.

Nadia and Alan, two strangers who have been stuck in a cycle of death for years, team up to try and break the cycle. Nadia recalls seeing Alan drunk at her local deli on the night of their first death. If Nadia had intervened, Alan might have been able to save her. Likewise, if Alan had saved Nadia, he would not have been so drunk on that fateful night. ..

The pair work together to construct a similar scenario in order to save each other. They both deduce that they need to confront their own trauma and problems in their life in order to “die” properly and not come back again.

Breaking The Loop

Nadia and her friends Juxtapose their mother’s death with the realization that their relationship is not right for one another. Alan has to confront Beatrice about their relationship and accept that they’re not right for one another.

Nadia and Alan are in a world where they are not the same people. Nadia is on a mission to stop her Alan from committing suicide, while Alan has to stop his Nadia from dying.

Nadia walks down the street after saving Alan, and the timelines appear to converge together. Nadia throws her arms in the air as a whole parade march behind her. But has the timeline really been fixed? ..

So that’s the entire story of Russian Doll from Season 1 up to the end of Episode 8 in a nutshell. There’s a lot more going on here – including the ties between Nadia and Horse – but that should be enough to get you ready for Season 2! ..

We thought the Russian Doll story was interesting and we loved the way it was written. We would love to know what you thought of it in the comments below!