{"id":7544,"date":"2020-04-24T13:00:52","date_gmt":"2020-04-24T20:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=7544"},"modified":"2020-04-13T16:10:58","modified_gmt":"2020-04-13T23:10:58","slug":"mark-watches-russian-doll-s01e06-reflection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2020\/04\/mark-watches-russian-doll-s01e06-reflection\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Russian Doll’: S01E06 – Reflection"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the sixth episode of the first season of Russian Doll<\/i>, Nadia proposes a solution to crack one part of the mystery of her and Alan. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Russian Doll<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For discussion of death, very extensive discussion of suicide, mental illness<\/b><\/p>\n

Well, this broke my heart.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I love it when a story is so well-written and so compelling that I find myself lost in the world. These are not long episodes, but I already care deeply and truly about Nadia and Alan. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s partially because in such a short span of time, these scripts and these performances have given the audience a large amount of information about these characters. We have a sense of their backstories without a single flashback; we know what their current lives are like through the window of these two day repeating loops. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an achievement worth celebrating, and it fascinates me from a craft perspective. What a challenge! You can only show us two days worth of a person\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life, and you have to give an audience a strong sense of who they are? Lord, the writers for this knocked it out of the park.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Reflection\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a stunning accomplishment on so many fronts. Both Charlie Bennett and Natasha Lyonne give gut-wrenching and hilarious performances here. Seriously, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s amazing that I can laugh at this show and then start tearing up moments later without that sort of tonal shift feeling jarring or unnecessary within the story. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s part of the fabric of this narrative, but I also wonder if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an intentional thing in terms of what Alan and Nadia need from one another. Does Alan need to appreciate the humor of the world? Does Nadia need some order and patience? Maybe, and that might come from a later episode, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been thinking of. I know we talk about romantic chemistry as a means of measuring compatibility in acting, but I think there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just as much room to talk about it in terms of other pairings. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily see this as a romance, even though Nadia and Alan have sex. That act didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel romantic in the slightest. Charitable… maybe? One thing that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so striking about Nadia specifically within \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Reflection\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is that while she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s openly telling Ruth that humanity isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t worth it, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also offering Alan actual help.<\/p>\n

I want to elaborate on that, too. On the surface, it seems easy to write-off Nadia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s behavior as self-serving. She just wants to get out of this loop, and figuring out her attachment to Alan is probably the easiest way to do so. Yet in this, I do<\/i> see a tenderness in Nadia, a willingness to believe that humans aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t all that bad, that sometimes, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perfectly fine to see goodness in them. She proposes to follow Alan when Alan admits he can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t remember how he died in his first loop. A-HA! I was<\/i> right to point out that we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see most of Alan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s deaths!!!! Yet as the two of them set out to follow the path Alan took on that first night, we get to watch something incredible happen. NADIA STARTS CARING. I love that there is a willingness to criticize Alan here while also empathizing with him. For instance: that scene where Nadia takes Alan to Ruth. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s space for Alan to express that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s afraid of therapy, but then Ruth corrects his misconception of what therapy is. I LOVE WHAT SHE SAID: We are the most unreliable narrators for our own experience, and sometimes, we just need someone else to take the reins for a while.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Does it work? No. But at least now, Alan knows that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had the wrong idea of what therapy is. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not something that tells a person whether they are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153crazy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or not. And calling people that is gross anyway! So perhaps Alan will be open to this in the future, as it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear that his refusal to deal with his anxiety and any other mental illnesses has affected his relationships. Beatrice\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s issues with Alan aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t irrational or unfair, especially if she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been carrying the weight of taking care of them when he won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. Yet as Beatrice is breaking up with Alan, Nadia recognizes that while Beatrice is probably right about Alan, SHE STILL CHEATED ON HER BOYFRIEND INSTEAD OF RESOLVING THE ISSUES SHE HAD WITH HIM. She betrayed Alan! And for the first time in all the loops, the dynamic in the break-up shifts. Nadia did that<\/i> for Alan.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

By the time we get to the scene at the bar, I think Nadia was trying her best to see things through Alan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eyes. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an intimacy in their conversation aside from the sexual spark, aside from the alcohol, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think Nadia would have shared what she did about the necklace she wore without feeling some sort of closeness to Alan. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s another reason it happens, though, and we see that later during a re-appearance with Horse. And doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that<\/i> scene demonstrate that Nadia IS thinking of humanity\u00e2\u20ac\u201deven if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just one human\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwith a sense of hope? With a sense of potential? With the purest of intentions in her heart? She gives Horse that gold medallion out of kindness, yes, but I also can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ignore the reason she speaks aloud: it was too heavy.<\/p>\n

Look, the specter of Nadia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mother hangs all over this. Maybe that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <\/i>why she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stuck with Alan. There are elements of Alan that are similar to Nadia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mother. Are they both trapped in loops because they can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t forgive? Alan can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t forgive Mike or Beatrice, and Nadia can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t forgive her mother. (Or herself, for that matter.) And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not to suggest that forgiveness is required of people, or that anyone here necessarily deserves<\/i> to be forgiven. But one thing I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m learning in therapy right now is how forgiveness can actually be a powerful selfish act. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a way of freeing one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s self. So you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t forgive out of grace or consideration for another person, but you forgive to let go<\/i>. You forgive so that your sense of self and your worth can move on. Is that<\/i> what is happening here?<\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m concerned by all the rotting things we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re seeing with more frequency. Only Nadia seems to notice them? What about the missing items, like Alan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ring or his fish? Why does the world seem to be deteriorating? Like, I get this is all about death, but does that mean there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a time limit here? Because that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where my mind goes first: Do Alan and Nadia have a finite time in which to figure this all out? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something else going on here. (How is there another season??? How can this be sustained beyond this point???)\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve left one thing for the end here, both because it was so upsetting and because I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the biggest clue as to the nature of these loops. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all know I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had a long history with depression and have dealt with suicide before, both in my own life and in losing so, so many people to it over the years. I think the final scene of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Reflection\u00e2\u20ac\u009d will always haunt me. We are watching someone come to an important but heartbreaking epiphany, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one that is rarely granted to people in our life. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m one of those people, though, because I survived my attempts. And at least for me, there came a moment both times\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhen I pushed through the fog of sadness and pained and could actually examine what I had done\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhere I broke down very similarly to Alan. Because there are few things more tragic about humanity than suicide. And the truth is that even looking back, as dark as things got, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually<\/i> want to die. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to cease living. I just wanted the pain to stop.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m in a better place these days relative to that. Therapy helped. Having that outside narrator was huge<\/i> for me. And I say that while fully admitting that the past year of my life, on a personal level, has been the darkest experience in a long, long time. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still in it. Hell, the weird part is now the whole world<\/i> is in it??? One of the biggest things I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been dealing with the past year is loneliness and isolation, and… well, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just say this quarantine is a little too ironic for my tastes sometimes. But I share all of this to give some insight into why \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Reflection\u00e2\u20ac\u009d hit so very hard. Why did Alan forget this death? Because it was too traumatic? Because he couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t accept it? Because he needs to forgive himself? Perhaps it is all of the above.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And perhaps the universe is trying to correct what Alan chose to do by sticking him in a loop with the only person who can truly help him.<\/p>\n

The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Reflection\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n

– You can now pre-order my second YA novel, Each of Us a Desert<\/i>, which will be released on September 15, 2020 from Tor Teen!<\/a>
\n– Not only that, but my very first pre-order campaign is now live for North American readers! If you submit proof of pre-order, you can get a limited edition print that comes with the book<\/a>.
\n<\/strong>– If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"