{"id":7543,"date":"2020-04-22T13:00:04","date_gmt":"2020-04-22T20:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=7543"},"modified":"2020-04-13T16:08:36","modified_gmt":"2020-04-13T23:08:36","slug":"mark-watches-russian-doll-s01e05-superiority-complex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2020\/04\/mark-watches-russian-doll-s01e05-superiority-complex\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches “Russian Doll’: S01E05 – Superiority Complex"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the fifth episode of the first season of Russian Doll<\/i>, Alan and Nadia team up to sort through their experiences… sort of. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Russian Doll<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For discussion of death, anxiety<\/b><\/p>\n

AHHHHHH THIS EPISODE FUCKED ME UP!!! Why does it have to PERSONALLY address me and only me so LOUDLY???<\/p>\n

Anyway, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s start off with this: This episode did not go as I expected, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good thing. After \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Alan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Routine,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I figured that Alan and Nadia would stick by each other\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s side in order to immediately try to figure this out. However, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not really a sensible thing, is it? Instead, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Superiority Complex\u00e2\u20ac\u009d features some<\/i> of their mutual mystery approach, but it also shows how both characters try to solve the problems in their own lives. Is<\/i> that the point of all of this? Are they meant to repeat this specific night over and over until they determine what they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done wrong?<\/p>\n

Indeed, I deeply understoodd why Alan was quick to believe that this was some sort of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153purgatorial punishment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for him. I mean, in his case, his repeating night is so much worse than Nadia! (Well, on the surface. More on that in a bit.) He has to relive his girlfriend breaking up with him. And even in the controlled chaos of his experience prior to the arrival of Nadia, it was still pretty intense! He may have been able to adapt to the situation, but he continued to self-medicate with food and alcohol. So it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not as if this was a pleasant<\/i> experience. Thus: punishment. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s being punished for… what, exactly? Failing to address his mental illness in a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153healthy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d way? For being unsatisfying to Beatrice? For not proposing to Beatrice earlier? Does any<\/i> of that seem to be on the level of deserving a seemingly endless procession of repetition in one of the darkest moments of one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life?<\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think so, and thus, I also<\/i> deeply understood Nadia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rejection of this. It seemed pretty self-centered, and Alan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s belief that he was being punished entailed that Nadia<\/i> was being punished… because of him? Oh my god, I love SO MUCH that she made that announcement (AT HER OWN BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!) to have people tell her whether or not she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been a bad person. It felt so distinctly Nadia! And yet, what happens pretty soon after that? Like every night in this loop, John shows up. In that act, Nadia must reflect on her own moral code and what effect she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had on others. I admit to being totally fascinated with the fact that at the heart of this struggle is infidelity. Nadia was the other woman, and Alan was the person cheated on. Nadia has not seemed to feel much\u00e2\u20ac\u201dif any<\/i>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dguilt for being involved in someone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s affair. Truthfully, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know if she was aware that John was married at first, though I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be surprise if Nadia went through with this while being completely aware the whole time. Alan is only just coming to grapple with infidelity, as he never even found out until<\/i> Nadia stood in that elevator with him.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So where does that lead these characters? Nadia re-thinks Alan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s purgatory idea, and while I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m certain she still rejects it by the end of the episode, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s significant that she does<\/i> try to make things right with John and her daughter. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not something that Nadia ever really considered until Alan came into her life. She doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite succeed in that, but after Alan points out how much Nadia riles up John, I did notice that she started treating him with more tenderness. And the whole act of finding Emily of New Moon<\/i> for John\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s daughter? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s touching! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s genuinely sentimental! But is it the right<\/i> decision?<\/p>\n

I ask the same question of Alan, who confronts Mike three different times in three very different ways over the course of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Superiority Complex.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the brawl in Mike\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office; then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the fight at Maxine\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s loft; then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the quieter confrontation in one of the bedrooms. All of these scenes, first of all, establish Mike as Kind of The Worst, which feels like the point. Mike is<\/i> the worst, and yet, he remains unpunished. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not stuck in a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153purgatorial\u00e2\u20ac\u009d loop, is he? Even if he SEEMS perfectly primed to repeat an awful night until he learns from his mistakes. But all of these scenes demonstrate to Alan that Alan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s moral superiority\u00e2\u20ac\u201dor what he perceives<\/i> as a superiority\u00e2\u20ac\u201dreally don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter in the end. He can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even guilt Mike into apologizing to him once<\/i>. If there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s some greater meaning here, even if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s outside the reasoning for the loops, it strikes deep at the heart of Alan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s problem: he is looking for closure in other people. He wants to fight Mike to feel better. He wants to get a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153reason\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for Beatrice cheating on him, as if that will give him what he needs. Instinctually, he already knew this wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the right move for him! Remember when Farran said he needed to know everything about the infidelity that hurt his<\/i> relationship? Alan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reaction to that was rejection<\/i>. And yet here he is, spending an entire episode chasing down those details.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Do both these characters want closure? Is this what these loops are about?<\/p>\n

I admit, then, that Nadia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s theory feels INTENSELY disturbing to me, but I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get it out of my head. What if this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily a collection of time loops because with each death, the world splits off into another parallel universe? What if the people who love Nadia and Alan really have<\/i> been mourning their deaths over and over again? Ugh, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so upsetting!!! But maybe Nadia isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that far off the mark. There appears to be some sort of logic to these loops, especially since it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been established by Alan that he and Nadia are dying at the exact<\/i> same moment in every loop. Why is that? Are they each punished if the other person doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t \u00e2\u20ac\u0153do\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the loop correctly, forcing them to restart? I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T FUCKING KNOW. But the idea is enough to send Nadia into a new<\/i> existential crisis. Is she actively harming people by not figuring this out and stopping the loops?<\/p>\n

Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so impressed by this show. SO IMPRESSED.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Superiority Complex\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":"