Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em

Last night I finished watching the second season of Russian Doll. I was going to write something about it until I realised it would be almost literally impossible without major spoilers. Everyone else who's tried has had the same problem. 

I know because, following my usual pattern, the moment the end credit music on the seventh and final episode ran down I flipped to Chrome and started googling reviews. All of them began with a "Major Spoilers Ahead" warning and well they should.

Don't fret. I'm not going to talk about the story or the plot or the writing or even the acting or the actors. Just about anything I might mention could give something away and knowing anything at all before you watch would run counter to the very concept of the show. 

What I will say is that I thought at first I was going to be a little disappointed but I ended up not being. Also, I think it's a season that needs to be re-watched before judgments are passed. 

I'll also mention that if I ever want to give a practical example of the Intentional Fallacy I'll quote Natasha Lyon's interview in which she explains the ending and contrast it with Sophie Gilbert's review in Atlantic. Don't click those links if you haven't seen the show yet. Just take note of these quotes:

"It’s okay that this is the way I am, and it’s okay that this is the way you are." - Natasha Lyon, writer.

"The only way to bear what Nadia can’t change is to accept that she can’t change it." - Sophie Gilbert, reviewer.

They kind of agree, right? Although the tone is very different.

"But really, for them, three and a half years later, [it’s about] ‘How do I start living? What does it mean to be present in a life and make the most of the time that we have in the here and now, with our set of circumstances?" -  NL

"It’s a devastating way to leave a show that, at its outset, underlined how connection with other people could bring hope, joy, and redemption... Season 2’s final moments feel so shatteringly incomplete." - SG

Now they don't. They're seeing entirely different pictures.

Anyway, that's not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about the smoking. Geeeeeeeeeez! The smoking! I could hardly follow the plot for the smoke. At least that's my excuse.

Don't I remember reading just a few years ago how there were a whole set of rules for film and tv, either external or self-imposed, about not depicting cigarette smoking in a positive light? Wasn't it meant to be uncool to show smoking as cool, if not actually illegal? 

I even seem to remember something about old movies and shows being recut to remove or reduce the instances of smoking. I could have sworn it caused some kind of minor controversy over authenticity and cultural heritage.

Yeah, well, that seems to have died a death, ironically. I'm watching three shows on Netflix at the moment and two of them feature smoking almost as a core feature.(The one that doesn't is Space Force, in case anyone's playing some kind of drinking game.)

The one that's not Russian Doll is the original anime version of Cowboy Bebop in which all the main characters other than Edward, who's about eleven or twelve years old and Ein, who's a dog, smoke with élan; stylishly if not obsessively. Everything about the show is intended to drip cool, from the jazz soundtrack to the slinky spaceports and a certain kind of casual smoking very definitely ups that cool factor.

Cowboy Bebop was made just over twenty years ago, though, so you could argue standards were different then. I'm not sure there's any smoking at all in the recent live-action remake, even by the bad guys.

Russian Doll, Season 2 was made over the last couple of years, so there's not even that cigarette-paper thin excuse. Neither does the fact that some of the scenes take place in other time periods. Cigarette consumption here isn't historic, it's heroic.

In the first episode, Nadia, Natasha Lyon's character and the center of the story, spends so much time playing with an unlit cigarette I found myself wondering if the actor was a non-smoker who didn't want to inhale. Given that she's also the writer, that would seem unlikely.

That reticence turns out to be foreplay. For the succeeding six episodes Nadia's barely seen without a lit cigarette, often between her lips as she growls out her lines. Everyone else around her smokes too, or it feels like they do.

It's so foregrounded at times I found it actively distracting. I gave up smoking decades ago but I grew up in an era when knowing how to smoke was both a vital social skill and a mark of sophistication. I can't look at someone smoking without infering plenty about their character. 

In the case of Russian Doll and with due deference to the Intentional Fallacy, it's very plain that's what you're meant to do. Smoking acts as a plot point, a character arc and ironic foreshadowing, among other devices. With cigarette smoking at an all-time low I did wonder what, if anything , it all implied about the intended audience.

You're not going to get an answer on that from me. I just know what I'm watching isn't a documentary. If someone smokes in Russian Doll it's for a reason. And they do. All the time.

I'm not saying its cool or clever. We al know it's not. Still, it adds something that wouldn't be there otherwise and its hard to find anything to replace that effect. Which, I guess, is why writers keep lighting up even when the world is trying to give it up.

Forever Looping

As anyone who's had a substance abuse problem or lived with someone who has will know, keeping the supply lines open becomes a way of life. The last thing you want to do is run dry. That thought came back to me when I read Wilhelm's post on pandemic binge-watching: "The most difficult part of coming to the end of a show is that you now have to find something new to watch."

I do my best to make sure that never happens. My pattern for a while has been to have one dramatic series and two comedies in play at all times, interweaved in such a way that whenever any one of them approaches the end, the other two still have some way to go.

In the wings I keep several shows I know I definitely want to watch, along with a few more I might need if better options dry up. Netflix has a nice "My List" option I use to keep track of things. I don't remove anything when I've finished with it and Netflix doesn't do it for me. It makes for a handy tally of consumption.

It would be nice if Netflix let me annotate my list the way I've done in the screenshot above. Big red crosses for things I've already watched, ticks for shows I'm watching now, an elipsis for stuff I'm about to start on, question marks where I haven't made my mind up yet, tildes for standbys I know I'll get to some day but not any time soon and a big red NO for anything I've tried and didn't like or shouldn't have added to the list in the first place. Or something like that.

Amazon Prime has a similar facility although it's not as slick as Netflix's and anyway Prime doesn't appear to be adding new stuff often enough for me to need to keep a list right now. And that's the real problem. When you first subscribe to these services there seems to be more than you'll ever need. Indeed, the initial issue is how to put any kind of dent in the pile.

It's amazing how soon you get through the must-sees to the maybes, though. I don't really watch that much, certainly not by the standards of 1980s or 1990s me, but a couple of hours a day burns a hole that needs filling.

 

As I mentioned in my response to Wilhelm's post, I've been taking a lot of my recommendations from bloggers I follow. More often than not it's just a mention in a piece about something else. My blog roll doesn't feature too many who post specifically about their viewing habits but several mention what they're watching, in passing. All I need is a hint.

Once in a while, though, I will come up with something on my own, like the show I just finished watching last night: Russian Doll. I hadn't heard anyone mention it before I spotted it on Netflix although now I look it up I see it was nominated for a bunch of awards in 2019, none of which it won. As usual I'm about a year or two behind the zeitgeist. Which is fine at my age.

Doesn't matter. The point is I hadn't heard of it before I noticed it cropping up in the slew of "suggestions" Netflix pumps out daily, almost all of which I ignore. Only for some reason I didn't ignore this one. The thumbnails were stikingly simple, mostly just a picture of a matryoshka or the lead actor's face. It didn't seem to be trying too hard. Always a good way to get my attention.

 

So I added it to my list and it sat there for a while until I got towards the end of the third season of the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Deserves a post of it's own. Not going to get one. I was starting to get a little antsy, anyway. Netflix had flagged Sabrina with a "New Season Coming 31st December" banner but I knew I was going to come up short by a couple of weeks before that kicked in. What to do?

I tried Strong Girl Bong-Soon, which looked like it might be interesting. There are a lot of subtitled South Korean shows on Netflix but I hadn't yet tried one. After the first hour-long episode I was of the opinion the cultural gap might be just a tad too wide for me to jump without a run-up. 

There were parts of the show I liked a lot but there were other bits that I found... disturbing. For a light super-hero comedy it seemed very... violent. Not brutal Titans violent or grotesque Happy violent (geez... what an hour that was. Never again.). Just weirdly cartoonish violence using real people. Also the gender politics were a little difficult, here and there.

 

So that was out, at least for now. I thought about all the shows on my list but I didn't really want to start on any of them with Sabrina Season Four on the way so I started dapping through a few others I'd had an idle curiosity about, which was when I noticed Russian Doll's episodes were only 25-30 minutes long. I'd figured it would be an hour-long drama but apparently not. So I watched the first one right then. And it was great.

It's a very easy show to sum up. It's "What if Groundhog Day actually had an interesting plot?". I'm not a big fan. I saw it at the cinema on first release, back when I was going to the cinema two or three times a month, every month. I used to go see a lot of arthouse films in independent cinemas and a lot of Hollywood movies in multiplexes. Actually, in those days I don't think there were any multiplexes in the city where I lived. Mostly old 1930s picture palaces converted for three or four screens. But I digress (and not for the first time).

As I said, I wasn't all that impressed by Groundhog Day. It was good but I couldn't see what made it movie of the year material. I can watch Bill Murray in anything but at times I thought even he looked like he didn't quite get it.

 

It seemed like an interesting idea that no-one onboard really knew what to do with. It hit some kind of collective nerve, though, because since then the whole "live the same day over and over" time-loop concept has become a complete cliche. Of course, when I started watching Russian Doll I had no idea that's what I'd be getting. I hadn't read a single review or watched a single trailer. I'd read the Netflix description under the thumbnail and that was it.

Okay, if I'd been paying attention the blurb does in fact reveal that Nadia, the titular lead, "meets an untimely end...then suddenly finds herself back at the party" but in my defence I wasn't paying and attention and that is pretty vague. Half an hour later I was in no doubt: wake up in a bathroom, take drugs, die, wake up in a bathroom. That's the whole of the first two episodes.

I mean, we've all been there, right? Not the time loop but the setting. It's that New York state of mind. If Russian Doll wasn't so good it would be downright derivative. Half a century of literary and cinematic tropes in kit form. Forget Groundhog Day, think After Hours, Slaves of New York, Bright Lights Big City, Breakfast at Tiffany's... If Candy Darling and Joe Dallesandro walked past with Woody Allen in a muffler you wouldn't even bat an eye. 

For this kind of thing you need smart, hard, brittle dialog that drips with meaning and emotion and shallow, empty people filled with warmth, wisdom and empathy. It's a hard ask and many fall short but Natasha Lyonne carries it shoulder high. She's the lead actor and co-writer/creator, along with Leslye Headland and... oh yes, Amy Poehler. Well, that figures.

When you get the cast and the characters and the setting and the dialog this right the plot doesn't really mater but Russian Doll's nested narrative is fascinating. The title refers to Nadia herself, natch, but also to the complex interfolding of time, something whose mechanics, purposes and reasons remain deliciously unexplained throughout. 

Part of the draw is working out what the hell is going on, something Nadia and Alan, about whom I won't say anything becauuse almost anything I say about almost anything is going to be some kind of spoiler, spend most of the series trying to discover. There are only eight episodes and since no-one, presumably, knew whether there'd be a second season when they were writing them, there's even a kind of ending. Doesn't actually explain anything but that's the joy of it. 

Well, it is for me. I really love not knowing stuff. I like shows and movies and books that set up complex narratives and refuse to resolve them. I like stories that just end with no resolution. If you like to listen to smart, funny, quick-witted people being cynical and self-centered as they drive relentlessly toward a conclusion neither they nor you understand, this is for you.

I get that a lot of people don't like most or all of those things and that most people like to know what the hell they just watched when they get through watching it. On that front, at least, there is some hope. There's a second season already commissioned. Maybe it will shed some light on what's been going on. Or not.

I'd bet on not. In fact, I'm banking on it.