Fatal Attraction

Self-destructive Nadia is condemned to search for meaning in a crazy world.

- Diana Wichtel

Is it her mysteriously missing and reappearing cat, Oatmeal? Is it the joint laced with ketamine she is given by her friend Maxine? Is it her dead mother? Something must be causing gobby, chaotic video game coder Nadia to keep dying, only to wake up back at Maxine’s flat. Nadia has turned 36 and is condemned to keep enduring what looks like the least fun birthday party on the planet. Hell is other people, a sort of social fire where you are eternally burnt but never consumed and there’s no escape.

Netflix’s dramedy Russian Doll is Groundhog Day, sort of, or any of a number of shows featuring wise-cracking dead people and time loops. “This is The Game,” says Nadia at one point. “I’m Michael Douglas.”