‘Russian Doll’ on Netflix: That Weird Ending Explained

Netflix’s new dramedy Russian Doll is a wild ride unlike any you’ve experienced before–and that’s saying something considering just how many time loop tales have been spun in movies and on TV. But Russian Doll separates from the pack by devoting way, way more time to its time loop than any movie or TV episode. You get to watch the hard-living Nadia (Natasha Lyonne) endure over a dozen loops across an entire season of television, uncovering more and more of the truth about her situation with every iteration. With eight episodes of buildup, that ending’s gotta be something!

If you’ve finished Season 1, then you know the ending–but do you know what happened? No, seriously, do you know? I’m checking. Russian Doll is the rare TV show that delivers an ending that truly deserves to be analyzed and explained, so let’s get into it! Obviously full-blown spoilers for the season finale of Russian Doll ahead.

What happens in Russian Doll’s season finale?

By this point in the series, Nadia and Alan, a fellow time-looper played by Charlie Barnett, have learned that they unknowingly crossed paths with each other on the night they both died. Alan was drunk in the convenience store that Nadia stopped off in with her hook-up of the night, Mike. The eighth episode, “Ariadne,” breaks the series’ cycle by splitting up the looping protagonists Nadia and Alan in two parallel iterations. Instead of rebooting into the same loop like they’ve done throughout the season, this time around Nadia (let’s call her Prime Nadia) runs into the drunk Alan in the convenience store; similarly, Prime Alan runs across the tipsy Nadia in the convenience store as she’s hanging off of the gross Mike. In their separate loops, both Prime Nadia and Prime Alan realize they have to do what they failed to do the first time around: save the other one’s life.

Sidenote: the episode is named after Ariadne, a character from Greek mythology that was a Cretan princess that’s closely tied with the labyrinth. This episode, this whole series, is a labyrinth. And who’s in the labyrinth? The minotaur! And who leads the parade? The homeless guy in a horse head mask! Okay, it’s not a bull mask, but it’s still too close to be a coincidence.

So yeah, Nadia and Alan have to save the lives of their drunk counterparts, versions of each other that know zilch about all this time loop stuff. Drunk Nadia and Drunk Alan brush off the Prime versions, but they don’t give up that easily. Prime Nadia takes Drunk Alan home and tucks him in, telling him a bedtime story. Prime Alan tricks Drunk Nadia into leaving her hookup early and then he pulls her out of the way of that speeding cab. Prime Nadia convinces Drunk Alan that life is worth living and he doesn’t jump from the roof, and Drunk Nadia ditches Mike to walk down the street with Prime Alan.

And then things get trippy.

Okay, very important distinctions: Prime Nadia is not wearing the gray overcoat, and Prime Alan has a scarf tied around his neck.

At this point, the two split screens merge into one as both pairs turn to walk towards an underpass. They approach a bohemian spirited parade of homeless people and artists and, after the the Nadias grab torches, the perspectives convene back into one, and Prime Nadia and Prime Alan are reunited, walking in the parade.

But… what does it all mean? Here are some theories, because–hate to break it to you–Russian Doll’s ending is totally up to interpretation.

The timeline has been restored and Nadia and Alan finally get to live out their lives.

The final iteration saw both Nadia and Alan step out of their claustrophobic comfort zones and reach out and help a total stranger (at least to those outside of the loop). They finally grew as people and saved each other. Because of that, the fractured loops merge back into one and Nadia and Alan get to carry forth, marching in the wild parade of life.

All of this is supported by the way the closing scene is shot. We’ve spent the entire episode in parallel loops, visualized by the splitscreen. Then the splitscreen cuts back to one, representing the loops converging. And the Nadia and Alan left standing in that parade are not the Drunk ones, but rather the Prime ones; Nadia isn’t wearing the overcoat and Alan has the scarf. These are the versions of the characters we’ve followed for dozens of loops, the ones that learned all those lessons.

This is also supported by the fact that you can briefly see Prime Nadia, the one in the black blazer, walking between parallel versions of Drunk Nadia; two wild-haired redheads in gray overcoats pass Prime Nadia in the parade. That could symbolize that the Drunk Nadia of that first loop is fading into the background, giving way to the learned Prime Nadia.

It’s also hard to tell because of the way it’s cut, but Prime Alan and Nadia are actually walking with the parade, in the total opposite direction that their counterparts were walking in. Symbolically, that’s gotta mean that these two are finally moving forward.

There was no timeline to restore because Nadia and Alan were dead all along, but at least they finally get to rest in peace.

It’s also possible that everything above still stands, but with an added bummer bonus: Nadia and Alan are totally dead and the loops were a lesson from purgatory. Now that they’ve each grown as people, they get to be free of these hellish loops and get to march on into the great beyond. This is supported by the fact that the parade kinda looks like a Day of the Dead parade (kinda, not totally). The Day of the Dead feel is enhanced by the song choice of Love’s “Alone Again Or,” a ’60s pop song with a heavy mariachi influence.

The “they were dead all along” theory is also supported by a whole lot of the weirder parts of the season, like the decaying fruit, disappearing people, and those bodega bros popping up in random spots as Nadia’s co-workers and the EMTs. There’s also the question of why this happened to Nadia and Alan in the first place! Things don’t have to make logical Earthly sense if we’re not dealing with Earth at all.

Or it’s up to you, baby!

Take from Russian Doll what you will. The one clear thing about the ending is that it is, fundamentally, a happy one for Nadia and Alan, be they alive or dead or something in between. They corrected their past mistakes and become better people by helping each other. If you want to believe they were literally stuck in a video game or are really on some mystical island somewhere, it’s all up to you! Russian Doll is a show about choices, after all.

Stream Russian Doll on Netflix