For Sale: Baby (Oops!)

SO GOOD. JUST IN GENERAL. but a few of my favorite things:

Loved the detail of the clothing items to distinguish between the Alan/Nadia timelines at the end. Not only because it’s just a good idea to not confuse people, but because it brings clarity to the ending where the timelines converge. If they had just had Alan and Nadia wearing different clothes in the different timelines with no real reason for it other than the meta reason of distinguishing the different versions of the characters, then the argument could be made that there’s just one timeline now and it’s up in the air what Alan and Nadia are together now and how much they remember, if anything. With the clothing being a consequence of both of the characters actions as a result of remembering the timelines (Alan going to the party and talking to Lizzy, Nadia talking to Maxine when going to go find Alan), it’s pretty definitive that Complete Knowledge Nadia and Complete Knowledge Alan are the ones walking together at the end. LOVED IT.

Loved the seed talk from Ruth, because the metaphor of the Russian nesting doll is kinda obscured in the narrative, and considering the title one of my driving questions was “what are the components of this metaphorical doll, and what’s at the center?” For Nadia I think the little girl version of her was one of the mid-layers, for Alan I think it was his relationship to Beatrice, but for both of them it’s the desire to grow and reach out to the world that’s buried the furthest underneath, but it has to break through a specific mid-layer and a top layer of flaws that discontent them from the world in one way or another. LOVED THAT.

In the theme of layers, the objects Alan and Nadia are attached to. Alan throws away the ring fairly early on, and once it disappeared I was like “oh! So it’s like a metaphorical representation of his desire to obscure things and deny discomfort and he threw it away, so Nadia needs to get rid of her Plot Important for Reasons I Don’t Think We Fully Understand Yet necklace” and when she gives it to Horse I was like “wait how long is this series again?” But when it kept going it made a lot of sense because it was just the first step, or the first shed layer. Like it was a big step for both of them in certain ways (and yes Alan got rid of the ring in the original timeline but he was drunk off his ass and he gave it away out of a depressed resignation and not an admission of anger/true embrace of an element of chaos). LOVE.

In a lot of ways it makes sense to start with Nadia because she’s kind of way more responsible for their situation than Alan is, and she’s the one more obviously punished by the time restarts, AND as it’s shown Alan was a very passive force until Nadia showed up so it wouldn’t have made a very good show. But anyway in the original timeline Alan would have had no idea that Nadia needed help in any way, while Nadia saw Alan was having a bad day, thought about helping, and actively chose not to. Not a love, I guess, I would have liked a lot more Alan, especially about his relationship with Beatrice, but I just think it’s neat.

The whole set up of the loops I LOVE. It’s specific enough that you can imagine that not a lot of people are experiencing this problem, unlike in some other Groundhog Day Loop scenarios where you wonder why this specific person is facing this particular cosmic foible over any of the other flawed human beings on this Earth. Like how often are two people both in the position of saving each other’s lives, both are unwilling or incapable of doing something to help, and then they both die at the exact same time completely independent of each other? I was worried the whole time what the final explanation would be for the loop, or that there wouldn’t be one, and this is one of the first times I’ve been very satisfied with a big mysterious supernatural force being explained. VERY GOOD.

Also Nadia and Alan end up dying in a lot of ways I’m deeply afraid of, which is good for creeps but bad for sleeps thanks Russian doll.