On Russian Doll, death is like a box of timelines — you never know which one you’re going to get.
And sure, the comedy series from Natasha Lyonne and Amy Poehler asks plenty of existential questions and plays with some trippy metaphors in its first season but let’s be real: we’re here for the purgatorial Groundhog Day hijinks. Ranking all of the bizarre, gruesome, strangely humorous ways Lyonne’s Nadia kicks the bucket in season one may be a bit nihilistic, but it’s also the best way to recap all of the weird time f*ckery that went down before season two. Enjoy.
19. Shock to the Heart
Cause of Death: Alan is moping by the same river Nadia fell into earlier in the season after learning his girlfriend has been cheating on him with her professor. He throws her engagement ring in the water before a power box attached to a light pole sparks, sending an electric jolt through the wet concrete and into the steel railing he’s holding onto.
The Last Word: Is this the most exciting death sequence? No, but it does accurately illustrate how damn unlucky Alan is in life at the moment so, that’s something.
18. The Bees
Cause of Death: Nadia and Alan discuss their shared allergy to bees right before hopping on the subway – which explains how they both end up in their separate bathrooms after a swarm of them causes passengers to run screaming from the tracks.
The Last Word: A “Worst Death By Bees” ranking would likely have this scene in the top five. (Obviously, the number one spot goes to My Girl.)
17. The Ambulance Accident
Cause of Death: Nadia has told Ruthie about her death loop and, because she can no longer blame the drugs, the only reasonable explanation is that she’s gone completely insane. Ruth calls an ambulance to take her to the hospital but on the drive over, a trio of paramedic mama’s boys pisses her off to the point where she tries to jump out of a moving vehicle. The commotion causes the driver to crash and Nadia to land back in the bathroom.
The Last Word: Between the sexist jokes and the medic’s knee-jerk usage of a sedative to calm Nadia down, we can’t say we’re sad to see these bozos say the Big Adios for good.
16. Jay Walking
Cause of Death: After going on an epic tirade Alan gets himself kicked out of Nadia’s birthday party and drunkenly wanders the streets of New York. He pleads with Bea to realize that Mike is a sex addict but before he has time to really make his case, oncoming traffic intervenes.
The Last Word: This is a fairly mundane way to get sent home in a box but props to Alan for using the most of his final minutes on Earth by comparing his girlfriend’s lover to a steaming pile of garbage whose scent even the East River couldn’t drown out.
15. The Take-Out
Cause of Death: Nadia goes off the deep end when Alan decides to clean and organize her apartment after their drunken hook-up. She sends him packing and visits Ruth, snacking on some chicken wings as she opens up about her mother’s mental illness. Sadly, their heart-to-heart is cut short when Nadia chokes on a chicken bone.
The Last Word: Remind us to never order take-out chicken wings in the middle of a death loop again.
14. Swimming With The Fishies
Cause of Death: Nadia experiences her death loop for the first time but all of the deja-vu and existential panic is worth it because she finds Oatmeal again. This time she avoids getting railed by a taxi and ends the night petting her deli cat while perched precariously on a railing overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge. Unfortunately, as soon as she convinces herself it was the coke-laced cigarette that caused her to hallucinate her own death, Oatmeal vanishes, and she tips in the wrong direction, knocking her head on the way down before drowning in the very polluted waters of the East River.
The Last Word: We don’t know what’s worse: your beloved cat disintegrating Thanos-snap style before your very eyes or living with the knowledge that in some alternate timeline, your dead body is floating in that pit of sludge they call the East River.
13. A Menace
Cause of Death: Nadia is still clinging to the hope that her current mental meltdown has been sparked by whatever Maxine’s joint was laced with so she pays a visit to their dealer, War Dog. Their chat is interrupted by Nadia’s ex, John, who weirdly doesn’t have a great response to her admission that she’s f*cked up on drugs and thinks she might be dead. Go figure. When Nadia starts unloading on him – telling your former boyfriend he really needs to start f*cking other people is some next-level savagery – her rant is interrupted by an opened sidewalk cellar door that she dives headfirst into, knocking a few stairs on the way down before waking up in the bathroom once again.
The Last Word: We don’t care how long you’ve lived there, every New Yorker has an adversarial relationship with cellar doors. As Nadia proclaims, they’re a damn menace.
12. A Menace, Dammit!
Cause of Death: Nadia discovers her very hard, never-ending night might be due to some sh*tty ketamine, but her victorious moment is short-lived… literally. She spots her Bodega guy helping Alan, the man she saw take down a shelf of wine the night before, back to his place and runs after the two. Only problem? Those damn cellar doors are open again and she falls in.
The Last Word: Seriously, f*ck those doors. But also, this one might be on Nadia. If you’ve fallen down the hatch once in your death loop already, you need to be more observant of your surroundings.
11. An Eternal Nap
Cause of Death: After a fight with her ex, Nadia arms herself with a bottle of liquor and goes searching for Oatmeal in the park. She runs into Horse, a homeless man who offers to cut her hair. The two bond over their shared grievances with life and, eventually, Nadia cuddles up with him on the street with just a ratty blanket to keep them warm. She wakes up in the bathroom again, eventually sussing out that she froze to death.
The Last Word: One of the darker ways Nadia “restarts” her loop happens here. Also, the downtown Manhattan mission can, in fact, “eat a dick” for handing out such crappy blankets.
10. Gas Leak
Cause of Death: Nadia goes searching for her favorite book from childhood and ends up at Ruth’s apartment. The two have a loaded conversation about the duality of life with a small aside about a burglar terrorizing the neighborhood before Ruth offers to make Nadia some tea. As she goes to light the gas stove a massive explosion rocks the building sending Nadia hurdling back to the bathroom.
The Last Word: Another character reset that took us by surprise, this one also claims Nadia’s sweet “grandma” Ruthie which is just unacceptable. Do better universe!
9. Don’t Look Up
Cause of Death: After Nadia bails on a pancake breakfast, she meets Alan on the street. The two comically quiz each other on whether they died that day and, just as Alan asserts his theory that they’re dying at the same time, an air conditioning unit falls from a five-story building crushing them both.
The Last Word: Again, Russian Doll is tapped into the everyday fears of New Yorkers in a way that’s starting to feel like an attack on their way of life.
8. Rotting Fruit
Cause of Death: Nadia realizes that all of the rotting fruit is proof time is still moving in some kind of linear fashion which means their death loop likely has an expiration date. As she walks down the street with Alan she sees a vision of herself as a child before stumbling back and telling Alan she thinks she might be having a heart attack.
The Last Word: This marks the first time the deaths start happening because of changes inside the characters which feels monumental … if only we could figure out the reasoning behind it.
7. Asthma Attack
Cause of Death: When Nadia realizes that fruit isn’t the only thing rotting and disappearing because of time – people at her party start dropping like flies too – she takes Maxine and Lizzy with her to find Alan. They get as far as the sidewalk in front of Lizzy’s building before Nadia has a panic-induced asthma attack after seeing another vision of herself as a child.
The Last Word: “You’ve had asthma all this time?” A completely normal question to ask your friend who’s chainsmoked two packs a day for the past 25 years as she bites the dust in front of you.
6. Bodega Bye-Bye
Cause of Death: Nadia drags Maxine and Lizzy to the deli where she meets Alan. They both swap death stories and realize they seem to be dying because of internal issues. For Alan, he suspects his last death was caused by liver failure. Nadia’s was an asthma attack. As he answers Lizzy questions Nadia gets another glimpse of herself as a child only this time, blood starts pouring from the little girl’s mouth which sparks some sort of seizure in Nadia, who dies as Alana yells at her to meet him at his place next time.
The Last Word: Points to Alan here for being so fed up with the death loop that he’s impatient for Nadia to quit her flopping around so they can start this process all over again.
5. Mistaken Intruder
Cause of Death: Nadia still wants to find that damn book but this time, she calls in a gas leak at Ruth’s before commencing her search. She also fails to wake up the woman which might be why a disoriented and terrified Ruth ends up shooting her in the back while she’s rifling through the closet.
The Last Word: This was a brutal death to witness, not only because a gunshot to the back is likely painful, but also because Ruth was the one pulling the trigger – by accident of course.
4. The Elevator Meet-Cute
Cause of Death: Nadia’s late for work after spending the night in the homeless shelter. She gets on an elevator filled with random strangers and Alan who strangely doesn’t panic when the lift malfunctions and starts to crash. When Nadia asks him why he isn’t more freaked out over the likelihood that they’re about to die he replies, “It doesn’t matter. I die all the time.”
The Last Word: What makes this scene really memorable though is that it marks Nadia and Alan’s first official meeting with a cliffhanger ending that totally f*cks with your idea of what this show is up until this point.
3. A Pancake Passing
Cause of Death: Nadia relives some painful childhood memories and decides giving her favorite book to John’s daughter is the way to ensure good karma and maybe even escape the death loop. She pays the girl a visit at the diner, hands over the book, and, before leaving, drops dead. But not before choking on a shard of glass – an allusion to her mother’s mental breakdown – spitting blood all over the poor girl’s face, and once again hallucinating a younger version of herself ominously telling her it’s time they break free.
The Last Word: The only thing worse than seeing blood spurting out of Nadia’s eyes and mouth is the idea that not even a childhood classic by the woman who wrote Anne of Green Gables can save us from this time loop.
2. Stairway to Hell
Cause of Death: After confronting Maxine about the ketamine-laced joint, Nadia heads for the hills but gets as far as the stairs before death decides her time’s up. Thus begins a hilariously bleak montage of Nadia waking up in the bathroom, blaming Maxine (and the universe) for her current mental state, and then tumbling down the building’s flight of stairs, either because she tripped, she knocked into someone, or she was bulldozed over by an impatient partygoer with a high-pony.
The Last Word: The Israeli joint was initially this show’s breakout villain – we thought for a while it might’ve been why Nadia was constantly kicking the can. But after the stairway to hell montage in episode two, it’s pretty clear this whole series is a metaphor questioning the existence of stairs – likely funded by the elevator industry.
1. The Cabbie Drive-By
Cause of Death: Nadia’s birthday is going objectively well. Sure she’s stared down the barrel of mortality but she’s also enjoyed a quick hookup, an Israeli joint, and a birthday chicken. She ends the night by doing some coding on her latest video game before realizing she’s run out of cigarettes. On her way back from getting her nicotine fix she spots Oatmeal, her feline soulmate who has failed to come home for the past three days and makes the mistake no respectable New Yorker ever would – she crosses the street without looking both ways. Really, is it the cabbie’s fault she ends up flying a few feet in the air before slamming her head into the pavement and dying a tragic death, or is it her own?
The Last Word: As Sheryl Crow once crooned, “the first cut is the deepest” and on Russian Doll, the first death is still the best – mostly because you just don’t see it coming. Neither does Nadia.
Netflix’s ‘Russian Doll’ returns on April 20.
