Summary
Russian Doll Episode 5 sees both characters form an allegiance to figure out what’s happening in another funny, engaging chapter.
So now we have established who Alan (Charlie Barnett) is and that he is experiencing the same life-death loop as Nadia (Natasha Lyonne), Russian Doll Episode 5 deals with both characters trying to figure out why this is happening to them.
Alan’s key theory, which drives Episode 5, is that they are living a purgatorial vacuum as a test, and they have to make up for their wrongdoings to stop what’s happening to them. I’m confident that the Netflix series is going to wait until the final episode to gift the audience the solution for both characters. Alan spends most of the episode sidetracked by his ex-partner, rather than trying to see if he wronged anyone.
The issue is, Alan has been f****d over, so for him to theorize he is dying over and over again as some form of punishment is most likely a by-product of his highly emotional feelings born from the break-up. Meanwhile, Nadia has highly disrespected her ex and played nonsense games, so spends the majority of the episode trying to meet his daughter; something he was eager for when they were in a relationship.
But unfortunately, every time both characters make a slight bit of progress, they die, and then they figure out they are both dying at the same time, forcing them to re-engage at Nadia’s party, which must be irritating her to the core by now. Eventually, Nadia does everything in her power to prevent gas explosions and falls down the stairs and nearly meets her ex’s daughter.
Nadia gets cold feet so she doesn’t enter the restaurant where the daughter is and theorizes further that every time they die they are entering another version of the universe and all this is doing is causing pain for people. Russian Doll Episode 5 was a sequence of mishaps for both characters.
