Charlie Barnett on Alan’s Journey in Season 2 of ‘Russian Doll’
"Gotta get up, gotta get out, Gotta get home before the mornin' comes."
Few series are as ambitious, as idiosyncratic, and as heartbreaking as Netflix’s 2019 series ‘Russian Doll’. The philosophical dark comedy stars Natasha Lyonne as Nadia, software engineer who finds herself trapped in a time loop on her 36th birthday. Nadia dies and comes back to life in a macabre version of Groundhog Day that ties in Jewish mysticism, guilt, inherited trauma, and the power of connection. Joining her on her on her journey is Alan (Arrow‘s Charlie Barnett) who is similarly caught in the same time loop. Season one saw the duo save each other and break the cycle, bringing their story to a natural end. So when ‘Russian Doll’ was renewed for a second season, fans were naturally wondering what came next.
***SPOILER ALERT: This post discusses plot points from season 2 of ‘Russian Doll’.***
Season two dives headfirst into family history, as Nadia, days shy of her 40th birthday, finds herself transported via a wormhole on the 6 train to 1982. She discovers that she is trapped in the body of her mother Nora (Chloë Sevigny) while she is pregnant with Nadia. Nadia decides to pursue the gold krugerrands her grandmother Vera saved while fleeing the Holocaust, which her Nora then lost. The season sees Nadia bounce from 1982 New York to 1944 Budapest in an effort to fix her family’s trauma and find a better life.
Alan finds a wormhole of his own, one that takes him to East Berlin in 1962. There, he finds himself inhabiting the body of his grandmother Agnes (Carolyn Michelle Smith) and experiences her romance with a German student who plans to tunnel under the Berlin Wall. If it sounds like a lot, well, it is. ‘Russian Doll’ packs in questions of time travel, fate, and the line of trauma that connects the generations. It’s a wildly ambitious and heady season that sticks the landing, thanks in no small part to the phenomenal performances of Barnett and Lyonne, who stepped up to take the reins as showrunner in season 2. We sat down with Barnett to discuss Alan’s journey into the past. *This interview was been edited and condensed for clarity.
THE MARY SUE: What was it like having Natasha Lyonne step up as showrunner this season?
CHARLIE BARNETT: You know, it’s so interesting, the first season, as much as Natasha wasn’t the showrunner, Leslye Headland was our showrunner, and she had a lot of the weight on her shoulders as well. That’s a position that like, I’m looking at it from afar and always being like, “damn, these women are just incredibly powerful and able and I don’t know if I could ever freaking do it.” Seeing Natasha step up into the second season, I had a lot of admiration, and would just step back and watch and learn.
She is, she’s been in this business for so long and learned so much as well, and had a lot of tools to apply, but as well know, as human beings, that takes rerouting and re-understanding, so I think it’s really a special gift for me to get to watch her evolve through it as well. But she rose to the occasion, and Goddess knows that she really is pushing her best foot forward, and reapplying everything she can to make an incredible story.
TMS: In season 2, we see Alan inhabit the body of his grandmother Agnes (Carolyn Michelle Smith) in East Berlin in 1962 … and he’s loving the journey. Why do you think he finds himself so at ease in that body and that time period?
CB: This world is more different, more distant, and I think when we enter in, we get to see Alan maybe 75 percent through his beginning experience. He’s really starting to settle into it. In my mind, I created a whole terrifying route of how he got to that place of comfort. I think a lot of it has to with the fact that the train comes back to the station. He has the freedom to go in and out. It’s not like the deaths [in season 1], it’s not like shocking, unforeseen experiences, which adds heightened fear. This world, he can go in and out as he chooses. It’s almost like a gift that he’s been given, and he starts to see it as such.
TMS: I was struck by Alan’s comfort with the fluidity of his experience, as a straight, cisgender man living as a woman who is experiencing a romance with a man.
CB: In my mind, and goddess knows I’m open to the idea of it, and I love the conversation, but I really don’t think this is an exploration into Alan’s sexuality or his gender identity. He is enjoying playing in those fields, but I really truly believe that he sees himself as wearing a mask when he rides the train. He is not getting lost in “oh I might be gay or bi, or questioning if I’m trans”, which shouldn’t really be part of the conversation because its not. He is thankful to be living within a literal Russian doll, he is the next layer down with like, goggles out to the universe.
He has this protection of another skin over him, to the point I think that he’s kind of taking advantage of his grandmother, of her experience. He’s a little bit frivolous with it, as a woman of color, an immigrant in a different country, … He just kind of hops in there and is ready to ride, and its like, “Bro!” You are taking advantage in a dangerous way … It’s less in my mind of him exploring sexuality and more of him exploring love, this different time period, and people in a way that he was never comfortable with, because he’s so restrained. He’s almost enjoying it too much.
TWS: What was the collaboration like with Carolyn Michelle Smith, who plays Agnes?
CB: Carolyn and I went to Juilliard together, we connected in school, and when Natasha was looking for someone to play this role she wanted somebody that had a personal relationship towards me…I was so thankful that she received the part … She was a lot more free with playing in that ambiguous side, because even though we are living in between each other, the timeline remains ever present. At the end of the show, we realize we have no control. Natasha and I are living through this journey and it’s a gift we get to ride on.
But we don’t get to make the differences. Its two different worlds bc I’m living through her. We may be in the same experience, but it’s playing completely different for each character. The parts where we really gelled was in our physicality. And she brought my physicality into her performance. Alan is always looking for answers, to understand himself, and I think a lot of those answers came through his relation to her because they understand each other in a way. I don’t think their emotional paths are the same, and I didn’t realize that until I watched the second season. We’re living through the bubble and the audience gets to see inside the next level.
Both seasons of ‘Russian Doll’ are currently streaming on Netflix.
(image: Netflix)
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