Russian Doll season 2 reviews are in – and critics are calling it a "welcome shift" from season 1

gamesradar.com:

The wait for Russian Doll season 2 is nearly over, and the reviews are now in for the latest installment of the hit Netflix show. This time around, Nadia, played by series creator Natasha Lyonne, isn't just reliving the past, she's traveling through it.

Lyonne has previously revealed that season 2 picks up four years after the end of season 1 – apparently Nadia and her Groundhog Day companion Alan (Charlie Barnett) "must sift through their pasts via an unexpected time portal located in one of Manhattan's most iconic locales." Schitt's Creek's Murphy and District 9 star Sharlto Copley have also joined the cast for round two. 

Read on to see what the critics are saying about Russian Doll season 2. 

Russian Doll once again presumes that you, like Nadia, have consumed enough stories about time travel to know the rules about what people should and shouldn’t do if they spontaneously find themselves transported to the distant past. Season two raises the stakes and puts a unique spin on the genre, though, by padding its story with a healthy dose of urban legends and batshit left turns that all complement Lyonne’s performance as a consummate New Yorker who – mostly – knows no fear.

So, no, it is not the immaculate experience that the first season was. But in reaching further and trying more, Russian Doll season two ultimately justifies the series’ existence as more than just a one-shot. Where once it was hard to see how a continuation might work, now it wouldn’t feel the least bit surprising for Nadia to, say, be abducted by aliens who are baffled by her ability to namecheck all the members of Kraftwerk. As Nadia tells a loved one, "Inexplicable things happening is my entire modus operandi." Here’s to more of the inexplicable