South African actor Sharlto Copley is the latest name to join the cast of Season 2 of Russian Doll, the acclaimed Netflix series from Natasha Lyonne. Other cast members that have already been announced include Schitt’s Creek’s Annie Murphy and Carolyn Michelle Smith. Netflix is doing a Marvel and keeping the plot and character details under wraps, and we still have essentially no new information about the second season beyond its casting announcements.
Russian Doll’s first season debuted on February 2019, and was extremely well received by critics and audiences. Netflix quickly renewed the show for a second season in June of 2019. But it seems that only in 2021 has new information been released about the second season, even if it’s only cast members. The first season followed writer, producer and creator Lyonne as a woman stuck in a time loop, doomed to repeat the same exasperating birthday party over and over again when she dies. She eventually discovers that another man, Alan Zaveri, is experiencing the same time loop phenomenon as she.
If I were to guess, I would bet that the second season follows a similar time loop premise, but with a different plotline and characters. The genius of Russian Doll’s success was its writing and the way it deftly shifted between comedy and drama a la Groundhog Day, as well as its fresh, new take on a genre weighed down by tropes and conventions. While Lyonne’s Nadia was an interesting and engaging character, I don’t really need another season of her, and I am interested to see who Murphy and Copley will play in the new season.
Copley is an interesting addition to the mix, who is probably best known to American audiences for his role in District 9, which is seemingly getting a sequel treatment according to writer-director Neill Blomkamp. He’s certainly been in his fair share of great films, as he is one of those actors who is able to disappear into his roles and become completely unrecognizable from project to project. His previous works include The A-Team, Spike Lee’s Oldboy, Maleficent, Free Fire and the highly underrated Hardcore Henry. He can be next seen in Dev Patel’s directorial debut Monkey Man, as well as his own directorial debut Sapien Safari, a sci-fi movie about an alien naturalist who fights to protect a species that’s vital to the survival of his planet.
There is no release date yet for Russian Doll’s second season, but will hopefully drop later this year. The first season is currently available on Netflix.