Russian Doll season 2 recap guide: Episodes 1 to 7

Russian Doll season 2, episode 3 recap: Brain Drain

When we last left off with Nadia, she’d lost the gold again while on the train. Russian Doll season 2, episode 3 starts with her having fallen asleep on the subway overnight until a kind woman wakes her up at the last stop.

Nadia visits Ruth, who takes her to the doctor for a baby check-up. Vera meets them there. Needing to provide a urine sample, Nadia goes to the restroom with Vera following behind. They have a brief conversation, Nadia realizes she’s starting to understand Hungarian, because Nora knows Hungarian. Then Vera mentions something about how the gold went missing once before, on a “gold train.” They don’t have time to finish their conversation before the nurse interrupts and Nadia sees the doctor.

Afterward, in Vera’s apartment, Nadia gets a chance to snoop around the place alone. She starts finding important documents and papers tucked into the back of several photo frames spread throughout the house. Things like passports and her grandpa’s transcript. Nadia pockets everything she can, stuffing it all into a giant pillowcase, and then slipping out the door.

From there, she goes to the only place you can find information freely during that era, the library. Nadia finds old slides under gold and train. She takes them and asks the librarian to look up any information she can on a lost “gold train.”

Nadia borrows a slide projector from Danny at Crazy Eddie’s (who she remembers from visiting at the Black Gumball in the premiere), and heads back to Nora’s apartment. There, she spreads out all the stuff she collected from Vera’s and sets up the projector.

Throughout the episode, Nadia has started to notice that something strange is happening to her the longer she spends in the past. Her body shows signs of sores and she even pulls a bug out of a sore in her arm, ew. It looks like Nora is fighting to break free and she does. Nadia and Nora split (but no one else can see this, so it just looks like Nora is talking to herself). Nadia is not just inside her mom’s body, but her mind, too.

In the first season, Russian Doll heavily implied that Nora was sick and this season seems to confirm she was a paranoid schizophrenic, hence why Nadia starts to struggle so much while sharing her mother’s mind.

Together, Nora and Nadia dig into the slides and information they’ve found. The librarian calls with the information she’s found, revealing that in 1944 the Nazis forced many Jewish families to give up their possessions and they stored it all on a train in Budapest, hence the “gold train.” Most of them received receipts showing what they gave up, with the idea that they could someday reclaim those items. But when the Nazis surrendered, the train disappeared.

Before Nadia can conduct anymore research, she gets a call from Ruth, who reminds her that Vera kicked her out of the apartment. Ruth says she sent someone from the hospital over (Nadia as Nora previously tried to explain the whole time-travel thing to Ruth, so it’s no wonder she’s concerned). Nora/Nadia is escorted to mental hospital and put into a straitjacket. Nadia insists that her mother is there, which only makes her look increasingly unwell.

Escorted into a room, Nadia manages to break out by tying her sheets together and climbing out the window. The only thing she can do at this point is return to the future, lest she get herself into more trouble in the past.

The first thing she sees is a note on her door asking why she isn’t calling him back. We still haven’t seen Alan since he boarded the train. What journey is he on? I’m guessing we’ll find out soon.

Back home in the present, Nadia digs through some of the items in her apartment, including an old photo of her mom. Stuffed into the frame is a receipt from 1944 made out to her grandfather and stamped with a swastika, proving that her family’s gold was on that lost train. Looks like Nadia is going to Budapest!