Jason Zinoman

I see this show is an against the grain meditation on the cultural guilt about the Tompkins Square Park Riots. Sounds crazy? Pretentious? Nonsense? You’re right. But hear me out. Or don’t. 2/

First some history: Tompkins has long been a NY counter-culture magnet (see Rent) filled with artists, punks, chess. It was the last NY park without a curfew. When the city adopted one in 1988 to kick out squatters, protests, clashes w/cops, "die yuppie scum" slogans ensued.3/

This conflict simmered and flared up for years until Dinkins shut down the park in 1991, kicking the homeless out, and renovating for 15 mons. For many, this set the stage for not just gentrification, but the death of East Villiage bohemia. 4/

This history haunts every episode of Russian Doll, a groundhog day-style show about Natasha Lyone doomed to die in the same day over and over again. 5/

The show is shot almost entirely inside and around the park. The park appears ghostly, stunning, magical. But its POV on past is ambivalent, encapsulated in this exchange: “Remember littering?” Remember Dinkins” 6/

NL plays a 36 year old stuck in a trauma from 1991 (first hint) when as a kid, she left her psychotically fraying, wild child mom (Chloe Sevigny, downtown NY cool personified) for a yuppie family friend. Her mom soon dies. 7/

NL lives in that guilt to this day, stuck between past and present, which we know because someone says, um, you are stuck between past and present. It’s not ALWAYS subtle. 8/

NL’s personal guilt is a stand-in for NY’s guilt losing the real authentic downtown represented by the “cleaning up” of the park,” a fight the city won. If the riots were the last stand of NY bohemia, then it lost. 9/

Old Tompkins bohemia is represented in the character of the homeless guy, often filmed next to a sign that says the park closes at midnight (2nd hint). He now lives in a shelter where his shoes are stolen. 10/

When NL first sees the homeless guy in ep 1, he looks familiar to her, but she doesn’t know where. The arc of the show is her reconciling with her roots with her mom, and the roots of the city’s trauma repped by this guy. 11/

The show underlines theme in its design. It’s set in a contemporary NY that looks like late 80s/early 90s: Shoulder pads, Michael Douglas hair. She’s a coder, but her game looks like Tron. She loves/talks like late 80s Dice, MSG Dice. 12/

Dice with Sam Kinison’s coat. Also the show's casting has easter eggs. To take just one example, the great David Cale, a performance artist who got his start at PS 122 in late 80s, plays the drug dealer. 13/

And the crazy Groundhog Day plot is a metaphor for old vs. new Tompkins. She shares this same day disease with Alan, organized, responsible, dying for marriage more than sex. Boring new Tompkins. 14/

SPOILERS AVERT YOUR EYES They find salvation (and a way out of their Groundhog Day) through each other, but also making peace with the homeless guy. NL gives Alan’s shoes to him. Alan weirdly proposes marriage. The happy ending culminates…15/

..with NL suddenly, magically in a giant street parade demonstration. WTF? This is a nod to the demonstrations of the riots. Those giant puppets are nods to Bread and Puppet, LES stand-bys for cultural activism. So, still, WTF? 16/

I think Russian Doll has the same POV as @adacalhoun’s book on the history of EV bohemia St Mark’s is Dead, a revisionist history of sorts that argues NY hipsters have ALWAYS said bohemia just died since the beginning of NY. 17/

Her book tells this story in detail, a history of bohemia dying and yet somehow not dying, an echo of the Russian Doll plot line. 18/

This is more radical (and conservative) than it seems. It goes against the common wisdom that downtown was killed by condos and gentrification. It argues for the resiliency of NY cool. 19

Like the book, Russian Doll presents the old and new ny in a continuum. NL, like old cool NY, is a survivor, even compared to a cockroach (the NY mascot?) who can never be destroyed. 20/

It’s an unusually optimistic story (Amy Poehler made this thing) about the changes in downtown NY. Is it naïve, nostalgic, even sentimental? Yes. But it’s also IMO deeply true. 21/

A decade later, I left college, moved to EV and my first apartment was a cheap studio on 7th st between A and B, also on the park. Tompkins still seemed cool and scary. 23/

Tompkins is still surrounded by great, talented artists and venues (also banks, gyms). Just different ones. The park seems a little less cool and scary. Which is good and bad. 25/