Netflix's Russian Doll: What Does The Ending Really Mean?

8. What Happens In Timeline 1

The screen splits into two distinct narratives for the finale. Let's start with 'Timeline 1', which is the one where we follow Nadia as the central protagonist. In this timeline, Nadia retains her memories of everything we've watched her and Alan go through over the past eight episodes. This Nadia is wearing a white shirt - the colour we've most commonly come to associate with Alan - after having a drink thrown in her face at the party, which gives us an easy coda for distinguishing which is which,

Because of that, she knows that the key event in their lives and deaths is their ill-fated meeting in the deli, when they had the chance to help each other and did nothing about it. So Nadia sets about trying to help Alan, who has no idea of who she is. She follows him from the deli to a cafe, and eventually home, trying to convince him not to go through with the suicide he has planned.

At home, she tells him the story of 'the broken man and the girl with a death wish' to put him to sleep. When she wakes, he's missing, and she runs up to the roof to find him. He hasn't committed suicide yet though, and isn't going to at all. Nadia tells him that she can't guarantee he'll be happy, but she can guarantee he's alone. For Alan, who has had such an emptiness inside of him that no one was able to fill before that, that's enough to spare his life, and he goes off with Nadia. He's recognised what his pain is - the idea that he cannot be perfect, and the self-loathing he feels - but this now gives him a way to push past that. Not to completely rid himself of it, but a means of accepting it.