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

7. What Happens In Timeline 2

Timeline 2, then, is Alan's, where he is the one who has been through the loops, and must save the original version of Nadia. Unfortunately for him, that's a more difficult proposition.

Nadia, who is in the shop with Mike, doesn't trust Alan at all, and rebukes all of his efforts to try and explain to her what's happened (which is understandable, given he's a stranger trying to tell her that they've died together and will die again). Nadia's trauma and lack of self-worth are deeply connected to events of her childhood, which ultimately makes them harder for her to overcome, or at least necessitates a different sort of approach.

It's only when he has Farran call Nadia and tell her she owes him $152,780.86 - a callback to her Holocaust story in the fifth episode - that she begins to trust him, and then he tells her he knows where Oatmeal is. That shifts things further in his favour, before he literally saves her life, pulling her back from the road as a cab speeds past, that she gives in and goes with him rather than Mike.