Nothing in This World Is Easy

**Nothing in This World Is Easy** is the first episode of Season One of *Russian Doll* and the first episode of the series overall.

## Synopsis

*On the night of her 36th birthday, Nadia meets an untimely end ... then suddenly finds herself back at the party her friends threw for her*.

## Plot

Nadia is walking the streets of New York late Monday night and early Tuesday morning, after a one night stand with some guy at her party and happens to come across Oatmeal. When she begins to cross the road and is viciously hit by a car, Nadia finds herself back in the bathroom of her best friends apartment. It appears that the universe has triggered a new beginning for her, but now she needs to figure out what the universe is trying to tell her.

She re-enters her birthday party, as every movement, every word spoken, is repeated to her in all normality, she immediately blames the cocaine that she’s been taking for making her feel crazy, but then other things start to occur. Things that didn’t happen the first time around.

The first night of her birthday, Nadia was seen speaking to the man she had a one night stand with, Mike, and she was staring at a fish tank that held eight fishes. After her first death, this moment is repeated, however there are only two fish in the tank – Ketchup and Mustard.

The second time around she sits down with Ruth and tells her that she has experienced this night once already, however talking to Ruth at her party is new and didn’t happen the first time.

She then bumps in to her ex-boyfriend of six months, John, in which she completely opens up to him and explains that she has died and come back to life,not hypothetically but for real. Although it takes some convincing and due to the fact he’s still in love with her, John accepts what she is saying and decides to walk her home.

During their walk home, Nadia believes that she recognizes the homeless man.

Nadia also see’s Oatmeal again, running in to the road and almost getting hit by another car. After her and John have a fight about him not being invited to her birthday party, Nadia goes her separate way and seeks out her cat.

Finally reunited with Oatmeal, Nadia holds him for a while until all of a sudden, he vanishes from her arms. In a surge of anger, Nadia falls back off the bench and in to deep water, where she drowns, dies and finds herself once again, back in her best friend’s bathroom.

Nadia freaks out again and storms off to find out what the hell is in that cocaine, because she is losing it. Her best friend, Maxine, calls her a cockroach which means that she can “eat anything, take anything, do anything” and that it’s impossible to destroy her. According to Maxine, Nadia can never die. When Maxine tells Nadia to leave, she bumps in to Mike on the stairs and nearly knocks the two of them down.

## Cast

### Starring

* Natasha Lyonne as Nadia Vulvokov
* Greta Lee as Maxine
* Yul Vazquez as John Reyes
* Elizabeth Ashley as Ruth Brenner

### Guest Starring

* Charlie Barnett as Alan Zaveri
* Rebecca Henderson as Lizzy
* Ritesh Rajan as Farran
* Brendan Sexton III as Horse
* Jeremy Bobb as Mike Kershaw
* Yoni Lotan as Ryan
* Max Knoblauch as a Paramedic #1
* Ken Beck as a Paramedic #2

### Co-Starring

* Charisma Glasper as Jordana
* Bridgette Bulger
* Yedoye Travis