NINE PERFECT STRANGERS – Season Two

Masha Dmitrichenko (Nicole Kidman) and her wigs return for a second season of Nine Perfect Strangers. After the success of Big Little Lies (2017–19), Australian author Liane Moriarty and Kidman teamed up again to adapt another of her bestselling novels, Nine Perfect Strangers. Season 1 saw Kidman as a Russian wellness retreat owner who used controversial hallucinogens to help her guests unearth and overcome their inner trauma.

Like all too many standalone television series, its popularity earned the show another season despite the source material. On paper, having a new group of patients bring their personal baggage to Masha isn’t a terrible idea. Sadly, the execution of this season fails to live up to the original and wastes its all-star cast of talented actors who put in more work than the writing deserves.

Season 2 of Nine Perfect Strangers moves proceedings to Zauberwald in the Alps and sees a whole new group of people trying to better balance their mental and physical health. This sophomore outing is ultimately less about Masha’s guests and more about her overcoming her own past.

The story begins with Russian wellness guru Masha being interrogated by the press after someone wrote about their experiences using her unorthodox methods. Her techniques and use of narcotics have meant she sees realistic visions of her dead daughter, but not everyone is so convinced that what she is doing is ethical.

One person who still believes in her methods is Helena (Lena Olin), who ships Masha off to her snowy health retreat. Helena’s son Martin (Lucas Englander) is less convinced by his mother’s new business plan. Pretty soon into proceedings, it becomes obvious this hiring is less about supporting Masha and more about keeping her family business alive.

Despite numerous federal investigations, people are still interested in her questionable therapy methods. These methods include dangerous drugs that allow patients to return to formative memories from the past. How this helps people and their trauma is glossed over, but it does make an effective visual tool for viewers.

Joining Masha, Martin, and Helena in this snowy, remote landscape is another group of the wealthy searching for mental clarity. Imogen (Annie Murphy) and her mother, Victoria (Christine Baranski), hope to work on their estrangement at the retreat. This is thwarted by the arrival of Victoria’s much younger lover, Matteo (Aras Aydın), who isn’t quite the Ken doll he initially seems.

They aren’t the only family hoping to reconcile using Masha’s methods. Peter (Henry Golding) is looking for a sense of purpose and connection with his billionaire father, David (Mark Strong). Ultimately, Imogen and Peter find themselves connecting over alcohol and absent parents.

Musician couple Tina (King Princess) and Wolfie (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) are struggling with serious creative block. Tina, a child prodigy on the piano, is struggling to commit to that life as an adult. Their story is probably the weakest, but the connections Wolfie makes with the other guests are some of the strongest writing of the series. It appears that the writers struggle to understand Tina after her initial set-up.

The most interesting character and the most gut-wrenching performance belong to former nun Agnes (Dolly de Leon), who’s trying to process and atone for her wrongs working as a nurse. She forms a friendship with a disgraced children’s television personality, Brian(Murray Bartlett), who used to help children process their emotions through a sinister puppet. This was until a mental break on air led to the cancellation of his Mr Rogers-style programme, and Nine Perfect Strangers has a pretty mature outlook on cancel culture.

In the first season, the guests and their unravelling tales of confronting their trauma together were the centrepiece. In the second season, the guests are pushed into the background in favour of Masha’s story. Armed with a cheap bleach blonde wig and a wandering accent (which is hilariously acknowledged in the first episode), Kidman chews through the scenery but skilfully never manages to become a caricature.

Season 2 deals with much darker themes than the first. Thematically, the first season (co-starring Melissa McCarthy, Michael Shannon, and Regina Hall) addressed trauma, loss, and tragedy, but it wasn’t explored so deeply. This new season really hams up the drama and misery until it becomes too much to process in one watch.

Nine Perfect Strangers continues to embrace weirdness through the hallucinogenic therapy sessions. These drug trips range from Murray Bartlett having arguments with a puppet (something that is strangely emotive) to Henry Golding and Annie Murphy re-enacting scenes from Heidi. The tone of these trippy sequences can be jarring as they are sometimes played for laughs, yet are about the guests’ deep-seated trauma.

The choice to focus more on Masha’s past and the politics of her retreat pulls the audience away from the guests. Murphy, Baranski, de Leon, and Bartlett are doing such great work with rich characters that it’s a shame they are sidelined for a much weaker performance and narrative. The first half of the season does so much to make these characters feel real, and then fails to do anything with them in the second half.

Initially, Nine Perfect Strangers appears to play into well-worn tropes with cold-hearted billionaires, cougars and their young boyfriends, and tortured artists. However, as the narrative unfolds, the writing neatly subverts these stereotypes. The characters all feel so real and lived in that they never fall into being caricatures.

De Leon’s performance as Agnes is subtle yet powerful. She’s the real heart of the show, and her relationship with her past holds the themes of the narrative together. Baranski steals every scene she is in, bringing comedy relief as an acidic, pill-popping cougar. Her fabulous performance perfectly contrasts the more grounded Murphy, who more than proves she can take on drama as well as comedy.

Bartlett had the almost impossible role of mostly acting alongside a puppet. His character has the most visible breakdown, yet it never feels insincere or ridiculous. Shockingly, some of the moving moments of this season of Nine Perfect Strangers involve the actor and a puppet. If de Leon is the heart, Bartlett is the brain, and his words of wisdom have far more impact than whatever Masha’s therapy is supposed to do.

King Princess and Richardson-Sellers have the least to do but have the chemistry of a romantic partnership struggling to contain resentment. Golding can’t quite balance the show’s tonal changes and especially struggles during the more wacky hallucinogenic scenes. Strong is ever a solid actor, but even he can’t save the odd writing choices they make for his character. The scenes between him and Kidman feel like they belong in a completely different series.

With only eight episodes and such a large cast, it’s impossible to address everything that needs to be said. Especially when the last three episodes are dedicated to Masha, Helena, and Martin. It’s cruel to make audiences care so much about these characters, only to abandon them in the final episodes. Ultimately, audiences will walk away disappointed in being teased with great characters and brilliant performances, only to be fed a telenovela finale with quite obvious twists.

Nine Perfect Strangers has always erred on the side of overdramatic, and the soap opera drama is amped for the final episode. The last third’s musings try too hard to neatly wrap up the themes of the series in a bow instead of embracing the messiness of life and people. The morality and social satire of the bombastic final episodes undo a lot of the hard work of the more subtle earlier episodes.

USA | 2025 | 8 EPISODES | 16:9 HD | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

writers: Racel Shukert, Jaclyn Moore, Dan Robert, Lisha Brooks, Sarah Sutherland, Jonathhan Levine, Noah Diaz & Sam Potochick.
director: Jonathan Levine.
starring: Nicole Kidman, Aras Aydin, Christine Baranski, Murray Bartlett, Dolly de Leon, Lucas Englander, Henry Golding, Annie Murphy, Lena Olin, King Princess, Maisie Richardson-Sellers & Mark Strong.