Plot: Nine new strangers connected in ways they could never imagine are invited by mysterious guru Masha Dmitrichenko to join a transformational wellness retreat in the Austrian Alps. Over the course of a week, she takes them to the brink. Will they make it? Will she? Masha is willing to try anything in the interest of healing everyone involved, including herself.
Review: Four years ago, Liane Moriarty’s bestselling novel, Nine Perfect Strangers, became a pulpy summer hit for Hulu. With an ensemble cast that included Regina Hall, Melissa McCarthy, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Shannon, and Nicole Kidman, the drug-fueled thriller blended some dark comedic elements within a mystery set in the remote Australian wilderness. While the David E. Kelley-created series was based on a standalone novel, the success allowed the door to be opened for a sophomore season. With Kidman returning as Masha in an all-new European location, Nine Perfect Strangers manages to improve upon the story from season one as it aims to follow in the footsteps of The White Lotus.
The first season of Nine Perfect Strangers found the title group of protagonists attending a remote retreat called Tranquilium, led by the enigmatic Masha Dmitrichenko (Nicole Kidman), who uses hallucinogenic drugs to help her guests reach a mental and psychological balance. As the guests endured visions and reached their mental breaking points, they reached clarity at the end as Masha departs, and we see her with a vision of her dead daughter by her side. The second season finds Masha a notable success after the controversial treatments from season one. It has transferred to a facility deep in the Alps called Zauberwald, run by her mentor, Helena (Lena Olin), and fellow scientist Martin (Lucas Englander). As in the first season, Masha assembles a new group of patients to undergo the next stage of her drug-induced treatment, which carries an even bigger purpose than before. The connections between the guests at Zauberwald are not clear at first nor direct, but as the eight-episode season progresses, the truth behind Masha’s experiment is revealed.
The cast of the first season was excellent, exceeding the quality of the material. Still, this season we have an even more substantial assortment of characters who all inhabit their roles wonderfully. Imogen (Annie Murphy) is a judgmental woman who struggles with her mother, Victoria (Christine Baranski), who arrives with her much younger lover, Matteo (Aras Aydin). Musicians and couple Tina (King Princess) and Wolfie (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) are dealing with a creative block that has put a wedge between them, while Peter (Henry Golding) is looking for meaning alongside his father, wealthy magnate David (Mark Strong). There is also the former nun, Agnes (Dolly de Leon), and television personality Brian (Murray Bartlett), who have all arrived to seek Masha’s guidance. As their stay at the snowed-in retreat keeps them cut off from cell service and access to outside assistance, the stakes begin to be raised as the drugs kick in. This gives us a lot of back and forth from the cast, especially Murray Bartlett, who once again steals the show as he did in The Last of Us and The White Lotus. Everyone is excellent, as no single role feels underdeveloped or wasted.
As in season one, each episode dives into the backstory of one of the ensemble cast, giving us a more profound exploration of why they seek Masha’s treatment. Dolly de Leon, a breakout star in Triangle of Sadness, offers a beautiful performance that may be one of the strongest supporting roles of the year. Murray Bartlett and Annie Murphy continue to prove themselves capable of any role they take on, and Mark Strong is once again a steadfast anchor for the entire cast. Lena Olin works well alongside Kidman and Lucas Englander, while the frigid castle location offers an entirely different tone and feel compared to the tropical first season. The most notable thing about the second season of Nine Perfect Strangers is how bad it makes the first season look. With elevated writing and a more connected narrative, I overrated the first season. Taken as individual series, each season can be watched as a standalone, but when compared to each other, this run is the better of the two by a significant margin.
While director Jonathan Levine returns after helming the entire first season, the Warm Bodies and Long Shot filmmaker shares duties with Anthony Byrne on half of the eight episodes of this season. Series creators David E. Kelley and John-Henry Butterworth remain executive producers this season but have no writing credits as the team of scribes includes Rachel Shukert, Jaclyn Moore, Dan Robert & Lisha Brooks, Sarah Sutherland, and Jonathan Levine. The new team makes excellent use of the foundation laid in the first season while expanding the story in a new direction that feels more mature and less melodramatic than the first season. Liane Moriarty’s novels have become global bestsellers but have paled compared to Big Little Lies, the marquee HBO series that Nicole Kidman headlined. Moriarty’s Apples Never Fall was another lackluster adaptation. Still, Nine Perfect Strangers has evolved from the limitations of the source material to become an even better and more engaging mystery this time, even if some of the revelations are telegraphed early in the season.
In light of how superior this second season is, I may have overrated the first season in my review. Had the first season been as well assembled as this, it would have been an even bigger hit with audiences and earned more critical praise. Nicole Kidman has built upon the vague origin of Masha in the first season to make her an even more intriguing presence here, with the potential for a third season to dig even deeper into the complex psychological issues her treatments bring to the surface. As much as I liked Kidman this season, being surrounded by this ensemble is the winning formula for this series to be the next big anthology-style hit everyone will discuss and theorize about. While the formula means we won’t see most of these characters again, the final moments of the Nine Perfect Strangers season two finale intrigue me for what comes next.
Nine Perfect Strangers premieres its second season on May 21st with two episodes on Hulu.
