'Nine Perfect Strangers' Season 2: It's A Wonder What Four Years Can Do

When Nine Perfect Strangers premiered in 2021 on Hulu, it felt like a hastily assembled echo of The White Lotus but with psychedelics. It was based on the Liane Moriarty novel of the same name and told its own story. Still, the similar trappings of rich people in “exotic” locales seeking healing made the comparison to the HBO hit inevitable. Nicole Kidman led the cast as Masha Dmitrichenko, the founder and chief healer of Tranquillium House, a health and wellness resort in California. The stacked cast (deep breath, Kidman, Melissa McCarthy, Michael Shannon, Luke Evans, Samara Weaving, Manny Jacinto, Regina Hall, and Bobby Cannavale) were largely excellent but given uneven and inconsistent material to work with. One scene would have Shannon in tears as he processes his son’s tragic death, and the next would show Masha’s two attendants bickering through the same love-triangle argument they continued to have all season. The ending was a soap opera mess that suggested that the guests, despite being nonconsensually dosed with psybicilin and ruthlessly manipulated, were actually healed by Masha’s cult-like “protocol.” The series now returns, four years later, to tell another tale of Masha “healing” a new batch of wealthy people. Can it exceed the mediocre first season, or will it sink into the same foibles it did before?

Masha (Kidman) has become something of an Elizabeth Holmes figure as the premier opens with her pitching a psychedelics-delivering device at a speaking engagement. She’s dogged by multiple federal investigations and is served with yet another summons when handsome pharmacologist Martin (Lucas Englander) comes by to offer her a place at Zauberwald (“magic forest”), a wellness retreat in remote, mountainous Germany. There’s not even cell service out there, so good luck to anyone else who wants to sue Masha. Zauberwald, formerly a sanitarium, is run by Masha’s old mentor, Helena (Lena Olin), who keeps a serene face over her significant financial troubles. Helena and Martin both want Masha to “color inside the lines” a bit more than she did at Tranquillium, but Masha almost immediately breaks their rules. Helena’s a little leery about covering the whole building with hidden cameras, but this is par for the course for Masha.

Subjecting themselves to Masha’s ministrations is a spirited cast of fun characters. There’s Brian (Murray Bartlett), a former children’s show host who was cancelled after a big outburst on set. When he arrives at Zauberwald, he mistakes Sister Agnes (Dolly de Leon) for one of the staff and has her carry his bags. Agnes is a former nun, a famous one, who is wearing a staff uniform because, she claims, her clothes were too dirty from traveling. She also grimaces whenever allusions to her past come up, which is a great TV signal of big secrets. There’s also Imogen St Clair (Annie Murphy), a sharp-tongued and anxious young woman who can hold court on Jungian archetypes and is there to repair her strained relationship with her mother, Victoria (Christine Baranski). Because Victoria is a Baranski character, she swans in wearing a fur and toting a young new boyfriend, Matteo (Aras Aydin), which makes Imogen furious. While trying to find cell reception, she runs into Peter Sharp (Henry Golding), a mountain climber and scion of the wealthy Sharp family. Peter is waiting for his father, David (Mark Strong), who was supposed to meet Peter there. They bond over parental gripes and the usual attraction that occurs between two hot people on TV. Rounding out the patients are Wolfie (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) and Tina (King Princess). They’re musicians in love grappling with Tina’s piano-related trauma and with a growing rift in their relationship.

The first season had this heady mix of interpersonal dramas all simmering together in a pot, but this season of Nine Perfect Strangers feels different. It has direction, a sense of purpose, and it seems to know more clearly what to be. The first season felt like a comedy or a soap opera or a paean to alternative medicine, depending on the scene. This season conjures many of those same elements, but does a far better job of melding them together effectively. It helps that this season seems more openly critical of Masha’s methods and is more intentional about positioning her character as a loose cannon who’s going too far. It also helps that the series’ tone has settled into that of a wry chamber mystery where there’s just enough wordplay to leaven the psychological sleuthing. The writing is significantly tighter and more generous; every character has an interesting storyline to follow, something the first season struggled a lot with. The cast is simply fantastic. They imbue even the most incidental dialogue with so much texture. Kidman is captivating as ever, which is no small feat given how odd her angular wig looks. Golding is quite funny as a callow one-percenter, Murphy serves so many great little tics and quirks, Baranski purrs the word, “darling” like she invented it, de Leon puts on an acting clinic of facial expressions, and singer-songwriter King Princess (born Mikaela Mullaney Straus) makes a very charming and natural acting debut.

In its first season, Nine Perfect Strangers got lost in its elements and fell into incoherence, but for its second season, it seems to have turned over a new leaf. The second season so far is well-acted, well-written, entertaining as hell, and gorgeous to lay eyes on. It’s a wonder what a four-year break can do.