Nine Perfect Strangers season 2 premiere review: Familiar therapy, fresh trauma in the Alps

Nine Perfect Strangers, filled with mystery and controversy, has returned for its second season, which relocates the setting from the familiar Tranquillium to the chilling Austrian Alps.

The first episode is titled “Zauberwald,” where the audience is once again placed into psychological pandemonium, but this time underneath the snowy curtains of a new retreat that promises to heal while maintaining control and secrecy. Nicole Kidman comes back to the season, fulfilling her role as the captivating Masha, who wields a mixture of hypnotic spiritual poise and covert manipulation.

Without wasting any time, Season 2 dives back into Masha’s story as she has become a well-known name in supermarkets selling wellness goods and services. It looks like she is now in the middle of juggling legal disputes and public appearances while remarkably calm, but even so, we see some hints towards her sanity being frayed. Psychedelic treatment seems to be her new thing. It's a captivating premise that suggests both recovery attempts and dangerous relapses.

Visually piercing as it is spellbinding, Zauberwald's new setting seems ready for a deep, eerie, mind-altering, boundless transformation, much like what defined Season 1.

Arriving with their children’s wounds, unfulfilling relationships, and creative blocks, each one carries their own emotional baggage and unattended haunting traumas. Undoubtedly, she has curated this terrible collection for a reason. While Masha certainly makes the effort to masquerade her “therapeutic” strategies, the cycle of mental manipulation is ever-present.

What turns all eyes towards the premiere is its haunting build-up of dread. With the essence feeling more subdued than the previous tone, there is straining tension lying beneath every flicker of surveillance, stalker-like “conversation”, and introductions. And so, we witness the effects of slow-burning control, suggesting the upcoming journey will be as much about facing the reality as dominating the fiction.

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A new setting, same emotional powder keg of Nine Perfect Strangers

The transition from the tranquil, minimalist spa-like Tranquillum to a remote Alpine estate brings life to the series without altering its core essence. Zauberwald feels like a remote, alluring maze designed to mystify the onlookers and unsettle the viewers. Landscapes laden with snow and deadly silence enhance the turmoil each character mentally carries about. The environment is no longer a haven to cure ailments—it’s an emotional bomb waiting to explode.

Masha moves in this seemingly beautiful cage as a puppeteer of sorts, calm and calculated. Hidden cameras, strict protocols, and pre-selected guests show that she hasn’t relinquished control—she has improved control. Freedom (like permitting guests to bring in phones) is just an illusion, destroyed by layers of quiet monitoring and an invisible scheme suggested by Masha’s right-hand woman, Helena.

Clearly, high stakes are set, and the consequences, though still concealed, would be intense.

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A cast of broken archetypes

With this new ensemble comes a welcome range of neuroses and dysfunction. Starting with the snappy, irritable Brian, who is clearly about to break down, moving on to Sister Agnes, a former nun, who is calm yet shrouded in mystique, every character appears tailor-made to pick at emotional wounds.

Imogen, with her sharp wit combined with an unquenchable thirst for maternal affection, swiftly becomes the most prominent. Her mother, Victoria, a stunningly youthful socialite-turned-polemic, now has a younger boyfriend who is too involved for comfort, which reveals some of the conflict underlying their relationship.

Even supporting characters have dynamics that are filled with layers of conflict. Tina and Wolfie, two of tomorrow’s most brilliant musicians, approach creative burnout. Peter’s estranged workaholic billionaire father is a volatile mix of ego and generational trauma, and his father’s upcoming reunion promises emotional fireworks. Each of these characters has supporting sub-arcs, which are equally fascinating.

The series does manage to tackle every character’s story without skipping a beat, so to speak. It is awe-inspiring how these dynamics are so profound but are sketched in so quickly without redundant exposition.

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Final verdict

I really love how the second season of Nine Perfect Strangers is taking off, so it's a definite 8/10 for me.

The second season of Nine Perfect Strangers starts off not with a bang, but with a calm and beautifully crafted tension that permeates throughout every scene. There is no attempt to change what has already been done. Instead, there is a focus on improving it.

The world-building drew audiences back into a world where manor healing feels indistinguishable from manipulation by refining the formula, placing emphasis on character psychology rather than flashy gimmicks.

In the first episode of Nine Perfect Strangers season 2, I feel as though there is still too much uncertainty around whether this will be able to surpass the previous season. But if the other episodes maintain this level of performance, season 2 likely has a fighting chance.

Nine Perfect Strangers Season 2 begs the question: Who is in control—the healer or the healed? There’s still no clarity around whether the new cast set in a different location can repulse triggers of discomfort, but the underlying feeling of dread remains compelling.