If there’s one thing Nicole Kidman loves more than starring in a prestige television series with a star-studded ensemble cast, it’s trying out new and dramatic wigs. The new Nine Perfect Strangers trailer satisfies both of those requirements. Kidman’s mysterious wellness coach Masha returns to dose a new group of strangers with questionably consensual hallucinogenics when the show returns to Hulu on May 21.
The Nine Perfect Strangers trailer urges us to “Forget what you think you know” about Masha, but that’s hard to do when everything here feels so familiar. Like the synopsis: “Nine new strangers connected in ways they could never imagine are invited by mysterious guru Masha Dmitrichenko (Nicole Kidman) 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.” Once again, Masha is making smoothies; once again, Masha has a devoted acolyte; once again, Masha and the attendees are all tied up in a suspicious web; once again, Nicole Kidman looks glam as hell, just this time it’s cold.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with an anthology formula—it works for Hercule Poirot and The White Lotus. Whether or not it works for Nine Perfect Strangers depends on how successful you found the first season. Of course, half the fun is the aforementioned ensemble cast, which this season includes Henry Golding, Lena Olin, Annie Murphy, Christine Baranski, Lucas Englander, singer King Princess, Murray Bartlett, Dolly de Leon, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, Mark Strong and Aras Aydin. Lena Ollin, playing a character who appears in the trailer to be Masha‘s old guru, asks the obvious: “How are they all connected?” Masha replies, “You’ll have to trust me.” Hopefully, the audience trusts her a little bit more than Ollin does!
