I am feeling more and more sorry for Martin in Nine Perfect Strangers season 2 episode 6, as it’s clear Masha is disregarding everything. It also turns out that her break from reality is more severe than we first realized.
Caution: This post contains SPOILERS for Nine Perfect Strangers season 2 episode 6.
As Nine Perfect Strangers season 2 is over the halfway mark, a few answers to our burning questions need to come out. One of those is why Matteo has ended up at the retreat. It turns out that he’s not there just for Victoria.
However, Victoria does have a secret illness, and it’s time for Imogen to learn the truth. Sadly, it could be too little too late for her to make amends with her mother after years of struggle.
Focusing on healing childhood trauma in Nine Perfect Strangers season 2 episode 6
Masha has developed a more potent form of her psychedelic medication, and she starts off by using it on Peter. He is in the memory of when his parents told him they were divorcing and what that would mean for him, but Peter is pulled out of it as he realizes that he hasn’t seen his dad for a while. He’s sure that Masha has done something to him, and so, he takes a map of the place off the wall and heads to “The Other Side,” which is a spa where his dad is staying.
Sure enough, that’s where his dad is. While his dad believes that maybe Tatiana was his daughter, that’s not what he wants. He wants to buy out Masha’s retreat and use it for his own gain. This will be their gold mine.
As that goes on, Masha turns her attention to Matteo, who turns out to have been orphaned when there were bombings in his country. Those bombings may have been linked to Imogen’s dad’s work, and that may have been why her dad took his own life. However, Matteo is pulled back into his past — where Agnes may have been the nun treating him — and has to relive the trauma of learning that his parents had died.
However, Matteo tells Masha afterward that he has dealt with the pain and the grief. He is no longer afraid because the worst has already happened to him, and he’s grateful for that trauma. It’s such a healthy way of living, and I’m so glad that in the mess of Nine Perfect Strangers, we get to see a character like this.
Imogen and Victoria go on a journey together
Meanwhile, Martin takes Imogen on a journey to deal with her childhood trauma, which is linked to her father’s suicide. However, Victoria decides that her daughter isn’t going to do this alone, and she wants to go on the journey as well.
While Imogen relives the horrors of the past, Victoria ends up having a seizure. We learned earlier in the episode that she suffers weakness in her limbs, and Matteo is also there to care for her as well as be her boyfriend. It’s a lot worse than she allows anyone to let on, and she’s on the fence about telling Imogen, deciding Imogen can paint her as the villain in the story.
Well, as Victoria has a seizure, Imogen wakes up to it and panics. Martin calls for paramedics to helicopter in, and Matteo has no choice but to tell everyone that Victoria has ALS. It’s heartbreaking for Imogen to find out this way, but it’s also dangerous for Martin and Masha. It turns out that Masha must have known something, because she told Martin that the drugs weren’t formulated for Victoria. She should have never gone under, but she didn’t tell Martin this.
Now everything is at risk. After all, it’s not like any of these “treatments” are legal, is it? I do feel for Martin, though. While he should know that the treatments are wrong, Masha keeps moving the goal posts on him, and it's making it impossible to do his work safely.
Masha’s break from reality is worse than expected
We’ve watched Masha speak with Helena throughout the season so far, and in this episode, Helena tried to talk some sense into Masha about when it came to David. Masha wants to believe that Tatiana’s death was because of David, but Helena points out that it was all an accident.
With everything that happened to Victoria, Helena makes it clear that the experiment is over. Masha is reckless, and she can’t continue. Helena also makes it clear that Masha clearly hasn’t dealt with her own trauma.
Well, she definitely hasn’t. As Helena suddenly disappears, we’re taken to a portrait of Helena, and it turns out that she died in 2022. All this time, Masha has been speaking to another figment of her imagination, and now that figment has left her.
Nine Perfect Strangers airs on Wednesdays on Hulu.