That line hits like a mushroom microdose gone wrong. Hulu just dropped the first full trailer for Nine Perfect Strangers Season 2—and it's not here to play nice. Nicole Kidman's Masha, the enigmatic wellness guru with a suspicious accent and an even more suspicious sense of ethics, returns to administer enlightenment… or annihilation. This time, in the snow-globed isolation of the Austrian Alps.
Back in 2021, Nine Perfect Strangers rode the wellness-cult zeitgeist straight into our pandemic-frazzled brains. Now, with Season 2 arriving May 21, 2025, Hulu is doubling down on its formula: high anxiety, hallucinogens, and heavyweight casting. Kidman is joined by Henry Golding, Annie Murphy, Christine Baranski, and Barbie-breakout King Princess in what feels less like a retreat and more like a ticking time bomb in a luxury spa.
And yes—magic mushrooms are back on the menu.
This isn't just another ensemble drama. It's a continuation of TV's obsession with the pseudo-spiritual unraveling of the upper class—think The White Lotus meets Midsommar with a dash of Severance's identity dread. What makes Nine Perfect Strangers distinct is its embrace of unfiltered emotional chaos under the guise of “healing.”
David E. Kelley, the man who gave us the courtroom smarm of Boston Legal and the quiet fury of Big Little Lies, returns with co-writer John-Henry Butterworth and directors Anthony Byrne and Jonathan Levine. Together, they frame this new alpine chapter as less a sequel and more a spiritual escalation.
The trailer hints at internal fractures: “Will they make it? Will she?” The question isn't just whether these strangers can endure Masha's treatments—it's whether Masha can survive herself.
Hollywood has long romanticized the healing retreat: Eat Pray Love turned it into a lifestyle; The Master twisted it into a cult. But Nine Perfect Strangers lands in that uncomfortable middle ground, where therapy becomes theater and “transformation” is just another branded promise.
Thematically, Season 2 echoes 2022's The Retreat, where trauma tourism met horror tropes, and even HBO's The Idol, which blurred guru and abuser under a sheen of luxury. But this show—this one—leans in with psychedelic sincerity. And that's its gamble.
So, the question isn't whether Nine Perfect Strangers can keep us watching. It's whether we're ready to go back—again—for another taste of curated madness.
Would you risk a week with Masha? Or has the “healing” hype gone cold in the Alps? Drop your thoughts below.
