Season 2, minus seasoning

The course of true love never did run smooth.

The series begins with this quote from Shakespeare and you might think it is a love story of great intensity. But those who have seen the first season of ‘Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein’ know too well it’s less of a love story and more a tale of janoon, revenge and betrayal.

But the question is, how do you make the second season different from the first outing? Simple, omit a few characters and add a couple. Now, for which character the series presses the delete button we won’t say, for it’s a part of both the mystery and development of a character’s arc.

How our lead player Vikrant, played by Tahir Raj Bhasin, keeps falling into the abyss of human depravity remains the fulcrum of the series. That’s how he can survive in this world in which goons like his father-in-law, Akheraj (Saurabh Shukla), rule as politicians. So he plans and plans… devious moves and the storyline moves in circles. Just when we think here his lies will be exposed, he finds neater ways to stump his adversaries, which includes his legally-wedded wife.

How Purva (Aanchal Singh) and not Shikha (Shweta Tripathi), the love of his life, became his wife, well refer to season one. Interestingly, here the focus is on Purva and even the creatives highlight her. Aanchal as Purva is at the centre of ‘Yeh Kaali Kaali…’, important to both those who love and those who hate her. For Aanchal, this is truly a meaty part and she sinks her teeth into it. Even as a kidnapped hostage, she is smart and brave. Though in the eyes of her husband she is pure evil, as a viewer you don’t want her to die even before a human twist around her character is part of the big reveal.

Yes, surprises come by the dozen, and not all are palatable, especially the one concerning a ghost from the past. Varun Badola’s character as Sherpa has a somewhat similar graph as in ‘Undekhi’s’ last season. In fact, coming from the creator of ‘Undekhi’, Sidharth Sengupta, who is the director and co-writer here, the parallels are not far to seek.

Apart from a couple of common actors like Surya Sharma, Aanchal and Varun, the cat and mouse game is on similar lines and has the same taut inbuilt tension. Only the cops are not chasing the culprits; rather, everyone has a dark side. Backstories are built in to amp the excitement even though these do not always take the path of logic or reason.

Indeed, as the storyline moves often in unpredictable ways, the thrill quotient howsoever contrived remains alive and kicking.

In the acting department, despite the presence of seasoned actors like Saurabh Shukla and Badola, there aren’t many standout performances. Yet, most actors are consummate.

The talented Shweta Tripathi as Shikha doesn’t get to do as much in this season except navigate between her new life with her husband and her ex. Somewhere in the process, she becomes party to a heinous crime. There is some kickass action too provided by Guru (Gurmeet Choudhary), who lands from foreign lands in these badlands to save his childhood friend Purva. There are many love angles at play. He loves her, she loves someone else and that someone is in love with another person. And amidst all this jumble-up of twisted love equations, we get some gyan on how ‘Mohabbat mein nahi hai fark jeene our marne mein’ and to kill appears as integral to love.

Bhasin tries to infuse some layers to his grey character. One could argue that he is a victim of circumstances and actually his small dreams of a small house, small car and his beloved are lofty enough. Surely, he does not want to be a part of the amoral world he is inexorably drawn into. But he has no choice but to play the game whose rules demand violent methods. Each time we move towards a face-off between him and his enemies, our heart doesn’t beat for the obvious hero, who mouths some pulpy dialogues.

As the series marries pulp fiction with some Hollywood-style action, what you get is binge-able fare. If you have not yet reached a saturation point of the thriller genre and have not had enough of cliffhanger climaxes created only to whet your appetite for the next outing, this Netflix series does tick the watchable meter.